The CEF 2015 – Everyone is lying

About the Central European Forum in 2015:

In her famous essay Truth and Politics, Hannah Arendt argued that “freedom of opinion is a farce unless factual information is guaranteed”. In the countries of the ex-Eastern Bloc, people still remember how dangerous factual information was deemed to be under dictatorship. Yet, recently we have seen that it can be just as dangerous to a democracy when factual information is drowned out by myths, half truths and disinformation. Something which in the autumn of 2015 was seen to be particularly true as Europe was plunged into a major crisis.

Starting in late summer 2015, Central and Eastern Europe, much of which only celebrated its psychological and physical return to Europe in the autumn of 1989, started sliding back to the margins of Europe for reasons very different from those in the 20th century. It was not so much the influx of refugees which the region seemed to be so worked up about, as the the influx of myths, half-truths and disinformation which help to formulate opinions and thus often comprise the real danger.

On the eve of the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Central European Forum 2015 thusly provided a platform for the local population and writers, sociologists and political scientists from all over Europe to discuss the causes and possible solutions to the rise in disinformation. At the close of the first Central European Forum in 2009, Václav Havel said that “Slovakia enjoys a special position in our region” “as it is the only country that shares borders with all Central European countries, a position which seems to predestine it to discuss Central Europe and its relationship with other regions, Europe and the world as a whole”. In 2015, the seventh Central European Forum continued to stay true to Havel’s words and invited visitors to join them once more in Bratislava, as they turned their attention to disinformation, its forms, its rise and the impact it was starting to have upon the region.

Recordings:

To watch recordings of the debates at the 2015 edition of the Central European Forum, merely click on one of the dates below.

Téma 2015:

“Bez toho, aby boli zaručené overené fakty, je sloboda názoru fraškou,” napísala pred mnohými rokmi Hannah Arendt v slávnej eseji Pravda a politika. Si pamätáme, aké nebezpečné boli tieto overené fakty pre diktatúru. Teraz vidíme, že pre demokraciu je rovnako nebezpečné, ak sa fakty strácajú uprostred mýtov, poloprávd a dezinformácií. Dvojnásobne to platí uprostred najväčšej krízy, v ktorej sa Európa ocitla. Naša časť sveta, región, ktorý sa na jeseň 89 s takým nadšením mentálne aj fakticky vrátil do Európy, sa posledných mesiacoch a týždňoch znovu – aj keď z celkom iného dôvodu ako v 20. storočí – posúva späť na jej okraj.

Bezprostredným dôvodom nie je len príliv utečencov, z ktorých má náš región obavu, ale príliv spomínaných mýtov, poloprávd a dezinformácií.

V predvečer výročia Novembrovej revolúcie budú o príčinách a možných východiskách diskutovať – spoločne s prítomnou verejnosťou – spisovatelia, sociológovia a politológovia z celej Európy. “Slovensko má v regióne zvláštne postavenie,” napísal po prvom ročníku Stredoeurópskeho fóra Václav Havel, jeden z jeho prvých hostí. “Ako jediné má spoločnú hranicu so všetkými stredoeurópskymi štátmi a je teda tak trochu predurčené k debatám o Strednej Európe, o jej vzťahu k ostatným regiónom, k Európe a k svetu ako celku.”

Related articles:

Europe:

•  Nicolás de Pedro and Marta Ter “Operation Nemtsov”: disinformation, confusion and some worrying hypotheses
•  Mayte Carrasco and Cecilia Ballesteros Real journalism now: the media after Spain’s revolution
•  Peter Oborne We don’t need to wait for Chilcot, Blair lied to us about Iraq. Here’s the evidence
•  Joanna Szostek Is Russia outgunning Ukraine in the ‘information war’?
•  Rikard Jozwiak EU to counter Russian propaganda by promoting ‘European values’
•  Action Plan on Strategic Communication
•  Janis Karklins, Wojciech Przybylski and Raul Rebane Controlling the trolls
•  The Atlantic Council Seven allies establish NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Latvia
•  NATO Stratcom Centre of Excellence
•  Lev Gudkov The technology of negative mobilization. Russian public opinion and Vladimir Putin’s “Ukrainian policy”
•  Frances Coppola The Greek negotiations: many angry words and no way forward
•  Salvatore Palidda Criminalisation and victimisation of migrants in Europe
•  Richard Seymour The campaign against Corbyn
•  Lousie Ridley Why is Jeremy Corbyn reviled for making exactly the same Bin Laden comments as Boris Johnson?

North America:

•  Eric Alterman Obama and the media
•  Craig Whitlock Somali American caught up in a shadowy Pentagon counterpropaganda campaign
•  Michael B. Kelly US government-funded domestic propaganda has officially hit the airwaves
•  Shawn Cassiman Resisting the neo-liberal poverty discourse: on constructing deadbeat dads and welfare queens

World:

• Lilly Rahim Fear, smear and the paradox of authoritarian politics in Singapore
• Rainer Schulze Netanyahu, the Grand Mufti and the Holocaust: why it is important to get the historical facts right