Thursday, January 26, 2006

La Lutta Evil Continua

Pinch yourself, boy and girls, it seems like the AU is… what do you call it… what’s that thing… growing a mini-spine. Ahh. And just when we were getting comfortable with its meteoric impotency.

An African human rights commission is challenging the continent's worst rights offenders, including Sudan and Zimbabwe, in a move analysts say is a "coming of age" for the organisation.

Yes, of course, it should be technically sad that we are celebrating an organization that finally came around to ‘challenging’ peculiarly los loco governments such as Zimbabwe, but y’know, you go to war with the army you have not the one you want.

The AU's human rights commission issued rare and critical reviews of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those countries said they wanted a chance to reply before the report became public, ensuring it remained confidential.

Aww. It’s like the first time your kid tries to poop in the commode, misses, and soils the bathroom floor. You just kneel down and clap your hands… “Yayyyy! Next time, darling, in the bowl… you see the bowl… can you say bowl? Yayyy.”

Happy to report that there is yet another coup from the Wonqville On-Crack Research Team. Apparently Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was able to interrupt a top-level donor nation meeting in Washington DC by high jacking the remote video conferencing thingy. Hm. No good can come out of that. Anyway, presented here exclusively, the transcript of the conversation.


Meles: Is this.. hello… is this thing on? Helllooo. Someone, please. Is this…

Jendayi Frazer: Prime Minister Meles! This is highly inappropriate. We are in the middle of…

Meles: Can someone please check the connection. I… stop tinkering with the microphone, Bereket! Why am I surrounded by frickin’ incompetence. Mic check… 1..2…3… 3…2…1… Y’ello? Yisemal?

Hilary Benn: We can hear you, Mr. Prime Minister.

Meles: Oh. Okay. Hellllo. Welcome to my underground lair. Well, my palace. But I made it look like an underground lair. Nice, uh?

Anna Gomes: This is outrageous!

Meles: Hmm. I see we have the fembot colonial viceroy amongst us.

Condi Rice: This is a serious breech of…

Meles: Condi. Yes, hello Condi. Hmm. Most shagable Secretary of State since George Shultz. You haven’t been returning my calls, Condoleezzaaaa Rice.

Condi Rice: To what do we owe this intrusion?

Meles: I see we have dispensed with the pleasantries. Very well. As you know, I possess powers way beyond even my comprehension. I’ve shown you I am capable of shooting into crowds yet you still doubt my evilness. This has distressed me. Look at me. Look at my face. I’m all pimply with distress.

Tim Clarke: He is looking a bit ashy.

Meles: Silence! Why do you interrupt me? I hate that. So even though I keep telling you people I will hold on to power, you still think I am not evil enough. You think I am semi-evil. Quasi-evil. The Diet Coke of evil. The zeit shiro of evil.

Jendayi Frazer: The what?

Meles: I am inconsolably mocked. You designate me a pedant evil. You hurt me. I am the Nano of evil yet I am treated like an extraordinarily ordinary iPod of evil. Can’t you see that I have, as the French say, that certain “I don’t know what” when it comes to evil?

Hilary Benn: You do?

Meles: Well, not really. I can’t back that up right now but that’s not the point.

Ana Gomes: No. I believe you are evil.

Meles: Huh? Do I hear something? I thought I heard something, a frightful mumbling of a scorned woman, but maybe I didn’t? Huh? It should put lotion on itself…

Condi: Alright, let’s calm down.

Meles: Mmm. I’d like to tap me some of that. I’m honing the bezzie in the hiz-haws, youknowm’saying? Badunkadunk! You better not go there, girlfriend! …

Condi: What?!

Meles: No? Doesn’t work for you? I’ve been watching BET.

Jendayi: Is there a point to all this?

Meles: I sense malaise and sarcasm. An unfortunate amalgamation of ill-fitted emotions. Yes, there is a point. The point is, what do I have to frickin’ do to prove to you people the awesomeness of my evility? Is that a word? Evility?

Bereket: It is now, your Excellency.

Meles: Shut up.

Tim Clarke: We were in the middle of something, Prime Minister Meles.

