Propaganda is a slippery business. That’s what I thought while watching Our man among the enemy by Thomas Erdbrink. His Russia series has no message, he said in an interview with Outside courtand certainly not pro-Russian, in NRC. To emphasize the latter, he emphasizes that it was the Russians who invaded Ukraine, not the other way around. And he calls the conflict ‘war’, not ‘special military operation’. So no, no propaganda, as a journalist he is open to all sides. Justifiably.
Let me mention a few things that struck me while watching. It struck me that Erdbrink says about a Russian soldier that he “saw and experienced” horrific violence, but did not commit it. That because the US is also engaged in land grabbing, we may have to look at Russia “with completely different eyes”. That an episode about a Russian who killed a Ukrainian with a knife revolves entirely around the question of whether this Russian was traumatized by it.
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And I noticed much more. Factual errors (in WWII there were not 27 million deaths “on the Russian side”, because Soviet citizens are not Russian by definition, although Putin would like to equate the two), not asking about the cause of Navalny’s death, the fallacy that Russia is the same as Iran; but it’s too much to parse scene by scene. It always takes more time to contradict propaganda than to spread it, and even if you make that effort, you fall into the trap that propaganda sets.
Because successful propaganda does not have to convince anyone. Sowing doubt is enough. Dutch people will not easily believe that Putin is a hero. But you can shake their sense of truth. Such as Erdbrink’s response to an interviewee’s suggestion that Ukrainians were shooting at their own citizens: the truth “is not so easily captured.” The fact that Dutch newspapers are now discussing whether it was the Ukrainians who blew up the theater in Mariupol is already a propaganda win.
So many will give Erdbrink the benefit of the doubt because of his reputation
What else is the aftertaste of this “message-less” series? He ends with a reflection on the game of hero worship, which “has been played for centuries.” “Until,” Erdbrink concludes, “in the enemy’s country, but also that of our friends, someone comes to reason and dares to break that stalemate.” In other words: Russia and Ukraine must both come to your senses and stop this madness.
That is perhaps Erdbrink’s most important conclusion: war is pointless. At sometime. Just killing people in a neighboring country is pointless. But defending your country against an imperialist dictator, so that your country does not also end up under this dictatorship, is not the same. And only one of the two parties benefits from blurring that distinction.
In Outside court Erdbrink gave some policy advice. We can continue to support Ukraine, he said, but when we see how many Ukrainians and Russians die “because of the decisions of their leaders” (not that one leader), then, according to him, it is Europe’s role to “mediate in wars, to also enter into talks. And again, the series has no message.” Funny. My thoughts went to FVD member Ralf Dekker who this week proposed stopping Ukrainian support. “Both Ukraine and Russia are engaged in bloodshed, which we strongly reject.”
Good propaganda appeals to your reasonableness, even humanity, and above all: your aversion to war. In that spirit, Erdbrink takes his viewers by the hand and leads them into that alluring, cozy gray area where all distinctions between perpetrator and victim become blurred, and only ‘tragedy’ remains. And there is quite a case to be made that in the end, when the dust settles, war has only losers. But the dust hasn’t settled yet, and this isn’t some contemplative human interest after the fact. This series appears while the war is in full swing, the outcome uncertain, and dependent on European policy choices. And Erdbrink wonders why he was given permission to film.
It would be to his credit if he were as honest about the message of his documentary as about his lack of relevant language skills. Instead, he uses his reputation as someone who actually knows something about another country to sell a series about a country he knows nothing about, to sell a political message that the dictator of that country wants to feed us. And so many will give him the benefit of the doubt because of this reputation.
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I admired Erdbrink. I found him exceptionally un-Dutch, with his intimate knowledge of Iran. He was worldly wise: a rarity in our country. But when I saw him doing this – cheerfully displaying his lack of expertise in Moscow, proud of his ignorance, “Hello! I’m from Holland!” – I recognized him as in and in Dutch. With his conviction that ‘abroad’ is one thing, his harmful naivete, in the hubris and vanity, I suddenly saw it very clearly. Yes, Thomas Erdbrink is, truly, our man.
