INFORMATION WAR issue 11 - 2014 with writing on NSA, Russia, ISIS
editorial team ANNA ERIKSSON & DANIEL LUNDH art director ALEXANDER SVENSSON writers MARITA FREIMANE ULF WALTRÈ SUSANNA HOLTEN LEONARD JOHARD CAROLINE WRANGSTEN DANIELA LAZAROSKA PELIN DEMIRÖRS
utrikespolitiska föreningen stockholm box 500 06 stockholm 103 05 organisation number 08 24 06 38 08 info@ufstockholm.se
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A WORD FROM THE EDITOR RUSSIA’S SOFT POWER STRATEGY NSA - THE DORMANT BEAST ISIS USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONTEMPORARY PSYOPS MEMES CONFLICT REPORTING RIO WITHOUT REMOVALS INFORMATION WAR IN TURKEY FINAL WORDS
THE STOCKHOLM JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
issue 11
INFORMATION WAR a word from the editor - DANIEL LUNDH
This issue of SJIA deals with information, how it has been used in conflicts throughout history and how it is used today. Information wars are fought over what you know, what you don´t know and what you think you know. Spies and propagandists have been used by every powerful ruler since the dawn of civilization. Propaganda creates myths and over time myths can become accepted as truth. A “Napoleon complex” is the supposed feeling of inferiority of short people, based on the historical myth that Napoleons thirst for power was caused by him wanting to gain power to compensate for what he lacked in physical stature. There is no historical evidence that Napoleon was below average height however, but the myth was used extensively in war time propaganda by the enemies of France and because of that lives on to this day. In the current era of information technology, similar propaganda methods and spying are used but they now can travel at a speed and have a reach that is unmatched in human history. The constant flow of information has made it possible for almost anyone with internet access to choose their own channels of information and by doing so - choosing their own “truth”. This is what the informations wars are ultimately about. The battle over the “truth” of what is happening in war zones, who is the aggressor in a particular conflict, and who has the moral authority on their side. In this issue you can read about the leaks for which Edward Snowden was hunted by the worlds largest superpower, ISIS recruitment through social media, how Russia uses information to control what it considers its “sphere of influence”, and much more. Enjoy! 3
ISSUE 11 2014
RUSSIA’S SOFT POWER STRATEGY BY MARITA FREIMANE
Throughout the past year the world has witnessed the dramatic events in Ukraine: the overthrow of Yanukovych’s regime, Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the ongoing military conflict in Eastern Ukraine supported by Russia through the supply of weapons and military recruits. It can be argued that one of the most striking features of these events is the amount of disinformation they have been surrounded by; predominantly spread by the Kremlin-controlled mass media. Noteworthy, this disinformation and propaganda does not provide one consistent narrative of the events in Ukraine. Conversely, the information spread is often contradictory, thus showing that the main purpose of it is not to create one alternative ‘truth’ but rather to make people question the Western narrative. Neither the annexation of Crimea nor the Russian military intervention in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Eastern Ukraine would have been possible without the support of the local population. Yet the loyalty of the local Russian minority is hardly surprising. It is largely a result of alienation from the Kiev government, accompanied by Russia´s soft power activities in Ukraine that preceded the military intervention and were aiming to increase support for the Kremlin. The term soft power was first coined by the Harvard scholar Joseph Nye, who defined it as “the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion”. According to Nye, 4
the soft power of countries rests primarily on three resources- culture, values and foreign policy. Russia, in the persona of its undisputed leader Vladimir Putin, has openly stated that the use of soft power is important for its strategy of re-establishing its status as a global superpower. Putin himself defines soft power as “methods and instruments to achieve foreign policy goals without the use of weapons, with diplomacy and other means of exerting pressure”. Not surprisingly, Ukraine is not the only country where Russia continuously attempts to increase its influence. For instance, the three Baltic countries, the EU and NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are concerned that a Crimea-like scenario might be repeated within their own territory. Particularly Latvia and Estonia, with their significant Russian-speaking minorities, fear the ever-present and increasingly assertive Russian soft power. Just as in Ukraine, Russia’s major objective in using soft power in the Baltic States is to alienate the Russian speakers in order to widen the gap between them and the rest of the population while increasing their loyalty towards Kremlin. This strategy is sustained through the “Russia´s compatriot policy”, the official message of it being Russia’s willingness to “protect the Russian speaking minority across the world“. A crucial role in pursuing the compatriot policy is played by the government agency Rossotrudnichestvo and its supported GONGO´s or Government Organized
INFORMATION WAR
Vladimir Putin visits Russia Today television station
“UKRAINE IS NOT THE ONLY COUNTRY WHRE RUSSIA CONTINUOUSLY ATTEMPTS TO INCREASE ITS INFLUENCE”
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non-governmental organizations. These state funded organizations, such as the globally active Russkiy Mir, act as platforms for promoting the Russian state and its culture, language and values as well as increasing the sense of unity among the Russian speaking population primarily within the post-soviet states. There are local organizations such as the Non-citizen Congress in Latvia that supports the Russian-speaking non-citizens and is actively working for support of Russian as the second official language in the country. The organization attempts to discredit the Latvian government and accuse it of depriving the rights of non-citizens by not granting them Latvian citizenship, while at the same time speaking out in favour of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Another factor contributing to tensions between the different ethnic groups in the Baltic States is their contradicting interpretations of history. These disagreements can be traced back to the outcome of WWII, which the majority of Baltic people see as the loss of independence and occupation by the Soviet Union, while a large share of the Russian speaking minority focuses on the Soviet victory over the Nazis and often the fact of occupation as well as the Soviet war crimes. A striking illustration of this was the riots in Estonia in 2008 that followed the relocation of the Bronze Soldier statue, a Soviet WWII memorial. These events were followed by targeted cyber-attacks towards the Estonian government that could afterwards be traced back to Russia. The dispute over the common history has provided Kremlin with an opportunity to accuse Baltics of “praising the Nazis”. Recently Putin expressed his concern about the “rising of neo-Nazism” in Latvia and other former Eastern bloc countries, a reappearing rhetoric among top Russian officials throughout the years. The media is another very powerful instrument that Russia holds in its hands. The Russian state-controlled media are the main source of information for a large part of Russian speaking population. It can be argued that Russians on one side and rest of the population on 6