Meles: So was I. How long have you people known me? Yet it is as if you don’t know me at all. You want me to share power and have a viable opposition… like f’schizzle? You don’t know me at all. Although I had deemed the details of my life inconsequential, maybe you should know me better before you think sanctions will bring me down. … Bereket, stop humping the laser. Geezuz. As I was saying, my life has been a series of compounded evil and… here, watch this video of my childhood. Bereket, hit the play button…Hit it. … Annnny day now… ta-la-frinckin’ la…. It’ll just be a minute, ladies and gentlemen. We are trying to find Bereket. Bereket? Bereket? For God's sake would someone put a frickin’ bell on him or something.

Ana Gomes: This is outrageous!

Meles: It is. He just wonders away without telling me. Anyway, about my life.I was born in Adowa, in a manger-- perhaps a divination of the persecution I was to be burdened with. My father was an unforgiving haberdasher with low-grade imperial revanchist tendencies and a penchant for buggery. My mother dropped me on my head more times than she could count on her abacus because she hated the way my eyebrows arched. I was an outcast even from birth. Ex-communicated, vilified and shunned because people thought I made outrageous claims such as I invented democracy. No one understood my position on land ownership or why I thought our village cat was a prostitute. I was blessed with the sort of ethereal wisdom that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Aksum, bomb-making camp. In the spring we'd make anti-peace elements disappear. When I was insolent I was tied up and made to recite the august work of Enver Hoxha in a timbre that reminded my torturers of 14 virgin carolers- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first poster of Marx. At the age of fourteen I ran away from home and joined a group of liberators who ritualistically shaved my testicles. It was a difficult life. Try bombing a village with shorn scrotums... it's debilitating. I highly suggest you don’t try it.

Condi Rice: Oooookaaayyyy… this is not productive.

Meles: Wait. I haven’t told you about the time we went to Addis Abeba to tweeze out the fingernails of males whose name ended with an ‘A’…

Hilary Benn: I don’t think those are pertinent details.

Meles: You don’t seem to comprehend, Mr. Benn. When I get angry, the ghost of Mr. Lenin gets upset. And when the ghost of Mr. Lenin gets upset... people die!

Hilary Benn: How can we prevent you from killing your own people, because now we are getting reports that outside of Addis Ababa numerous people are being rounded up and killed. This, as you might know, does not bode well for democracy.

Meles: Democracy, my dear Mr. Hilary Benn… isn’t Hilary a girl’s name? Democracy is relative. And it is not related to me.

Ana Gomes: Do you think it is ironic that we have to ask you not to kill people?

Meles: Is someone talking? I don’t hear anything. Anyone here speak fembot-ian.

Donald Yamamotto: What are you trying to tell us, Mr. Prime Minister? We have been in talks about helping establish peace in Ethiopia?

Meles: An evil peace?

Donald Yamamotto: No. Just the kind of peace you see in paradise.

Meles: An evil paradise?

Condi Rice: I assume you barged in for a good reason, Mr. Zenawi. It seems to me that you hate the Ethiopian people and you just want to kill them.

Jeffrey Sachs: I have to interject here. Actually, the love that the Prime Minister has for Ethiopians is quite overwhelming. He has dedicated his life to ending poverty and he has proven himself one of the most brilliant leaders in the world. He loves the Ethiopian people, and from what I saw they love him…

Meles: Jeffy, actually Condi is right. I hate them. And I want to kill all of them. But they are quite a wily bunch.

Jendayi Frazer: This is going nowhere. Did you have something specific you wanted to talk about Mr…?

Meles: I want everyone to start calling me Dr. Meles from now on. I didn’t spend six years in 12th grade to be called “mister.”

Tim Clarke: This is blasphemous.

Meles: Blasphemy, Mr. Clarke, is that I have to beg you people to understand the depth of my power. Blasphemy is that I have to drag myself up and put on this quasi-futuristic suit which I had to design myself and degrade myself into begging you to take my evilness seriously. Blasphemy is that I had one simple request, and that is to rig one lousy election and have ballots with frickin' laser beams attached! Blasphemy is that now, evidently, my cycloptic colleague informs me that that can't be done. Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here!

Condi Rice: Mr. Zenawi! For God’s sake! We are busy people!

Meles: I am intriguingly aroused by your silent fury, Madam Secretary. Alas, the satellite feed is about to fade so I have to make this quick. I want you people to stop telling me what to do. I want you to stop filling up these Ethiopian people with gobbledygook notions of freedom and liberty. Everything was fine until you came along. And most of all, I will continue killing people unless you give me… one… million dollars!

