“They are all mean and evil people” – “ The new slogan
A mother from the article” The Poisonous Mushroom, a story from Nazi Germany” who has the power to shape her child into a man, who can bring peace to humanity, is actually sowing a seed of hatred and conflict .
Propaganda is something that changes the emotions and opinions of a specific audience with lies for political purposes. A clear example of propaganda is shown in the article “The Poisonous Mushroom, a story from Nazi Germany”. It’s a very biased report where a mother is sharing her views and beliefs but telling them to her son in a way that he would have the same mind set.
While I was reading this article it really shocked me how a mother can just change her kids thoughts to such hatred towards anyone for any reason. Calling Jews bad people, murderers, dangerous was very unnerving. Its a shame to know that little German kids are learning such biased thoughts and are forced to believe it. I was really surprised to see the kid actually call Jews bad people with pride. It disturbed me that the mother asked the kid to protect himself from Jews and told him that the disturbing thought of Jews had to be spread though it was her opinion and may not be correct. This really made me wonder would the little kid ever change his opinion on Jews when he grows older? Or Just because of this article how many Jews would have been affected? Or Would Germans ever make peace with Jews or would they just look at the bad side and choose hatred?
People nowadays believe anything they read or watch without thinking twice. This article is in evil intention hence sharing it wouldn’t do any good. Sharing this could lead to Jews getting targeted for no reason. Sharing and blowing of this article can lead to immense fights and violence. Jew people would be mistreated and blamed, they wouldn’t be able to live a life they once imagined. All Jew families would be in quarantine scared to go out of their house. This can end up in both physical and emotional damage .
How many times have we heard people mentioning “this caste is bad”, “these people are all cheats” . Some of these are perceptions that we form by reading, observing or talking to people and some of these are intentionally brainwashed in our minds to build a certain image about caste, country, religion, gender etc.
However what is important is how do we identify these biased and intentional drives and prevent ourselves from being influenced.
For this we can use Nuskhe!
Some Nuskhe given by one of my mentors Neera ma’am were:
1) Examine the headline and byline
2) If you are feeling strong emotions read it again
3) If what you read aligns with your beliefs, read again
4) If what you read feels to simple, be wary
5) If there are to many villains or heroes, you might wanna put it aside
Some Nuskhe from me :
1) If you have a strong gut feeling that the news you are reading is fake, go with it
2) Always read the article again, you never know when you can find a mistake
For example In this article there were both villains and heroes, German being the heroes and Jews being the villains. So I used the Nuskha “ if there are too many villains or heroes, you might wanna put the article aside”. This is how I got to know that this article was a propaganda.
Beware of propaganda.
Don’t get fooled by propaganda, every country is not like Uganda!
By Avantika Sehgal