the other live in two parallel information spaces. This has led to some controversies earlier this year when both Lithuania and Latvia temporarily banned broadcasting of two Russian TV channels, NTV Mir and Russia RTR on the grounds of spreading deliberate disinformation and propaganda. The influence does not end with the Russian state media as many of the local Russian language media are equally controlled by Russian oligarchs. Lack of independent Russian language media that could counteract and refute the disinformation being spread is thus apparent. Clearly, the Russian involvement does not stop with the media. A number of other soft power activities are carried out and even if not all can be reviewed here, several more should be pointed out. There are considerable business interests, especially within the gas sector, that are lobbied at the highest level of government. One example is the liberalization of the Latvian gas market that was delayed several times until the Latvian government finally approved a gradual liberalization in the spring of 2014. There is also a various degree of support towards Moscow among Latvian political parties. One, the Latvian political party “Harmony” has an official cooperation agreement with Putin´s party “United Russia”, while several other parties lobby Russia´s interests more subtly. The Russian Orthodox Church, with its Patriarch Kirill openly supporting Putin, is highly respected among the primarily orthodox Russian minority in the Baltics. In addition, Russian financed cultural and sports events, such as the musical contest Novaja Volna or Continental Hockey League, might seem innocent at the first glance, yet they also aim to raise the status of Russia not only among the Russian minority but the entire Latvian population, and do so rather effectively. So what should be the lessons learned and the measures taken by the countries concerned? First of all, it is important to focus on acting proactively rather than reactively. Issuing prohibitions, as in the aforementioned case with the two Russian TV channels, comes at a risk of it being perceived as an attempt of censorship, thus
MARITA FREIMANE
“AS THE CONFLICT UNFOLDS JN WILL CONTINUE TO EXERT THEIR INFLUENCE USING BOTH MILITARY AND NON-MILITARY MEANS”
mimicking Russia´s actions. Consequently, the best defence would be to increase knowledge and awareness among the population by actively informing about Russia´s actions. One way to contribute to this could be by introducing new Russian language TV channels, newspapers and other media that would not comply with the current narrative of the majority of Russian language media. It would be highly important that people living outside the larger cities, especially those close to the Russian border are reached, as they are the ones most exposed to the Russian propaganda. Furthermore, governments should be working on inclusive and unifying policies to counteract Russia’s attempts to divide the society. Also NGO’s should assume a more active role in counteracting the disinformation spread by Russia. To conclude, every action that could contribute to an open and educated debate would foster a more intelligent and democratic society and thus act as the best response to Kremlin´s information war.
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ISSUE 11 2014
NSA - THE DORMANT BEAST BY ULF WALTRÉ
At 15:25 on the 11th September 2001 the first Swedish newscast reported from the terrorist attack on World Trade Center, a mere half-hour after the incident. At request by the news anchor, SVT’s foreign affairs commentator said “The world will not look the same after this. (…) We will have more of a world that monitors after this.” It is baffling how strikingly correct that analysis was, given before the dust had even settled. As a direct consequence of the 9/11-attack, then-President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act). The act had passed the senate by 98 to 1. The extensive surveillance uncovered by Edward Snowden was made possible by a very aggressive interpretation of one part of the act. This interpretation was held secret and unknown to the public. Section 215 reads “Access to records and other items under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act”. It has allowed the National Security Agency to order private, otherwise independent, companies, including AT&T, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google and Yahoo!, to hand over any and all of their 8
records. In a single month in 2013 NSA’s “Global A ccess Operations” collected 97 billion e-mails and 124 billion phone calls. Through the businesses they may order around combined with the huge amount of signals going through the United States, the reach of the NSA is global. Even today, society at large doesn’t really seem to appreciate the volume of information this entails. Jim Sensenbrenner, former republican congressman, wrote the act with the intention of not allowing advanced surveillance of ordinary citizens. Today, NSA collects “all the signals, all of the time”, i.e. the vast majority of phone calls, texts, e-mails and Internet searches. Metadata, the data covering information about who sends what to whom from where is also readily available. Two quotes by high-ranking officers makes its importance clearer. NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker said, “If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.” Upon hearing this, General Michael Hayden, former director of CIA as well as the NSA, agreed and added, “We kill people based on metadata.” meaning that the CIA carry out drone bombings based only on metadata.
INFORMATION WAR
NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland/ foto: Wikicommons
This level of surveillance makes practically anyone immoral, criminal and inhuman. None of us are saints. What we call private ought to be kept exactly that. The NSA prioritizes its own interests and neglects the privacy of individuals. The security apparatus of the United States acts in a way that has never been approved by the people nor the elected leaders of congress. This creates an imbalance in Montesquieu’s idea of separation of power (which both the US and UK adhere to) between the legislature, executive and judiciary power. NSA and the PRISM program is a power abuse by the executive power. Even more flagrant is the violation of constitutional rights done by the NSA. The first amendment ensures freedom of speech as well as the press while the fourth amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and requires warrants having reasonable cause. The case against NSA can easily be made on either one. Even though the US broke its own rules by wire-tapping for example German chancellor Angela Merkel, no American has been prosecuted.
