The murder of journalist Gyorgy Gongadze sees no progress in three years.

As young Canadians, we may take advantage of our freedom to criticize whomever we please and freely write and distribute almost any views, opinions, and ideas. Throughout the world, however, many professional journalists are killed for these same actions.  Probably one of the most famous journalists killed in recent years is Gyorgy Gongadze, an independent journalist and editor of the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayiniska Pravda. 

Gongadze went missing mysteriously after leaving a friend’s house in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on September 16^th, 2000.  His body was found decapitated six weeks later in a shallow grave near where he was last seen.  The case exploded into a full-blown scandal weeks later when it was discovered that Gongadze was considered a threat by many senior government officials because of his allegations of corruption within the Ukrainian government.  A former government security officer, Mykola Melnychenko, recorded the Ukrainian President, Leonid Kuchma, speaking with two other government officials about how to silence Gongadze. These tapes have recently been authenticated by FBI investigators in the U.S., yet are not accepted by Ukrainian officials as valid.

In July 2002, a new General Prosecutor, Skiatoslav Piskun, was appointed, yet he and his office have made little progress.  He created a new special investigative force for the case, whose purpose seems more to please the public rather than to work at shedding light on the murder. In fact, the corruption in this case seems to have escalated in recent months with the suspicious death of a key witness in the case, Igor Goncharov, in police custody in early August.

Goncharov’s death lead to new discoveries in the case, yet no action followed. Goncharov left a series of letters with friends and family addressed to the public and to General Prosecutor Piskun.  The letters outline all he knew about the case, indicating that the government was pressuring him and also focused on his distrust of Piskun and other government officials.  The letters outline the existence of a gang of criminals and authorities in the government who silenced opposition and were involved in business racketeering.  They implicate a number of high government officers, including the Minister of Interior Yurii Smyrnov, his predecessor, Yurii Kravchenko, and even President Kuchma.

These letters have been accepted by the Office of the General Prosecutor, yet have not been used to take action against those implicated.  Many, including Gongadze’s wife, Myroslava, believe that the constant refusal of Piskun to conduct a thorough, unbiased investigation prove the involvement of senior Ukrainian government officials, as well as a combined effort to conceal the involvement.

Crimes against journalists in Ukraine and many other post-Soviet countries continue.  In June 2001, Igor Alexandrov, head of a Ukrainian television station was beaten to death and the editor of Svaboda, a Ukrainian newspaper, was sentenced to ten days in jail for refusing to allow police into Republic, a privately owned publishing house.  The police were looking to destroy the entire print from March 24^th, 2002 because it made allegations of corruption in the government.

Not only are these crimes oppressing Ukrainian journalists, but they also affect most Ukrainian citizens.  The European Union continues to site the lack of freedom of press and the compromised safety of journalists in Ukraine as a main reason for Ukraine’s exclusion from the EU.  Ukraine’s relations with a number of other countries, especially the United Kingdom, are also very strained because of this same issue.

Freedom of the press and the right to free speech are fundamental rights.  We will never be able to be a truly peaceful and safe country until these rights are implemented in all countries.  Although we may be able to enjoy these privileges, others cannot, and it is important to educate ourselves on the rights of journalists and other members of the press.

“The first casualty when war comes is Truth.” 
U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917

Though some may think that propaganda is a relatively new invention, it is not. The word ‘propaganda’ was first used 400 years ago to describe priests responsible for spreading the Roman Catholic faith. However, propaganda was being used long before the word for it was coined. “From the time we lived in caves, we human beings have not only wanted to understand—and be understood—we have also wanted to persuade each other.” Today, propaganda refers to any material (ideas or principles) spread by the advocates or opponents of a cause. In WWII, propaganda was a war of words and images meant to convince people that one side was good and another was evil—one bound for victory and the other certain to lose. “It was a fight for the mind of mankind.” Although it may seem that propaganda today is very different from that of the time of Hitler, all that has truly evolved has been the mediums through which propaganda is conveyed to the public. Propaganda itself, its devices, strategies, and aims, have all remained very much the same to this day.

