Mind-Munitions

Epilogue 321
on that theory, we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of
persuasion that we cannot verify.
So, in an age of propaganda, the only course of action open to us is
to learn to identify it for what it is – merely a process of persuasion
that forms a part of everyday life. It can be used for good or ill, just
like any other form of communication, but its very pervasiveness in
contemporary society is a reflection not just of the multiplicity of
media but also of the plurality of mediators who exist for getting us
to think – and do – something which serves their vested interests.
Those interests may, or may not, coincide with our own. If they
do, we tend not to label it as propaganda. They become our shared
value system, our common set of ‘truths’. It is only when we meet
someone from outside this system, whose views of the world are
quite different from our own, that we can begin to appreciate that
there may be another way of looking at things. We can accept or
reject that different way, but we ignore it at our peril. In a
globalized, communications-rich environment it is unlikely that it
can be ignored anyway. There are those who equate globalization
with Americanization, and they don’t like it. The attempt in the
United States after 9/11 to understand ‘why they hate us so much’
at times failed to give due emphasis to the enormous amount of
support Washington has from around the world in the fight against
international terrorism. But the agonizing also reflected a failure of
American propaganda to project itself as a benign ‘force for good
in the world’. The Romans hadn’t really worried too much about
this aspect of their power in the ancient world and nor had the
European empires of more recent times. But the communications
revolution had changed the environment in which power now had
to operate. In its democratic manifestation, it now needed to be
explained. It could no longer be left to speak for itself.
When, for example, nothing was done about Radio Mille
Collines in Rwanda which called for the massacre of Tutsis, the
dangers of leaving the information environment to those who would
abuse it was plain for all to see. However, despite sympathetic
western media coverage for the plight of the Chechens in the winter
of 1994-5, western governments were slow to put pressure on
Moscow to stop the ‘slaughter’. The Russians tried to exclude the
international media altogether from the second Chechen war. They
argued that the Chechens were not freedom fighters but terrorists,
and the seizing of an opera house full of citizens in the late summer