Мэдыі ў посткамуністычных грамадзтвах: аб’ектыўная інфармацыя супраць ідэалягічных скажэньняў
Матэрыялы міжнароднай канфэрэнцыі, Менск, 18-19 кастрычніка 2002 г.
Кніга па англійску - Welcome addresses
Zhanna LITVINA President, Belarusian Association of Journalists
Esteemed friends and colleagues!
It goes without saying that only the freedom of the media and access to diverse and truthful information allows the society to make informed decisions, which would suit it the best. A free circulation of information makes it possible for the power and different social groups to engage in a dialogue for the sake of mutual understanding and cooperative creative work.
To my great regret, our society, burdened with the Soviet ideological experience, has inherited only the chance to achieve freedom. We do not have a tradition of the free speech. Ideological myths and propaganda are still being imposed on Belarusians. The situation in Belarus is distinctive, as there is a kind of hole — the vacuum — formed between the power and the press. Neither laws nor civil society are able to restrain the authorities from their desire to override the media. Therefore, the power succeeds in substituting the freedom of speech with the freedom of propaganda.
“The lack of awareness and thoughtlessness are the greatest misfortunes of our society”, wrote in his farewell editorial Genadz Buraūkin when resigning from Belaruski Chas newspaper in a matter of protest against the government interference with the newspaper’s independence. “The lack of awareness and thoughtlessness” are exactly the result of the media propaganda and the “work” of the authorities with the media. “The mass media — electronic or broadcast — always were and will remain to be not only the tool for disseminating the information, but also a powerful means of ideological influence…”, said the head of the state when commenting on the government policy in the media field.
Both Belarusian and foreign journalists get impressed with the media situation in this country. “I have not seen such a wild propaganda even in the Soviet Union,” confessed Tim Guewell, a BBC correspondent, who worked in Moscow during the Cold War.
Unfortunately, the independent press in Belarus is unable to withstand successfully this propaganda machinery, restored over the past several years. The causes are obvious: harassment of and the economic discrimination against the non-state media.
Freimut Duve, the OSCE Representative for the Freedom of Media, once compared the Belarusian press with a bird, flying into a silence zone, with one long and one short wing. A bird with such wings can only hover around one spot, and not even indefinitely…
No doubt, the “silence zones” will be gone one day. There will be no such ideological pressure on the society, which we are facing today. However, Belarusian journalists themselves should want to change, too. It is up to us whether we will be able to make authorities respect our right to profession, change the imposed management methods, abolish the government monopoly over information, and be in demand by the society.
Esteemed friends, I do hope that this conference will be yet another contribution to solving the problems, I touched upon above. I also hope that we will focus on critical analysis of our current situation, something that both the state of Belarusian society and the conditions of our press require us to do.
On behalf of Belarusian Association of Journalists, I would like to welcome all the participants and guests. I would also like to express sincere thanks to the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the Norwegian P.E.N. and Belarusian P.E.N. Center for their support and collaboration in organizing this important event.
Valiantsin TARAS, Vice President, Belarusian P.E.N.-Center
Esteemed colleagues!
From time to time, especially in advance of elections, people representing authorities ask themselves with profundity on their faces: can the opposition and the dissent in general be allowed to have access to the pages of state-owned newspapers, radio and television? It does not even get to them, that the question is in fact absurd. If authorities daily vow their adherence to democracy and respect for human rights, why the legitimate and constitutional right of every citizen to the free access to a radio microphone, a television studio and newspapers is not general? Why are the state-owned media an exception? Why does one need to bow and ask permission for your right to be observed? And, when people do not want to bow and do not want to beg, but demand their rights, they are accused of exorbitant pretensions and of plotting dark intentions, which they want to accomplish by breaking through to “the government’s speech freedom reserve in order to abuse this freedom!”
Does one need to explain to sane people that in this case it is the authority that abuses power and demonstrates its unprincipled force? Thanks God, our principle, based on humanistic values of the civilized world and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is actually not at all that forceless. Our principle has a forum — independent pro-democracy media and numerous institutes of independent thought. The corps of independent journalists has taken shape and got tempered. Independent cultural centers, think tanks and human rights organizations have taken roots. Although the authoritarian Lukashenka’s regime, which has an aggressive tendency of becoming a total dictatorship, has recently grown even more hard-line and anti-democratic, especially compared to the pre-Lukashenka independent Belarus, our independent media have defended with honor the principles of democracy and brought fair and objective information to the public. Apparently, they are doing their job well, since the regime not only has to attack, but get on the offensive by the weapons of lies as well.
The state newspapers, radio and television has routinely and tactlessly distorted and mocked at the views of those dissent from the official ideology and policy. It is not surprising that the head of the state himself encourages this mockery by stating, as it was, for instance, last spring, that “all our opposition is stupid”. Since everyone, who disagrees with the “father” not even on fundamental issues, but in details, is labeled as an oppositionist in the modern Belarus, it appears that we all present here, at least Belarusians, are fools!
Well, we will see in the course of the next two days what fools have gathered here in this auditorium.
On behalf of Belarusian P.E.N. Center, let me welcome cordially all the conference participants, our guests, all of you. Please allow me to wish you a creative mood and a good benefit. Let us hope that this benefit will contribute to nearing the time when Belarus becomes a normal, civilized and democratic country.