In some ways, they are like the Soviet Union’s aging custodians of the Bolshevik revolution who held fearsome May Day parades, as they silently watched the collapse of their empire. But Eritrea’s rise and fall is worse because it never rose. At least the Soviets had one institution that worked: the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) which held congresses, regular meetings, elections, committees, and peaceful power transfers. The CPSU allowed the ascent of a Stalin, and that of Gorbachev, and all strains in between. And, crucially, it had an ideology (dictatorship of the proletariat) which made its evil coherent.
In contrast, Eritrea’s ruling party–PFDJ–had a “once and for all” congress in 1994 which, in retrospect, appears to have had only one purpose: to elect Isaias Afwerki as its Chairman. It hasn’t had a congress since then. Of the 75 members who made up PFDJ’s Central Committee, more than 2/3 have been frozen, defected, been arrested, exiled, or suffered the fate of the ordinary citizen: made to disappear. That includes Abdella Jaber, Adhanom Gebremariam, Ahmed Hajj Ali, Andeberhan Woldegiorgis, Aster Fissehatsion…and that’s just in the A’s! It has the ideology of survival, bouncing from one extreme to another.
So, up in the dais, what must the “distinguished” officials be thinking as they see their life’s work plundered to serve the Glory and Privilege of One? They all volunteered to serve in the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), and now they accept the salute of young boys and girls forced to wear the uniform in a “national service” without end.
Left to right:
Does Osman Saleh, Eritrea’s foreign minister, feel respected and his contributions recognized when he has to be chaperoned everywhere by Yemane Gebreab? Or when statements he never read, much less wrote, bear the seal of his ministry and are distributed to the world?
Does Alamin Mohammed Said, the ruling party’s Secretary, have an answer for why his party never holds congresses? Does he pause to think why, every year, he appears and disappears from the dais?
Does Sebhat Ephrem, the Minister of Energy and Mines, allow this thought to enter his mind: since a vacancy was created when I was shuffled from the position of Minister of Defense two years ago, why has my position not been filled? Is it a good use of my talents for me–the only four-star general not in prison–to escort Japanese photographers (isn’t that the job of a director at the Ministry of Tourism?) when anybody who has seen my lucid narration of the fall of the Derg (in contrast to Isaias Afwerki’s rambling monologues) knows where my talent and passion is?
And Fozia Hashem, throwing shy glances at Isaias Afwerki, hoping for a second of recognition and acknowledgement: what does it feel like to be the Minister of Justice in a country that is synonymous with the absence of justice?
No wonder melancholy has come to define Eritrean expression at rest.
[tweetthis] Melancholy (Wo)Men [/tweetthis]