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BBC March 9, headline: A Russian woman considers leaving her country behind. (link)
QUOTE “I don’t know whether I should pack for a month, a year or forever,” she tells me.
“But I worry. I see a lot of supporters for this war around me, people who watch state TV channels. They seem like they’ve been blindfolded. It breaks my heart that if I stay I will have to live in a society where the war is acceptable. I don’t want that.” UNQUOTE
A sinister black blindfold-hood, placed over one’s head, means being hoodwinked.
The narrator of a 1948 book, Revolt in 2100, (by Robert Heinlein) spoke for every place and time when he read, with guilt and fear, some forbidden books. He began to realize, he said, you cannot control a free man, because not the torture wrack nor the fission bomb can prevail, the most you can do with a free man is kill him—as the Kremlin is finding out now in Ukraine. But IF you hoodwink him…
The man has an insight: The main power of tyranny is secrecy. Or in 21st century terms, power comes from propaganda and, through police violence, censorship.
From the Kremlin it’s official: Saying the words “invasion” or “attack” regarding the Ukraine “military operation” can now mean an arrest and a prison sentence of 15 years. Call it state violence.
As for “de-Nazifying Ukraine,” which the Kremlin claims as the reason for their self-described “military operation,” I wonder how many Russians know that during the demonstrations to expel the fascist Ukrainian leader his snipers killed 100 civilians? A film that documented the horror and hope of those days played at the local Ukrainian Centre a few years ago. Meanwhile, some Russian idiot on America’s Quora Digest, on the web, claimed the Ukraine leader was toppled by the Americans. Well. That would be news to relatives of the murdered demonstrators.
The young Chinese under communism are hoodwinked too. In Edmonton, an idealistic Chinese student told my buddy Blair, “Followers of Falun Gong kill their parents.” (This while the C-Space building had paintings of an angel watching as a Falun Gong follower had his organs harvested) Blair thought a moment, and said “Canada doesn’t allow criminals as immigrants or refugees, right?”
“Right.”
“But Canada allows in followers of Falun Gong… (“Right”) Your government has been lying to you!” This rocked the young man back on his heels.
People raised in any totalitarian society “just don’t know.” In North Korea, for example, as we know from individuals who escape, everyone genuinely believes the Korean War was started by an attack from South Korea. Defectors who learn the truth are just as shocked as we would be if we learned there had never been an attack on Pearl Harbor, or that the Allies had in fact “Pear Harboured” Tokyo.
I’m sure nobody in China realizes the Korean War peace talks dragged on for a reason: Although many Chinese Prisoners of War wanted to be released where they were, in South Korea, so they could defect to Taiwan, China wanted them all shipped back to China, “forcibly repatriated.” At last the UN gave in to China’s demand, as soldiers of both sides kept dying on patrol in no man’s land, just to stop the war. I’m confident Chinese today don’t know.
Right now the Russians, besides controlling radio and TV, have stopped young Russian Prisoners of War from cell phoning their mothers—lest they reveal the truth about the war. “Total-itarian” means “total control” of the truth.
I suppose that back when I was a young hot headed “know-it-all,” if I was Russian, then I too would have worshipped Putin, and if I were an athlete at the Paralympics then I too would have worn a pro-invasion Z on my shirt at the podium—the young man’s offence is still being discussed by Olympic officials.
Some people I like here at home don’t believe in Putin, but do believe in social media. By never consuming so-called ‘mainstream” accountable media, they are voluntarily hoodwinking themselves.
In my youth it was hard for me to tell friends not to do illegal drugs, now it is hard to tell them not to pass on false social media. I wonder how many anti-vaxxers have even the faintest clue that English-speaking Russians are putting falsehoods onto the web?
I guess I could gently remind my friends that Russian propaganda is like our social media. Maybe I could explain how librarians have an ethic of buying books from both sides of an issue, adding that journalists are similarly ethical. A journalist will “render unto Caesar” (media owners) while steadfastly serving their professional ethics. Maybe I could try a slogan: “Stand up for Ukraine! Fu—forget social media!”
Lastly, for those who remember an historic slogan: “Lovers of the news unite! You have nothing to lose but your blindfolds.”
…
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Sean Crawford,
Calgary
March
Today a chance of flurries, then six sunny days above freezing, hurray.
2022
Footnotes:
Yes, I realize there are emotional reasons for believing in social media, but such motivations are beyond today’s post.
Paralympic Russian link.
Two posts back was my Alexandr Solzhenitsyn “lies-lead-to-violence” quote in bold; one post back, also in bold, was “My city’s being shelled, but Mum won’t believe me.” (Link)