Indeed, the propaganda devices used have not changed and continue to be employed in the media and news. The most common of all propaganda devices is probably the “Appeals Device”. This device uses appeals to human emotions and desires in order to promote something and includes Humor Appeal, Sex Appeal, Atrocity Appeal, and Plain-Folks Appeal, among many more. Fear Appeal was often used in posters encouraging men to join the armed forces. An example of this was a British poster that showed the effects of a German bombing raid on the town of Scarborough. Its aim was to make men fear for the safety of their homes and families, so they would join the army to protect them. The use of Fear Appeal was also recurrent in President George W. Bush’s Address to the nation on March 17, 2003. This speech is an excellent piece of modern propaganda and will be used to analyze today’s propaganda as a whole. In it, the president says, “…the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other,” and later in the ninth paragraph: “…to confront aggressive dictators actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace”. There are many other examples of the Fear Appeal throughout his speech in which he attempts to scare the public into believing that war is the only option.

Another device that was commonly used in posters for recruitment was the Bandwagon or Join-the-Crowd Appeal, which conveyed the message that “everybody’s doing it!” This can be found in George Bush’s speech as well: “Many nations, however, do have the resolve and the fortitude to act against this threat to peace. And a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world.”

A word device that was commonly used in WWII was that of “Name Calling”. In posters to unite Americans behind the war, German soldiers were referred to as “Huns”—meaning barbarians capable of savage cruelty. Today, instead of using such harsh words to describe the opponent, the media has taken to the use of euphemisms as a substitute, in referring to Saddam Hussein and other terrorists. Such words as “tyrant”, “lawless men”, “deadly foe”, and “evil-doers” can be heard quite frequently on the news.

Another favorite of the propaganda trade is the Logical-Fallacy Device. In particular, “Transfer” (a branch of Logical-Fallacy) can be found in both war posters and Bush’s address. Essentially, it is the use of symbols and imagery of positive institutions to strengthen acceptance. The specific institution that I am referring to is that of religion. A perfect example of this is a famous poster depicting the hand of a German soldier holding a dagger piercing through the Holy Bible. This American anti-Nazi propaganda shows Nazis attacking Christianity and therefore suggests that America is defending it. The implication of having God on one’s side is not difficult to find in today’s propaganda either, since each of Bush’s addresses ends with something to the effect of “Good night, and may God continue to bless America.” These are just a sample of the many devices and stratagems still in use today. There are a great deal more such as Distraction, Misleading Association, Over-Simplification, and Selection devices that are all fairly self-explanatory.

Although it may seem that the mediums used in presenting propaganda have changed dramatically, technology has simply allowed them to be used more effectively. This is because mass communication media—newspapers, radio, film, television and the Internet—have greatly expanded. During WWII, every possible means was used to get propaganda across, including radio broadcasts, public speeches, meetings, posters, films, cartoons, leaflets, newspapers, songs, stage shows, and even spreading rumours and gaining support from religious organizations. At the time of WWII, official propaganda bureaus existed in both Britain and the U.S.A.—the Ministry of Information (MoI) in Britain and the Office of Government Reports (OGR) in the U.S.— and were responsible for the systematic manufacture and restriction of both black (false) and white (true) propaganda. Regardless of what the organizations were called, propaganda in World War II was acknowledged to be an essential part of government. In Germany, the Minister of Propaganda, Paul Joseph Goebbels, was second in power only to Adolf Hitler himself. In February 2002, however, an attempt to create an official propaganda agency by the U.S., called the “Office of Strategic Information”, failed. Thus, it may be argued that propaganda today is more difficult to detect, as it must be used more discreetly in terms of how the information is transmitted.

In the years of 1939-45, radio was the main way to reach the public, as it was available in most homes and the transfer of information through this medium did not respect borders. Both Britain and Germany experimented with television broadcasts in the 1930s, but the medium was not properly developed until after the war. Before TV, cinema was a valuable propaganda weapon and all Hollywood films were under government control. In fact, the most powerful U.S. propaganda came from Hollywood from 1941, in the form of voluntarily made movies to help the Allied cause. Since then, the shift from radio to television has made many more things possible. Specifically, it has furthered one of the simplest propaganda techniques popular during WWII—the personal appearance by a war leader. When Winston Churchill wandered through the ruins of bombed London chatting to people, he provided great opportunities for morale-raising photographs in the newspapers. Now, more than 60 years later, we see photographs of President George Bush visiting “ground zero” and a peculiar sense of déja-vu is induced. Hitler used this tactic as well, partaking in dramatic political rallies in which he addressed massive crowds on a platform. However, Hitler’s public appearances lessened around 1942-3 because their main weakness was that they reached only a comparatively few people. Today, most, if not all, of George Bush’s public appearances are shown on television reaching a much broader public than any political rally or radio broadcast ever did in the Second World War. His “addresses to the nation” draw a larger audience than any other television program in history. This is another example of the evolution and not the reconstruction of propaganda.