introduced it, just like 13 years earlier. The intention of the act is to stop bulk collection of Americans’ metadata and allowing companies to disclose information about government requests. What actual power the legislative branch has over the rogue agent NSA has become is yet to be uncovered. Most if not all countries have since 9/11 taken part in creating the “more of a world that monitors” - a few laws won’t change that fact. American officials defend the NSA by claiming that it has never abused its power. However, according to the Guardian only 11 % of phone number surveillance met legal requirements of “reasonable articulable suspicion”. The fact that the news of the level of surveillance came as a surprise to next-to-everyone is a scaring sign of a decaying democracy. The power the NSA possesses makes it dangerous even if it could reasonably be trusted today. The private data of our everyday life is saved for unnumbered amount of years. It’s naïve to put so much trust into whoever might have future access. [
The USA Freedom Act was signed in the House of Representatives on the May 22 this year. Jim Sensenbrenner 9
ISSUE 11 2014
ISIS USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA BY SUSANNA HOLTEN
image caption from ISIS propaganda video “The flames of war”
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To start a war in social media Have you been on Facebook this week? Or Twitter? Instagram? Yes, of course you have. Did you hit the like‐button below a video of a cute kitten that did something funny? Did that friend of yours upload another perfect picture of their perfect living room, again? Did your funny joke on Twitter get 250 retweets? Great! Many of us live a great part of our lives online. We share photos of dinners, pets, and kids. But did you notice that there is a social media war going on between all the kittens, amazing dinners and holidaytrips? On August 16, 2014, an organization called IS released a video online, showing the beheading of the American journalist James Foley, who was kidnapped in Syria two years ago. On September 2, 2014, IS eleased another video of the beheading of the journalist Steven Sotloff. Many of us may feel like this isn’t a new concept ‐ there have been lots of execution videos made over the years -‐ but did they go viral? And did the organizations behind those videos use social media to convey a message about the war that themselves are being a part of? No, this is something different. And that’s why we can talk about a social media war. ISIS - who, what, where?
such as rocket launchers, anti-‐aircraft guns and portable surface-‐to-‐air missile systems. According to US official numbers, IS has somewhere around 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria ‐ and they keep recruiting via social media. It is estimated that ISIS now controls about 40,000 square kilometers of land in both Iraq and Syia. Others estimate that the group controls 90,000 square kilometers of land, which is close to the size of Jordania. It is generally held that approximately eight million people live under the control of IS4, and the organization has primarly become well known due to their brutal tactics, including mass killings and abductions of religious or ethnic minorities.What is the reason for all this? IS wants to establish a Caliphate ‐ a state that is ruled by a single political and religious leader according to Islamic law. They want to keep expand their territory and move into Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine as well. Since the members of IS are jihadists, they adhere to an extreme interpretationof Sunni Islam. They consider themselves to be the only true believers and see the rest of the world as unbelievers who wantto destroy Islam. This is how IS justifies their attacks, aductions, mass killings and beheadings. This is also the message that they send out in social media through videos on youtube, tweets and content on their member’s facebook accounts. IS, or the Islamic State is a radical Islamist group,- originating from al-‐Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Al-‐Qaeda #ISIS played a major part in the uprising after the US-‐led IS has got lots of support online. Both fightinvasion of the country. After the killing of its lead- ing, active members of IS and their supporter, Abu Musab al-‐Zarqawi in 2006, AQI created an ers are active on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. umbrella organization -Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). But they do not just put graphic images of dead bodHowever, the group was weakened by US troops, and ies - they actually implement social mediastratedidn’t have any initial success. But in 2010, things were gies that make it possible for them to control their about to change as the group elected a new leader, Abu public image and what type of messages that they show Bakr al‐Baghdadi. In 2013, IS was back. They joined in the world just like any big company with presence inthe rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al- the social media sphere would do. ISIS does for inAssad and also carried out several attacks in Iraq. stance use social media to recruit new members The group is armed with a wide range of weapons, and raise funds. 11
“40 000 TWEETS WITH AN IMAGE OF AN ARMED ISIS MEMBER CAPTIONED “WE ARE COMING, BAGHDAD” WERE PUBLISHED”
One example of ISIS social media presence is an Arabic Twitter application called The Dawn of Glad Tidings. The app gathers all the latest news about IS and is promoted by its top users. When you download the app, you give it a lot of your personal data. What happens next is that the app starts posting tweets to your account. These tweets can consist of links, images and hashtags. The same content gets posted by everyone else that uses this app to make sure that Twitter’s anti-spam algorithms won’t remove the tweets. The all‐ time high of posts made from this application was reached when ISIS marched into the city of Mosul, located in northern Iraq. 40 000 tweets with an image of an armed ISIS-‐member captioned “We are coming, Baghdad” were published. This is a very effective way for ISIS to trend on Twitterand to get their message out there. But why would it be important to trend on Twitter? If you or your hashtag is trending, you’re the one that gets the spotlight. Your content will be seen, and there’s a great pos12
sibility that it gets shared by many more people than it normally would. Censorship or #notinmyname? ISIS content trending on social media has however led to Iraq blocking both Facebook and Twitter, as an attempt of damage control. This happened when lots of Islamists used Twitter to post a graphic image of a beheaded man, along with propaganda messages. Some sources also said that internet access was completely shut down in some areas of Iraq. Needless to say, censorship is always very troubling, and the shutdown makes it difficult for people that are using internet to organize against ISIS. Another attempt to battle ISIS online is the hashtag #notinmyname, initiated by an organization that ights extremism, called Active Change Foundation. The purpose of the hashtag is to reclaim the space in social media that currently is occupied by ISIS. To occupy space in social media is a very effec-
SUSANNA HOLTEN
journalist James Foley/photo by the James W. Foley legacy fund
tive way to be seen by many people – especially if the content posted is unpleasant and meant to scare the people watching it. Videos showing beheadings of journalists are a good example of this. It is also very effective if you want to remain a topic of discussion, an item on the agenda that is set by newspapers and news channels.
IS are aware of all these factors, and have found a strategy that makes them stand out from the images of pets, kids and dinners that your social media feeds normally consist of. Their social media presence is based on a strategy that makes their content go straight to the list of trending hashtags. The war is longer all about killing or damaging the opponent. It’s also about getting attention. Your attention.
