-Analysis-
PARIS —Winston Churchill foresaw the arrival of the Cold War in his famous 1946 speech, when he spoke of an “Iron Curtain” splitting Europe in two.
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On Tuesday, Russia announced a ban on 81 media from several European countries, including French newspapers Le Monde and Libération as well as Italian public broadcaster RAI. A few days earlier, the Radio France application was targeted by China, without a doubt because of an excellent podcast on Xi Jinping called “Crimes of lèse-majesté” or offense to the majesty.
Moscow presented its decision as retaliation to the European Commission’s decision last month to block four Russian state media, accusing them of spreading propaganda. The retaliation measure is misleading, of course, given the different nature of European and Russian media.
No plurality
European Commission Vice-President for Values and Transparency Véra Jourova was not wrong in rejecting the equivalence between media that spread “misinformation set within the Russian military doctrine” and public or private media in democratic countries. Moscow creates an amalgam that surfs on the debates running through our societies.
This gradual closure in both sides is reducing the feeling of belonging to a common world.
The first victims of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine were the last remaining bits of independent information in Russia. Outlets like the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief Dmitri Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, or the radio station Ėcho Moskvy, were forced to close and reopen in exile, in Riga or Warsaw. By blocking European websites, Russia is depriving its citizens of pluralistic information, leaving them captive to official propaganda.
Just like during the Cold War, some are trying to break through the new “Iron Curtain”, but the means have changed. In March, the NGO Reporters Without Borders rented a channel on the Eutelsat satellite for the Russian-speaking populations: the Svoboda, or Freedom project relays content from independent Russian media in exile, in an attempt to circumvent the ban. This is more difficult to do in China, which has long been an expert of internet censorship.
Becoming strangers
Little information flows in the other direction either: the Cold War is limiting the work of journalists. Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal‘s Moscow correspondent, has been imprisoned in Russia for more than a year. He will soon stand trial on espionage charges, a case that serves as a warning to all foreign journalists in Russia.
The same is true in China, where numerous American, British and Australian journalists have been expelled, and Westerners who stay work in a hostile environment. Having been a correspondent Beijing for 20 years ago, I can testify that there has been an astonishing regression in the ability to inform.
This gradual closure in both sides is reducing — just as it did during the Cold War — the feeling of belonging to a common world. Even internet networks are diverging, to the point that we now speak of the “splinternet.” This evolution only aggravates tensions, which is never a good sign when we no longer talk to each other, when we no longer know each other.
