The truth will set us free

For Antena M by: Miljan Vesovic

A curious thing happened to me three weeks ago. While I was reading the news on the Internet, I visited couple of pro-Vucic Serbian online outlets as well – know thy enemy, after all. There I noticed that these pro-regime outlets in Serbia were paying an outsized attention to the recent revelation of names in the so-called “Epstein List”. As far as I saw, while other regional media reported about the names in a couple of articles, Serbian media churned out at least 4-5 articles a day about late Jeffrey Epstein and his acquaintances. The reporting followed the similar pattern – there would be a bombastic title, something in the vein of “Epstein’s Pedophile Friends Finally Revealed”, followed by names mentioned in Epstein’s trial and witness testimonies (former US presidents Clinton and Trump were first, followed by famous people like Stephen Hawking or Michael Jackson).

Somewhere at the bottom of the article, buried in the small print, was the information that the names mentioned are actually not all pedophiles, just people whom witnesses named in different contexts, and that court determined that, to its knowledge, no one of these people was actually guilty of improper sexual relations.

The second curious thing happened to renowned expert on Russia, cybersecurity and Western Balkans, Ivana Stradner, when she read the news about incidents in Donji Svilaj, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Namely, a couple of weeks ago Bosnian police found two illegal migrant camps there. Firearms and ammunitions were also discovered (presumably belonging to organized crime gang which was smuggling the migrants). However, the Russian analysts and commentators presented the whole affair in a different light. They claimed that migrant camps were full of armed young men who received weapons from “Albanian Mafia from Kosovo”.

One of the most renowned public intellectuals of today, Douglas Murray, described, in his famous work “The War on the West”, another curious case that happened in 2021 to the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. The venue is of course famous for being Shakespeare’s original playhouse – even though the original structure is long gone, the interior setting of the theatre was painstakingly reconstructed to resemble as closely as possible the original stage where the great writer himself presented his plays. However, under pressure from “woke” interest groups, the Globe’s management decided in 2021 to “decolonize” Shakespeare and make it “anti – racist”. They brought “experts” who somehow established that all Shakespeare’s plays were in fact racist.

Their proof – a couple of quotes from Midsummer’s Night Dream where Shakespeare used term “fair” to denote something good and where a verse “Who would not trade a raven for a dove” was presented as key evidence that Shakespeare associated whiteness (dove) with beauty and blackness (raven) with ugliness.

The fourth curious thing happened to me again when I was reading the article by two Montenegrin opinion-makers who presented the case for “formation of an authentic left-wing movement” in Montenegro. While I won’t be delving further into the state of leftism in Montenegro, one thing there captured my attention – the authors of the “Manifesto” called Western European countries “US Colonies” and concluded that Montenegro, in its development, should take “Global South” as an example and not imperialist (or some such word) North.

I usually do not leave comments on articles published online, but this time I wanted to do it. However, the internet outlet which published the article decided that my criticism was too much for sensitive intellectual souls of the authors, so it decided to censor me.

At this point our dear readers might rightfully ask themselves what the hell is the connection between a billionaire pedophile, a small town in the middle of Bosnian nowhere, the state of the left-wing politics in Montenegro and William Shakespeare’s alleged racism. Well, there are several connections.

First – the lies and unsubstantiated allegations. It is simply not true that every acquaintance of Epstein was a pedophile. It is also not true that Kosovo is sinisterly trying to incite conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina by arming migrants – it has absolutely no interest to do so. The Midsummer’s Night Dream is definitely not a racist play. Montenegro doesn’t belong to the “Global South” and try saying to, for example, Emmanuel Macron, Pedro Sanchez or Viktor Orban that European countries are US colonies.

Second connection – the weaponization of these lies. If you manage to convince the public that two recent US Presidents, a collection of movie stars and one of the most brilliant scientists of the era are disgusting pedophiles, it causes a (wholly undeserved) visceral reaction of disgust towards the countries from which these men come and taints every political, artistic or scientific accomplishment these men achieved. If you spread false information and weaponize migration (and Russia and Iran do that not only in the Balkans, but also in the Mediterranean and on US/Mexico border) to incite conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it gives a cause to Dodik to start secession of Republika Srpska and cause a real civil war.

If you manage to denounce Shakespeare, who lived in 17th Century as a “racist”, then who on Earth is safe from “cancelling” – enormous chunk of Western art and culture will be invalidated. If Montenegro finds itself divided between pro-Russian populist right and pro “Global South” populist left -who would be left to defend the Euro-Atlantic values of freedom, democracy, human rights and free market – no one.

