The outstanding Iranian-American intellectual (atheist) Sohrab Ahmari:
“Just when sobriety, responsibility, probity, and diplomatic skill are most needful, our pundits and policymakers offer the opposite: trembling emotion, cheap propaganda, wild fantasies, a refusal to dialogue and de-escalate.”
Yet Sohrab Ahmari lives in America, where the current situation is incomparably freer than in Europe. There is no ban on analytical thinking, which is de facto applied by the government of Czech Prime Minister Fiala and other European countries. There is also no threatening of those who would perhaps question the official version. There is no blocking of websites. However, even so, an erroneous picture may emerge, and erroneous decisions will be taken on the basis of an erroneous picture. Those erroneous decisions may result in nuclear war.
…an erroneous picture may emerge, and erroneous decisions will be taken on the basis of an erroneous picture. Those erroneous decisions may result in nuclear war.
Ahmari recalls the Arab Spring, when the world saw “images of denim-clad, smartphone-wielding young liberals taking to the streets dazzled reporters and social-media users. The images fed a narrative of heroic Jeffersonians facing down hidebound kleptocrats.” Western politicians made decisions based on such images and helped bloodthirsty fanatics to power. “We are being bombarded with one-sided, emotionally gripping images…from photogenic young women taking up Kalashnikovs to defend Ukraine, to (manufactured) stories of Ukrainian troops sacrificing themselves rather than surrender, we are being bombarded with one-sided, emotionally gripping images.”
The aristocratic crowd decides! The crowd is stirred by an emotional image and no one dares to stand up to it.
I would add that the propaganda would not do such terrible damage if the leaders themselves and their advisors were working with truthful information. But we live in a time when there are no responsible personalities (except perhaps in Hungary). The aristocratic crowd decides! The crowd is stirred by an emotional image and no one dares to stand up to it. The crowd wants blood. More and more blood! Ukrainian and Russian. I’m just afraid it might be Czech, Polish, German or French too.
