I sent a text message the other day, to a highly educated and intelligent old friend. I have not seen him for a couple of years, but we have exchanged amicable messages from time to time. This was the message I sent this time:

Glenn Diesen’s speech at the UN Security council. It was about geopolitics in general and the Ukraine war in particular.

That was all I wrote. My short text was followed by a link to the said speech at the UN Security Council. I recommend the speech!!

This was the response I received:

This is just about as bad as it gets from a well-known peddler of Russian war propaganda and lies (not that I follow what peddlers of Russian propaganda say). It is a strong defence of the right of superpowers to invade and annex countries (e.g., the US and Greenland or Panama). Ironically, it is also a defence of the right of the superpower Europe, in order to defend its legitimate security interests, to supply Ukraine with weapons and keep the war going indefinitely. But Professor Diesen probably doesn’t understand that.

I will not deny that I knew, when I sent the link, that my friend, as almost all other Norwegians, believes that Putin is the devil incarnate. Norwegians have been told so by our media. (Unlike the USA, we have practically no news outlets other than state and corporate media.) So when I sent him the link, I had only a very faint hope of effecting a slight dent in his attitude.

At any rate I do not intend to reply to his message as it does not serve as an invitation to a mutually rewarding discussion.

A discussion worthy of participation would include, on my part, questions such as:

  • Did we (the West) engage in this war in order to protect Ukraine?
  • Is our bellicose attitude 1) benefiting Ukraine 2) benefiting us (Europe)?

I recognise that my friend should have every right to challenge me with his own questions, such as:

  • Was the invasion of Ukraine in contravention of International Law?

I would have to reply: “Yes”, but I would ask a similar question in return:

  • Did the Ukrainian government prior to the invasion (and with NATO assistance) act in contravention of international law?

At any rate I urge you to hear Glenn Diesen’s response to the criticism he undoubtedly has received following his speech to the Security Council.

***

What makes debate about the Ukraine war particularly tricky is the way the media filters information. In Norway, for instance, the filters play a part in framing the invasion as “unprovoked”.

In Norway we still trust the politicians we vote for, (strongly dislike the politicians we don’t vote for) and basically, according to Norway Statistics, trust the system (score 6.4 out of 10) and our press (score 6.2 out of 10). So people read the mainstream news and see no reason to question the framing of international issues in accordance with the views of Santa Ursula and Kaja Kallas.

Such levels of trust are remarkable compared to the state of affairs in the USA where, according to Pew Research Center figures, “just 17% of Americans now say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always (2%) or “ most of the time (15%).” Confidence in US mainsream media fares hardly any better: “seven in 10 U.S. adults now say they have “not very much” confidence (36%) or “none at all” (34%).

Edward Bernays (1891-1995) had the brilliant idea of renaming “propaganda” “PR”, (public relations). We all know that propaganda is what the bad guys, notably the Russians, do. We don’t do propaganda. We just do “information” or PR. The result, in either case, is indoctrination. Interestingly, it would seem that we in Norway are more indoctrinated than US citizens. I’m afraid I do not know the score for Russia.,

The first sentence in the English Wikipedia article about indoctrination is currently: “Indoctrination is the process of inculcating (teaching by repeated instruction) a person or people into an ideology, often avoiding critical analysis.” That is exactly what has happened here in Norway.

Norwegians have been told again and again and again, by our government, and also by opposition politicians, by the newscasters on TV and radio stations, and by newspaper articles, that Russia’s “full-scale invasion was unprovoked“. No wonder Norwegians are angry. To me they huffily recite their catechism: “It was a full! scale! unprovoked! invasion”.

Russophobia is a new phenomenon here! To my knowledge, there have never been skirmishes on our shared border with Russia! Particularly in communities in northern Norway where Russian prisoners of war were used as slave labour by the Germans and where they died as flies of cold, illness and hunger, people used to feel, until recently, immense sadness about all who suffered here, and gratitude to the Russian forces that drove the Germans out of Finnmark and then simply left. What the post-modern Norwegian press has done is really unpardonable: It has made a whole population suffer from Russophobia and has turned academic giants such as my friend into Cyclops. It has been able to do so because Norwegians trust the system and trust the media.

So this is the flip side of the coin in a socially coherent welfare state: I suspect there is a degree of positive correlation between levels of “trust”, public satisfaction and welfare on the one hand and the level of indoctrination on the other.

How can you argue with Russophobia? How can you argue against any phobia? If a person suffers from agoraphobia, there is no way of convincing him with simple words that he need not fear leaving the house. Arguing against Russophobia seems equally hopeless. There is no such concept – here in Norway, at least – as “European war propaganda”.

These days, the first thing I do when I open my eyes is to check my phone: Has the USA attacked Iran, yet? And every morning, so far, I have heaved a sigh of relief. Does that mean that I have been taken in by Iranian propaganda? Of course not. But I must admit that if the USA does attack, I hope Iran will give the aggressor (and Israel, on whose behalf the USA would be attacking) a beating. I look forward to hearing Santa Ursula’s and Kaja Kallas’ views.