A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #33-25 - Ban on dissent. The European Democracy Shield (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On Wednesday, November 16, the European Commission presented the 
European Democracy Shield and the European Union's strategy for civil 
society. This is a series of concrete measures aimed at strengthening, 
protecting, and promoting strong and resilient democracies across the 
EU. The stated aim of the Shield is to counter foreign information 
manipulation and interference (FIMI) within the Union.
The measures will focus on three main pillars: 1) safeguarding the 
integrity of the information space; 2) strengthening institutions, 
ensuring fair and free elections and free and independent media; 3) 
strengthening the resilience of society and citizen engagement.

Aside from strengthening and coordinating existing practices, it is 
worth noting the establishment of a European Center for Democratic 
Resilience, which will coordinate existing networks and structures. 
Among other things, a European network of fact-checkers will be 
established. Furthermore, the new media resilience program will 
strengthen support for journalism, which will align with the European 
Commission's truths. Finally, the Commission intends to significantly 
increase financial support for civil society organizations, with EUR9 
billion earmarked for the AgoraEU program alone.

We are therefore faced with a significant financial commitment aimed at 
propagating the European Commission's narrative through funding for the 
media and friendly civil society organizations, and substantially 
strengthening the Brussels bureaucracy.

The project reinforces the trend toward criminalizing dissent and 
enhances the European Commission's role as a communications hub.

The context cited to justify these measures is the threat posed by 
foreign actors, namely foreign powers; explicit reference is made to 
Russia and China. An example of countering disinformation is the 
accusations against those who oppose war and rearmament, or those who 
oppose the EU's stance toward Israel and the genocide of the Palestinian 
population: some are accused of being Putin's agents, others of Hamas.

In short, we are witnessing a clear process of delegitimizing anyone who 
opposes the European Commission's policies.

The European shield thus adds to the European Commission's arsenal for 
influencing political life within member states. In this regard, it is 
worth remembering that the Commission is a body appointed by European 
governments and is not subject to any real oversight, given the 
fragmentation of the European Parliament and the fate of repeatedly 
proposed votes of no confidence. Funding provided to the media and 
associations aligned with the EU will allow the Commission to build a 
clientele, providing it with a basis for consensus in civil society. The 
Commission therefore behaves like a real government, providing financial 
support to those who can provide it with political support.

The logic underlying the Commission's actions is extremely dangerous in 
terms of information and, more generally, political culture. It assumes 
that we live in the best of all possible worlds, meaning that any 
criticism can only be the product of enemy manipulation. The 
Commission's interpretation of the facts defines itself as true, 
therefore any other interpretation is false. Thus, supporters of the 
true interpretation engage in conflict with those who assert the 
opposite, benefiting from the Union's financial support and the rules it 
imposes on the space for debate. This is the path to the denial of 
freedom of expression, because it's a short step from supporting the 
right side to persecuting those who propagate error.

Only a comparison between equals would allow for a true verification of 
the facts, but this is not possible in bourgeois society. On the one 
hand, there are massive organizations with vast resources to influence 
the public, and on the other, small groups with self-managed tools. The 
debate will never be on an equal footing, and it will never be possible 
to educate the masses of the exploited to acquire critical thinking 
through information. This will only be possible to the extent that these 
masses take action to improve their living conditions: revolutionary 
action will enable the development of revolutionary consciousness.

Within this process, information plays an important role. However, 
fact-checking risks being a trap. If the information galaxy is made up 
of a series of news items that refer to facts, revolutionary critique 
consists not only in verifying individual pieces of news, but above all 
in reconstructing the social relations that determine the facts from 
which the news arises: patriarchy and machismo, the military-economic 
complex and militarism, the monopoly of the means of production and 
capitalism are the keys to interpreting reality and show us the path to 
transforming it. In this way, we can undermine the European Commission's 
program of swindling.

Avis Everhard

https://umanitanova.org/divieto-di-dissenso-lo-scudo-europeo-per-la-democrazia/
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