Eritrea: why I am optimistic about 2015

For close to a decade and a half I have obsessed myself in trying to understand what is going on in Eritrea… and how we have arrived in the Eritrea that couldn’t be far removed from the ideals of the Eritrean Revolution.

Over the years, I have looked at many theories that have each helped to explain an aspect of the situation, but there always seemed to remain a vast amount of inexplicable behaviour and associated dynamics…. After a while I realised the key to my understanding of the system in Eritrea is understanding the person of Issias Afwerki and his psychology. This  led me to look at narcissism and psychopathy and through that I found the work of Andrsej M Lobaczewski – the study of evil (or ponerology)[1].

In this work (which was really difficult to grasp and painful to accept at first), I have come closer than I have ever been to understanding pfdjism and also to realising that it is a system living its very final days.

Before I go on to say a bit about why I think we are living the very last days of pfdj’s pathocratic rule[2]… let me touch on how IA managed to create such a system and where we all were when he accomplished such a vile fete…

Analyse, if you will, any event by pfdj Y or O… listen to the speeches and look at the profile of the members; do you ever wonder how it is possible for a the relatively well educated and astute young people in ypfdj to repress from the field of consciousness that they and their parents are benefiting from the injustice against their peers who were born and still live in Eritrea?

Do you ever wonder how pfdj bent academics and intellectuals are able to ingest the selection and substitution of data and whip mass hysteria on how well Eritrea is performing on a raft of spheres? And despite the number of desperate young people gambling their very life to get out of the paradise they so passionately paint?  

But pfdj’s Eritrea has actually lived under these conditions and has increasingly grown a formidable contempt for criticism and an insatiable appetite for humiliating anyone (including its own people), sounding the alarm about the evil taking place in Eritrea… and even more contempt for other nations and organisations that seem to have maintained a normal thought-pattern about respect for the rights of Eritreans… I kept wondering what pfdj supporters were celebrating in the recent Danish Immigration Service’s (DIS) Report about things being well in Eritrea… they as much as all of us have friends and family members who are seeking asylum in Europe but in their wonky thought pattern of showing contempt for anyone criticising the regime in Eritrea they were actually working against their own interest of gaining refugee protection … (books could be written on the skewed thought patters of pfdj and its supporters!)…

…. Our tragedy…a nation that fought so hard to establish its autonomy and nationhood… a dream for democracy that resulted in sacrifice unimaginable resulted in pathocarcy… a diseased system where a pathological autocrat has taken control over society… surrounded himself by people who are all too willing to switch off their better senses and allow him to perpetrate evil deeds against our people.. their people… his own people! God I hate pfdj!! (there is no other option but to hate everything pfdj is and everything it does!)…

… so why am I still hopeful for 2015?

Let me just say a bit about the house (system) that IA built and I am sure it will be clear why I think pfdj won’t last much longer in Eritrea…

Let me start with the building blocks of pfdj… (no not the rhetorical gaff that is dished out for the consumption of goons at mekete meetings… but the goons themselves!)… As mentioned above at the centre of the system in Eritrea is IA himself… A man exhibiting nearly all the features of what psychologists term Essential Psychopathy: social predators who charm and manipulate, and ruthlessly plough their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret’[3].

Below I will list a few more features of psychopathy to enable those who know IA better than many of us to make their own judgement:

1. A strange articulatedness… easily blending truth and fiction effortlessly deflecting attention away (without guilt) an amazing ability to talk for hours on end, appearing to be knowledgeable regarding any number of subjects, whilst avoiding talking about values and feelings… on the rare occasion that conversation ventures into feelings anomalies arise…
2. No sense of guilt: conscience is seen (or maybe even experienced) as a set of rules made up by others… enabling him to ruthlessly pursue objectives (including pleasure and power) at the expense of others with complete disregard as to the impact on others.
3. Preying on the weakness of others and particularly an astute ability to spot deficiencies and exploit these weaknesses… also where this is not possible exploit the fact that others will be bound by moral and ethical obligations and exploit that reality…
4. Despite average or below average intelligence and low levels of social wisdom and socio-moral imagination, there is an ability to register ‘success’, mostly on the back of demise to others or the coercion of others…
5. A shocking inability to learn from experience leading to a lack of skills for realistic planning…
6. And finally… leading to the next level of the system… is the ability to recognise others with similar psychological makeup…

IA’s ability to recognise those that are similarly inclined and those with exploitable weaknesses is how we have ended up with the pathocracy of pfdj…as with all pathological systems (Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russia etc), with IA at the centre the rest of pfdj is made up of people who fall roughly into the following categories:

