29 March 2024, Friday, 1:52
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

Hey, Somebody!

28
Hey, Somebody!
Iryna Khalip

Will the Belarusian propagandists repeat the act of Marina Ovsyannikova?

The moments Marina Ovsyannikova spent live on the Russian First Channel with a poster “Stop the war, do not believe the propaganda, they lie to you here!” were called by many world media “six seconds that shook the world.” Social networks, meanwhile, got divided into two camps.

Representatives of the first camp said that Marina had accomplished a feat, that she was the heroine of a new free Russia, that she had done more than all Russian liberals had done in two decades, and that she simply needed to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Representatives of the other camp argued that if Ovsyannikova participated in propaganda for many years, and after the start of the war on her Instagram she sympathized with the Russian military, then the price of her act is zero point zero, and in general this is a well-thought-out action, and not a cry from the heart, and the result will be a small fine, but, unlike other workers on the propaganda front, Marina will not be banned from entering Europe, and the dividends will be much higher than the fine.

Frankly speaking, for two days I "wavered along with the party line." Both the first were convincing, and the second. On the one hand, Ovsyannikova is really just a cog in the propaganda machine that has been working for twenty years without failures, and she had a very "Russian world" page on Instagram. On the other hand, whatever one may say, such a demarche is not just a letter of resignation, it is an act of a different level. The whole world was talking about Marina for at least a day, and against the background of her poster, which lasted for several seconds on the air, the idea that conscience nevertheless breaks through well-being, like grass through asphalt, has become an axiom from an indefinite, unformed, tongue-tied hypothesis. In the middle of the 2000s, when most of the Russian media began to gradually turn from independent media into Kremlin servants, and journalists surrounded themselves with belongings and compromises, someone very correctly formulated: "Freedom of speech in Russia was ruined by mortgages". So, it turned out that even a mortgage could not cope with a person who suddenly (and it does not matter what became the motive) wanted to tell the truth. And, perhaps, the act is still more important than the motive.

And yesterday, while cleaning out my computer, I came across a statement from BT employees about the start of a strike from August 17, 2020 addressed to the chairman of the television and radio company Ivan Eismont. There were five demands — the recognition of the presidential elections as invalid, the resignation of Yarmoshyna, the cessation of violence, the release of political prisoners and the abolition of censorship in the media. Under the statement there were more than three hundred signatures. Can you imagine what three hundred people are at the epicenter of propaganda, when they are demanding the same as the Belarusian people? What "Swan Lake" they could put on the air! Or an author's product, because among the signatories of the statement were presenters, directors, cameramen, make-up artists, sound engineers, technicians, assistants. In general, the entire "line up".

And here the scale of Marina Ovsyannikova's act finally becomes clear. Because at the very time when the operators were laying out leaflets on the BT sofas (in fact, this was the beginning of the propagandist riot), and more and more signed sheets were attached to the statement about the start of the strike, when they booed Kochanova entering the building, and Ivan Eismont called employees for negotiations, the same propaganda sounded on the air. No sound, no signal, no fig in the pocket, no Swan Lake. But it was these three hundred people who could lead the revolution. All they had to do was stop lying.

What an amazing August it was. Ivan Eismont's wife was not yet named Massandra, and she drank much nobler drinks than the Crimean port. Columns of demonstrators came to the building of the television center, those who were poured with shit from this building for years, and those demonstrators were ready to defend the propagandists. (Just recall that one of those columns was led to the building on Makayonak Street by Maksim Viniarski) To hell with resentment — all for the sake of the future. In the building itself, demands were set, and preparations were made for a strike. Three hundred signatures on a bold statement. The smallest thing was missing — conscience. After all, it is conscience, not courage, that makes people do things. Courage — this concept applies to rock climbing, and base jumping, and auto racing. But to tell the truth on the air — it does not need courage, but only conscience.

But in that hot August, Belarus was just a dictatorship. And now it is an ally of the aggressor. Missiles are flying from our territory, killing Ukrainian children. Is it possible that none of those three hundred signatories (only a few people quit, the majority continue to work quietly) will not raise a poster on the air with a few simple words of truth? Hey, somebody!

Iryna Khalip, exclusively for Charter97.org

Write your comment 28

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts