Consider you’ve fled your homeland and applied for asylum in a richer, democratic society, and the government of your home country decides to send out its own supporters to apply for asylum, too. That way, you can’t actually flee the oppression of your homeland, since the regime supporters have been sent to keep an eye on you, to persuade you to shut up your complaining while abroad. This appears to be something oppressive regimes like to do, since paranoia is part of their survival strategy.
For instance, the country of Eritrea, independent from Ethiopia since 1991 and under one man’s one-party rule the whole time, stages independence day celebrations in diaspora communities where it can single out dissidents for a violent beat-down. This annoys the host countries, who threaten to revoke asylum status from the whole group indiscriminately because—well, what host country wants to try to sort out real from fake asylum seekers?
Eritrea is something of a small fry among the big fish of authoritarian dictatorships these days. But consider this to be an example of what the big fish are also up to, enforcing the dictatorship’s world view even among the country’s expats living in free societies—societies that struggle to afford them enough protection against their oppressors.
Here’s the article at Deutsche Welle about Eritreans intentionally annoying their host countries abroad by picking violent fights with diaspora communities.
Happy Tuesday! It's gloomy and NOT cold here.
I’m thinking about a couple of interactions in TMD comments yesterday (when will I learn?). Some guy made the statement that the boomers (Biden and Trump) should step aside and let Gen X fix everything that boomers have screwed up. Another guy sort of supported him. I offered up an opposing view. I assume most on here are boomers and feel like I do that one age group isn’t the cause of the many problems we face today. Second, a frequent commenter went after Jay Janney after Jay pointed out an error in his comment. The guy usually sounds intelligent and makes thoughtful comments but when he writes about Trump and his supporters I can picture foam coming out of his mouth. The hatred is powerful. I guess I don’t have a point here, but those struck me and make me wonder about some people. Why can’t they just think like I do?