There seems to be something about accumulating huge amounts of money that involves a certain degree of psychopathy. You don’t have to be a serial killer to fit into such a category; according to psychologists, anyone is incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of those who suffer, of being moved by the pain of others. I don’t know if the very rich are born this way or if this system of venerating the monstrous ability to inflate accounts encourages this very harmful trait. I’m writing this after watching the documentary Saudi Arabia: the kingdom revealed. It denounces the multiple abuses and violations of rights suffered by those living under the regime of Mohamed Bin Salman, that apparently modern prince entertained and admired by Donald Trump and at whose side sit many wealthy people who are short-sighted in the face of the reality on which their millions float. We see the terrible conditions of slavery in which immigrant workers live in the country, including many domestic workers, the violence with which any demonstration or opposition is repressed, and the imprisonment of women in what is a real police state. I hope Rafa Nadal, who once said this in petrodictatorship You saw nothing but beautiful things, you took a look at the documentary and you realized how terrible the country you are dealing with is.
One of the voices in the documentary is that of a young woman who has her sister in prison and cannot contact her, she does not know the conditions in which she lives. His crime? After uploading videos on social networks in which he defends his right to dress as he wants. The most surprising thing about this case is that some of the recordings that caused so much trouble for both sisters were made during a concert to celebrate Women’s Day in which Alicia Keys participated. What a disappointment it was to discover that such a powerful singer, who I believed to be a feminist, lent herself to mask that misogynistic dictatorship. “I am incredibly inspired to connect in a meaningful way with the incredible women who are there to talk about cultural, creative and innovative narratives…” she said to justify her contribution to the oppression of Saudi women, an empty language that sounds egalitarian but is nothing but cacophony and it sounds good. Keys is just one example of the genuflection of sports stars, artists, businessmen and governments before Bin Salman, but her case is more serious because she is a woman, non-white, “racialized”, intersectional and all that useless blah blah.
