Age of propaganda

In the modern world information and knowledge is power. The world community makes judgments based on reports by international news agencies. How much of this news is true and how much is just plain propaganda?

People have not understood fully, the part propaganda plays in their day to day lives, and hence there is less emphasis on the need to decipher truth from what is dished out in the form of news from media on a daily basis.

Believing falsity to be the truth can lead one to act and behave in a way that is exactly the opposite of how one otherwise should behave in a given situation.

Propaganda is so powerful that it can make you patronize what you should abhor: denigrate what you should treat with respect: believe in what you should dispel and uphold what you should condemn.

Hatred and prejudice

These dimensions of propaganda are of special relevance to today’s world where propaganda has replaced arms as the means of capturing power and control of world affairs.

Allies are formed by winning over other countries to your side by the use of propaganda and this has obviated the need for subjugation by arms. Americans would demonize the Communists, creating hatred and prejudice in the minds of people in third world countries and vise versa.

That way, world political blocks are created without arms. While an alliance formed for a true world salvation is a requirement of the civilized world, an alliance based on propaganda for world domination and exploitation could be inimical to the world interest at large.

Governments are formed under democracy by canvassing the votes of the people. Similarly, a Government formed by telling the truth to the people will always be in the interest of the country than a one that has influenced voters with propaganda.

Democracy is good if the best candidate wins at the election but when the candidate with best propaganda wins the election, leaving behind the good candidates, how well would that serve democracy? But the reality in countries like India and Sri Lanka is that it is often the candidate with the most money to spend on propaganda that wins elections instead of the most suitable.

Propaganda machinery

By the end of the Second World War, English language, culture and values had spread to every nook and corner of the world and were well entrenched in the life styles of ruling elites and decision makers, in the ex- European colonies. They found a new platform to continue the colonial exploitation without arms. Hence it was realized that with propaganda more could be achieved at a lesser cost than arms ever did. In every way, psychological subjugation was better than physical subjugation.

Democracy is only a method of electing rulers and it doesn’t ensure wise governance in the long term interest of the people. It is only the means and not the ends of running a country. But the west would always insist on ‘democracy’ as a panacea for all ills in developing countries disregarding, the foresight with which the people of a country would elect their leaders and also to what extent democratic governance is feasible in countries with social and security imbalances.

It is also a proven fact that universal franchise holds little hope in a society where basic human requirements such as security, hunger, education and shelter are not met. The irony of democracy is that in a democratic society, those who are sagacious as well as those who are myopic both have the same vote each.

War power

The catch here is that a democratic type of governance makes these new nations most susceptible to the capitalist economic system and the western global propaganda. Hence they established all the propaganda institutions necessary to ensure the world colonial structure. Especially institutions like the BBC have been sieving news and information consistently to give a ‘British twist’ to what is happening in the world.

However after the Second World War Britain, the world super power at the time, faced bankruptcy with its economy in shambles. Therefore, at the Breton woods Post War Conference, Britain formally handed over the baton of world power balance to United States, its English speaking ally, as the new leader of the ‘Free world’. Since then the US has been carrying on with its propaganda war to subjugate the rest of the world to think and act the way in keeping with its bench marks.

It is the responsibility of every sovereign nation to ensure the wellbeing of its citizens and hence every state has to recognize universal values and determine the extent of each states limits in ‘human rights’; the degree of their ‘freedom of expression’ and the level of their ‘democracy’.

On the other hand if any outside force decides to sit in judgment of our values and paradigms expressing concern for us more than we do ourselves, we should be wise enough to dismiss such concerns as just plain propaganda with an insidious agenda! Could an outsider make us more ‘free’ than we wish ourselves to be?

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