The American people are free to do exactly what they are told.
– WARD CHURCHILL, AMERICAN AUTHOR AND ACTIVIST
The College of Propaganda was first established in 1627 Rome to propagate ecumenical policies and programs to the four corners of the world. The meaning of “propaganda,” inevitably, took on a sinister role to depict a biased or misleading nature of information used to promote a political cause or point of view. Propagation and propaganda work in similar frequencies. You receive excellent reception in one station.
Propaganda never takes a vacation. Robert A Heinlein (“Revolt in 2100/Methuselah’s Children”) capped it wisely: “You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” A whole army of demagogues cannot resist this temptation to distort facts and reality.
Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, reportedly, contacted the College of Propaganda in 1953, well chronicled in the book, “Templer: Tiger of Malaya,” by John Cloake, to request help to send missionaries and nurses to be stationed in every New Village in an effort to contain the unknown during the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). This unusual mollification of danger has never been discussed.
Propaganda gained popularity recently when anti-establishment proponents began believing that the scare and fear of the covid-19 virus was blown out of proportion by the elites running the world in search of a “global reset” where old debts, past mistakes, grave errors and ongoing political disasters could be neutralised to create a new norm.
The crazed mind of Adolf Hitler, obsessed with the nuances of propaganda, ranted that “the receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.” Lest we forget, the people of Germany were behind him.
When mob-induced popular government policies become the norm, akin to Hitler’s, everyone is forced to accept that some minorities have to be sidelined, marginalised and disenfranchised if not victimised on account of their ethnicity and religious persuasions. The extreme version is ethnic-cleansing when overt and covert policies are punishingly used.
Propaganda today has a new platform in social media. Nothing is hidden, secret, sacred or confidential anymore. It is now everybody’s business. There are no more busybodies, just well-informed people. Propaganda’s nemesis is fake news that seems to have sprouted roots and shoots everywhere. There is an entire industry dedicated to outlawing fake news using the machinery of propaganda.
Imagine a world of peaceful and prosperous nations without propaganda. Politics will become obsolete and redundant as would politicians. A new breed of propagandists would call the shots with mass appeal not necessarily herd mentality. There will be no need for a large military or police power. Iceland has done it with a population of less than 500,000.
If managed well with social, economic and cultural benefits, these new propagandists would outlaw even the criminal justice system as crime would have plummeted like falling stock prices. Everyone can become responsible using banishment as the only punishment for those who insist in the old ways that arouse the nod-nod-wink-wink deals in business because of political clout.
With Undi18 on the cards, the new voters are well-groomed with instant information, and that in and of itself is a new brand of propaganda laced with the bitter truth that has bitter effects for the malefactors who mouth off the need to take the moral high ground.
Empty talk, election manifestos, lofty-sounding government policies all share the same evil propaganda platform. George Orwell in his “1984” issued a damning indictment that “all propaganda is a lie, even when it’s telling the truth.” This is propaganda at its zenith of influence and control when truth, myth, fiction and falsehood hide under the same shade.
Propaganda is the very essence, panacea and elixir of ruling, controlling, deregulating, accommodating, comforting and reassuring. No government can operate or survive without it unless the voters find a suitable alternative somewhere between a timocracy and an aristocracy bearing in mind that Plato frowned upon the manner in which democracies operate, relevant even today.
We should heed the classical English scholar Francis Cornford’s caveat: “Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists in nearly deceiving your friends without deceiving your enemies.”
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