1. Psychopaths who either to hide their pathology better or have some shallow level of conscience hence able to show some emotions some of the time and because they find personal relationships difficult much of their time and energy is focused on large scale activities hence they make good group mobilisers… (e.g. diaspora pfdj activists)… they are often idealistic and dream about reforming the world and are easily radicalisable
2. And then there are other types of deviants (they call them Skirtodial psychopaths in the field)… they are egotistical but with very thick skinned. The remaining generalissimos who, unlike Sebhat Ephrem, have resistance to turbulent times (also the hardened tegadelti in the diaspora who still take it on the chin from every direction and remain attached to the regime)… the type that are more at home in the battlefield than with their own family…
3. Finally we have the garden goons…mercenaries (in for the advantages they see) and professional (i.e. paid) aiders and abettors of abuse… quick to rise to any challenge from the centre and perform duty as directed… they are not necessarily psychopaths but they have somehow managed to silence their conscience... in the field they are often known as Jackals (most Eritreans would agree with the nomenclature) 

Subordinate psychopaths and the Jackals are totally dependent on the system being so revulsive to ‘normal’ people to ensure they remain essential… they zealously perform their functions executing orders that others would find absolutely repulsive… this will gain them criticism from others (more reasonable people with conscience)… …But in the eyes of IA and the jackals, their ruthlessness and irreverence earns them respect… A perfect circle of protection against societal norms and normality in general is formed…the psychopath leader pays his subordinate psychopaths and the jackals handsomely in compliments and opportunities to climb up the ladder pushing everyone else into the margins to eventually be eliminated…

… Hang on in… I will soon come to why 2015 is more hopeful than 2014…

Despite the complicated web of psychopathy and callous opportunism that has created the sick system of pfdj (and all other pathocracies)… it is a fragile arrangement because of the nature of the personalities that make it up and the requirements of keeping it intact.

On the one hand there is the leader’s intolerance to the presence of individuals who manifest doubts or criticisms of any kind… all the time reducing the number of people maintaining the system.  And on the other hand there is the fact that the entire system is actually based of forming and maintaining a web of deceit where reality should never be exposed (or even glimpsed)… An extensive and elaborate system of indoctrination complete with propaganda machines and mechanisms is thus required to keep the system going. The goal is normalising the abnormal thought patterns…attaining this becomes impossible with the reduced capacity and mounting evil to cover.

The propaganda becomes a laughable farce and without enough skilled minions the system is unable to maintain itself in power…. This is why I am hopeful…. Let me say one last thing about the process… where we might find ourselves before we see the final demise of pfdj…..

History tells us time and again that sooner or later the normal members of society (those who have not become parcels of pathocracy) catch up and begin to challenge the system (not always over overt uprisings)… the question is whether they rise before an irreparable harm ensues… but truth remains that the side-lined… the rejected…the repressed… the frustrated… the normal, sooner or later  mobilise against the pathocrats… making the era of the pathocratic rule a transitional phase. But that triumph is also known to come at a cost, as the pathocratic minority try to mitigate the mobilising force by utilising any and all methods of terror…

However as the struggle intensifies with more and more people freeing themselves from the shackles of the skewed view of reality while our lead psychopath eliminates, isolates… and marginalises people (hence adding more people to the other side)… there will come a point when there are simply not enough pathological people with the skills and qualities to maintain the system. This leads to stifled growth and ultimately to paralysis of the pathocratic system.

Meanwhile the rest of the public becomes increasgly astute in identifying the deficiencies and underlying pathological web maintaining the system. A shared language against the system develops… one of the earliest signs is a rise in humour… an irreverent humour against the system that shackles society…(rings a bell does it?)… eventually people wake up to the reality that pathocrats are not impressive or admirable but malicious incompetents and begin to disobey them turning the tables by identifying the pathocrat’s weaknesses and exploiting them… when this starts it can be said that pathocracy, or in our case pfdj, is indeed in its twilight…

We have been dazzled by Issias Afwerki… we have been brutalised and shocked by pfdj his pathocracy, we have been disempowered set against the might of evil… but now we seem to be realising that there is nothing to pfdj other than a web of deceitful evil, maintained by incompetent and psychopaths and selfish jackals… now most of us are talking the same language and many have started defying the system… I believe these are significant indications suggesting we are entering a new era of confidence against pfdj’s pathocratic rule and Eritrea’s evil will be defeated some day real soon indeed…. This for me is something worth savouring as we enter 2015…

Merry Christmas and a happy 2015…

Selam

PS

Why should we develop a culture of questioning and challenging every leader and budding leader? To avoid future pathocracies and immune society from the disease of a system made up of psychopaths!