Andrei Makarevich
How to you fool a nation?
It’s very easy. First of all you should begin by planting hatred. Start out by focusing on a mere irritation. It is rather challenging to force calm and self-sufficient people to develop hatred – you would have to explain to them whom they should hate and why.
Initially, irritated people are a much easier target. They have already reached the right condition. Further on, you should model an external enemy (imperialists, nazis, ‘banderivtsi’, brown plague) as well as an internal one (the Fifth Column, rootless cosmopolitans) – the name itself isn’t that important.
Now, in order to guide the people’s righteous wrath into the proper direction, you have to drum it into their heads. Do it vigorously, rhythmically, and continuously. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” said Goebbels. The harder you drum, the larger the scale of lies is and the propensity of the citizens for believing them, the speedier the result is. Our citizen’s predisposition, I’m afraid, is inborn.
Or to be brief – we have a total examination for decency going on. And, alas, only a few are passing it.
Translated by Dasha Darchuk, edited by EuromaidanPR&Voices of Ukraine
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