Third connection – the end goals. First goal – destruction of public trust in institutions and in so called “pillars of society”. How can you trust your government, your stock broker company, your law office, your church or indeed watch a movie if you are convinced all these are run by a bunch of pedophiles? How can you trust the same institutions if you are convinced that they are systemically and inherently racist and build to exploit black and brown races to the benefit of white race? How can you trust scientific achievements if people who achieved them are either racists, or pedophiles, or both? The short answer is – you can’t.

Second goal – creation of global chaos. By weaponizing ethnic divisions, migrations and by targeting vulnerable areas such as Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, Middle East or South China Sea, the global anti – democratic China-Russia-Iran axis wants to destroy the world order as we know it by destabilizing everything everywhere. The destabilization is an end it itself as well as a mean to achieve another end – as it cements the authoritarian rule at home and validates it as an effective form of rule abroad. We all know how the story goes – democracy is messy, ineffective, leads to chaos – you need a “firm hand” to live peacefully and get things done.

Third and ultimate goal – disorientation. What happens when people, exposed due to advent of new technologies to biggest information overload ever seen, suddenly reject their leaders, their institutions, their values and their culture? That same people see the world in chaos and that same people see the seemingly endless polarization of politics and seemingly inexorable movement from the center towards the fringes.

How does it work? It works by forcing societies into series of so – called “overcorrections”. Everyone wanted to defeat racism and sexism – but in that goal Western society started overcorrecting itself by curbing the freedom of speech (so – called “political correctness”) and introducing reverse racist concepts such as “positive discrimination”. Then came populist right who overcorrected the situation by making undoubtedly xenophobic language a part of political mainstream. Along then came the woke mob – trying to convince everyone that the Western, institutions, culture, art and values are a bunch of racist, oppressive and imperialistic things that should be trampled underfoot. The populist right’s response to the woke mob – celebrating Putin (a KGB colonel who claimed the fall of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of our age) or Orban as “true conservatives” and “defenders of Christian values”. And so on, and so forth.

Or, in Montenegro – the former, DPS led ruling coalition wasn’t exactly keen on fighting corruption. Then came the overcorrection – allegedly to “fight corruption”, the whole country was handed over to a bunch of pro-Russian and pro-Serbian parties that want to destroy Montenegro from within and make it a part of the “Serbian World”. Now comes another overcorrection – unable to admit their own failures, Montenegrin politicians and intellectuals are turning to anti – Western, “Global South”, “fight against colonialism” woke rhetoric, thus unwittingly helping their enemies – Vucic and Putin, achieve their goals.

Once countries and societies are forced into an endless series of overcorrections, the disorientation of the electorate reaches fever pitch. Simultaneously angered, shocked and driven to its wits end by overwhelming waves of conflicting information, the electorate goes through different stages of grief until it reaches the last one – apathy and lethargy. Once the West and people who believe in its values are lethargic – Xis, Putins, Vucics and Khameneis of the world have the free reign to rearrange the world as they please.

How to resist that? With truth. Truth is main enemy of authoritarians and the only tool by which their unwitting agents of influence in the Trans-Atlantic community could be brought back from the cold. Post – modernistic assault on objective truth is central to (for example) Putin’s or Vucic’s approach. Putin and his agents of influence can be anything at the same time – as long as it harms the West. For progressive left – they present themselves as champions of anti – imperialism and fighters against oppression of old colonial powers. Regular Che Guevaras. For conservative right – they are the biggest Christians in universe, fighting the wokeness, the LGBT, the reverse racism and sticking their necks out for family values. However, when faced with the truth – they try to discard it as “propaganda” or claim that their own version of “alternative facts” can be equally true.

However, the simple truth always wins the argument. So here we go – Stephen Hawking or Donald Trump (picking random examples from the famous list) are not pedophiles. Albin Kurti doesn’t want a conflict in Bosnia – Vucic and Putin, however, do. Shakespeare was not a racist – someone who claims all white people are racist, however, is. USA is not a racist country and a colonial power, and France is definitely not an US colony. Hamas is a terrorist organization. With all due respect, Montenegro should not be like Bangladesh or Burkina Faso. Putin, Xi and Vucic are dictators who want to destroy the world order by creating conflicts in their neighborhoods and should be stopped in that intention.

As you can see, it is not difficult, and it is very helpful. After all, Jesus Christ and Karl Marx didn’t agree on many things. However, they agreed on one – the truth will, indeed, set us free.