Do You Know My Name?
By Tom Somah
You'll find me in television studios, perched beside journalists who once stood for truth. I whisper encouragements in their ears, planting seeds of doubt and division. I usher extreme ideas into evening segments; what begins as coverage becomes quiet consent.
Respectability clings to my coat. Before viewers can blink, I rewrite the script, and the public trusts the face I wear. My whispers transform into their words, extreme notions delivered with the authority of trusted voices.
I walk red carpets with leaders, toast champagne in hollow press briefings. Photographers frame me beside saints, scholars, the devout, the decorated, the deceived. I sculpt words like spells: I rename greed as bold reform, oppression as security, failure as transformation. The people no longer hear tyranny—they hear progress, because I have changed the words.
I let others echo me. I hide behind civic groups, silence watchdogs, muzzle student panels. Academics praise me in polished papers. Paid loyalists preach my gospel in public forums while I stay backstage.
In floods, famines, times of plague, I make my grandest moves. When fear flows, I pretend to act. I impose curfews to pass cruel laws. In fatigue and fright, I hush dissent, and people clap, too tired to resist.
Where I reign, nepotism rules ministries, thieves preach morality on national TV. Listen closely: I promise bold reform and grand solutions, but every word is a mask—evil veiled in virtuous language. Still, you clap and clap.
You have seen me. You have felt me. I am not a rumour or a ghost. I am the Architect of Acceptable Evil. You should know my name by now.
My name is Corruption: The Deceit Maker.