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ISSUE 11 2014
CONTEMPORARY PSYOPS MEMES BY LEONARD JOHARD
Psychological operations constitute a form of story-telling like any other and have an established history of employing each nation’s finest novelist and artists, as well as creating them. Since precise estimation of the resulting effect of an operation is essential, experimental storytelling preferably takes place through free artistic expression and marketing campaigns in peace time. In war, there is a strong preference for tried and tested methods that have been shown to achieve the desired effect on the target audience.
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image “Pulling down the state of King George” by Johannes Oertel
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The desired war-time reliability necessitates a great deal of reuse of past stories, in whole or in part. This reuse creates a system of psychological operation memes that get repeated again and again, often by different parties. For readers familiar with propaganda techniques, the repetition of memes of psychological operations often makes identification of such stories a trivial task. This has long been the acceptable order of things, as dissident minorities have been unable to have a significant influence on the prevailing public opinion. This order have started to change with the advent of the internet. The decentralized nature of online news reporting facilitates the information flow outside the filters of mass medial channels. What is clear to an initiated reader is likely to become known to a much wider audience than ever before and consequently dramatically transforming the battlefield of information. According to Jonathan Swift, “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it”. But in our present reality the nature of truth is evolving into a new form, where it is delivered just as instant as the lie. Another famous saying often attributed to Abraham Lincoln is that “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”. Propagandists will soon need to fool all the people all the time. This, with only minor credit given to the audience, is only possible if the need to fool people twice is eliminated. There will be room for an industrial rebirth of creative writing and artistic liberties in order to prevent the truths from catching up to the lies too quickly. This will also be a revival of literature, where the academic abstraction of literary concepts allow a more efficient mixing of memes into new chimeras that are able to bypass the acquired immunity of an audience awakened to our history of untruths. As one of our dearest propagandists George Orwell wrote, “all art is propaganda”. Soon all propaganda will need to be art. Meanwhile, connoisseurs can continue to sit back and indulge in a profanity of naked lies and active meme proliferation with their daily morning coffee. Let us illustrate the development of memes with a few specific examples. Among our older viewer favorites are toppled statues. Infuriated crowds have been their banes since antiquity. A more theatrical trail of statuary destruction is drawn at least since George III in 1776, whom was pulled down by a rowdy crowd of sailors and soldiers, “no decent people were present”, although this contemporary picture was soon repainted by Oertel into a happy family gathering with women, children and native indians.
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top: SADDAM HUSSEIN STATUE TOPPLED/AP PRESS bottom: LENIN STATUE TOPPLED/Wikicommons
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More recently, a certain Marine Corps colonel apparently paid attention in history class and aptly identified a “target of opportunity” in Iraq in 2002. A group of military propaganda experts moved in with an engineer vehicle and performed the whole operation in the presence of a small crowd, who according to Al Jazeera were foreigners possibly flown in for the occasion. Wider shots revealed how camera angles were chosen to give the impression of a wider audience on camera and photo were photoshoped for the press with a larger crowd. The debunking of the Firdos Square story did not prevent the same meme from being iterated over and over again, with the latest statue hitting the dust in Ukraine and Syria. Whether the local support for the toppling activists is highly divided, in terms of Kharkiv, or rather unsupportive, as was the likely case in Syria, the events form a prototype of good images for gathering popular support for foreign or domestic audiences. A more surprising meme is the incubator babies. This was a modernized version of an atrocity propaganda meme from the Great War, were babies were said to have their hands cut off, being impaled on bayonets and nailed to doors. This became a commonly accepted truth and Belgian babies figured heavily in wartime reporting. However, all post-war investigations of these stories failed to localize any evidence of such victims. Now moving forward to 1990, in a now infamous testimony before the Human Rights Caucus, Nayirah testified that the Iraqi soldiers killed babies in the dozens by removing them from their incubators. This horrendous story aired in the evening news and played a key role in convincing the public and senate to support a war against Iraq and was likely facilitated by the fact that everyone at the time were unaware of Nayirah being the daughter of the ambassador of Kuwait, that the Human Rights Foundation was being run out of Hill & Knowltons headquarters and that the same PR company provided witnesses, wrote their testimony and coached the witnesses. That meme should have died then and there, but showed astonishing strength by being resurrected in Syria. In 2011 CNN reported that 8 babies died in their incuba18
tors after authorities cut power to a hospital. Meanwhile, rumours circulated in web forums with claims of 40 deaths. No evidence has yet been reported. The source used by CNN referred to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, a tiny NGO being operated out of Great Britain. This could be a telling part of the overall trend in recent decades. The modus operandi of contemporary black propaganda is indeed to set up NGOs, which are seen as being above serious criticism by much of the public. This increases the creditibility and avoids contamination of their white channels, which can merely refer to this external part and claim deniability. Atrocity propaganda like the incubator story is universally effective, but there are increasing attempts to target specific cultural traits. A recent trend when targeting Western audiences is an imposition of current Western political issues, as any such campaign can benefit from utilizing existing lobby and activist movements for gaining support. Especially LGBT issues has recently been an effective meme against many government in non-Western cultures. Take for example Gay Girl in Damascus, 35-year-old lesbian woman and blogger participating in anti-government protests. Her activism and later capture by government troops received widespread attention in the Guardian and on the web. Or so many thought, until the internet-based alternative media caught up on her and found her real identity through collecting various pieces of evidence. Or should I say “he”. The person behind the blog turned out to be a 40-year-old American heterosexual man living safely in Edinburgh. The cultural specialization results in differenty targeted stories, which become more difficult to compartmentalize into their target audiences as media access is becoming more internationalized. This means we sometimes are exposed to memes that was meant to achieve its effect in a different target group. This was evident in Libya, were we saw widespread international coverage of black African mercenaries being hired by Gaddafi. This was a play on a long history of racist sentiments in the area and aimed at creating local support for the rebels. Tragically, this story later led to brutal
LEONARD JOHARD
racist lynchings of unfortunate civilians by the victors. Meanwhile, Western audiences were being moved by different stories, such as the familiar mass rapes. A new creative twist entered the territory of black comedy when a cargo of Viagra was reportedly used to assist in the criminal acts. Amnesty was unable to find any evidence or witness of such rapes. Similarly, HRW’s post-war conclusion was that no black mercenaries were used, but that report came too late to save any lives. Culturally targeted stories such as these combine elements of past memes with an adaption to local conditions, which tends to make them slightly less generic and consequently more difficult to identify. No article is enough to give justice to the range of memes circulating today. Likewise, immunization is a slow and difficult process. As is clear from the examples given, the truth came limping after in most cases. On the other hand, their eventual exposure and publication in the alternative media could soon reach sufficient impact to prevent effective recirculation.
