Moscow reaps what it has dearly sowed over the years
On 23 November, the European Parliament passed a resolution which called on the countries of united Europe to counteract Russian and Islamist campaign. Moreover, the resolution spells out that the counteract will be carried out not by anti-campaign but education and supporting media. Moscow gave a tough answer thru official channels and the media in which the main “nail” by the Kremlin’s editing “the violation of freedom of expression” is unacceptable.
In other words, the Europeans according to these statements are violating Moscow’s “freedom of expression” in Europe. What does the European Parliament want to defend and from what? As for whom, it is clear, the “addresses” are simply mentioned.
If the main risk of the Islamist campaign is to enroll the followers for engaging in the terrorist activities, a threat that Europe is already facing directly, then the Russian campaign as mentioned in the documents is addressed to question the democratic values, to cause split in Europe, acquired supporters in the inner stage who would justify Russia’s aggressive policy, the hybrid war in Ukraine, the illegal annexation of the Crimea which is why Moscow has appeared under sanctions. In addition, the Russian campaign directly, including financially, supports the European political forces which share Moscow’s approaches.
Read also
When Europe seeing two World Wars created the European Coal and Steel Union, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman explained this idea first of all by the fact that thus it will exclude any war between France and Germany in the future. It is known that this union made the beginning of the current European Union. In other words, the United Europe is, first of all, a mechanism of excluding the conflicts that operates to achieve economic and political integration. Here is what the Russian campaign and its favorite right and left populist extremists strike in Europe.
In fact, Russia has waged a campaign war against Europe, United Europe, Europeans universal values, and European security. Naturally, Europe that has laid the foundation for modern universal standards of human rights and freedoms, and modern civilization, not only has the right but is obligated to be protected and to respond to the challenge sent. Incidentally, Russia is conducting this war not only in the EU but also in the Eastern Partnership countries, including Armenia.
After all this, Moscow is “offended” that the democratic norms are “violated”… All this would have been understandable and perceivable if the social and political system in Russia were built by the same standards, the human rights and freedoms in Russia, including the freedoms of expression and press were equally protected and respected both by the law and in practice. In reality, all this is not only disrespected in Russia but also simply abused. Three years ago, in Yerevan, Russian Minister of Culture publicly declared the European values as a “fiction of North-Atlantic propaganda.”
Therefore, viewing the information flows from Europe and from Russia on the same plane or “worthy each other” is not only a rough mistake but also a mere cynicism. If the European media has sought and is seeking to demonstrate all that Russian authorities are concealing and, moreover, accuses of “Russophobia” for it, then the Russian media is absorbed with lies, frauds, conspiracy theories, and hatred against the West in general. The Kremlin dictatorship just vitally needs an image of the enemy in the face of the West, it is necessary to prove to own people on a daily basis “how bad” Europe is, “how bad” America is. Well, then not speaking of the West about not being “spiritual” can be considered almost as Russophobia in Russia.
It is Russia that strives to revise the world order formed after the Cold War, to unleash a new Cold war, moreover, it is Russia that by the annexation of the Crimea created a situation in Europe which the continent saw the last right after the World War II when Hitler exposed the independent Austria to “Anschluss” and then annexed the Sudetes to the Reich. He was also “restoring justice” in his own way. He was also “disgusted” at liberals and liberalism. And it was not in vain that the Russian analysts found parallels in the two speeches: Hitler’s and Putin’s speeches respectively after the annexation of the Sudetes and the Crimea. Incidentally, the comparison of these two individuals was allowed not by some “Russiaphobia” or a “State Department hireling” but Putin’s policy advocator and political scientist Andranik Mihranyan with the judgments about the image of “good Hitler”…
And the “broadcast information” which the European Parliament is calling to confront descends from this toxic mixture. Many people say that Putin, however, is not Hitler and what we call a “Russian peace” is not Nazism, and Putin generally takes a mild view of any ideology and so on. Maybe it is so or not. So what? This does not make the threat less dangerous.
The standards of objective broadcast information require a balance of opinions and approaches. But when a challenge is sent to the media and, in general, the journalism and civilization, and a war is declared, then the states and the societies of the free world as well as free journalism simply cannot place the information and disinformation, free speech of the free person and ideological plague and propaganda garbage directed against free human on the same plane which directly insults the intelligence. Moreover, the important mission to confront all this relies on the journalistic community, the success of which is conditioned also by a healthy partnership of the state and the mass media. Certainly, the Europeans are right. The reaction will be carried out not by anti-propaganda but thru education and supporting mass media. Fact and intellect. This will make the propaganda turn into a nonsense. “The worst enemy for any propaganda is the intellectualism,” said Joseph Goebbels…
… Official Yerevan is conducting negotiating with the EU on a new agreement, and the officials have repeatedly stated that Armenia is guided by the European values. And how successful is the state and mass media partnership in our country, I will leave it for the judgment of the readers, journalists and editors as well as the statesmen and politicians assuming the political responsibility of dramatic developments…
Ruben MEHRABYAN
P.S. On October 16, 1946, the Nazi leaders were hung in German Nuremberg. The only one who was sentenced to death punishment who deserved it not for making criminal decisions on unleashing a war and genocide but ONLY for propaganda, also the only one who cited Hitler was Julius Streicher, the editor of Nazi “Der Sturmer” Party (“assault”) newspaper who had a tremendous “contribution” towards Jews and generally, in atmosphere of fear and hatred and war propaganda. The same day, during the trial, Alfred Jodl, Head of Wehrmacht Operational HQ, General and war criminal executed to death, after the testimony of Streicher’s wife, said about her, “She is too pretty for such a complete scum like her husband is.”
