Turns out the free world wasn’t so free. The war in Ukraine has exposed the weak level of democracy, the high economic, energy and political dependency we have and the planned disinformation in which we live. It has always been said that information is the first casualty of war, and in the second decade of the 21st century we continue to be. The right to information is extinguished by wearing the military uniform of the relevant side, and the entertainment and communication industry is used in propaganda channels. Here it is no longer worth questioning anything: if you are not with us, you are with the enemy. There are no sounds or doubts, just a binary world.
Journalist Pascual Serrano, director of Akal’s “A fondo” collection, examines the wounds inflicted on the ailing right to information by the shrapnel of cluster bombs exploding in Ukraine. Forbidden to doubt The ten weeks in which Ukraine changed the world. Ten weeks have already passed, more than four months and what is missing. Nothing Pascual tells us has improved. As in previous wars, the reports issued by the US and NATO are validated without the need for further evidence and investigation. Furthermore, and this is one of the most important novelties of this conflict, anyone who questions this information will be attacked. What they don’t tell us are the causes and context of the conflict, which would allow us to understand and resolve precisely that… if it were of interest.
Suspicion, doubt and questioning are forbidden. It doesn’t matter who is doing it: journalists, Spanish army colonels, high-ranking military officers with international responsibilities, well-known NGOs and even former UNESCO Director General Federico Mayor Zaragoza, who said NATO was the military institution that it should stop, to be an interlocutor with Russia, that this role corresponds to that of the European Union. Angela Merkel’s former military adviser warned that supplying Ukraine with weapons will only make the war longer and bloodier, paving the way to World War III. Others warned that these weapons will end up in the hands of the mafia and organized crime. All voices that elude the official belligerent discourse against Russia are silenced by the media, brushed aside, singled out and labeled as pro-Russian and deniers. Media on the enemy side are censored and banned. Journalist Pablo González has been detained in Poland since February 28 while covering the conflict for Público, Gara and la Sexta. No why.
There is hypocrisy. There is no place for war refugees in Yemen, Syria, Palestine… but doors are open to Ukrainians. We welcome the emigrants from the southern border with death, but we sympathize with the Europeans. The environmental crisis, the social budget is taken off the agenda.