Bereket: Er… your Excellency… we..

Meles: Shh!

Bereket: But one million…

Meles: Shh-

Bereket: ...dollars is…

Meles: Knock, knock?

Bereket: Who’s there?

Meles: Shh-

Bereket: They already give us…

Meles: www.shh.com

Bereket: But sir, they…

Meles: What’s shh! minus shh!?

Bereket: What I am saying is…

Meles: Control, Alt… Shh!

Bereket: A million dollars is…

Meles: Sh-uh, schoo, shee, scha, schE, … shh!


Bereket: Really, Sir…

Meles: My favorite Teddy Afro song… Shhhhhhhemindefer.

Hilary Benn: I believe what your advisor is trying to tell you is that we already give you 1.9 billion dollars in aid.

Meles: Yes. But why give me billion when you can give me… one m-m-million!

Ana Gomes: This is bizarre.

Meles: Did… did… someone say something or was that the macabre sound of a mosquito sucking blood?

Condi Rice: You want us to pay you not to kill your people?

Meles: Oh, you can pay me to kill them too.

Donald Yamamotto: This does not compute.

Meles: I’ll tell you what does not compute, Mr. Hello Motto. Get it? Hello? Motto? Or hallow motto? It’s… a…. not quite a homonym, not quite alliteration. Never mind. What does not compute is me begging permission from you people to kill my own people. That, now, does not compute! You have been warned. Either you pay me… one… m-m-million dollars…

Bereket: One million is lower than one billion.

Meles: Oh. Okay. You see these are the kind of things I need to know in advance. You pay me, one… ca-jillion dollars or I will start shooting at people while they celebrate some religious holiday.

Bereket: We, um, already did that, Sir.

Meles: You see…? No one tells me anything. Have you people heard of top-down communication? It’s a … really? We did that? Okay. You give me… one… maxtrillion dollars or I will shoot people while they… take a nap? Have we done that yet?

Bereket: No. Not in the strictest sense, Sir.

Meles: Okay. You have 72 hours. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Call me. Okay, people, let’s cue in the music and end transmission. Are we still on? No? Okay then. I think that scared them, huh?

Bereket: You did very well, your Excellency. I know they were quivering under your commanding presence. They are, after all, cowards who can’t face a few killings.

Meles: How much money is maxtrillion dollars?

Bereket: A lot.

Meles: Enough to buy me a laser-guided toothbrush?

Bereket: Indeed. Perhaps even enough for two. Your mastership is…

Meles: Shut up!

Bereket: Oh, sir. I wish I knew how to quit you.

Condi Rice: Um… you know we can still hear you, right?

Meles: Goddamit, Bereket! I will…… [inaudible] you, you mother [expletive]. You incompetent…

Audio fades.

____________________________

Special thanks to Arada Lij via EP. Sorry for terrible re-photoshopping.

23 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Brrrrrrrriliant, warped and unrelenting. Motkulish!

6:35 PM, January 26, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know who you are, Wonq.
eskezarE dres andlay snterbat qoyten anchiw honech tgegni ?!?!? wey edlE! wey edlE!

dewy semonun esti, i need to show you the www of my new crush...

12:38 AM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Long awaited, much needed light relief- brilliant!

6:41 AM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're killing me, Wonq! Keep it up! I am sure our ever-brilliant leader's daily convo doesn't differ much from this...

Abiy

10:29 AM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ewnetim weichegud! now i have to go back and rent all three austin powers. the things you make me do!

10:59 AM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great stuff, wonq! Can’t bear the thought of you going away on that winter vacation in February! This place, Wonqville, will surely lose for us its magic while you’re out there sliding down a slippery slope like some qebeT white woman!

I know you're a hard act to follow, but perhaps you could get Gooch to carry on while you're away? I hope he ain't into winter- skydiving, bungee jumping . . .

12:22 PM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Scooped for rubbish.

12:35 PM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

thank for making my day ... Sew begudu aYiskem ..., but I laughed until I was able to see the bottom of the chair I was sitting on.

2:06 PM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great entertainment. And we thought no one would replace Seleda!

