I woke up this morning to watch a video of a traveler vlogger influencer on social media posting about the American investigation apparatus, CIA, interrogating her and asking her in a friendly way to share any news or information she might have access to, because she has been in Yemen, Syria, and other places in the Middle East.
As someone from the Middle East myself, and despite any political awareness tactics I might have engaged with, or news I read, I still find it too naive for the Arab speaking audiences to believe in such games.
Does that influencer have any idea how all social media platforms have been recruiting spies unwillingly, tracking users’ behaviors and data and financial info, and how easy they can manipulate users’ search and how instant they can lock up someone’s social media accounts, no matter how big or supportive their social media audience might be?
I couldn’t think of anything but a funny story I once read, and I can't remember where. I’m really getting so forgetful-thanks to my distressful past workspace 😴- anyhow, the story was really funny that it can alter your mood…🤓
The story was mainly about a popular merchant who sells tea in his occupied locality. Because of his popularity, as people love his tea and trust his product, he had so much influence that the occupiers tried tirelessly to recruit his talent and tools to convince his people to leave their city.
The Merchant knew beforehand that those settlers were no joke, so if they weren’t successful in recruiting him, they would go violent, they might target his helpless family members, they might spread slurs and rumors to ruin his reputation and make it unbearable for him to move forward with his business in the area, among other horrible things.
After countless attempts and so much pressure, the Merchant gave it a thorough thought before he agreed to the occupiers’ deal.
They offered him money in exchange for spreading scary information about their militarized equipment to show off their strength and power amongst the heaped locality. They handed him flyers to make the job easy and instructed him to translate the flyers into the people’s spoken language and make sure the message was well delivered and understood.
The clueless merchant agreed, asked for his payment in advance, and let them know that he had no control over how his people would respond.
The occupiers agreed.
Then the merchant translated the flyers and started distributing them right before the occupiers were hovering over the sky with their parade airshow.
They have been watching from a distance how the indigenous folks would react to their threats and scary messages. For hours, they have been tracking those who would stop by the merchant's shop while he handed them the flyers, then the merchant started pointing to the sky where the helicopters were, and the people were smiling and waving in peace to the helicopters.
Turns out that the merchant purposely mistranslated the flyers, and made it sound like an advertisement for his business, and asked his customers to smile and wave toward the helicopters, not to trick his people, but to tease the settlers. 😄
I guess that merchant won the hearts of both his people and his enemies. Because...
Loyalty is priceless.
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