Euro in our back yard, a penny in the purse
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| Euro in our back yard, a penny in the purse | |
| Johannes Saar | |
| Eesti keeles | ||
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One could complain that 'yes' to the European Union (EU) was squeezed out of the populace by means of massive propaganda. * That state money, power politicians' smooth talk and the interests of successful businessmen all conspired to get the ball into the same goal. That the opposition team was made up of pensioners and unqualified pensioners-to-be who have nothing to sell to Europe. That these people lacked money, organisation and energy to come up with a single protest slogan. That in Euro debates they were 'represented' by various opportunists. That one third of Estonia's population were dragged, kicking and screaming, into the EU by the sheer force of the democratic majority.
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EU supporters were shrewd enough not to present smiling faces to people at all times. Estonia's intellectual heritage does not contain a single proverb or maxim that would be of any help in such a situation. Faced with a thief who boasts of his crime, we are completely defenceless. There is no other way I can describe the imagological mode of speech of the recent EU propaganda.Similar twists of syntax and cultural values possibly emerge at those fragile moments when the state political priority becomes someone's personal advertising campaign. It is only natural that our advertising agencies are full of so-called creative people with exceptionally high self-assurance who bear the oxymoronic title of artistic director. These are people in whom an artist's posture and a bureaucrat's opportunism have reached the worst possible combination - adorning economic and political interests with all things cultural, which normally have no point of connection whatsoever. |
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Let us consider the EU poster showing a Latin lover type male with the slogan "More sexy men!". Now, which circumstances could have produced such a propagandist manifestation? Perhaps, first of all, the conviction of the advertising artist and his political client that whatever they say will not have much credibility anyway. Such a mode of speech is used by a person who must contradict himself if he wants to be heard. He must be doing this half in jest because no one takes him seriously. In order to justify his hypocrisy he must point to others who "are doing the same". He refers to the myth of the Latin lover, kept alive by the afternoon soaps on the telly.The introducer of 'sexy men' is a shrewd character for whom spreading empty promises does not pose the slightest problem. Rather, it is professional office-speak, and its unethical nature is the source of endless jokes; it is something that can be exhibited on posters and made fun of, laughing along with the wider populace which is resigned to constant deceptions anyway. Against this background, people enthusiastically welcome declarations that make no effort to disguise their jolly pretensions and entertaining nature. Paradoxically, those who have lost the people's mandate get to the 'very heart of the people' by similar self-ironic and sackcloth-and-ashes-type remarks, forced out of politicians by the general distrust in their talk. The connotative message of this poster is, "I don't believe what I'm saying myself". The poster is a confession of a sinner by which someone actually hopes to regain the people's mandate. |
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Let us recall the former Austrian presidential elections that very much focused on the controversial Kurt Waldheim, who evoked acute emotions all around him. Waldheim's rivals talked a lot about his previous and proved connections with Nazi crimes. A politician's public image automatically contained his 'possible crimes', a black blotch, an Achilles heel, a skeleton in the closet ** - compromises. Whatever. Oddly enough, these 'imperfections' brought good old Kurt closer to people, because it was always possible to lean against his weak side, hold him back, make him human and thus generally identify oneself with him. Kurt's 'possible crimes' were actually the vague complicity of the entire Austrian population, which made Kurt 'one of us'. And this was good. It would not have been sensible to elect a monumentally pure moral superman, who in his divine supremacy was totally uncontrollable. No one could keep a man like that in check. It is far better to have familiar crooks in the driver's seat, rather than a swarthy and impeccable Latino standing on the ladder to your own hayloft. Isn't it?Kurt, naturally, won the elections. * The referendum on the European Union took place on 14 September 2003. It was preceded by an extensive pro-EU campaign, supported by the state and most of the political parties. The results showed about two-thirds in favour and one third against. ** Skeleton in the closet - a most frequent expression in Estonian political parlance, referring to the possible past sins of the politicians. Johannes Saar (1965), one the most significant art critics and curators of the 1990s. |
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| Estonian Art 2/03 (13) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2003 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 | |
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