A
widely-used term not just in politics, “Trojan Horse” is also used in business
to indicate how a company entices customers with offers only to entrap them to
spend a great deal more on a contract (phone-internet-cable TV), or products.
Whether in business or politics, the term “Trojan Horse” has negative
connotations and refers to Homer’s Iliad where Greeks under the leadership of
King Odysseus penetrated the city of Troy and destroyed it once they came out
of the wooden horse and caught the Trojans by surprise.
The “Trojan
Horse” analogy has been used so frequently lately by the mainstream Western media
against Russia that some have elevated it to a theory in order to explain
hostile intentions and schemes on the part of Moscow at the expense of the West.
If we are to accept on face value the numerous “Trojan Horse” pseudo-theories,
then Russian President Vladimir Putin has a stable of such mythological horses
in the works waiting to cause havoc throughout the world. For example, Russia
is using Greece as the latest “Trojan Horse”, according to the British press,
as much as it has been using Hungary. That both Hungary and Greece have
capitalist economies well integrated into the Western orbit of influence which
is the real “Trojan Horse” is not an issue. That China has been using its
considerable economic influence as a “Trojan Horse” not just in Greece and
Hungary but in much of the world, is not an issue.
This kind
of “Trojan Horse” propaganda reminds us of Cold War international Communist
conspiracies to take over the world, a sort of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”
analogy, to bring up a Cold War motion picture intended to depict exactly that
theme. If the old USSR was working through Communist parties of various
countries as “Trojan Horses” then why would not Putin, a child of the old USSR
not engage in the same practices of infiltration under a capitalist regime?
Long before the USSR existed, Western colonial countries sent missionaries,
merchants and soldiers as “Trojan Horses” to non-Western countries that
eventually became colonies or spheres of influence that the West exploited.
At the core
of today’s “Trojan Horse” pseudo-theory’s promotion by the mass media rests the
neoliberal Western integration model in its political, economic, military and
cultural dimensions. Anything intended to counter the expansion and dominant
influence of the Western integration model on a world scale is a “Trojan
Horse”.
Of course,
the real “Trojan Horse” is the neoliberal integration model under globalization
that dilutes national sovereignty in the domain of economics, government
finances, social and labor policy, defense, and culture. The role of the mass media is to portray any
attempt to counter the Western integration model as a “Trojan Horse” that
people must resist.
Although
the media lacks credibility because it has been reduced into a propaganda
machine for government and business while playing up the entertainment news
angle to capture and keep its audience, the vast majority of the people rely on
it for their information and to form opinions about issues. However, the issue is not about news
manufacturing, or even mass indoctrination on the basis on disinformation as
with the “Trojan Horse” pseudo-theory. The broader issue is that governments
and businesses are behind the “Trojan Horse” pseudo-theory that distorts
empirical facts so that there is preservation of the international power
structure and social order within countries under capitalism.
The “Trojan
Horse” theory has become popular especially among rightwing and centrist
political propagandists who believe that anything disruptive of the neo-liberal
status quo in the world, the same status quo that has one percent of the
population owning about half of the world’s wealth, is perfect and must be
preserved.
Opponents
of multiculturalism and anti-Muslim European nationalists have argued that
followers of the Islamic faith have been using the public schools system to
influence and subvert. For example, in Birmingham, UK, Operation Trojan
Horse is where Muslims have allegedly tried to introduce Islam into the
schools, even though Muslims view this as an attempt to educate the local
Christians about Islam against the background of countless anti-Muslim messages
delivered every day via the media.
Besides
using the theory as propaganda to promote neo-liberalism, the mass media also
uses it in foreign affairs to demonize enemies of the West. Deflecting focus
from the sharp rise in Western (US-NATO) military intervention as well as
covert operations through various means from drone warfare to NGO’s used to
bring about regime change, the mass media, highly paid consultants, and
governments point to “the enemy” (Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, etc.) as a disruptive
if not imperialist force in the international order.
