Propaganda and racism

Talking to friends about the strong propaganda element of the recent Olympics in China, I realised that propaganda can take many different forms and it exists everywhere in the world, including Britain.

Wikipidia defines propaganda as “a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the cognitive narrative of the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

Propaganda in other parts of the world may not be as obvious as the case in China, where there is a propaganda minister who promotes the single party government’s line and punishes everyone who has a different opinion.

In Britain it is more descised. The Research, Information and Communication Unit (RICU) of the Home Office will soon be dispatching some propaganda material to government offices, embassies and media outlets to convince people Al Qaida is in decline. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/26/alqaida.uksecurity

From media outlets to local government and central government, we see common views and concerted set of messages on many subjects, such as drugs and immigration. People who don’t hold these views are sidelined and marginalised.

I remember one day expressing my opinion on the very strong campaign lead by the media on the storey of Madeleine McCann, who went missing in Portugal last year. As often the case, my opinion on the subject was different from most people around me. I was a sympathiser but thought this coverage wouldn’t be the same if the girl’s life circumstances were different, that is: if she comes from a different socio-economic group with less power and money, and was less blond and pretty. My colleagues who I discussed this with, thought I was ‘callous’.

Some more examples of this propaganda game: The Independent newspaper campaign against Cannabis, the tabloids assault on immigrants without documents, and the very recent Team GB ‘made us proud’ campaign lead by the London Mayor, the PM and most of the media outlets. I was appalled of the amount of coverage which made people feel there is nothing else in the world we need to worry about.

Talking to the same group of friends this weekend, I told them about my recent trip to the Middle East, and how most people we met were so open about their discrimination against other groups of society.

I was telling them about how in most conversations, we had in the Holy Lands, people had to make sure they put down people of other religious or racial backgrounds. From cousins who called Muslims cows, to a seven year old boy who was scared of Arabs who live in the woods to a taxi driver who told us that Christian Arabs have a better mentality, than the Muslim Arabs.

One friend responded with a relief that “at least here in the West people are not that racist”. He continued that only very few people with extreme right wing opinions can be racist. The rest of us did not agree with his assessment of the situation. One of us said to him that people are cautious of using non Politically Correct language but they may hold racist views expressed in ways not very obvious to us. Another friend told us of his colleagues in the office that hold some racist views against Minority Ethnic groups.

I was reminded of my cousin who lives in a North European country who was born to a European mother. He told Eastern European workers to “go home” in an argument he had with them. His dad’s European girlfriend could not understand how her country gives “everything” to Iraqi refugees but they don’t have any desire to “integrate” into their new society in return. She was talking of a couple in their sixties who don’t speak any language but Arabic, and were forced to leave their home because of war and violence that were caused by the occupation of Iraq, which this Northern European country’s government supported. I did ask her to imagine her parents, who do not speak any language but their own, forced to leave their home. Would it be easy for them to adapt to a new way of life forced on them?

A very recent cruel murder of a student from Qatar in Hastings (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/27/ukcrime.race) is a reminder to us that racism is rife in the, allegedly non racist and politically correct land of Europe.

I do have many other stories of non tolerance against other different groups of society here in the West. The Queer communities (people who don’t conform to the mainstream love and sexual life styles), which by now after the introduction of the civil partnership, you would expect society to tolerate more. I am sure I will come to them in later entries and give them the space they deserve.