These last few weeks of war have presented an issue that we got to know well thanks to COVID-19: discerning facts from propaganda.
After years of swinging interest in the news, during the initial stages of the pandemic people found themselves craving to know more and understand what was happening around them. Back then, we saw the main news providers struggling and failing on a regular basis, offering unverified information, poorly proofread articles, and sensational but inconsistent data.
The recent events taking place in Ukraine have reiterated a pre-existing situation and made many fall once again into discomforting confusion, into a feeling of being too often caught unprepared.
Despite being online 24/7, most of us are in fact entirely unaware of important, crucial aspects of what happens around us, so that when an event escalates we rush to find the answers we have missed to the questions we failed to ask, inundating the most familiar news providers and social media with our concerns and absorbing their narration of the events.
Today, the two main poles not only present an opposite version of what is going on in Ukraine and in the world but insistently accuse the other side of being unreliable and sharing false information.
The Russian side presents its truth of an inevitable conflict ignited to stop the presumption of the Empire of Lies — the West captained by the United States — and its by now unbearable attempts to threaten the independence and well-being of the Russian Federation.
The Western side proudly affirms to have promptly reacted to an unprecedented threat to democracy and freedom, and that sanctions and arms races are an inevitable response to an inexplicable assault.
The rest of the world observes and decides to take a handy but ineffective side: the culprit is my enemy.
This way, the screenplay is all set. All parts avoid taking responsibility, everyone is guilty, no one is fully absolved — not even the passive spectators.
If Russia focuses all attention on the overbearing role of the United States and the West in the last few decades but neglects to acknowledge the human cost of its actions, the West is all about condemning the loss of life and the evil behavior of its Eastern neighbour but forgets to justify and explain this hatred irradiating around itself.
Thus, everyone pursues their own cause and every story is cut short in some of its parts.
To our Western eyes, turning the lights on the victims and idolatrizing them moves the public opinion, strikes the chord of disdain, triggers ancient memories of shameful war crimes, and reminds Westerners of a past that they struggle to scratch off, that is still there to haunt democratic heaven and dreams of eternal peace. The Western propaganda knows the souls and owns the hearts of its audience, aware of the fact that people are still bleeding from the guilt of 20th-century wars they themselves caused and the pain they inflicted. The propaganda wins them by putting pressure on their weaknesses, knowing that they would never accept to be the official instigators or supporters of another conflict. Turning people against military action on this basis faces no obstacles.
The Russian propaganda works similarly but heads towards the opposite direction. It itself the victim of two direct attacks in a distant-but-never-forgotten past, Russia claims to have endured Western arrogance for decades and that breaking free is not only necessary but much deserved at this point, having reached a peak where keeping quiet means compliance and therefore a reaction is a duty. Contributing factor being the tireless — and maybe bit overdone — use in every Hollywood production since the 70s of the Russian as the enemy, the conspirator, the villain, Russia has recently started a veritable campaign against the abuse of power and influence perpetuated by the United States and the West and now exploits it to justify the war through disruptive information bombardment. Leveraging on a wounded pride shows prompt results.
Everything in between got lost in the game, serving the purpose of no one, inconvenient for many, and inevitably left out by the respective propagandas.
But, in the end, is it possible to understand the range and scope of a military action such as the attack on Ukraine by only looking at it from a single perspective — no matter if well-meaning?
Do we have all the tools to comprehend what is happening now and place it correctly within a global scenario?
Does our propaganda — any propaganda — really leave its audience free to choose in what and who to believe?
Telling where the truth lies amidst an immense flow of data, information and reports has become increasingly difficult, our minds made up before even realizing an idea was taking shape. In this sense, the velocity required by social media to keep up with the audience does not make things any easier.
Building a narrative around an ongoing situation such as the one in Ukraine is normal and probably necessary in order to give the largest and most condescending piece of public opinion a direction. In an optimistic scenario, this direction should also match common beliefs and values and reflect the overall political and diplomatic position of a country, priorly chosen through free elections.
However, the globalized nature of this world makes this principle much more complicated and shakes it to its foundations. Living in a globalized world means that what is done by Russia might have enormous consequences for Europe, that what is decided in the Americas might be extremely important for Asia, and that several different interests are always at stake. Missing even a single chapter of the story would affect its overall comprehension.
A mechanism of calculated exclusion in what to say and how to say it will never serve the purpose of providing a complete, all-round reportage of ongoing events, despite this being the alleged mission of all news providers in the free, democratic world — and the breaking point between freedom of speech and regime-driven information.
If escaping propaganda is hardly possible, acknowledging its constant presence and role in our society paradoxically helps us set free from its grip. Once we keep in mind that what we hear or read is often filtered through a specific lens, we also learn to consult more sources and not end our search for truth at the first stop.
Martina
