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One of the most tangible signs of the dictatorship’ s manipulation of the masses is the deliberate weakening of educational systems. Not just through neglect, but as a strategy: an educated people questions, a poorly educated people obeys. In the Central African Republic under Bokassa, or more recently in Chad, investment in education was inversely proportional to investment in the armed forces. In Cameroon, where Paul Biya has reigned since 1982, entire generations have grown up with a sanitized history, no political debate in schools, and a university system stifled by cronyism. The result: a youth that either flees or remains silent.
“ The aim of propaganda is to make the lie truer than the truth.- Joseph Goebbels.
Flashmag! Issue 163 August 2025
Cultural resignation: dictatorship becomes a mental heritage There comes a point when the citizen ceases to perceive the abnormality of oppression. It is no longer a temporary situation, but a genetic inevitability. People stop protesting because they think it’ s pointless- or worse, because they see no point in protesting. This is where dictatorship really triumphs: when it ceases to be an external force and becomes a habitus, an invisible norm, an inner prison. Philosopher Frantz Fanon called this post-colonial alienation: a mental state in which the oppressed accept their condition, sometimes even defending it.
wearing out people through instability or hypercontrol.
Another principle of manipulation is to make people psychologically dependent on an imposed order, even if it’ s oppressive. This is what Naomi Klein calls the strategy of shock: when people are subjected to prolonged stress( wars, shortages, violence), they come to accept any form of stability, including dictatorship. This is how, in Cameroon, the widespread misery of the little people and the inertia of the government.
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