Commentary:

Pity the Accursed Sycophant

Every intellectual who flirts with a dictator eventually faces a moment of crisis. It is a common scene throughout history. A dictator suddenly changes his mind and abruptly reverses himself. This puts his intellectual followers in a no-win dilemma.

They can

1) Follow their dictator and then pencil themselves into the dictionary under the heading “sycophants” or;

2) Follow their conscience and face punishment from their dictator and his blind followers.

Back in January and early February 1999, the UN, EU, Sweden, Italy, Canada, and the largest Eritrean Opposition group were urgently calling for the OAU peace proposal to be accepted by Eritrea.

What did our Eritrean intellectual say at the time? He repackaged the words of his dictator and made a spectacle of himself, describing the peace plan as “horribly asymmetrical.”

On February 2, 1998, our Eritrean Intellectual took note of “the various OAU proposals, the Security Council statements, or the official statements from the various governments” and denounced them as being “a massive cover up designed to protect Meles Zenawi and his minority government.”

But now our Eritrean Intellectual says the latest OAU peace plan, which contains “exactly” the same proposals as the “horribly asymmetrical” OAU plan of November 1998, is actually an “honorable peace.”

What changed? It is not the passage of time, nor the deaths of many thousands of soldiers and civilians that seems to have affected our Eritrean Intellectual. He only changed his mind AFTER his dictator gave the signal. It was then that our Eritrean Intellectual came out of the closet and labeled the current peace proposal as an “honorable peace.”

Pity the land that is burdened with such sycophants. Pity the accursed sycophant who enslaves himself to a dictator.

- Dagmawi