David Ignatius, The Washington Post; Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.
[Kip Currier: As I've mentioned to a few people lately--including my book editor, as I finish up a chapter on truth for my ethics textbook--this is a particularly challenging time to tackle the topics of truth, facts, news, and information assessment. The example of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi--"disappeared" and presumed killed--painfully demonstrates both the importance of and potentially deadly stakes for those committed to promoting freedom of expression and truth telling, in the furtherance of human rights, equality, and democratic values.]
"George Orwell titled a regular column he wrote for a British newspaper in the mid-1940s “As I Please.”
Meaning that he would write exactly what he believed. My Saudi
colleague Jamal Khashoggi has always had that same insistent passion for
telling the truth about his country, no matter what.
Khashoggi’s
fate is unknown as I write, but his colleagues at The Post and friends
around the world fear that he was murdered after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday...
Khashogggi [sic] understood that he could keep his mouth
shut and stay safe, because he had so many friends in the royal family.
But it simply wasn’t in him.
Khashoggi
wrote a column for the Post last year in which he described seeing some
of his friends arrested and struggling with his conscience. “I said
nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my
family. I have made a different choice now,” he wrote. He had made a
decisive break with Mohammed bin Salman , choosing exile and honesty in
his writings. His simple four-word explanation: “We Saudis deserve
better.”"