A Letter From Aleida Guevara to Al Mayadeen

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Dear compatriots, 

How do we define information? It is how things you do not know, have no idea about or are not sure about, come to you. When the information is correct, when it reaches people without any issues, really telling the truth, that information becomes a great weapon to incite a reaction.

Why do I say this? If we do not have adequate information, it is impossible to react to things; for example, the second-largest open-pit iron mine on the planet is in the Brazilian Amazon. What does this mean? That every inch that that mine grows, they are ancestral trees that cease to exist. And this implies, well, something important: that humans can live without iron, but without oxygen, never.

And the Amazon is practically the last lung left on our planet. So, you decide if it is crucial to react to this; However, we can’t do it if we don’t have the correct information. If you don’t know what’s going on, you can’t even imagine what to do or how to do it. Therefore, the information we receive must be clear, precise, and concise, as straightforward as possible for all the people of the world.

But let’s be clear, one of the most prominent crises facing the world is that the information that circulates, to be consumed by our peoples, lacks rigor or is ‘colored’ with the interests of world powers, economic, political or religious groups, organized crime, and governments.

And the technique of using the information as a weapon of manipulation has been refined in our days since it was used in the First World War (1914-1918), which was an excellent laboratory for this.

This global event marked the beginning in which “the fight for information waged by the censorship and propaganda apparatus and journalism is increasingly systematized,” explains Pablo Sapag, journalist, former war correspondent (Afghanistan, Kosovo, Algeria, Ireland del Norte, Middle East ...) and professor of History of Propaganda and Social Communication at the Complutense University of Madrid.

In an article, the portal ’20 Minutes’ says that during the First World War, journalists were not only recruited, businessmen, academics, and artists, to put into practice revolutionary propaganda techniques on a large scale, with a sophisticated knowledge of human psychology. All this, in a democratic state.

Only by examining what is happening with Syria can we be confident of this manipulation. In the same article, it is assumed that the media “have acted as a transmission belt for powers interested in destabilizing Syria, that the propaganda approach to the crisis has increased the suffering of the Syrian people. And all this is done with popular techniques in the First World War and perfected in subsequent conflicts. We are talking about censorship, the exaggeration of the enemy’s casualties and the minimization of their own, disinformation, and the concealment of reality. “
What is happening in Palestine today? What happens every day with these people? Hardly anyone gives correct information.

Therefore, let us inform in different languages. That would be the best because that way men and women from other parts of the world could find out what the people of Palestine are really suffering and could discover the so many more things that happen every day in Syria, in different parts, in Latin America, in Asia and Africa and we do not find out because nobody tells us what is happening. If they say it, it reaches us in a distorted, manipulated way, depending on the interests of the people who have power over that information.

New communication technologies, especially social networks, have enhanced our ability to communicate and the use of manipulation by those who have clear objectives for their own benefit. But the most severe issue is censorship. They do not allow correct information, the truth, or the facts to circulate correctly. They are replaced by intentionally malicious misinformation.

One of our tasks is to defend the truth above anything else. For this reason, correct information, truthful information are essential, and that is what Al Mayadeen does with the stories it gives us every day, and now it will be in a different language.

It is really an achievement, very important, very necessary, and it is time for people to really start reacting, for people to realize that we have many problems to solve on this planet, and for that, we need information.

Thanks, comrades. Go ahead, and keep working with that momentum. Try by all means to give information in other languages ​​of the world because that will allow many men and women to react.

Aleida Guevara March