wwe have opinions, true, but whose?

We have opinions, true, but whose?

By David Verveer

In the era of Internet and e-mail, the individual average citizen has ceased to be silent masses, as the tools provided by the cyber age equipment makes everybody, from poor to rich, a talk-backer, an opinion writer, essayists and owners of a blog. People like me, who were doomed to the silent masses, now can and many times do, write our opinions in the leading news papers and media.

This is of course a very positive development, as it seems that the public opinion has indeed influence on the decision makers, and non popular actions are amended or cancelled because of cyber pressure. Obvious the democracy is served much better, which in the past relied entirely on election results, propaganda and demonstrations, today, relies much more on the general trend of the opinions written in the internet media.

But, we might have a serious problem, as the former silent masses are easy manipulated by professional political advisors, who guide the reader with half truths, false reporting of events, by writing about happenings, people and items, which are not based on true facts but pushes the masses in the directions of the candidate or politician he represents.

In order not to sound too far fetched some examples from a cyber discussion running currently in a Dutch Internet Paper "de Volkskrant", on Israel's Gaza offensive, a few months ago. A rather bizarre academic with the name of Thomas von Dunk wrote an aggressive article, claiming Israeli cruelty to the local population, caused by the Israeli feeling, that it belongs to the "Herrenvolk" (an expression used during the Holocaust expressing the superiority of the German people). His opinion and 50% of the hundreds of comments were based on propaganda information supplied by the enemies of Israel, while the supporters of Israel used information (also propaganda) produced by the other side. Non of the participants had first hand knowledge, nor was that required, as very soon the comments going like a ping pong ball, forwards and backwards, citing relevant and irrelevant declarations from Roman Caesars, Nazi criminals, American presidents Dutch politicians, historical facts and fantasies, truth and half truths, personal opinions on related and un-related items, including declarations on morality of the world, Israel, Jews, anti Semites, commentators, and so on, soon the discussion became absolutely separated of the stupid (my opinion) essay written by von Dunk, like for example, who are the Palestinians, are they a people, when were they a nation, or has Israel the right to exist, are they occupiers of Arab land, have they a historic claim on their land, as they are descendants from the Khazars, and I could go on and on, but after the first hundred I fall asleep from boredom.

However, I now need to remind you that majority of the participants have no personal experiences and knowledge on the war in Gaza, nor did they ever speak to a Palestinian Arab from Gaza, or a Jew from Israel, their comments were based entirely on information provided by the media and internet, like this Dutch politician (van Bommel) who participated in an anti-Israel demonstration shouting Arab slogans on liberating Palestine and death to the Jews (he told the press afterwards, that he did not know the meaning of the slogans, as they were in Arabic).

You might think that the above story is funny, but don't make a mistake, this influences the politicians, in their votes and actions, such as what happened with the Turkey's premier, speaking out at an international meeting about the actions of Israel in Gaza, resulting serious cooling of the relations between Turkey and Israel, which is based on common interest, military and economic cooperation, including causing bloody riots and demonstrations in Istanbul, which encountered actions by the Israeli public, who decided to boycott their most favorite holiday resorts in Turkey (Anatalia), bringing an economic catastrophe to the tourism of that region.

The question I am asking, if the cyber and media revolution serves or harms the civilization and humanity of the free world, or only provide tools for further manipulations of the politicians.