Beware the propaganda you pay heed to

Bogart with fag: filtered or not?

A few days ago, with an hour to while away at lunchtime, I pottered along to the British Library to see its current exhibition on Propaganda: power and persuasion.

Although the subject is hardly new, the exhibition itself is described as ‘groundbreaking’.

On that note, I was at a bit of a loss to understand why. That’s not to say that some of the exhibits are not fascinating – a 16th-century book of anti-papal cartoons, for instance, which is used to illustrate the importance of the printing press to the spreading of propaganda – but it hardly felt revelatory.

The exhibition included recorded interviews with various people, including, for instance, Alistair Campbell, the former spin doctor to Tony Blair, while various exhibits bring the subject bang up to date by examining how social media is being used in the cause of propaganda.

There were materials from both sides in the first and second world wars, materials relating to colonialism and liberation struggles, to domestic politics and also to the sort of health and public information messages that we perhaps forget are also propaganda.

Perhaps it all felt a little staid because of the times we’re living in.

After all, this is the government that has looked as though Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It has been its working script for governance.

And that’s before we mention Iain Duncan Smith’s repeat offence of being ‘economical with the truth’ about welfare stats.

Or David Cameron’s “there will be no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS”.

They could give Goebbels lessons.

Mind, as we’re also seeing, a complicit, conniving media is a big help.

In much the same way, as the issue of pornography has hit the headlines, the propaganda machine has been beavering away to sell the idea of internet service providers (ISPs) putting anti-porn filters on any contract.

You’ll have to opt in to ‘adult material’, not opt out.

But as I asked the other day: “One of the concerns about this announcement is whether it softens people up for further censorship. Do we trust government on the issue?”

Well, I didn’t then and the reasons are becoming increasingly apparent – whatever personal feelings are on the issue of pornography itself.

Because it seems that porn is far from the only thing that the government wants ISPs to block.

It seems that users may also find that they have to actively opt out of blocks on a variety of things from ‘violent material’ to ‘suicide-related websites’ to ‘alcohol’ to ‘smoking’.

Now it’s hard to know how this would work – whether a search for Alcholics Anonymous, for instance, would be barred if you hadn’t opted out of the relevant one. But that’s far from the only issue.

Many of the currently listed topics to be ‘filtered’ could easily play well with the population – ‘extremist’ materials, for instance.

But who finds those by accident anyway?

What should alert people rather more to the real agenda here is seeing ‘web forums’ listed – why? – together with the extraordinarily-labeled ‘esoteric material’, which, one suspects, could be applied to mean whatever someone wanted it to mean.

After all, since ‘esoteric’ means, in essence, ‘only understood by the initiated’, that could be applied to anything.

This blog, for instance. Trade unions. Religious groups. Take your pick.

Or, more to the point, whatever is the pick of whomsoever is in charge of defining these things at the time – fuller story here.

There’s a simple lesson to be learned here – hopefully before it’s too late: beware the propaganda that you allow yourself to believe.

Liberty, rights and fear

It's a tiny purse: black with a gold-coloured clasp; a little battered. It could hardly hold more than a few coins. When it was found, it held a return ticket from Epsom to London.

Emily Davison never returned to the capital. Instead, she died after running out in front of King George V's horse, Anmer, at the Derby, a martyr to the cause of women's suffrage; to the right of women to participate in the political and democratic process of the country.

The purse – and the return ticket – are currently amongst an extraordinary collection of items in the British Library's exhibition, Taking liberties: the struggle for Britain's freedoms and rights.

There is one of only four known remaining copies of Magna Carta. A 1651 first edition of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. A 15th century letter from Owain Glyn Dwr, a 13th century papal bull, a notebook belonging to William Blake and handwritten notes from Gladstone on Home Rule for Ireland in 1893.

But two things almost take the breath away: Davison's purse is one. Charles I's death warrant from 1649 is the other.

The parchment, fragile and yellowed with the passing of over three and a half centuries, remains an extraordinarily powerful document. Oliver Cromwell's signature is third down on the left, a confident hand. And the seals of those who signed are like drops of blood, gathering pace as they put their names to the document; as they sought to send to his maker a man who believed that, as a monarch, God had granted him his powers and no mere man could take them away.

It is with awe that one looks at these exhibits, trying to draw something from them, to understand the events behind them and the events that transpired as a result; to conjure in the cinema of the mind's eye what these artifacts represent.

What was in Davison's mind as she faced the horse? What were those men thinking as they put their signatures to the death warrant?  

And the mind turns to the question of how readily some would give away the rights that have been so hard won; that have cost real blood.

Britain is the CCTV capital of the world. It'll cut crime, so it's said. For Londoners, you can expect to be photographed around 300 times a day while going about your entirely legal business. The concomitant cut in crime has not noticeably occurred.

The government is trying to introduce ID cards, but without any obvious reason. They have gone from the idea of compulsory ID cards to voluntary ones, with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith explaining that they'll only really be needed by people 'near' borders. So that'll be passports, then?

In high-profile interviews, senior police officers float the idea of a universal DNA database to test out public opinion – every new-born baby would have their DNA taken and placed on the database in case they do something naughty when they're old enough. Yet as the DNA database that we already have has grown massively, convictions have not grown at anything like the same rate. DNA is not some magic bullet that will solve or stop all crime.

And so many of the people, in their fear of terrorism and crime, say: 'well, if you've nothing to hide ...'

The police are given new powers, making every offensive imaginable an arrestable offence – even dropping a sweet wrapper on the street. And in another new move, they can also, under the guise of fighting terrorism, stop people filming or photographing them.

And so many people, in their fear of crime and terrorism, say: 'well, if you've nothing to hide ...'

We have helped to launch an illegal war. We have been complicit in rendition and torture. We have imprisoned people without trial – and government would like to be able to hold people for longer without charge.

And so many people, in their fear of what politicians and media tell them to be afraid of, say: 'well, if you've nothing to hide ...'

As Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Those people who see no problem with the creep of a Big Brother state should see this exhibition. And think on what it shows.

Because the message is clear: our rights came at a cost. Do not readily toss them on one side.