P for Propaganda

A recent news link referred to Putin’s girlfriend, Alina Kabaeva, who called propaganda as important as using Kalashnikovs, in the current war. Seriously? At least she’s naming it for what it is. Propaganda is a catch-all term for state sponsored lying. 

movie poster in public domain

Propaganda permeated the UFA (Nazi movie industry), as well. The most famous movie being Triumph of Will. We might laugh at the stupidity of these manipulative films, but they worked. Putin knows this.

Why is propaganda—blatant lying—so popular?  Why else would global corporations spend billions on advertising?  As a human race, we're a gullible lot.  In one Russian video clip, interviewing young residents from St. Petersburg, a woman artist said, “propaganda helps people lie to themselves.”   

Lying to one’s self is easier than ever with social media. We only ‘like’ what we follow and vice versa. If everyone is out to deceive us then who do we trust? I feel like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Media-literacy has never been more important. Critical thinking skills can’t be assumed. We need diverse points of view.

My parents’ generation grew up under the influence of Hitler and his propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels. Germans, always ready to follow rules, were told they were the chosen people— superior to Slavs, Jews, Roma and coloured people. Treat humans like animals long enough and that lie becomes easier to believe.

Russians are now told that Ukraine is their enemy, overtaken by Nazi fascists. As ludicrous as this sounds to our western ears, Russians are losing touch with objective truth. Meanwhile, massive corporations control our media. Ads about liquor, cars, beauty products, holidays, etc. bombard our lives daily. 

Canada is a democracy, but this freedom of choice has a price. Our challenge is to be aware, skeptical, and engaged. It’s up to us to separate truth from propaganda.

Here are some tips to avoid being 'brain-washed' by propaganda.

1. Listen to/read/view multiple media outlets. Don't share something on social media if you can't verify the facts. 

2. Be aware of the distinction between mis-information (an error) as opposed to dis-information (a lie). 

3. Be aware of the power of slogans and symbols. (for example: Soviet: raised fist; Nazi: swastika; Russia: Z; clothing brands: the Nike swoosh)

Check out this Canadian government website for more information on how we can be aware of potential manipulation of facts during the current conflict in Ukraine.

Music as Propaganda

To get myself into the spirit of my upcoming book launch (Friday, January 13th, at McNally Robinson's, Grant Park and online), I’ve been listening to some music that inspired me while I researched and wrote Crow Stone. After all, next to the sense of smell and the taste of food, what can be more memorable than a little music? At the bottom of this post, I’ve including links to some evocative, war-inspired songs that the characters in Crow Stone might have been familiar with. 

Tango dance pattern:  Hyancinth: CC

Propaganda, whether through music, film, print, youth groups or schools, saturated German society under the Nazis. As the war faltered, the propaganda machine grew louder and more ubiquitous trying to bolster morale.  As Putin is currently discovering, an army with low morale is a losing army. 

Why does music have such power? Perhaps it’s for the same reason why good fiction has power. It's about emotion. It’s through the lens of emotion that we experience our world. 

Which reminds me, I’ve got a new word to guide me through 2023. It’s gratitude. Is gratitude an emotion? I know that it’s a lens that lets me see the world with hope and with positivity. 

Perhaps you might enjoy the music with me as I share my re-living, re-telling, re-visioning of the hell experienced in 1945 throughout parts of eastern Europe.  Seen through the lens of the doomed women and children inside the imploding Third Reich, it was a time when the propaganda of music made a mockery of the very lives it was trying to control. 

Schön ist die Nacht by Kurt Widmann (p. 28, Crow Stone)

Lili Marleen: originally by Lale Anderson (p. 28, Crow Stone)   or by Marlene Dietrich (p. 47, Crow Stone)

Zarah Leanders, 1931

Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen:  by Zarah Leanders (p. 8, Crow Stone)

There's a bit of Christmas music scattered throughout the book, too. It's a great irony that a culture that birthed the Second World War with its brutal atrocities, also birthed Silent Night and other beautiful Christmas songs.  But who wants to hear Christmas music in January?  Suffice it to say that Hitler and Silent Night were born in the shadows of the same Austrian mountains. 

Propaganda

Propaganda: comes from the word ‘propagate.’ It means to spread information. The Catholic church saw propaganda as one of its duties and created foreign missions.

It didn’t take long for ‘propaganda’ to turn bad…to become a pejorative.  It came to mean, ‘misleading’ information that manipulates its intended audience. Nowadays, we call it ‘fake news.’

I’ve been reading Joseph Goebbels’ war time diaries. Goebbels was a propaganda master during the 30s and 40s. Goebbels monitored what films would be produced, what got cut in those films, what documentary newsreels would be seen at the beginning of those movies, —and when they could be seen. Timing was important.  He controlled what newspapers and magazine were allowed to print, and banned foreign newspapers. He’d even decide on the timing for Hitler’s emotional speeches.

Kate Greenaway Public Domain  

Goebbels was like a conductor and the Third Reich was his orchestra. Of course, the composer behind it all was Hitler, but Goebbels made the Third Reich’s message blare loud and hypnotically for twelve frightening years. Kind of like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

In this age of the internet and social media, Goebbels—the ultimate control freak—would no doubt be sleeping even less than he did while writing his war diaries. The father of six children had little time for parenting or for sleep while he managed propaganda during the Second World War.

Propaganda is still rampant and we must always scrutinize what we read, watch or hear.