Our new reality: Reform or conform?

Our new reality: Reform or conform?

…have I ever told you that anyone who thinks Eritrean politics is boring is nuts? Well they are… I mean where else would you find movements that are absolutely leaderless… I mean totally and absolutely leaderless! Organised ‘movements’ with all the modcons at their fingertips can’t fill a dingy hall to explain their objectives or hold their elections… but we as a whole in our formless leaderless and specific objectivelessness can fill halls with an elderly father figure preaching ‘unity’ (I watch with amazement marvelling at the fuzzy warmth that makes you want to bottle the atmosphere to spray on people when they are next fighting about something really trivial)… Eritrean politics is made of substance that completely and totally bares human behaviour and the good, the bad and the ugly is all exposed and no one needs to dig any deeper to uncover anything… infact behaviour analysts are the ones that should complain about Eritrean politics being really boring…

It is just over 40 days since the Lampedusa disaster and things are slowly getting back to normal in Eritrosphere…

EYSC and EYSNS are back to throttling eachother (about a petition… and another petition they launched respectively), EYSC-G and EYSC-NA are back to their unfriendly standoff… EYSNS is back confusing people (I am sure they are experimenting on how one organisation can use the same words to say different things about the same thing…)… and over in the grey corner EPDP is meeting with the ‘public’ (the public being about 20 people in an unheated hall in the Scandinavians) … and uncle G and co are agitated about something or the other and have split their non-existent army and one half of it has joined EMDJ’s non-existent army to make Serawit Hidri! (I love the way someone commenting from Telaviv put it wehdet kiltie deqi Bashay… apparently Serawit Hidri represents the merging of two siblings and a few of their mates!)

Pfdj on the other hand have discovered tears and candles do a few tricks and so they have ordered both in great mass and couldn’t quiet see why that wouldn’t stop their people from not reverting to their docility…. You could almost hear the chief monkeys screaming: ‘what more do you want?? What do you mean CHANGE We cancelled not one event but a whole tour of guaila! We even pitched up in Lampedusa and tried to look sad… we said we would investigate the disaster and take them bodies back regardless of legal or logistical obstacles… that is change isn’t it? Why are you looking to us when it is the US and weyane that need to change!???’ and to their credit many monkeys were saying ‘mengisti gele kigebir alewo’…

Nothing was more telling of the changing state of Eritrean politics in real-time  than when the assenna interview with Weditikabo received more audience from pfdjiets than elsewhere… regular monkey talk was: ‘there is hope he hasn’t made any firm commitments yet… let’s be kind to him’… I thought they were going to order more tears and candles at that point too… bless them!… there isn’t anything like monkeys showing some sensitivities… I hope sensibilities will follow soon… (there! I have done my bit for the ‘kinkesbom alona’ camp! I am from the ‘tough love’ school of thought after all!)

… Things returning back to ‘normal’ is what both the pfdj and the traditional opposition groups want … the reality, however,  is things have changed and they have changed for good and nothing is going to be the same in many respects and that is a welcome change

…both pfdj and the alphabet soup of old bungles who only seem to creek themselves out (uncle G and his mates!) and dust their acronyms when there is Ametawi guabe (I swear Ginbar hagerawi dihnet have theirs every month!)… anyway both of the above seem to have lost their control over the momentum for change… and that is good news… but it is also a challenge… when a political sphere has been dominated by the same groups for as long as anyone can remember and those dominant figures lose their touch then suddenly everyone finds that the art of politicking has not been passed to the next generation…
…enter the era of experimental politicking!

Actually the experiment started a while back but Lampedusa, like a litmus test showed its implications: trying to cover pfdj’s callous nature ypfdj and a few of their sympathisers did a few unpfdj things… and failed!… bottom line is if you are the youth group of the only party forming the government and you want something that the government isn’t doing, done… you lobby the government that you support to do it… if you independently do it ‘unofficially’ then you have broken ranks!  So if ypfdj wants to be human and humane they either break ranks from pfdj or make pfdj be humane… (hade konka kilte aykiwenin eyou!)

Over in the less muddled corner… I must say I am impressed by the natural leadership that many had taken (our formless, shapeless politics)… I am proud of how Aba Mussie, Dr Algansh, Meron and even my colleagues at Release Eritrea filled the gap that was left by the fact that for an emergency prone group of people we really don’t actually have any coherent  emergency response… the media work that was being coordinated live on air (on FB) was really amazing… the fact that people in Asmara got more information out of Erena than bloody Dimtsi Hafash is remarkable… the synchronised candlelight vigil and sheer number of young and not so young coordinators was simply phenomenal… (PFDJ was left copying every effort!)…the community leadership role taken by religious leaders was heart-warming (I am even considering forgiving my church leaders who drove me insane with their silence for so long… !)
It is in answering the question: what next? Where experimenting is making a hit though!

A group made up of many well-meaning friends and their friends got together and hammered a letter G13 style… very well thought out… very well mannered (note to myself: learn polite behaviour!) and extremely well-constructed… if only it was 2003 instead of 2013 this sort of stuff would have made them heroes… but I am sure it wasn’t accolades they were looking for… it is infact REFORM they want… again if there was a system to be reformed then this would have made them revolutionaries…but luckily for them it doesn’t take much to annoy Sophie and her cronies over at pfdj’s Loony Planet… all Sophie needed to see was a combination of ‘demands’ (in any shape or form… however polite) from a combination of people (silent and not so silent from both sides of the Eritrea that her lot so neatly carved) and off she went ranting and raving!

Thank you Sophie:  if the G22 had any qualms about where they belonged in the pfdj divide your outburst set them right!

You already know I am for tough love, right?

Here is the deal: once those who will recant and return to the pfdj fold  do so (it has happened to G13 and G15 so it is likely that it will happen to G22) you are more than welcome to have your rightful place in the not so silent quarters (don’t let the noise annoy you…it is actually the quiet season!) ... work on the demand for reform though… conform mesila  kurub!

If the G22 are attempting a ‘reform’ then EYSC must be attempting a ‘rebrand’… I heard them say ‘EYSNS used a similar name to capitalise on the gains of EYSC’ and shock my head… when are they going to learn? Where I sit as a not so hostile critique… that wonderful brand they so fondly protect is only impressive in their head! And well in the head of their fans! The world is still waiting for them to deliver! And to all those who keep telling me to go easy on EYSC… I think you are underestimating their steel core!  (stop treating them with a kiddie glove and let them rise up to the challenge… they are not beshqaTat kids!)…

…the rebranding: the organisation that was originally called EYSC and later came to be called EYSC Global is herewith officially to be called EYSC! and the other EYSC are invited to the inaugural ceremony (I may have imagined the latter but the former is true!)…

Tough love says: you wouldn’t need all this branding and rebranding and re rebranding if you tried reconciling!

Incidentally… all the issues that made EYSC fall out have also bedevilled EMDHR so if you are able to sit round a table with them then you guys should really first sit with EYSC and sort that elephant out!  (unless the key to successful unity  is  ‘distant relationship’)

Shall I leave EYSNS out of this entry? I think I should… or atleast leave it to someone who can make sense of what they are telling us: the discussion forum became an organisation had elected leaders who are full time activists based in Addis. And now the elected leaders are not talking to each other (or at least some aren’t) and instead they communicate via press releases… meanwhile a set of unelected leaders respond to them and bring messages from the sponsors in Addis, where the elected leaders are supposed to be based … (I told you it is mind bogglingly complicated!)…

… so there you have it… one generation of activists seem to have quietly handed over the mantle to another generation busily trying to refit it… but we have all the elements emerging… reformists… rebrandists and EYSNSists!