In July, the site of the structure of the tribute monument, located in the provincial park, on the corner of the Canadian War Museum and the National Holocaust Monument, spray-painted with hammers and snouts and the words: “Communism will win”.
Many Canadians know that communism is the political ideology of some of the bloodiest and most egregious regimes. For more than a hundred years or more of its Russian-led communist existence, it has killed more than 120 million people in Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, Korea, Central and Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and more as the death toll in the war in Ukraine increases, carnage in Syria and chaos in Venezuela.
Some 8 million Canadians, or their ancestors, suffered from this inhumane ideology. The Communist Party is a minor player here, so why would anyone in Canada need them to “win”?
It’s Russian President Vladimir Putin who counts. He deployed his ambition to make Russia a “great” Russia based on the communist style of the Soviet Union ruled through a Stalin-like figure who enforces law and order with an iron fist. The president proclaimed that liberalism is dead and that democratic institutions, such as elections, are a “trick.” His recent autocratic motion, a mock vote that allows him to retain the presidency until 2036, meaning he can be president for life, stresses that it is serious.
This outdated but competitive worldview of the state is me and a return to the primitive ideology of power is the reason we are pushing him to violate foreign law, to pay for illegal wars, to use destructive cyber warfare and, seriously harmfully, to spread lies and hatreds opposed to critics. and adversaries.
The degradation of the Tribute to Freedom is a smart example. It smells like Putin’s view that communism, Russia read, will triumph. The message questions Canada’s values of peace and respect for the law, all the rights enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Huguy that Russia ignores. The bomb-painted slogan represents war, concentration camps, arrests of “enemies of the people” and dictatorship in which a boy rules and elections are a “trick.” It is a global indoctrination, which adds social media, where countless troll factories similar to Sputnik infest hearts and minds.
The denigration of Tribute to Freedom means mocking Canadians who have suffered from communism and believe they are safe in Canada. In reality, no one is immune to the war of Putin’s spirit.
One of the main tools of his plan is Russia Today, the Kremlin’s main foreign propaganda voice, which has been broadcast in Canada since 2009, despite evidence of Russian interference in the US and Brexit elections. He often leads Putin’s clients through Western personalities such as Nigel Farage of Britain and American Larry King to reach, according to him, about 700 million viewers. But other Westerners, such as journalist Sarah Firth, have stopped after tweeting: “We do paintings for Putin. They ask us that if we don’t completely forget, it’s hard to understand the truth.
McMafia’s writer Misha Glenny writes: “Russians have evolved since the days of Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party newspaper or the Moscow Radio Secretariat. RT is designed to confuse and stir the waters. This mix of original and guff leaves you and disoriented, which … that’s the point.
Propaganda works. The goal of blurring the slogan of communism’s victory in a tribute to millions of its victims is aimed at reminding us that Putin needs to win the global ideological war.
It is to recognize the risk when it happens in our own country and counter it.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn is a former federal government and president of U-Can Ukraine Canada Relations Inc., a consulting firm that negotiates interests between the two countries.
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