Panem et Circenses [1]

If I was a writer of the serious type (I have tried to write with my glasses at the tip of my nose and failed!) this entry would be titled Silence of the Lame the Aftermath… but I am not… so it is not…besides there really was no aftermath…
 
Whosoever was responsible for dissuading my fellow pentes from public flogging is to be bestowed my eternal gratitude… I survived what could have potentially meant an endless exorcism session (after the flogging) to cast out the demons of blogging on Asmarino! It is also only right to admit that I am really and honestly proud of how sensibly my fellow pentes (who don’t have lofty declarations of tolerance and democracy) treated my last article… It was way better than the PFDJiets and the waEla romantics put together… there is still hope for us pentes to show the world how tolerance is really done… but for now well-done folks and provided I get invited to the forthcoming community weddings, I will always testify to the fact that there indeed is tolerance in our community unprecedented elsewhere and progressively (way progressively) better than it was back in 2004/05 and more fetching than with the politicos…ermm if I don’t get invited to the forthcoming weddings… well I will still be grateful for the graceful cold shoulder as opposed to sharp pen-names and sharper nick-names calling me names!!    

…now to the matter at hand; DPFDJ (D for diaspora) likes providing entertainment in place of engagement… every occasion…every martyrs day every resistance (as in mekete) meeting… every demonstration has to have an entertainment element to it… loud slogans, jingoistic music, colour coordinated attire and the customary light footed Ambassador or party official  to dance the night away with…(I think when YPFDJ grows up it has a bright future as carnival coordinator!), and wherever the community could afford it tons of food and drink… Eat drink and be merry… but please don’t forget to forget your woes! seems to be the strategy… not so unlike the strategy of the Romans who worked out a formula that offered a variety of pleasures to keep society from descending into discontent  (Panem et Circenses- Bread and circuses ). The DPFDJ strategy is even better because the formula has accounted for the fact if the game was played right the bread will be provided by the diaspora hosting country and even better with 2% of the bread paying for the circus artists and particularly for the dancing clowns (AKA ambassadors) with the prize act!  Very clever!

I don’t expect anything less from PFDJ whose existence solely relays on enough of us delirium enough  to forget our misery or being resigned to the fact that we can do nothing about it… therefore let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die! What annoys me is when others buy into that strategy and try to also get us to forget our woes!

Every meeting that ends up with someone saying: we need more of these opportunities to come and ‘discuss’ instead of ‘wow that is a lot of that needs doing… when do we start?’  falls into that category (and count how many times you have heard the former instead of the latter, count how many ‘town hall meetings’ , conventions, paltalk sessions and conferences we have had that generated ideas and lulled us into thinking we have done something about our woes?)…

It is when people are outraged about what is going on in the country that change will begin to happen not when people have been entertained with an in-depth discussion, whilst someone else has taken care of ensuring there is enough bread! It is time the Eritrean resistance stopped pretending it is doing something significant enough, about the situation in Eritrea. Our collective actions only seem to lull us and the rest of the nation into thinking that someone is doing something about it and all the rest of us have to do is watch us on TV dehai and/or on our endless websites with pictures that all morph into one narrative of a very long (forty odd years long!) a very boring (everyone looking like death slightly warmed up) and a very fuzzy (oh no… the fuzziness comes from my loss of concentration when looking at the reportages of these meetings!)… instead of turning our meetings into a live occasions we have turned them into monotonous talk shops where we simply talk at each other and then wait for the next meeting with the only outcome being the date of the next meeting, or the nomination of the sub group for the sub committee for the sub regional branch of the regional forum for the upcoming semi national congress! Or the resolution of the storm that was kicked at a paltalk session when a faceless nickname accused some other nickname’s uncle of something that occurred forty-five and half years ago last summer! Oh and both the accused and the victim can’t be present because… well because they were both ‘martyred’ soon after the said incident…

where DPFDJ specialises in stupid comedies we in the resistance have cornered the market in tragicomedies (maybe even a post modern interpretation of the PFDJ comedies!),  inadvertently stopping the change we seek from happening by giving fellow activists enough to be going on with without getting their hands dirty over the real work of bringing about change… personal accusations in response to personal accusations in response to personal feuds (BTW hey, Meron I thought I was your son’s God mother??! What was the purpose of that article? And why did Assenna publish it? especially when it has been out there trying to garner support for funds from the public I mean why would anyone want to support a website that publishes an article whose sole purpose is a person’s person…and written by a nic name…? But there are many other examples and there usually is at least one in almost every opposition website so I am not singling Assenna out).

The reason I wrote the article on the Eritrean Evangelical Church’s (my folk) is to stop them from descending into this tragic state of affairs too… I want our pastors and church leaders to realise that when their flock acknowledge their pain and identify with the pain of their people they will cry out to the almighty and he shall respond to them. There will come a time for the thanksgiving… but not before the anguished cry for rescue…

…Some wandered in desert wastelands,
   finding no way to a city where they could settle.
They were hungry and thirsty,
   and their lives ebbed away.
 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,
   and he delivered them from their distress…
Ps 107 4-6

Anything less is no different to the empty cries of the let’s arrange a committee to organise the meeting that will orchestrate our cry of anguish, which is what the political organisations seem to be doing. Or the let us eat and drink and be merry tact of the DPFDJ… Eritrea has too many clowns willing to entertain people, what we need is strong leaders who will articulate and address the anguish of our people.

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Footnote

1 Bread and Circuses; translation of the Latin term panis et circenses, from panis (bread) + et (and), circenses (circuses). The term originated in the satires of Roman poet Juvenal (c. 60-140). Circus refers to the circus games, such as chariot races, held in Roman times.