04 noviembre 2005

Un blog muy interesante


Pravda on Inosmi

Me permito recomendar uno de los blogs más interesantes sobre Rusia que he encontrado. Está en inglés. Se trata de Russian blog, y proporciona una visión desde Rusia sobre lo que se escribe en occidente sobre ese país. Ante una información totalmente sesgada en una misma dirección, creo que es un blog imprescindible para quien quiera formarse una opinión con conocimiento de causa. Y el que no quiera, que lea la prensa española.

Como ejemplo, no puedo resistirme a reproducir este artículo:

Pravda on Inosmi


The best way to increase anti-Western sentiments among Russians is to advertise the site http://www.inosmi.ru/. Inosmi publishes daily translations of the articles about Russia from major European and American newspapers. What strikes a Russian reader who start browsing these articles is incredible bias and lack of diversity. Probably 90% of articles contain one set of clich?s. All facts of life in Russia are interpreted in the way to support the main thesis – Russia is moving away from freedom and democracy back to the USSR. About a week ago I read a column published in the WSJ on the sale of Ren TV network to Severstal (70% of shares) and a German media group RTL (30%). RenTV is a national network present in every Russian region albeit not very popular. Although RenTV is openly anti-Putin it belongs to the state-owned energy monopolist RAO ES. So it could be said that RenTV is (indirectly) state-owned. The WSJ columnist interprets the fact that a state-owned network is sold to a private Russian company and a private German media group as – surprise! – another step towards total censorship and destruction of the freedom of speech. His arguments are (1) Severstal is ‘loyal’ to Kremlin and (2) German RTL’s share of 30% is too small. Can anyone tell me, if General Electric is loyal to the White House or not?
For a person like me who remembers well Soviet TV and newspapers the similarity between Soviet coverage of the Western life and today’s Western approach is evident. First, the ideological glasses – in one case communist and in another “democratic”. Second, the rigid clich?s – in one case “The West is moving towards the total crisis and socialist revolutions” and in another “Russia is moving backwards from democracy and is simply mini-USSR”. Third, only news that support these dogmas are covered. Every contradiction is totally ignored. The fact that in the West people are not eager to support communism was explained by the lack of “real” free speech because communists are barred from national networks, radio and printed media. Sounds familiar? If only Russian liberals are given enough time to enlighten and educate poor brain-washed Russians!
One of the stories on inosmi.ru really made me laugh. It reminded me so much of one story on the Soviet television I remember. The reporter gives a couple of pictures of Manhatten where only those Americans live who enriched themselves by exploiting the working class and then takes the viewer to the real America (he said that) – South Bronx. There he shows the horrible life of ordinary Americans, takes interviews and then asks the prominent American intellectuals – Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal – to comment on what he saw. I then thought that Vidal and Chomsky was really top US politicians. It turned out later that in the US they are in the same category as Kasparov and Piotrovskaya in today’s Russia.

1 comentario:

César dijo...

Estoy de acuerdo, Iñaki: Russian Blog es de lo mejorcito que puede encontrarse uno en la "blogocosa" para entender el sentir de la Rusia actual.

Lo descubrí hace más de tres meses e inmediatamente lo enlacé, porque su autor es -así lo veo yo- un tipo profundo, con una gran capacidad de síntesis y un extraordinario sentido del humor.