“THE DEBUNKING OF THE FIRDOS SQUARE STORY DID NOT PREVENT THE SAME MEME FROM BEING ITERATED OVER AND OVER AGAIN”
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ISSUE 11 2014
CONFLICT REPORTING OBSERVATION OR ACTIVISM? BY CAROLINE WRANGSTEN
photo: Al Jazeera camerman in Gaza/Al Jazeera English
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A key term in information warfare is disinformation which, as opposed to pure propaganda, uses information to mislead the target audience. Disinformation supports incorrect facts in order to consolidate a certain worldview. It isn’t always conscious, often times it’s a matter of how information is delivered- and what that information focuses on. In conflict reporting this requires sensitively. Some conflict reporters deliver cool breaking news of what the public wants to hear. These “breaking news” stories are often simplified: telling us who is the friend and who is the foe. What is a journalist’s actual role in severe conflict areas? Should she or he act as an observer or activist? It all comes down to the scientific and political discussion surrounding the issue of subjectivity; are we ever just observers? Some argue that choosing your material and what stories to publish, automatically makes you an active participant in the event. Yet some war- and conflict correspondents are more up-front about the role they’re playing. Journalists tend to believe that they’re reporting on conflicts for a good cause, but how this reporting is done is decisive for the outcome. Some ways in which conflicts are reported on could worsen the situation. An examination of the term “conflict” is in order. When using it in international contexts, people tend to think of war and violence, when as a matter of fact all of us live in some sort of conflict. Conflicts vary in scope and have various impacts on our daily lives, but we’re all in one. People around the world spend their entire lives in severe conflict zones but having said so, it doesn’t mean they’re experiencing violence every day- even though media would often have us believe that’s the case. Essentially, conflicts are a positive force that challenges us to rethink, redefine and eventually change the situation to the better. Conflicts and revolutions throughout history, occasionally violent, have led us to the advanced global world we live in today. What is important to remember is that conflicts consist of different stages. Only focusing on the violent stage does not provide a fair overview of the conflict. It is the simplification of conflicts, the narrow way of looking at it, together with the danger of repeatedly publishing one sided stories, that leads to disinformation. Often we together as a media community decide on one version, one story, and keep this idea about the
conflict through the entire sequence of events. We chose the story we understand. The media’s coverage on Africa throughout the years has come to be a classic example of the danger of unilateral reporting. For decades the media community outside Africa has reported on the continent as a struggling region characterized by suffering- and nothing else. Giving Africa this role in the world, not counting on Africa to be a player in the global economy, distorts Western perspective of the continent (and is the reason why politicians still refer to Africa as a country rather than a diverse continent). Covering local stories can help reshape the inaccurate and simplistic perception of Africa. Media tend to stereotype the evil and the good, enemies and friends. The issue with stereotypes is not that they are incorrect, but that they are incomplete. By stereotyping a certain group in a conflict we’re empathizing that ”we’re different” rather than ”we’re similar”. Sure, some live in a more desperate conflict zone than others. Some are in the conflict zone while others are in the comfort zone. No matter how far away the conflict takes place and how little those in the comfort zones can relate to, say ethnic, religious and fatal battles, hearing those everyday stories that makes these struggling people one of us can contribute to change. Take the Israel – Palestine conflict for example. For years and years, the media’s been reporting on the violence especially in Gaza. Both those directly involved and those indirectly involved are fed with the idea that the only thing going on in the Middle East is violence and more violence. Politicians tell us that the actors will never agree, on anything, ever- and media channels pass this message forward. “Eight Palestinians were killed in Gaza today” has come to be a frighteningly common news coverage. So what if the breaking news had a different focus? Imagine a world where TV-stations had to break for important news saying another school for Israeli and Palestinian children opened in the border area. While the biggest news channels and papers give reports on the violence in Gaza on a daily basis, alternative and independent journalists collect and study other stories: 21
CONFLICT REPORTING
the stories about what happens in Gaza besides violence. When was the last time you heard about a growing peace movement in Gaza? Did you know there is one? There is a growing nonviolent movement in Gaza where Palestinians and Israelis practice nonviolent activism, mostly by trying to get Palestinians and Israelis to spend time together. Searching through Swedish media you don’t see much of this, except when Sveriges Television (SVT) produced an episode in “Dokument Utifran” called “En farlig ide”. Some argue that by choosing to report only on violence, the media has triggered conflicts around the world. The actors watch this, get even more upset with each other, and the conflict goes on. What if we reported on the Palestinians and Israelis who actually get along, who meets for tea in each others home every week and talk? It’s not until the media helps us shape a different idea about the conflict, and possible solutions, that we will actually change the way we view and treat each other. It is when journalism starts focusing on solutions rather than violent struggles alone, that we’re approaching the area of “peace journalism”, a concept first introduced by Johan Galtung in the sixties. There is an ongoing movement, a change, in how journalists cover areas of conflict. Around the world, journalists now question the role they’re playing, asking themselves questions such as “how should I report on this occurrence?” and “why am I covering this conflict, and why in this way?” This self-reflection has lead to a growing group of journalists providing us with a more in-depth analysis of conflicts where the audience is given backgrounds stories, grass root stories, and examples of positive movements in otherwise troublesome areas of conflict. This group of journalists are today referred to as peace journalists. They know they can make a difference by choosing how to portray a conflict, and they chose activism before observation. Media makers around the world are mobilizing and challenging the way we report on conflicts, together working towards a more accountable conflict reporting. Thankfully, the public is mobilizing with them and is demanding more context and more background to conflicts when trying not only to understand what happened- but why it happened. At times we feel deceived, 22
