Are you "nicodemist" ?
"Carte Blanche" written by Anne Morelli, Historian, professor at the ULB, specialist in historical criticism applied to modern media, in response to the reproaches addressed to her for having participated in a demonstration for Peace in Ukraine. This "carte blanche" was refused by the two "reference daily newspapers" in French-speaking Belgium (Le Soir and La Libre Belgique, not to mention them)... You can find the original on the Investig'Action website (here).
(First published 6 March 2023)
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If you are familiar with reading the Bible, Nicodemus is well known to you.
Indeed, this member of the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem appears several times in the New Testament.
He is a Pharisee, secretly a disciple of Jesus.
He listens to his teaching (John 3, 1-21), defends him (John 7, 45-51) and attends the descent from the cross (John 19, 39-42). But he meets Christ at night, and one can easily understand that it is for fear of compromising himself (he has official functions), and not to be recognized.
"Nicodemism", in its broader sense, covers today an attitude of dissimulation, a fear of asserting one's opinions, in order not to have problems.
The current war between NATO and Russia has given me the opportunity to discover many "nicodemists". They are indeed as numerous as they are discrete those who do not adhere to the official binary theory. Two irreducibly antithetical worlds would confront each other: on the one hand open and virtuous democracies, on the other a despotic empire populated by masses accustomed to obeying with "knouts". Us against them. The good guys versus the bad guys.
In this climate, how can we have the courage to say that our "communication" is as manipulative as their "propaganda". We know little about it since democratic censorship banned the French-language channel "Russia Today", whose program "Interdit d'interdire" was nevertheless a journalistic model, and closed the agency "Sputnik", to protect us.
We are therefore condemned to ignore the point of view of the Other and, on our side, all the oldest tricks are used to create emotion and mobilize us in favor of war.
Always using the same tunes...
On the occasion of the fourth edition in French of my little book "Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre" (Elementary principles of war propaganda) (1). I reviewed these principles to see if they were mobilized in the conflict between NATO and Russia and the result is very clear.
The first principles (We do not want war - the enemy alone is responsible for the conflict) are essential to develop for a war to be popular.
We must persuade public opinion that we are in a state of self-defense and that it is the "other" who started. It was his expansionist aims that dictated his attack. It is therefore obviously Russia that is presented as solely responsible for the war in Ukraine. Yet Machiavelli (2) (1469-1527) had already warned that whoever draws his sword first should not necessarily be considered responsible for the conflict. He may indeed have been put in a situation such that there is no longer any other possibility for him than entering into open war. Westerners thus speak of Russia's "attack" on Ukraine in February 2022, without taking into account the fact that NATO's eastward advance is, from the Russian point of view, a concrete threat against its territory to which – cornered – it has no other choice than end up "responding".
Of course, NATO assures that its advances towards the East are intended to "protect" Europe. It is a question of taking retaliatory measures in the face of the Russian attack and the USA says it is ready to use nuclear weapons in response.
Another elementary principle of propaganda is to present the leader of the opposing camp as a diabolical madman.
During the First World War, it was Kaiser Wilhelm II who took on this role.
Then, successively, Saddam Hussein, Miloseviç, or Gaddafi.
The current Western narrative does not fail to apply this simple and effective principle. We are not waging war on the Russians but on Putin suffering from paranoia. La Libre Belgique spoke of the Soviet Tsar (3). Le Vif in a 2014 article entitled "How to stop Putin" already denounced his "malignity", his belligerent diplomacy and called him a "thug" (4).
In the binary system of propaganda ("them" and "us"), it is always the leaders of the other camp who are the dangerous lunatics. "Our" leaders, of course, are sane and full of humanity.
Mobilizing public opinion for war also requires persuading it that, unlike our enemies, we are waging this war for noble causes.
We will therefore not speak of our expansionist projects nor of the economic motives of our warlike undertakings. The warmongering single-mindedness will not say a word about American shale gas which can replace – at a higher price – Russian gas. We will not develop the European project which sees in the Ukraine of tomorrow, integrated into NATO and the European Union, a great opportunity for cheap and close "relocation".
What the Western media will talk about, on the other hand, is our noble propensity to run to the aid of the enemies of our enemies. We defend the right of peoples to self-determination for Kosovo breaking away from Yugoslavia... But not for Crimea or Donetsk if they want to break away from Ukraine.
Propaganda should only highlight the atrocities committed by the enemy camp and never ours.
Thus, in the war in Ukraine, only Russian violence is reported. When Human Right Watch and then Amnesty International are concerned about the torture and executions committed by Ukrainians on Russians, especially prisoners, the echo in our country is weak and does not make the front page of the press. Empathy is reserved only for the victims of the enemy and not for the victims of Ukraine and its allies. Refugees are moving and worthy of solidarity only when they are presented as witnesses of enemy barbarism. Yet since 2014 the war in Ukraine has also forced residents of Donetsk to leave their town or village, but who cared?
The words used in this field are heavy with meaning. Mass graves and mercenaries are the work of the "Other", improvised cemeteries and foreign volunteers are on our side.
I will not review all the principles of war propaganda, but ALL of them are found in communication to sell the war between NATO and Russia to public opinion.
However, I will dwell on a point directly related to "nicodemism".
Critics are agents of the enemy
The tenth and last principle of war propaganda is that those who do not fully adhere to the politics of their camp, those who doubt what the propaganda advances are immediately stigmatized as agents of the enemy.
Recent conflicts are no exception to the rule. Pope Bergoglio moves cautiously between the two sides in the war in Ukraine. He was therefore immediately accused of being a "Putinist". Concerts, university courses are cancelled, artists and sportsmen boycotted because they have not clearly declared themselves in favor of our camp (5). Pacifists are kept out of the media.
The warmongering single-mindedness is so pervasive that it is very difficult and risky to question it, even if one begins any intervention with "I am not for Putin".
However, I have been able to verify on the occasion of recent interventions that I have made on the radio (6) or on television (7) that alongside the thurifers of war, there are also critical voices, many more numerous than you might imagine, not buying into the official media narrative about the war in Ukraine and the usefulness of sanctions. They advocate dialogue, diplomatic action, suggest solutions other than confrontation, which could be fatal to our planet. But these voices, which we notably heard collectively in the demonstration on Sunday February 26 in favor of peace and against war, want for the most part to remain discreet because it seems risky to them to question a narrative, supported by the all of the ruling and media circles.
When individually asked for their opinion in public, many lower their heads and rush to change the subject.
They want to avoid insults and wait for the storm to pass.
They consider it prudent to conceal their opinion, even if in our country it is difficult but not fatal, as in others, to defend a "dissident" conviction.
They act like Nicodemus...
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Photo: Demonstration for Peace, Bruxelles, 26 February 2023 © Henri-Jean Moxhet / Atelier du Snark
(1) Aden 2023. The first edition dates from 2001. The book is published in 7 languages including Japanese.
(2) Nicolò Macchiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, libro settimo, cap. XVI.
(3) La Libre, 4 june 2022.
(4) Le Vif, 5 september 2014, article by Gérald Papy.
(5) See my article on ambient Russophobia, published on Le Soir website under the title «Romain Rolland était-il poutiniste ? », Carta academica, 28 may 2022.
(6) RTBF, program "Ouï dire" du 8 février 2023 (7) LN24, 10 et 21 fébruary 2023
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