The 5 Pillars of Totalitarism
I remember a book about totalitarism I ve read a while ago but I dont recall the name of the author.
Nevertheless, it described 5 common attributes that political systems have when they fall into totalitarist behaviours :
- IdeologyAll fascist regime are based on one simplistic ideology, with the backing of appointed ideologues. I note that most are mixed with a strong nationalism and sometimes it s religious.
- Cult of personality
The head of state is often represented as the symbolic father of the nation, or the protector of the country s unity. There are picture of him in the street with no particular intent than to implement the cult of personality (not only for elections).
- Control of the MediaIn one hand journalists who dont comply to the official political line, are harrassed or even killed, while their newspaper can be closed arbitrarily. In the other hand there are strong ties (like ownership) between important media and politicians from the power in place.
- Police StateThe police resource is used heavily to watch people private life in order to find or harrass dissidents.
- High Military SpendingsA significant part of the budjet goes to military spendings.
How to Avoid Bigotry
I just note that two persons with the same IQ will often come up with opposing views on how a conflict should be solved if they have different cultural backgrounds.
For example, in the current Lebanon-Israel conflict, indians will have a tendancy to support Israel actions, because of the perception that islamists of the Hizbollah are the same as islamic militants from the Kashmir disputed areas. Americans and Israelis have a perception that Israel is a persecuted country and will always justify any offensive actions as a "right to defend". Arab countries obviously will support the lebanese government. Lebanon was considered as the Switzerland of the middle-east, and an emerging democracy. And Israel has a bad reputation for victimizing arab palestinians. Amazingly a lot of people justify killings of civilians and at the same time will show their disgust if others do the same thing.
Find the bad people gameAs an illustration in the
bbc forum "have your say", you can see a wide range of opinions : some are blaming Israel and some are blaming Hizbollah. You can also read critics about Blair, the US, Syria, Iran, Islamic militancy and Jewish lobby active in the US.
Bigotry in the Media is a plagueI dont mind when people try to make a point, but when there is a pattern (a background matching a strong opinion) .. this is plain and gross bigotry. Internet is full of that kind of opinions. It s insane. The root of all conflicts is precisely that people maintain the same perspective on the same situation. And who is responsible of that ? The beliefs spread in a community by the media (targetting that same community) and by community leaders themselves.
It s a shame when the media are not used to make people getting more close to each other but instead it tries to find pockets of opinions, while denying anything that can contradict them. One of the champion of bigotry is Al-Jazeera, it almost systematically suggests conclusions to the readers. The latest headline is
"UK terror plot : another absurd publicly stunt ?". Underneath it means that something such as muslim terrorists doesnt exist, muslims cannot do anything wrong, this is all conspiracy. In fact, Al-Jazeera has
a whole section of conspiracy theories. To be fair I could also talk about the last featured article of Jerusalem Post :
"Diplomacy : a paper tiger ?" showing how military actions are revered for this type of media.
Get diverse to find truthI try to read the
french news,
US and BBC as well as Der Spiegel but my german is not good, i only read the headlines to see what they talk about the most. I see differences, for example in the US they are more obssessed with religious sensitivity. In France they didnt really mention the incident of the desecrated coran. But France is very sensitive about racism and anti-semitism. A UK article such as
this one would be impossible to see because just mentionning the color of skin of a person is considered as racist.
I enjoy watching TV shows where journalists from different countries give their opinions. It s a very good way to understand a situation from informative professionals : "Dateline London" from BBC and
Kiosque from TV5.
My first blog
Hello world!!
This is a blog from a french consultant living in Helsinki.
Summer is great here, I love Finland, specially during this period. And I have a little time to write something.
This is my first blog. I ve been reading blogs since a while and participated to many forums but this is an attempt to put my thoughts together and also an experience in communication.