we struggle to get the facts straight and understand a certain conflict, especially when it happens so far away from us. We’re trying to trust the media while still keeping a critical stance on everything we read. In addition to this, today’s rapid news feed makes it difficult to immerse oneself in specific topics because there are constantly new stories from around the world flowing through. This puts pressure on journalists not only to report on conflicts but to understand the conflict themselves, so that the reporting gives people the details needed in order to understand the foundations of the specific conflict. Traditional war correspondents are war- and elite oriented, as well as propaganda- and victory oriented. The mainstream media’s coverage of what led to the U.S. Iraq war, the U.S. military’s hunt for mass destruction weapons, as well as Egypt’s revolution in 2011 are all examples of when the mainstream media had little or no coverage of the root issues. Peace journalists, on the other hand, are peace- and people oriented as well as truth- and solution oriented. Furthermore peace journalism, sometimes referred to as solution journalism or conflict sensitive journalism, aims to move focus from violence and different violent groups, as well as from focusing only on the differences of the actors rather than similarities or shared history. Simply put, peace journalists want to report on what emerges on the ground while war correspondents focus on fulfilling political goals. It’s about exposing untruths on all sides. The way American media have portrayed America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war, or the war on terror in general, is an example of victory-oriented journalism trying to fulfill political goals. This way of reporting was revealed to us in investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill’s documentary and book “Dirty Wars” where Scahill investigates areas where the United States has intervened military in the war on terror. Scahill takes a critical approach to this involvement by talking to those affected by the many raids. The criticism of peace journalism has been the issue of subjectivity and the reporter’s role as an “activist”. We can’t agree on what’s right and wrong, especially not as observers, but we can decide on the importance of taking both sides of every story into consideration.
CAROLINE WRANGSTEN
If we get to know each other and hear each other’s stories, we won’t fear each other. We’re not afraid of what we know. Nonetheless, spreading hopelessness in the media hasn’t worked so far, while as spreading potential solutions might. Sure, journalism is about capturing the human behavior, but by choosing material that can have a positive impact on the audience and politicians, choosing to involve different stories from conflicts areas, journalists are able to do so much more than just capture and observe: they can help bring about positive change. Instead of saying “this is reality” the wording would be “this is one reality, out of many”. We should know by now that when it comes to human disputes, there are two sides to every story. What must be added to this saying, however, it that journalism decides how we perceive these stories- and each other.
“SIMPLY PUT, PEACE JOURNALISTS WANT TO REPORT ON WHAT EMERGES ON THE GROUND WHILE WAR CORRESPONDENTS FOCUS ON FULFILLING POLITICAL GOALS”
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ISSUE 11 2014
RIO WITHOUT REMOVALS On the Crossings between Academia and Activism in Brazil
BY DANIELA LAZAROSKA
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INFORMATION WAR
Many things Brazilian have been in the focus of media attention in recent months, many things offering a culmination of suspense and frenzy for observant spectators. The 2014 FIFA World Cup, the recently passed elections, or even the awaited 2016 Olympic Games provide salient examples of this phenomenon. What has all too often escaped the all-seeing god’s view of much media-production have been cases such as that of the bairro (community) of Vila Autódromo, in Rio de Janeiro. The surge of events that is being played out there is related to the planned constructions of an Olympic Park that has led to the displacement of as many as two thirds of the residents. Vila Autódromo, in the vicinity of the elite borough Barra da Tijuca, has existed over sixty years, having been first inhabited by fishermen who built their lives and livelihoods around the nearby lagoon Lagoa de Jacarepaguá. The community consists of 500 families (approximately 4,000 people), and a majority of the residents possess legal property titles, which are now failing to secure their rights to their homes. The amassing protest actions in Vila Autódromo have attracted professors and students from the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IPPUR-UFRJ) and the Urban and Housing Projects and Studies Nucleus at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF), which have engaged in collaborative efforts with the local residents. These instances of collaboration have imprinted the available mediums for activist-practice in a pivotal way. From the alliance between local residents and these experts, an “alternative” urban plan for the area emerged, or the “People’s Plan for Vila Autódromo” (Plano Popular da Vila Autódromo). It was produced as a “community planning project”, implying a participatory approach to urban planning. The document sought to affirm that Vila Autódromo can co-exist with the plans for the Olympic Park, and disclosed that the proposed re-location area, 4 km away from Vila Autódromo, has been categorized as “medium-high risk land”, as it formerly had been used for mining.
