The Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov this Sunday considered propaganda and disinformation as dangerous as missiles and nuclear weapons, through the falsification of evidence that allows a country to be occupied without using a weapon.
“It is possible to occupy a country without using a weapon, show who the enemy is and people will believe it because it is possible to falsify evidence,” said the writer, referring to “propaganda and disinformation that are probably as dangerous as missiles and weapons.” nuclear weapons, because they are well produced.”
the author of Death and the penguin He spoke this Sunday with the Colombian Juan Gabriel Vásquez about Conflictsat a table at the Folio — Óbidos International Literary Festival, in which the two authors addressed the differences and similarities between the wars that devastated their respective countries.
In Ukraine, invaded again by Russia in 2022, “people do not sleep at night”, taking refuge in shelters or listening to the sound of sirens, but in the morning “they go to work, to cafes and at night to theaters ”. ”, some of which had “the tickets sold out one or two months in advance,” he said.
Andrei Kurkov: “Unfortunately, war is the most enriching publicity a writer can have”
This, according to the writer, is the way to “resist war,” maintaining “a normal lifestyle,” although in the coming decades “violence in families may increase, because people become aggressive, radicalized.” .
Colombia, where conflicts with guerrilla movements have lasted more than 60 years, is seen by Juan Gabriel Vásquez as “a country in regression”, where “the political class cannot overcome its disputes.”
For both, the distortion of reality through misinformation is determining the way in which political classes and populations view conflicts at a time when writers have the role of “provoking public debate and convening civil society.” to debate different topics,” defended the Colombian author, whose most recent book published in Portugal is “The Translation of the World.”
Andrey Kurkov even considers that “in difficult times writers become journalists”, since in his country “the majority of Ukrainian writers have not written fiction” since 2022, writing, instead, “history books”.
This is, according to Juan Gabriel Vásquez, the “way of contradicting the official version of history”, transmitted by the powers interested in transmitting “a certain type of truth about who was responsible for what, about what really happened and letting some questions for debate.” reply”.
“In a world where most people get their information through social networks,” societies need to develop “the talent to know how to separate truths from lies” and learn to “read reality.”
But the reality “is that they are not achieving it” and “they are falling into lies,” he lamented, exemplifying the fact that “more than half of American citizens believe that Donald Trump won the elections” or that “a large part of the population of several Western countries, in 2020, believed that Ukraine had a Nazi regime.”
For the author, it is now up to everyone to assume the role of “fact checkers” and filter information, since it will be “the only chance we will have to survive as a society.”
The Folio — Óbidos International Literary Festival opened its doors on the 10th and ends this Sunday, after more than 600 initiatives, distributed by various curators, with the presence of several internationally awarded writers and illustrators.
The festival is organized by the Óbidos City Council, the Óbidos Criativa Municipal Company, the Inatel Foundation and Ler Devagar.
Source: Observadora
