Eritrea: The Show That Broke The Tyrant’s Back

Apparently, the moral of the idiom “The straw that broke the camel's back” is that there is a limit for every thing; beyond which limit even the slightest seemingly inconsequential move (a single straw) could lead to a cataclysmic failure or disaster (broken back). Tyrant Afewerki, self-styled president-for-life, that is one more thing for you to underline, circle, highlight, or boldface.

What am I talking about? I am talking about a seemingly inconsequential move, (Riz Khan Show), an Al Jazeera TV Magazine, which turned disastrous hence broke Eritrea tyrant Afewerki’s back last Thursday, 22 May 2008.

The show was a back breaker for Afewerki because there is no doubt that what Eritrea tyrant Afewerki delivered flies in the face of a lot of things his gullible audience were duped and hypnotized into believing and hoping for.

In a perpetual attempt to counter persistent calls for elections, democracy and constitutional governance, tyrant Afewerki had duped gullible Eritreans into believing that the only hold up was the border issue. But to their utter dismay, tyrant Afewerki proclaimed on the Riz Khan show unreservedly and arrogantly that he doesn’t even think about such issues let alone realizing them. He let the people of Eritrea know that they had to wait for 3-4 decades or beyond, and may be even never, for him to allow elections.

So much for Eritrea tyrant's absolute disdain for the sovereign people of Eritrea. Tyrant Afewerki, your election challenge is on the table but rest assured Mr. self-styled president-for-life, the people of Eritrea won't take that lying down. As they say 'you can kick a dog enough time, eventually the dog will bite back'. Mark that!

There was a pause when the issue of elections in Eritrea was raised. "What elections?" were the words that popped out of the tyrants mouth following the pause. The tyrant needed a reminder that the talk is about elections in Eritrea. A clear indication that elections don't exist in the tyrant's mind at all.

Afewerki dismissed major exodus of Eritrean youth as insignificant compared to the Millions of Mexicans crossing into the USA and called the youth misguided.

Unlike earlier videos of interviews with Reuters and Le Monde, which were played over and over again in the National TV and re-played in all Eritrean websites close to the dictator, the video of this Riz Khan show interview is nowhere but in anti-tyrannical Eritrean websites to be found. Otherwise, this particular Riz Khan show has been quietly declared verboten. Yet one more indicator that the show has indeed broken the back of the tyrant.

The way tyrant Afewerki presented himself during the interview was also depressing and a major embarrassment to gullible Eritreans beyond their belief.

Tyrant afewerki looked visibly shaken, defensive, evasive, resorted to infantile temper tantrum when things didn’t go his way to the point when he voluntarily exposed what he is made of: A combination of psychological make-up generally termed schizophrenic paranoia.

What is most depressing was that this utterly embarrassing interview took place on the eve of Eritrea’s 17^th Independence Anniversary, something we certainly don’t need at a time when we cherish our hardly earned national independence.

Yes, there is a limit to how far tyrants like Isaias Afewerki cant get away with arguments that indeed sound persuasive(logical fallacy) to the casual or gullible listener/reader but are patently fallacious beyond which such arguments inevitably lead to their demise. Example: Eritrea tyrant’s debacle on the Riz Khan Show on 22 May 2008.

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