Our New Normal: Happy Independence Day YPFDJ!

…Does anyone else imagine Minia Afeworki conducting interviews? For some reason I can only picture her atop a high stool sitting cross legged with her head tilting to the left… the phone on her shoulders and on mute between questions… trying hard to suppress giggles when interviewing, whichever Eritrean official… be it a deputy junior minister of information (who would have been a YPFDJ had it not been for the opportunity knocking in Sept 2011!)… the chair person of Eritrean Democratic Alliance (Tewolde GS is still that right?... I thought there was supposed to be a limit to his consecutive terms of election… but never mind!) and the leader of an organisation that had merged with two splits and then split again and the splits were rumoured to be remerging but decided not to remerge because… well I guess because this is Eritrean politics!… I will come back to Minia and them interviews and the other interview… you know the six hour one? …In a bit…

But first… to celebrate or not to celebrate that is the question these days isn’t it? A sure sign that a revolution had happened somewhere (probably in cyber space) at some point… few years ago a few of us held a protest outside an independence day event… somewhere in Elephant and Castle in London (no there is no elephant or castle in South London! ), and we were criticised for that because ‘independence day is about Eritrea and not about the government…’ I have an email exchange somewhere, where a friend was bashing me for that event and somewhere in those crazy exchanges of me asking what exactly it was they were doing for Eritrea on dance floors across the diaspora?… I was told that my friend was proud that he ‘danced for his country… danced for Eritrea!’ that was then… this year the thing to do seems to be quiet the opposite… the dancing feet are not as confident as they used to be…and Eritrea it seems has said ‘thank you’ but ‘not thank you’ to the offers of those who are desperate to dance for her.

But for those who are still polishing their dancing shoes; our parents don’t eat or drink let alone celebrate and dance until they lay their dead to rest (resa aqemitom)… the victims of the Libyan ship wrecks… the hostages of Sinai… the victims of the network of PFDJ dungeons have produced countless corpse… and you are contemplating a celebration? Shame on you!  

… but if you insist on ‘celebrating’ maybe you should join the grand dumbing down and numbing up session run by the president’s office every year… it is also known as YPFDJ’s annual convocation… but whatever you do please don’t confuse it with PFDJ! It has nothing… I repeat NOTHING to do with the latter whatsoever!!… I mean there are plenty of organisations out there who share the same acronyms and share the same brain cells and same emblems… there are many organisations that are engineered and orchestrated by the same personalities and share the same role models, but somehow end up not sharing principles and objectives aren’t there?... it is not like the entire gummite of operatives for PFDJ  descend on the YPFDJ convocation…is it?  In short PFDJ is a party that promotes tyranny and all those despicable things that the Norwegian media was accusing it of and disgusted by PFDJ’s track records YPFDJ have broken all ties with it and have declared their INDEPENDENCE!… good one Simiret Kidane…three cheers for YPFDJ and happy independence day!

The only concern left for YPFDJ is now whether they will invite Sophia Tesfamariam…next time… I mean if she has now got to watch her firebrand hate speeches… what on earth is she going to talk to them about? Especially now that they don’t like tyranny and will not be seen dead brandishing wooden Kalashnikovs… what on earth will she say? The next vacancy announcement on Meadna.com should be for a new speech writer… for YPFDJ minus PFDJ events…

That is probably why Ambassador wedi Gerhahtu gave up on speeches and resorted to going ethnic and appeared in a Tigre attire at the independence day doodah here in London… (I had trouble spotting him at first!) cool sir… very cool! And now that you have that sorted that out, maybe you will focus on training your staff (once you get that vacancy filled… but how long does it take to find a PA…? maybe the Ambassador should consider a temp from Sawa courtesy of Warsay yikealo) … and if the staff training is sorted then when we do our demos and want to hand in our petition letters, which is part of the reason why states have embassies… they will be courteous enough to accept them… it is called common etiquette… it is also common sense ….

Speaking of the Eritrean Ambassador to the UK… I guess the FCO are going to have to call him back for yet another interview (without coffee [1]), to explain the report from the only independent journalist in Eritrea. Apparently the Marines that were arrested off the cost of Eritrea, and continue to languish in jail, denied of their rights under international convention, were actually caught red-handed trying to assassinate IA… by a woman who was taking a short cut across the sea! (maybe Minia could interview her all the way from her for us!?) Thomas Mountain probably got this information from the people at YPFDJ who told him that I have never ever ever been to Eritrea… they probably design his T-shirts for him too…ermmm does the new YPFDJ reality mean that Thomas will now have to check his  facts and acquire a new wardrobe consultant?   

…the president however was so courteous and extremely gracious and did his analysis of the world and Eritrea with a finesse that every YPFDJ would love to emulate (shhshshs don’t tell the Norwegian media though!)… the six hour long ‘interview’ made IA come across as a football commentator whose only role was to comment on the action around him from his glass cubicle on a rotunda above the stadium. It was like someone forgot to tell the president he was the captain, the coach, the manager and possibly the golly too… the acting junior minister and the assorted card board cut-outs (AKA as ministers) around him can account for nothing other than their gutlessness perhaps.

The president did contribute to my independence day celebrations though… I thoroughly enjoyed the mince meat that someone at radio Wegahta made of the six hour interview… it was infinitely more entertaining and informative!

Asmarino admin will complain about my blog taking up too much space… if I write the rest of what I was going to say about Minia’s interviews (maybe next time) and then I was also going to say something about the Birmingham lunatics (but you can goggle that yourself…)…welcome to our new normal… and once more happy independence day to YPFDJ!

Selam

PS
Has anyone else heard about the property PFDJ procured here in London? I hope the abuse of charitable funds was not involved here too… 

Footnote:

[1] An official FCO dressing down… the poor guy has already had several of those before Easter!