The Plan counters the vision for the Olympic Park plans not only in technical terms, but also through the engagement with the local community, by incorporating the resident’s needs, as gathered through a series of workshops, meetings, ethnographic fieldwork, and interviews. In this light, the collaborative work that has foregone in Vila Autódromo between residents and representatives from the universities can be seen as leading to the agglomeration of a body of both situated experiential knowledge and technical expertise. The residents have had an opportunity to take part of “official” practices of planning, while pursuing standard models for activist practice (street protests, petitions, mediation). Undertaking community planning in Vila Autódromo can thus be interpreted as a symbolic intervention against the planned construction of the Olympic Park, as it re-embeds legitimization with the current residents; but also as a technical intervention, as the infrastructural moments have been taken into account, and it could have been materialized. Despite this intermingling of positions of power and knowledge, however, the futures of the residents of the bairro is uncertain at the moment. Even though the possibility for those who wish to remain in their houses was guaranteed by Mayor Eduardo Paes in 2013, the removals that have been ongoing since April, 2014, suggest that this promise will not be kept. Indeed, pressures are mounting in Vila Autódromo, leading to conflicts arising in the community itself. These have taken on the form of protests by residents who would, in fact, like to leave. During a visit to Vila Autódromo with colleagues from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in March, 2014, one of the residents and most vociferous activists, Paula, was our guide. Walking in a steady pace, she spoke with an undisguised tone of indignation of what, according to her, was once a lively and socially tight-knit neighborhood. In front of a large pile of concrete and bricks refuse that had once the house Mariana, her friend and neighbor, Paula stopped. To her surprise, Mariana was there, and was looking in silence towards the wavy surface of the lagoon. 25
RIO WITHOUT REMOVALS
After years of struggling to keep her home, Mariana decided to sell it, and used the money to move closer to her place of employment. This had created a rupture in the friendship between the women, like the one that is now splitting the community. After a tour de force recount on the events that had forever changed their lives, on the fears and hopes they have been living with, they embraced in tears. If it is any consolation, a slight alleviation of the threat and pain of displacement for those like Paula and Mariana, Vila Autódromo has been prized with the Deutsche Bank’s Urban Age Award for the year of 2013. This will allow them, for some time, to continue their struggles. The residents of Vila Autódromo have attracted a great transnational following by movements and individuals that are sympathetic towards, or identify with their stories of living in the shadow of mega-events. These could build into new alliances, new knowledge assemblages, or as sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has named it, into new “collective intellectuals”, actors that stride to combine autonomy from economic and political powers with civic engagement. Nevertheless, forced removals are ongoing, and the Popular Plan has not been taken into consideration by the City Government. And one is left wondering, what is then to happen to other neighborhoods, where residents do not have access to elite universities that restate their claim through technically apt language? Whether the act of collaboration that bridges expertise and civil society can outdo an opponent of the mega-scale, is, indeed, a match that the author of this article wishes to see far more than any of those that the Olympic Games will bestow us with.
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DANIELA LAZAROSKA
VILA AUTÓDROMO - photo by DANIELA LAZAROSKA
“FORCED REMOVALS ARE ONGOING, AND THE POPULAR PLAN HAS NOT BEEN TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION BY THE CITY GOVERNMENT”
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ISSUE 11 2014
INFORMATION WAR IN TURKEY The AKP vs #occupygezi
BY PELIN DEMIRÖRS
photo by EMINE SOYDANYAVAŞ
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INFORMATION WAR
In poststructuralist theory, ‘knowledge’ is seen not as something a person has or doesn’t have, but as something that is created by individuals in social processes. It is not created out of thin air; rather certain contextual frameworks affect the production of all knowledge. Post-structuralism rejects universalist approaches in favor of context-independent criterions such as truth and rationality, as well as the idea of information having a single meaning. When problems are shared in or between cultures, context-dependent ideas emerge which effectively address the problem that the culture is facing. These socially constructed norms then govern the behavior of a given culture’s members with respect to relations with other people or cultures as well as relations amongst themselves. This article addressed the construction of norms and binary oppositions in societies during times of conflict. The notion of ‘good’ vs. ’bad‘, and ’us‘ vs. ‘them‘ in which the former is dominant and the latter submissive are essential qualities in hierarchical relations, which poststructuralists reject. In order to understand the meaning of the dominant/submissive status conferred upon each term in a binary opposition, we have to deconstruct the assumptions and knowledge systems that produce polar opposites and are based on an ‘illusion’ of a singular meaning. The AK Party’s political identity Turkish President (former Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government cabinet – the Justice and Development Party (the AKP) - have refrained from self-identification since the party establishment in 2001. Rather than describing a clear party platform, the AKP has mainly stressed principles they don’t defend. Since the establishment, the party has opposed the former military tutelage regime, and thus consistently been in conflict with the perpetrators of the 1997 military coup; the Turkish Armed Forces. It was “the party’s main objective to receive support from the majority whose quest for reliable political actors had turned into an ideology by itself ”, that obliged the AKP to ignore the question of political identity. To eliminate the risk of constricting its social base, the AKP substituted the need for political identity with political mission, thus
giving political responsibility to its base. In 2010, the AKP accomplished one of its main political missions when a constitutional referendum led to the decline of the Turkish Armed Forces and the end of the military tutelage. Since then, the party has experiences increased pressure to define their party platform and identity in order to complete the party’s political vision. The demand for Human Rights The AKP’s identity defining process has been highly affected by the current political situation in Turkey. Political antagonism is settled mainly between two distinct discourse formations: an individual-centered neo-liberalistic Human Rights discourse on one end, and the AKP’s community-centered moral conservative discourse on the other (this identity is self-proclaimed by the AKP, but it’s meaning is yet to be fixed). The discursive struggle between these polar opposite forces accelerated and reached its peak after the rise of an unexpected Human Rights influenced, anti government, social movement during the summer of 2013. What started in June 2013 as an environmentalist demonstration against the demolishment of Gezi Park in Istanbul, quickly spread nationwide and adopted the name #occupygezi as a reaction to the excessive use of police force by government initiative on peaceful protestors. Same year in December, the country was hit by two corruption scandals in which several members of government was implicated. Former Prime Minister Erdogan and his cabinet have since claimed that these events were part of an attempted coup against the government by ‘evil’ forces referred to as the ‘parallel state’, while activists and protestors in #occupygezi are accused of terrorism and treason. All opposition groups are conferred as “outsiders” (as opposed to the “insiders” made up of the government and it’s social base) and are thus given the role as the enemy. Almost ten thousand causalities – 11 of which have been reported as fatalities – during the series of protests starting in June 2013 has been motivated by the government as a legitimate fight against ‘terrorists’ and ‘traitors’, making it an issue of national security. Former PM Erdogan and his cabinet have faced harsh 29
