Twilight of the midlleminds

Why might not whole communities be seized with fits of madness, as well as individuals?
Nothing but this principle [that communities are also liable to collective fits of insanity], can account for the downward spiral of dumbness we are witnessing these days.
In these last weeks since the “debacle”, I knew that there will be many talks of election frauds, intimidations, biased reports etc. But I can assure you that our main problem is not there. Rather, we were defeated once again by our own inability to find a narrative that speaks to the whole nation, not just the “enlightened” (if ever they are). What is weird and maddening is that these madcap “events” happened not once but at least 4-5 times since Ben Ali came to power. in each event the same spectacle; a defeated opposition repeating the same arguments over and over and over: we couldn’t reach to the people because of Ben Ali, as if they had something to say, a message of hope, an alternative path to a sustained development, a new vision for the future of the country. No, nothing but tears and a pot-pourri of similarly banal yet heartbreaking newsflashes. Tears for lost “comrades”, jailed dissidents or brutalised friends. In styles as in content, the opposition’s “literature” and manifestos has one thing in common: detachment from the real aspirations of the people. They kept on singing their usual “سلامية” for justice and respect for human dignity (a desperate attempt to reinvent the wheel), rotating from time to time for the role of the lead singer. As if the old laws of politics were for mortals, not for them. What is obvious here is that the opposition parties supposed role as an alternative to the regime no longer has any relation to their actual performance. “THIS” opposition, it seems, has based its vision and plans on the assumption that they were living in a new era* in which anything was possible, like acting politically but hiding behind the “veil” of human rights activism. It also seems that old rules and principles of political activism had become obsolete. Resistance to the regime could “safely” be “managed” today by way of the HEART not by way of traditional political activism. Taking the example of Allah who “compressed the laws of righteous conduct into few “سور”, our opposition too condensed its “uplifting” mottos(which have nothing to do with the aspirations of the people but reflects their own condition ) to 3-4 “slogans” with keywords such as :political prisoners ,freedom of speech, corruption, justice...., regenerated automatically in every text and every speech.
The latest in line to make use of those ready-made defensive tools is SBS (like IBM or LG, sounds like a multi-national), a very clever PR manager but, in my view, a poorly equipped politician. She furiously reacted [by proxy!] to the critique of Chams and others by arguing that “people of the web” had no business commenting on her [sometimes very bizarre] political statements-as it appears, oblivious to the fact that her own “statements”, like her endorsement for the “Initiative Démocratique” just days before the “thing” took place (to me it was a surreal moment, un-fucking-believable), had legitimised this “web-ripostes”.
One wonder if this is “faux naivety” or “faux sophistication” or both??

* that man has reached a “higher plateau” of social awareness and civilised behaviour(sic), but ... nothing could be further from the truth.

If I had an army I would invade Verona, rename it Corvina or Molinara (depending on my moods!) and put its entire population to work in my vineyards to produce for my personal consumption Amarone in abundance.

To be continued.