The PFDJ is a migraine, crushing and paralyzing and the Eritrean people, collectively, are the long-suffering patient. The patient goes to the domestic doctor, a PFDJ doctor, and says, really, I can live with the migrane, just make the noise stop. In the waiting room, on the coffee table, the patient sees several issues of the PFDJ Health Magazine and every issue reads "The Dignity of Euthanasia." The TV is blaring, showing roads, noisy roads going nowhere.
The patient leaves. Outside, there is more noise. Maybe she should listen to another doctor; the doctor makes house calls. Well, actually, he doesnt really visit, but he gives health advice that can be heard on the radio, and read on the Internet. Once a week, or maybe it is twice a week. Most of the time, the broadcast has no cure, it is simply an empathy broadcast: "O, Eritreans, I know of your headache." In other words, it is more noise, exactly what a migrane sufferer hates. But, not this week: apparently, there was a doctors convention in Sudan, and they were there to discuss migranes.
At last!
One of the older doctors was there. Some say he is a dangerous quack. He has been practicing medicine for fourteen years, doing the same things, the same way: I know you dont like noise, he says, but the only way to cure your migrane is through shock therapy. Heres how it works: I will shoot a loud gun, very near your brain, and you will be cured. Well, yeah, there is a good chance I will blow your brains out, but that--this--is the only medicine that has ever cured migranes. Once in a while, he gives progress reports on how his practice is doing:
Mujahideen Destroy A Military Supply Truck and Kill 7 Enemy Soldiers
Within the battle of honor and dignity, that the Mujahideen are waging on behalf of the Eritrean nation against the chauvinist front for nearly two decades, the Mujahideen were able to set a successful military ambush for the enemy in the region of Met, which lies southwest of Nakfa in Northern Sahel, on 23 Dhulqieda 1425 Hijria corresponding to January 4, 2005 the current. The Mujahideen were able to destroy a military supply truck and killing 7 enemy soldiers. The Mujahideen exited from the ambush without being inflicted [even] with a minimum harm.
It is Battle Until Victory
Sounds scary, said the lady, but it is the same thing she had heard now for 14 years and wasnt shocked. Half the time, she doesnt even believe it. But you SHOULD be shocked, shouted a man with a megaphone, worsening her migrane. Now, where did that come from? Let me translate for you what you just heard, he said:
Armed Jihadist Measures Against Tigrgna-Speaking Christian Government of Eritrea?
The Eritrean Islamic movement, whose literature describes the PFDJ regime as a Christian and Tigrigna government, disclosed in its website, in an article accompanied by a photo, that its mujahdeen had killed seven members of the Eritrean Defense Forces and burned a supply truck in the environs of Nakfa. That this ethnic and sectarian measure against a dictatorial regime they consider Tigrigna and Christian may re-direct the 14-year long democratic struggle against PFDJ into an ethnic and sectarian one and that this may invite foreign intervention or prolong the life of the PFDJ has raised a big concern within the Eritrean opposition and is something that is being raised candidly.
Her migraine now got worse, her head was throbbing. zeyHalfela chru's Meskerem t'Ewer, she whispered. She had thought it was people with guns shooting at other people with guns, but this Megaphone Man had used "Tigrigna", "Christian" three times and "ethnic" and "sectarian" twice in his very short announcement. She closed all the windows and got in bed. Outside, the tractors were digging holes; there was no escaping the noise. But the darkness had not achieved pitch black yet
There was another doctor, she had known for long. He carried a bag-- some said he had a jackhammer in it; others said he carried a stetescope. Some said he was a tractor driver, some said he was a doctor all along; all she knew was he had just gotten his license to practice medicine in a foreign land. In fact, he had just gotten back from the Physicians Conference on Migraine in Khartoum. He would explain it to her, and he did: he said he saw no difference between the doctor who shoots to cure her headache and the one who is giving her a headache to begin with. This shows lack of confidence in their medicine, he said. And:
We offer our deepest condolences to the families whose near and dear ones have been killed or injured in this barbaric incident.
Ethnic. Sectarian. And now it was Barbaric. This was scary and now the pain in her head was more than could be endured. Outside, the road-pavers were paving, producing more noise. Soldiers jumped the fence of her neighbor and a man, barely a boy--a boy, actually a child--was dragged kicking and screaming to a military truck. They were telling him that they have a cure for his migraineall it required was wearing a gun and uniforms. But first, they have to detour to a nice resort called WiA.
Maybe her radio had more explanations, more relief?
There was a nice couple on the radio who said they were speaking for the Doctor with a bag that she had known for long. One pounded a jackhammer, the other blew on a flute. They are actually still in internship, not full-fledged physicians, but they speak like they can teach the doctors a thing or two. Most of your headache is due to, they say, is because you dont have strong, sound-proof wall with your neighbor. That is what they always say. She doesn't understand this, but they speak with such authority and with such emphatic claim that this is what "the people" want, who is she to challenge them? She is just a person, they speak for the people.
Reassure me, children, she whispered, fighting her pounding head. It is even worse, Mother, they said. This shooting you heard about, it is not just ethnic, sectarian and barbaric. It is actually a terrorist act, they said. What about the Khartoum Conference, she asked. We dont know, Mother, they said. The Man with the Megaphone says that it has been postponed and we have no idea why, they explained.
She didn't understand why they, who are supposed to be part of the Khartoum Conference, are quoting someone, who is not, to tell them whether they will be there or not. But she is just a person, and they are a people.
Well, I dont expect you to attend, she said. Who would want to meet with barbaric and terrorist doctors, she said to them. Any cures for my migraine, she asked. Not yet, mother, but stay tuned for a man who will tell you he cant help you in Arabic, they said.
And the conference? Well, explained the new physician in a soft voice, waving his bag, sidestepping the interns who did not know why the conference was postponed, it was I who asked for its postponement and we thank the other phsycians for agreeing to postpone the meeting by three weeks to accomodate me. See you in Khartoum in two weeks.
So far, they--all--have been physicians without answers. They empathize, they understand, they have plans, but so far, no mechanism to deliver it. All she has learned is that they cannot do anything on their own and they cannot seem to find a way to work together. But hope springs eternal, and there is another date.
Aga weGaHta, dQdQ iyu tSelmat...
She went to bed. Outside, there was a knock on her door. She looked out her shaded window--saw a group of people. A Committee, but which one? Lets see, yesterday, it was the Committee To Fund Noisy Tractors. The day before, it was another committee, they had an interesting subject: Migranes: It Is All In Your Head. They passed a resolution, unanimously, and they agreed to strengthen their resolve against imaginary migraines.
She cracked the door open and greeted the group, whose enthusiasm was making her head pound even harder. "Did you forget?" they asked, "today is our Ignore Exiled Doctors Committee meeting." She stepped into the street and walked on a pothole. She will have to bring that up with her committee that meets tomorrow: the Committee to Fund Potholes.
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