The Saudi dictatorship has told a story: A 59-year-old journalist and critic of the regime got into a fistfight with a 15-man crew of killers in a consulate and, oops, things went wrong. Dead and dismembered journalist.
Another Arab journalist, Rami G. Khouri, issued a tweet: “An important element of this episode is that normal, ordinary people around the world now understand how normal, ordinary Arabs have felt during the past 5 decades of authoritarian governments that treat their citizens like idiots or sheep, almost always with foreign support.”
Today on the homepage I have a piece on a remarkable young woman, Farida Nabourema. She is a leader of the opposition to her country’s dictatorship, which has been passed from father to son and is now more than 50 years old. That dictatorship is in Togo, which is in West Africa.
All dictatorships tell lies, and I will give you one of that dictatorship’s most fantastic ones. There are more than 30 ethnic groups in Togo, mind you. It is a little country — 7.5 million people — but a very diverse one. And Farida and others grew up in school being taught that the dictator’s ethnic group, the Kabye, was descended from heaven. No other group was — just them.
Imagine that.
This absurd little lie, or big one, was taught not only in primary schools, middle schools, and high schools, but also in universities. Professors had to do it with a straight face; students had to listen to it with a straight face.
That’s how it goes.
Anyway, you will enjoy meeting Farida, who is a household name in her country — though she can’t live there, if she doesn’t want to be killed — and should be known by you and me as well.