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[Comment] Back in the USSR
VOLODOMYR YERMOLENKO
05.10.2009 @ 16:45 CET
EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - If you watched the TV talk show "Make Your Own Mind Up" on Russia's 1st Channel last week, you might have been impressed by the work of the Russian propaganda machine. You might also have the feeling that Soviet times are back.
The skillfully orchestrated but fake 'debate' discussed the EU-sponsored report on last year's Russia-Georgia war, with carefully-selected participants to ensure no real divergence of opinion.
A priest blesses Georgian soldiers before they go into war (Photo: jimforest)
False debates showcase Russia's propaganda machinery better than any other media events. While the ideas expressed by the participants last week are worrying symptoms to which the international community should listen.
The TV show wanted to make it "clear" to the public that the EU-mandated report gave the "unambiguous" and "final" judgment that Georgia is "the only responsible" side for the conflict. The interpretation was biased, as the EU report proposed a much more two-sided vision, sharply criticising all the actors in the conflict.
The TV show made no attempt to reflect this balance and did not invite anybody from the EU institutions or the war report mission, let alone from the Georgian camp, to give remarks.
In promoting its deliberately distorted vision of the EU-sponsored study, the broadcast exposed itself as one more tool in the Kremlin's campaign to convince its people that "even the EU" has blessed its war effort and that the international community has recognised the legitimacy of its actions in Georgia.
Another worrying (to say the least) concept was expressed by the most Georgia-hostile speakers, including MPs from Yedinaya Rossiya, Russia's ruling party. They said stability in the Caucasus had been, and would be, only possible if the region is controlled by "a single master," meaning the Kremlin, of course.
The TV show was rich in neo-Soviet propaganda cliches, such as the notion that Russia remains open to the "brotherly people of Georgia" who became victims of their "military criminal" president.
Speaking as somebody from the post-Soviet part of Europe, if you watched this show you would have the eerie feeling that the old times are coming back.
But this is the first time in the recent past that the Kremlin has delivered its message via an EU report.
The EU-mandated paper on the conflict might be a solid piece of research in itself and as such it has been welcomed by various NGOs. But it is all too easily-distorted by the Russia propaganda machine. How will the EU explain to Russian citizens that they meant something else?
The EU has the right to be critical of Georgia and indeed, in a different way, of Ukraine. Both countries have missed important opportunities and failed to fulfill expectations since their pro-democratic transformations in 2003 and 2004.
But at the very least they have tried to break free of the stagnant, post-Soviet millieu and have tried to build free societies. Look at other post-Soviet countries (except the Baltics) and you can see that Georgia and Ukraine are exceptional in an region that is otherwise devolving "back in the USSR."
The writer is an analyst with the Kiev-based Internews-Ukraine think-tank
EUobserver.com, розд╕л Opinion - Comment, 05.10.2009 @ 16:45 CET (http://euobserver.com/7/28779)