Finally, the purposes and aims of propaganda have not changed either. National propaganda had two main purposes: to help its own cause by raising morale and justifying the cause, and to put down the enemy. The two often overlapped. It generally had one of three targets: one’s own side, the enemy and neutrals. Wartime propaganda also used methods from the advertising industry and had a similar aim to persuade people to reach a conclusion without first examining the evidence carefully. The only major difference was the regard for truth: advertisers could be prosecuted for giving false information, while propagandists could not. All governments were prepared to lie to help their chances of winning. This fact has not changed. Although the focus of propaganda was often victory for the fatherland, most nations had the image of their leader built up, too. This was termed the “cult of the leader”. Japan laid stress on their emperor in peacetime; while in totalitarian states, dictators such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin also became the centers of so-called personality cults. The leaders of democratic states (Roosevelt and Churchill) were treated virtually the same. We see something similar to the “cult of the leader” in today’s elections, when more attention is often given to a party leader’s persona than to his policies. Albeit the cult of the leader in Canada with Jean Chrétien is not as developed as it is in the U.S. with President Bush.

From the above, it is evident that, over the years since the Second World War, propaganda, for all intents and purposes, has not greatly changed. The same devices, tactics and stratagems continue to be used today in countries all over the world for the same reasons as they were sixty years ago. Despite the fact that the mediums and propaganda tools used have undergone some transformations and evolved as a result of the advancements in technology, propaganda itself has remained unaltered. Still, many questions remain: “Is propaganda ethical at all?” and “Do our governments have a responsibility to solely present the facts?” It also becomes tricky when the same big business company owns media corporations as well as provides money for political campaigns. Another issue is how effective propaganda really is in helping a nation’s war effort. This has been a widely contested issue in the past and has remained a vital question because of its relevance in present-day society. Though one cannot deny that propaganda plays an important role, it is exceedingly difficult to estimate its overall effectiveness and the results are tenuous at best. While some believe that the war of words is more crucial than the one on the battlefield, others claim that propaganda could never change people’s thinking, only reinforce it. In this debate, it is probably best that the last words be left to Charles Cruickshank: “It is virtually impossible to assess the part played by propaganda. There is no doubt that it helped [a nation’s war effort], but how much can never be said with certainty.”

In the information age we find ourselves in today, youth seem to be getting much more involved with activism and educating themselves on what is happening throughout the world.  This publication is evidence of the awareness youth have about international human rights violations and international politics.

While this would be applauded, I do have one criticism.  Five Minutes to Midnight is based in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and in one of the best places to live, according to the UN, yet there are still so many problems with our society.  I do not mean to say that any society is perfect or we will ever be able to achieve the Utopian ideal, but the problems in Canada are horrendous. 

Too many people are all too eager to address the problems outside our own borders before solving the ones our own society battles.  Recently, at a conference addressing the problem of poverty, disease, and violence in the developing world, a student asked, “You are all quite quick to throw money at the developing world, but on your way here, how many poverty-stricken people did you see?”  This seems to be the story of our country.

We are sending money and manpower to Afghanistan, and while no one argues that the country is not in need, it is obvious that our country is also in need of aid.  The number of homeless people is rising while the amount of affordable housing space is decreasing.  Our country is refusing some of our founding nations the right to land and resources that they never signed away, forging a partnership with the US that disallows refugees or displaced persons from entering Canada from the US and vice versa.  Censorship of protesters with police and racial profiling are causing much distrust of the police, and quite honestly, the list of Canadian human rights violations and problems could stretch for pages and pages.

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Gongadze, Myroslava. Public Statement.  16 September 2003. 28 September 2003. <http://www.media.gn.apc.org/gongadze/030917a.html>

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Pirani, Simon “The Gongadze case remains a priority in UK-Ukraine relations.” Ukrayinska Pravda.  17 September 2003. 28 September 2003.  <http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/archive/2003/september/17/1.shtml>

Ross, Stewart. Propaganda — Era of the Second World War. East Sussex: Wayland Ltd., 1993.

Shah, Anup. War, Propaganda and the Media. 1 Feb. 2003. 28 April 2003 <http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Military.asp>.

Shah, Anup. Media, Propaganda, and September 11. 23 Jan. 2002. 28 April 2003 <http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/911.asp>.

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