On 14
August 2014, Foreign Affairs journal
published an article entitled Moscow’s
Trojan Horse, implying that Hungary is serving such a role under Prime
Minister Viktor Orban who was elected in 2010 on an anti-neoliberal
platform. Two weeks after the Foreign
Affairs article about Hungary serving as Putin’s “Trojan Horse”, the Foreign
Policy or FP magazine published an article arguing that Russian humanitarian
aid to Ukraine constituted a “Trojan Horse”, story that made the rounds
throughout the mainstream media of the Western World.
On 13
October 2014, Forum 2000 published an article entitled: “Putin’s Trojan Horses? Russian Influence on the European Radical
Right and Radical Left”. Ironically,
a number of articles have argued that the European right wing is really Putin’s
Trojan Horse because the Russian leader appeals to right wingers. Of course,
the irony is that the mass media has to nuance the pro-West right wingers as in
the case of Ukraine, from the enemy right wingers in Russia. In short, the
Trojan Horse theory is applied selectively. Those promoting neo-liberalism and
preserving the socioeconomic and political status quo under the Western
globalization and division of the world into spheres of influences are
acceptable even though they may be politically ultra-right. The same does not
hold true for nationalist right wingers in Russia or any other nation for that
matter.
Besides the
glaring contradiction of applying the Trojan Horse theory selectively to right
wing elements, the problem becomes even more complicated once the Western media
attempts to apply the same theory to demonize centrist and leftist reformists.
In late January 2015, both the British
Daily Mail as well as The Times
argued that the newly center-leftist regime of SYRIZA in Greece is really
Putin’s “Trojan Horse”. Of course, one
has to decide if Putin is rightwing, centrist, left wing, or just a nostalgic
Communist, before attempting to analyze the stable of Trojan Horses he is using
around the world to achieve influence and ultimately undermine the West.
The
Times article
was an elaboration of a previously published one by Business New Europe, a division of Intelli News that is a
subsidiary of the investment firm New Sparta Holdings that owns a number of
corporations in various sectors including media. The New Sparta Holdings Company
has an interest in expanding throughout Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and sees
Putin as a potential barrier. On 2 February 2015, Greek prime minister ruled
out seeking aid from Russia, and reiterated a commitment to EU with possible
compromise on the massive public debt that cannot possibly be serviced as it
currently stands – 175% of GDP. The Strategic Culture Foundation ran an article
arguing that billionaire George Soros was the Trojan Horse inside the Greek
government of Syriza, which means that there must be multiple Trojan Horses
running around without the unsuspecting public becoming aware of where they are
headed. So much for the Russian Trojan Horse riding across the southern
Balkans, at least for now.
Even after
the revelations by Wikileaks and Edward Snowden regarding US spying on allies
and enemies alike around the world and its own citizens, even after giant
communications networks including GOOGLE that had been cooperating with US
National Security Agency on surveillance, the advocates of the “Trojan Horse”
pseudo-theory insist that Russia has been hacking into US computers. The Washington Times newspaper
published an article on 6 November 2014 entitled “Russian Hackers’ Trojan Horse
malware inside US critical infrastructure since 2011.” No doubt, computer
hacking is an affair in which many countries are involved. If Russia is guilty
of computer hacking as a “Trojan Horse” mechanism, what does this say about the
US that has been even busier than Russia?
The old
line that the best defense is offense really holds true when it comes to the
“Trojan Horse” pseudo-theory that is nothing more than a recycled Cold War
propaganda to demonize “the enemy” and win over the hearts and minds of the
masses. The political and socioeconomic elites fear and loath any grassroots
movement, any attempt by the people to formulate their own opinions on the
basis of untainted information by the time the mass media is through with it.
Fear of democracy forces the opinion makers working on behalf of the
socioeconomic and political elites to manufacture pseudo-theories such as the
“Trojan Horse” one.
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