The only advice I have is to cut your blogs by 50%. I am sure most people like me want to spend only about 10-15 minutes reading the best ET blogs (Weichegud, AddisFerenj and on good days Andrew Heaven's). Like your latest is a classic; but towards the end it kind of got tiring.

I say this with respect and to motivate you to reach even one more level of usefullness. In a way, I consider you to be playing the same role that ET heroes of the Italian occupation played. It is a historical role that you are playing......

Best of luck and see you in Addis (Ayer Tena or Lideta) in post-Meles Ethiopia.

Tazabiw

3:11 PM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

bloody funny post, mate! african politics without a heavy dose of satire will kill you. Check out some of the Nigerian blogs I sent you.

Saalam, brother.

5:29 PM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

austin powers + silence of the lambs + brokeback mountain + meles?! talk about amalgamation!

go wonqqi. cheer our boy in torino. btw, has the issue of kezira been solved?

10:44 PM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ain't none of us steppin' up to culver town with our ragged selves, Hissy. the wonq just has to slum.

11:16 PM, January 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hissy, kezira:

what happens in a fancy leqso bet stays in a fancy leqso bet, as our grandmothers from wellega used to say. can we meet halfway? by half way i mean the outskirts of culver ketema? is it true what we hear? that GPS' don't work on the other side of n. robertson?

12:08 AM, January 28, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL... although... Meles as Ali G??

8:39 AM, January 28, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

what designates a leqso bet "fancy"? starch on the hanky? feudals! when do we get the low down dirty details from davos, btw? will trade that for meles as dr.evil musings, Wonqi.

10:03 AM, January 28, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you see? the silent majority zm aleh. tell Wonq the proper attire to slum is minus prada. we are the ones with the kirr kitab. :-)

4:42 AM, January 29, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

La lutta evil testicle continua ...impressive !

1:46 PM, January 29, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

that is blackmail! plastic to kirr kitab in one skip. wei hagere!

2:00 PM, January 29, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Our boy, Meles, is sure beginning to show signs of buckling under the pressure of this la luta, y'all. Listen to his interview with the “press” over there at radiofana (regretfully), and you come away with the distinct feeling that his once seemingly impervious armor is cracking.

On the one hand, he would have you believe that he couldn’t care less about the cutoff of aid while, on the other, his words ooze bitterness and fear when he lashes out at those he holds responsible for successfully lobbying the donors to withhold their money!

Over and over again in the interview, he tries so frantically hard to sell this cock-and-bull story that his regime is able to fend for itself, and that he is unconcerned and unaffected by it all! That, by itself, is a dead giveaway that the man is hurting. The self-deception is so transparent that, for all of his efforts at appearing invincible, he comes off as scared silly!

Even his inflexibility on the issue of the imprisoned opposition members, not so long ago an absolutely nonnegotiable item, now appears to be up for discussion, unless I’m totally misreading his remarks.

In Part II of the interview, ff to 4 minutes and you hear this: “A person who has committed a crime is taken to court and charges are filed against him. The Courts pass judgment. The Court’s judgment is then executed.”
He then follows it up with this(verbatim): “Now, mnalbat bewiyiyit bifetta, chigirochn lemaqalel yiredal ayredam, essu, liaweyay yichil yihonal.”

Floating a trial balloon, you think?

4:46 PM, January 29, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

listen, bud. we're still on kirr kitab. plastic would make us n'uss kebertEwech. bring some of wonqqi's gush Tella. we'll be at the bel air gates, mesaleming it... be bado igrachin.

7:38 PM, January 29, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

er, to the plastic/kirr kitab gang: this is a PUBLIC forum, thankyouverymuch. will thank you kindly to move the comments offline. (p.s. my recipe for gush Tella includes a dash of vermouth.)

/ETW

9:05 PM, January 29, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wonqi..

I hate you... Oy, Dr. Evil was one of my faves... Now I have to think of Melit everytime I do one of my many Austin Powers re-runs.

Oh, my poor split-side. Oh my miskin yeteleqeqe shint.

Seriously ... you gotta stop making me hate you.

6:22 AM, February 01, 2006  
Blogger davidsharp said...

Glorious!
We somethimes take ourselves too seriously. Let the hair do its thing...loosely and dangelinglyly. As someone or rather said at some time or rather..."wiping snot off ones nose, SHOULD at times be fun."

6:12 PM, February 21, 2006  

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