Dissident Spotlight: Étienne Fakaba Sissoko
Étienne Sissoko was sentenced to two years in prison for writing a book that described Mali’s military junta’s use of propaganda.
Étienne Sissoko is an economist and professor in Mali who clearly has an interest in how his country can be run more efficiently. He wrote other books about his country’s government and administration.
In his most recent book, he described the way Mali’s military junta used propaganda to lie to the people it ruled. It goes without saying that a violent military government uses propaganda on its populace. But as previous dissident spotlights have shown, authoritarians do not appreciate being described accurately.
Sissoko was arrested in March for the details he included in his book. Voice of America Africa reported that he was charged with:
…"harming the reputation of the state," "defamation" and "dissemination of false news disturbing the public peace" over his 2023 book "Propaganda, Agitation and Harassment, Government Communication During the Transition in Mali."
A judge sentenced Sissoko to two years in prison and a roughly $5,000 fine for Sissoko’s honest analysis.
American Public Servants Would Kill to Have Their Stories Told
In the United States, Michael Lewis published Who is Government?, an account of the types of public servants he encountered in the U.S. government. They included a man who figured out how to find people and objects lost at sea, a problem that man went into government to solve despite the profitable career paths available elsewhere.
A collection of stories that intimate is needed for Americans to understand who is going into their government. They’re stories that any democratic society would clamor to have told.
It’s easy to talk about the benefits of a free press in democratic countries, but one of them really is the opportunity to learn how the government works and who is doing what in it.
However, the freedom to learn these details does not translate to a desire to learn them. Lewis may reach a larger audience among his countrymen, but Sissoko’s work will likely be hidden from the people who need it most.