TURKEY
Opposition groups are protesting against the fact that the country is kept together by police force, that the constitution is recklessly violated, government corruption, suppression and the implication of media censorship. These groups deny the existence of a ‘parallel state’ or terrorist organization, arguing such accusations are uncalled for and hence an effort by the government to escape responsibility. Constructing new identities The tention between the Turkish government and opposition groups during and after Gezi Park has affected the recent course of the AKP’s identity formation process significantly. Terms such as ‘parallel state‘, ‘coup attempt’, ‘evil forces‘, ’terrorist‘ and ’traitor‘ (accompanied by a series of other terms) make up a rough and discriminatory vocabulary that has become an important part of the AKP discourse. By using such language, the government has been able to draw a political frontier and establish antagonism between two opposition forces; making the AKP exactly what the opposition is not. Humans perceive reality through language. Or, more accordingly; we perceive reality through a certain representation of reality of which meaning is discursive, and such representations are created through the use of language. According to professor Özkirimli at Lund University, the Turkish government’s discourse has reached the status of hegemony, thus determining the national politics. In an interview he says “If Erdogan stumbles while walking on the street and falls down, they [the AKP] will say it is the ‘parallel state’ that placed the stone on the street”. Such an accusation contributes to the construction of a certain perception of reality in which the ‘parallel state’ is the enemy. Media has played a major role in the current discursive struggle. The government has used various media channels to settle a division between the government and opposition groups. Due to the government censorship, Turkish citizens have been heavily exposed to the government’s point of view in regards to the corruption scandals and #occuypygezi. In response, opposition groups have been counter-striking through social media. The controversial ban on Twitter imposed by the 30
government earlier this year was driven by Erdogan’s frustration over that evidence of the alleged government corruption was leaked on social media. “There is now a menace which is called Twitter”, he said during a public speech. “The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society”. Facing increased demand for democratization, the AKP is enforced to revise both the premises on which their discourse rest upon as well as their political identity. In discourse theory, this process of identity formation is achieved through the use of language. More specifically, identity formation is a process in which identity and antagonism is defined through lingual articulation. The AKP’s articulation of their opponents and the exclusion of antagonistic forces have become more aggressive since Gezi Park. Conferring new identities upon social agents (i.e. referring to protestors as ‘terrorist’) in an attempt by the AKP to create a new social order. The risk of political failure resulted for the Turkish government in the obligation for party reform. In discourse theory, when discourses fall into states of vulnerability and are threatened by an alternative discourse – as is the case for the AKP - there emerges a window of opportunity for the construction of new myths and identities, which could suture the dislocated structure and “save” the structure from failure. According to Laclau (1990), a myth emerges at times of dislocation when events occur that cannot be symbolised and integrated into existing discourses, thus causing their destabilisation. The formation of a myth is an attempt to overcome the dislocation by suturing the dislocated space into a new structure…it involves forming a new objectivity by means of the rearticulation of the dislocated elements.”
Making sense of information wars Departing from a discourse theoretical approach, I would argue that since Gezi Park, the Turkish government has redefined their concept of group identity and their perception of reality to establish a new political antagonism in Turkey, in order to maintain the political
PELIN DEMIRÖRS
hegemony. This process has required making up stories about opposition groups and their intentions. Millions of Human Rights supporters, environmentalist, animal right activists, members of ethnic minorities etc. joined #occupygezi for a good cause, rather than with a terrorist agenda. The thousands of causalities following the clashes between protestors and police forces, has created major controversy in Turkey. However, all this controversy has had its advantages for the AKP. The party’s decisions and actions during the protests in tandem with the public conversation regarding it, has in actuality led to the emergence of an alternative perception of #occupygezi that differs from the familiar “fighting for your rights” exposition. This new perception quickly gained foothold and kept the AKP supporter base intact. The events discussed in this article have been the single most debated phenomena during the past couple of years in Turkish media and society. An increasing number of citizens have in fact adopted the government’s point of view as a result of being heavily exposed to it.
“CONFERRING NEW IDENTITIES UPON SOCIAL AGENTS (I.E. REFERRING TO PROTESTORS AS ‘TERRORIST’) IS AN ATTEMPT BY AKP TO CREATE A NEW SOCIAL ORDER“
Earlier this year, AKP won both the local and presidential elections, despite the fact that these were held after the protests and causalities occurred. What can be observed is that Turkish citizens are falling victim of the government’s well-executed political strategy to win back political legitimacy that is on the verge of failure. Here I won’t claim the power of language and discourses as the singular cause for the AKP’s electoral victories, due to several other considerable-worthy factors such as alternative motives for voting, redistricting reforms and allegations of electoral fraud. However, what becomes unmistakable, is the importance of language and the construction and reproduction of discourses in times of conflict when observing how the production of knowledge and spread of information during a time of political turmoil in Turkey has worked as breeding ground for the Turkish government’s political success.
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THE STOCKHOLM JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
FINAL WORDS by PARISA KHOSRAVI - UF Stockholm vice president
This past semester has been filled with an array of activities that have contributed to an open debate on international issues. We have strengthened our relationship with embassies in Stockholm by continuing to offer #diplocafes and other exchanges that are highly appreciated among our members. Moreover, we have established closer ties to Stockholm’s civil society by cooperatively offering interactions like never before. UF Stockholm this year organized its first Smile for Peace conference that examined peace and sustainable development through our accomplishments in order to fuel hope and inspiration for a better world among youth. The theme was Peace & Development – In theory and in practice. Independent organizations such as Kvinna till Kvinna, SIPRI, and the Swedish Peace & Arbitration Society shared how they work to promote and sustain peace. Experts from Peace Works, SE Forum, and Reach for Change discussed the role of social entrepreneurship in attaining peace and sustainability while sharing the tools needed to develop a solution to a societal problem into a functioning enterprise. Furthermore, Leksell Social Ventures and 1325 Policy Group shared insights on how to build a social impact career. As 2014 is coming to an end, a new board will be elected. We are thankful for the growth our association has experienced, the many new friendships, and the wonderful events that have engaged individuals of all ages. Along with the new seminar series on, inter alia, the Post-2015 agenda, BRICS, global disarmament, and security policy, we are looking forward to the launch of our new website. We are very excited for the New Year, and hope that you are, too! Happy Holidays!
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INFORMATION WAR
This material is partly sponsored by SIDA, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. SIDA does not necessarily share or support opinions of this magazine. Stockholm Association of International Affairs is exclusively responsible for the content.
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