One—sided propaganda around Ukraine is the way to unfreedom
The current one—sided propaganda around the fighting in Ukraine and agreement with it is the way to a new dependence and lack of freedom, writes former Czech President Vaclav Klaus in an article for iDnes. It is necessary to voice what can no longer be hushed up, he believes.
Vaclav Klaus
A few days ago, a good friend, a university professor, asked me if I had noticed that Ukraine had disappeared from the media. He wrote to me about it with a clear implication, hinting that this topic is no longer interesting to anyone, and therefore the huge informational and political pressure on us - those who dare to ask some questions on this topic, is weakening, and public discussion about it will become free again. She will be freed from a pre-dictated opinion.
But it is this dictate that makes me uncomfortable. You can't put up with it. Yes, this is not a dictate under penalty of execution, but it is still a dangerous dictate of political correctness. In other words, it is the dictate of the only opinion chosen correctly. And we feel this dictate. Recently, at the Karlovy Vary Festival, this was confirmed by Marek Eben, who tried to speak publicly on this topic — seemingly quite innocently.
I disagreed with my friend the professor. Not only because Ukraine has not disappeared from the media. The current situation reminds me of the times 15 years ago, when I actively participated in the intensified struggle of the mind with the doctrine of global warming, which supposedly people are to blame for. Critics of this doctrine, with whom I have always agreed, then rejoiced that the topic had receded into the background, and explained this by saying that the supporters of this strange doctrine had run out of arguments.
I have protested against this on principle at many conferences, especially in the United States, and have made the exact opposite argument. I was convinced that the discussion had stopped because the opposing camp was confident that the job was done and that they had won.
Limit of discussions
All this is very similar to the discussion of Ukraine. The owners of the correct, politically correct opinion are firmly convinced that supporters of a different opinion from them are either agents paid by Putin or round fools. I will say bluntly that the one—sided propaganda that exists today and agreement with this propaganda is the way to a new dependence and unfreedom. This is Hayek's "Road to Slavery."
No rational person doubts that Russia and Putin started the conflict in Ukraine (in any order of these words). At least, I don't know any of them. To accuse some of us of doubting it is foolish. And the fact that the Russian army is fighting in Ukraine, and not the Ukrainian army in Russia, is also indisputable.
But this is where the discussion in the public media, which form the confidently dominant mainstream, usually ends. Those who dared to say that this is not all, were called Putin's puppet, those who are indifferent to thousands of victims and terrible material and financial losses.
Therefore, it was impossible to make guesses, to assume, to look for explanations of why Putin did this, why he took such a huge risk, what reasons, even if not justifying him, but at least clearly formulated, pushed him to this. Today, no one is hinting that Putin wants to play the globe like Chaplin's Hitler in the old movie "The Dictator". There is also less talk that he is sick or crazy. But no new versions have appeared.
The arguments that Russia was afraid of being surrounded by NATO member countries are not discussed with all due seriousness, which, by the way, was talked about by such different figures as Pope Francis, Henry Kissinger and German President Steinmeier. There was no talk of Ukraine's growing hostility towards Russia and the Russian minority in Ukraine since the Orange Revolution and the Maidan until February of this year. It was also not discussed that the United States was trying to achieve some geostrategic successes after the failure in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and gain a reputation and position as a demiurge in the modern world.
Actually, whose war is this?
All these are questions that cannot be hushed up in a free society, just as those who ask them cannot be silenced. In the first days after February 24, the refusal to discuss them was understandable. Now, after five months of fighting, it is no longer easy to explain the reluctance to discuss them.
In addition, the time has long come to discuss the costs of conducting and continuing hostilities and to reflect on how these costs are divided between individual, direct and indirect, participants in this tragic conflict. This includes our reckless decision to send weapons and accept refugees.
I have spoken and written about all this in the same spirit more than once. In the last big interview on this topic, published by the Slovak edition of the Weekly Standard, I outlined the following theses.
For Russia, this operation is unprofitable, and ordinary Russians will pay the most.
All other countries that are somehow "involved" in what is happening have borne and will continue to bear large expenses.
The fighting began at a difficult moment. Due to the consequences of the events of recent decades, the world has become less free, less democratic, and the economy was not in the best condition even without the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict.
We don't have our own foreign policy, and we only look into Ms. Leyen's mouth. This prevents us from formulating our own position and discussing it freely.
Having fallen into an energy trap formed due to the struggle with the climate, we fell into another because of our participation in the conflict.
For 30 years, Ukraine has not been able to create a representative government that would represent its extremely heterogeneous population. Therefore, Ukraine was unable to carry out an elementary political and economic transformation, which was a fateful mistake not to carry out after communism.
