The silence that dictatorship taught us

Growing up in Togo, in secondary school, we had one particular subject called ECM (Civil and Moral Education). It was meant to teach us how to become good citizens, understand the role of citizens in society, and the role of government.

History and French (literature) teachers were usually the ones assigned to teach this subject.

In my seven years of junior and senior public secondary school in Togo, our ECM teacher never showed up , not even once. So as students, we considered ECM free time. The course was on the calendar, a teacher was officially assigned, but they never appeared.
When the time came for exams, the teacher would simply send us some pamphlets and ask us to make photocopies and study the subject on our own.

My mother, being a secondary school history teacher, one day I asked her why ECM teachers never showed up in class. She explained to me that many years ago, some teachers were abducted, and others were killed because they used certain words in the classroom , words like “democracy.”

The government used to send spies disguised in school uniforms to attend public school classes and report any teacher who spoke about democracy.

As a form of protest, many teachers assigned to civic education decided never to teach the subject again.

The sadness in this is that a whole generation grew up without understanding the concepts of governance, government, democracy, human rights, freedom, or even basic morality and how to act as good citizens.

Dictatorship is not just about someone clinging to power and repressing the masses. It goes much deeper, and it is very systematic. It transforms society at its core and changes the way we think even our education is shaped by censorship and surveillance.

As a child, whenever we went out to visit family and friends, my mother would warn us never to mention the president’s name in any conversation, not even as a joke. Even at home, we dared not say “Eyadéma.” Doing so could earn you a beating you’d remember for the rest of your life.We used nicknames to refer to him because everyone was afraid. As the saying goes, “the walls have ears.”

During Eyadéma’s time, and still today under his son, there were spies in classrooms, in restaurants, in bars, in public offices and even at private events like weddings.We grew up whispering.

And today, Togolese people are seen in the region as quiet, reserved, people who don’t like problems. But this isn’t culture: it’s trauma. We share the same ethnic groups, customs, and traditions as our neighbors in Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso. We are not culturally different.

What we are is traumatized. We tend to keep a low profile, keep our thoughts to ourselves, suppress our anger, and speak very little because that’s how we were taught to survive.

And those of us who escaped that “dog training” were seen as outcasts in our families and communities ; the deranged ones who were putting everyone else’s lives at risk.

I always say to people who “compliment” me by saying, “I love Togolese people, they’re so quiet and never cause problems,” that we are not quiet: we are contained. And that’s how we survive.

#FreeTogo #FaureMustGo

By Farida Bemba Nabourema

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