Joyful Disinformation

The regime change 30 years ago did not bring Havel’s model of living in truth to fruition. Instead, a paranoid relationship between Central Europeans and the written and spoken word continues to persevere in society. Gossip and “alternative” news travels through the grapevine, dodging official channels, and stimulates a kind of rebellion.

“There was a total absence of information on the streets, so the public relied on gossip to find out what was happening.” This is what Maria Schmidt recently wrote to the New York Times, in a passionate defence Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s populist policies. While she spoke about communist-era Hungary, her quote also applies to the wider region of Central Europe.

How is it that today – 30 years after the regime change – some of the public still rely on gossip, to the extent they favour it over official reports? And why is not it only eccentric politicians and extremist parties that have become a source and disseminator of disinformation, but also governments themselves that have adopted it as political language?

Regime of lies, regime of truth

When we experience surprise about disinformation, arguably it is due to our expectations. The regime change of 1989 also should have brought an information shift, from a regime of lies to one of truth. Havel’s philosophical language convinced us that totalitarianism is a regime of falsehood, where even the smallest elements of the system are forced to lie.