Why do I write?

To show that some of us Eritreans still retain the ability to think outside the boxes created for us by pathocratic entities in our midst. To keep hope alive so that at the dawn of the era of the return of realism in apprehending the surrounding world, this would contribute to joining the dotted line all the way to national survival… (and sanity) …

I am still disturbed by images of mothers holding the pictures of PIA in gold frames akin to the manner in which their counter parts from the sane Eritrea would hold the images of sacred saints…in our pathocratic Eritrea priests approve of delirium worship of a man who saw over the incarceration of their fellow clergy and shut sister churches…

… the rest of the world has changed its mind about what PIA is...

It was a long drawn out process really… first they had to decide whether IA was a tyrant or an autocrat…i.e. whether he was an over thrower of many, standing up in the chariot of the state… lacking concern for elementary consideration of justice and promoting only his own interest, needlessly creating enemies setting himself to an increasingly chaotic behaviour…? (I borrowed Plato’s own words… wondering if he had met IA!?). Or if IA was simply an autocrat with totalitarian programmes, attempting to transform society, culture and economy…the key to the distinction lies in the extent to which the leader extends his grip over the nation; autocrats don’t extend their grip into everything…e.g. religion… IA did…his tyrannical trait was not to be satisfied with anything short of total control… over the years IA fully demonstrated that he was a full blown tyrant and with his every move firmly dislodged any misgivings that people might have about any such nonsense as mere autocracy (…I mean how many times does a man ask the world ‘what is democracy?’ before the world decides he is a tyrant?)… if Dec 2009 told us anything it told us the reverberating agreement in the recognition of IA as a confirmed tyrant …Had it not been for his insistence on exposing himself as a tyrant extraordinaire, with wishes to control everything, including a hot potato of a region, like the Horn of Africa, the world would have happily excused him as a well meaning if rather autocratic leader… but no… he would not have that, it is against his nature…

Once tyranny was confirmed what the world needed to then do was to asses what kind of a tyrant IA really was…and how much of a danger he posed… for there are tyrants and petty tyrants….when the world thought IA was a petty tyrant or simply a malignant narcissist, with little capacity other than destroying his own country by bankrupting it, like Bedel Bokassa, of central African Republic, who crowned himself emperor at a lavish ceremony that hardly anyone turned up for, Or like the other African clownish brute Idi Amin of Uganda, they left him to his own devices (or to the devises of those who oppose him). Both Bokassa and Amin and many like them were eventually faced by countering responses from within. And in reality IA’s military and other politically relevant resources shouldn’t have resulted in him becoming a major headache for the international community. However the guy’s personality, the strategic positioning of Eritrea and the current world order have converged to render him of grave concern to the powers that be... and in response to his abject refusal to play by the rules that they all have to put up with; they slapped an international sanction; on him, his functionaries and machineries.   

And that brings me right back to the people who wouldn’t shy away from seeking sainthood for him... he has long abandoned any pretence of benevolence... it is more than likely that every single one of those who were carrying a slogan attesting their unadulterated support have been at the receiving end of his tyrannical grip in the small nation... no one has been spared. So why are people still holding on to a figment of what many thought the guy was?

The answer... at least what I think the answer could be is scary... the stuff that was being streamed on to our screens on the 22^nd of Feb, is nothing but evil... idolatry adjusted to fit PFDJ political agenda. No, you have not imagined the eerie similarities between Nazi propaganda and PFDJ stuff or their North Korean equivalent...at long last IA through PFDJ has conquered not just the social, political and cultural space of Eritrea but he has now possessed the very spirits of people who have accorded him the adulation only ever reserved to deity...he is the infallible, unquestionable albeit unfathomable idol...

No, I was wrong these people were not coerced... there was simply no need to coerce them... but this was no act of outrage this was an act of sacred worship...

well seeing as these mothers are representing eritrea as the 'mother land' i think its fitting that they would hold pictures of a man who has dedicated  all his time effort and bravery, not to mention matchless leadership, as opposed to saints who have are not particular to eritrean by any means and have sacrificed nothing for its salvation from enemies who probably do hold these images of saints as they walk about

Oh please....u guys are the ones who marched with his picture like he was Abune Aregawi.......

Oh please....u guys are the ones who discuss him day in and day out at Starbucks. Do you dream about him as well?

well seeing as these mothers are representing eritrea as the 'mother land' i think its fitting that they would hold pictures of a man who has dedicated  all his time effort and bravery, not to mention matchless leadership, as opposed to saints who have are not particular to eritrean by any means and have sacrificed nothing for its salvation from enemies who probably do hold these images of saints as they walk about