The Misinformation is Spreading
After writing yesterday about the dismaying coverage in the Washington Post about the supposed “controversy” regarding the 2010 Smolensk crash, I’ve been shocked to see how quickly and how effectively the Macierewicz report has spread throughout the international media. Some samples from today headlines: “Russians Insist No Foul Play in 2010 Plane Crash” (NBC News); “Smolensk plane crash 2011 report ‘was result of doctored evidence’” (The Guardian); “Poland Says First Smolensk Crash Probe was Manipulated” (Transitions Online).
The consequences of this sort of coverage could be very serious. Internally, if public opinion shifts towards believing the misinformation being spread about that crash, it will set the stage for even more far-reaching attacks on constitutional democracy than we have seen so far. But that’s an issue that the opposition to the PiS government here in Poland will have to combat. Those of us who aren’t Polish, but who care about this country, can make our own contributions in a different sphere. So far, the PiS regime’s assault on the rule of law has been uniformly and resolutely met with condemnation from Europe and North America. I don’t have any illusions about the short-term effectiveness of criticism from Brussels or Washington, but supporters of constitutional democracy in Poland will have a much harder challenge without that international support. If the “assassination” story is spread, and people abroad come to perceive a dispute between Warsaw and Moscow, most people’s sympathy will be with Poland. It will then become a lot harder to complain about Kaczynski’s machinations within Poland if international opinion comes to see Poland as the latest victim of Putin’s aggression.
I urge all of you reading this—particularly those with enough scholarly bona fides to garner some attention—to contact the editors of every periodical and website that you find serving as a transmission belt for the Smolensk conspiracy theories. I have written quite a few of these letters (or emails) already, but we need a lot more. Ignore the comments sections on websites, because those have already devolved into shouting matches between PiS supporters and opponents. As I wrote yesterday, we have to ensure that this is not accepted as a genuine debate, or an international dispute between Russia and Poland. We have to get the message out that this is a groundless fantasy that should not be taken seriously, and that it is part of a domestic ideological struggle with major international ramifications.