My loyalties have been put to the test once again. Amnesty International has called me to corroborate the recent arrests of bloggers and the alleged sexual abuse of at least one activist. A half hour later, Ahmad from the interior ministry was on the phone asking me to refute what he called “gross misrepresentation of the domestic scene by the media.
I wanted to please both. I couldn’t let down Ahmad, for he’s been hiring my boys as police extras, and God knows my boys need the cash and the ounce or two of dignity police work affords. We cannot let our underprivileged kids run around jobless, succumbing to crime, drugs and terror. At the same time, I couldn’t let Amnesty International down, for I believe that every man, woman, child and former dictator is entitled to certain rights.
So here I was again working the phones, smuggling letters from prisons to international watchdogs and advising the interior ministry on damage limitation. Smearing with one hand, cleaning up with the other. Betraying my country in the morning, then sipping tea all night with Ahmad.
Sophie didn’t like it. “You cannot go on helping both sides. You have to make a choice and stick to it, the Vienna-based therapist admonished me yet again. “Remember Rwanda? You were that close to recovery. I’ve regressed you through your tormented childhood, sorted out your adolescence and was about to reduce your medication. Then as the Tutsies and Hutus went at each other’s throat, you started shipping weapons to both as if there was no tomorrow. Do you remember what happened next? Who had to fly all the way to Zaire to nurse you back from that nasty depression? Do you remember?
I do. I swear I do. But there are things Sophie just can’t understand. There is always a price to pay, and for some reason I prefer that this price goes straight into my bank account. Call me insincere. Call me insecure. But this is what I do. I help people for a small fee. When things turn ugly, I call Sophie, and that’s how she can afford her penthouse in Vienna. But was I going to remind her of that? Was I going to remind her of the little souvenir I bought her in Kinshasa, with the money I made in Kigali? I was that close to bringing it up, but I had no time for that. Ahmad had been waiting for me all evening.
“You know the kind of pressure we’ve been under … No, not from the press, from upstairs, Ahmad was fuming in his sparsely furnished office at the ministry. “Everyone is blaming everyone else, and all because we allegedly sodomized a blogger. Tell me, what is a blogger anyway? Is it like a spy? Bigger even? I cannot work unless I know who to sodomize, who to mock sodomize and who to just threaten with sodomy. I know you gave a lecture about that last year, but I was away. I really need you to write it all down for me.
That was too much. In every workshop I’ve given inside and outside the country, I’ve made it patently clear that police brutality is to be applied with maximum restraint. The stress here is on maximum, I told Ahmad. “Yes, maximum. That’s what we did. We gave them the maximum treatment, within an inch of their lives, just as you told us. I made a mental note to not give lectures in English again.
So the next day I spoke in plain Arabic. I was sitting with the three top generals in the anti-riot force, drinking iced lemonade and discussing our media strategy. “We have an image problem here, I said. “People see the outfits and the trucks and they respond to what they see. Look at your trucks. Are you color blind? I said jade green metallic, like the Dodge Challenger, not that murky olive green you’ve used, which looks like, well, a prison truck. And look at the soldiers. What are they wearing? Why haven’t you ordered the outfits from the new Pink Warrior collection? What’re you waiting for? I told you I give discounts on large orders.
Even as I spoke, I knew something was missing. Looks matter of course. But no fashion designer, no paint job in this world can fix things when the entire image is flawed.
“We need sympathy, I said. “This nation loves the underdog. The Muslim Brotherhood has sympathizers. So does Ayman Nour and Kefaya. You know why? Because they get beaten, because they get arrested, because they get their clothes torn and their phones and medicine confiscated. They get thrown in jail and threatened, even molested on occasion. We need that kind of sympathy. We cannot let it all go to the opposition.
If my advice is taken, there will be more rallies downtown soon. Major National Democratic Party protests, two protests for each one staged by Kefaya and the police will be asked to crush NDP rallies with disproportionate and uncalled-for force. That’ll teach the opposition. That’ll shut up the foreign press.
The generals seemed to like the idea. But Ahmad was doubtful. “I’m in a bit of a dilemma here. How hard exactly am I supposed to rough up those guys? They are even bigger than the bloggers you know. What if they don’t like it?
I promised to be there for him, to encourage and protect him. It always breaks my heart to see good and honorable people fall under the truncheon, but when the country’s reputation is at stake, you do what you have to do. And remind me to take my small camera along. Amnesty International always asks for photos, I don’t know why.
