Immigrant writers & the pitfalls of propaganda.

Some flavours of the first week of Edinburgh’s International Book Festival which is held this year at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. Writers Yan Ge, Andrzej Tichy, Marianna Spring & Peter Pomerantsev talk about their books.

Yan Ge (Elsewhere) and Andrzej Tichy (Purity) are both short story writers and both immigrants, Andrzej to Sweden from Czechia, Yan to England from China. The view of an immigrant writer is always fascinating as it can often show aspects of their adopted country that have either been overlooked or become so familiar they are hardly seen at all. These can range from geographical areas of cities, to attitudes or assumptions that are so ingrained that they too become invisible.

Yan for example cites a cultural prejudice that she has often come across, which is that Chinese people ‘eat weird things’. And Andrzej says that immigrant writers’ subjects are often described as being on the margins, people who are outsiders, or they will focus on parts of the city which are not central, areas that are not usually written about, and not considered interesting. But that is exactly where he wants to place his characters, because to him they are interesting; in his world people such as cleaners in offices or hotels are not on the margins, they are central. He also wants to challenge the idea that people who do menial work are not interested in literature. Immigrants are often highly educated people who do less skilled work in a new country because of language barriers. He came from Czechia to Sweden when he was just a child and so he learnt Swedish easily. He tried experimenting with writing in English as a teenager but as an adult, he writes in Swedish.

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Yan Ge has lived in England for many years and now regards it as her home though she says that she feels guilty sometimes for ‘abandoning’ China. This is Yan's first book written in English. She feels that writing in English has revitalized her and given her a new identity, but she is not sure now who her readership is. She feels that she doesn't belong to any club but also wonders if this loneliness might be a gift. She says that 'short story writing is fundamentally different from a novel’ because with a short story, she feels there is always ‘a sense of resistance, it never submits’.

Applause! Author Marianna Spring (right) with Maddison Connaughton at the Edinburgh BookfestApplause! Author Marianna Spring (right) with Maddison Connaughton at the Edinburgh Bookfest
Applause! Author Marianna Spring (right) with Maddison Connaughton at the Edinburgh Bookfest

When it comes to a sense of identity, she has different linguistic personae and she considers that identity is fluid, is constantly changing as we negotiate with the world around us. She says she writes as a way of refusing to be pinned down in any particular identity. She does not write poetry but is fascinated by those who do, and how they do it. What is poetry? is a constant question for her and she likes to ask poets about their process; how do they know when something will become a poem, how do they step out of narrative, how is it that they manage to ‘escape time’?

Marianna Spring and Peter Pomerantsev are also interested in identities, in what draws people to certain groups and ideas, what attitudes and practices can create an identity, and how this human need can be shaped or influenced by others, not necessarily for the good. In their books, (Among the Trolls: My Journey through Conspiracyland) and (How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist who outwitted Hitler) they talk about the intricacies and fascinations of conspiracy theories, and of propaganda.

Marianna is a journalist, and she interviewed many people while researching her book. She defines conspiracy theory as one where there is absence of evidence behind the theory, and in fact sometimes there is counter-evidence which contradicts it. She found that there were true believers, who are genuinely concerned about corruption and information that is hidden from us, but she is concerned that these people are vulnerable. At a rally in Totnes, a woman called Natalie was truly upset when Marianna questioned her, because she, Natalie, believed that the world was going to end soon and that they would all be killed. Marianna found that there were also non believers who cynically push theories and ideas, exploit people’s vulnerabilities, and are in it for the money. There are also people in between, who may not be committed to the truth of the ideas but are at least partly persuaded.

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There are people like Darren, who she interviewed. He is editor of The Light, a magazine which publishes extreme theories, along with some hate and racism. She wanted to know why he did this, what was his motivation, why he produces and circulates this magazine. He replied by saying that his motives are the same as hers, he is curious, he is an investigative journalist in the same way she is. Marianna says that she thinks he really believes the things he publishes and is driven by power in his community.

When she asks why people believe these theories & what do they get out of it, she thinks that the attraction is that they can give people an identity and a sense of belonging. She has found that many people love being part of this world, they feel that they are the ones who know the truth, and in some cases, there is a cult-like feel to this group identity.

Peter Pomerantsev’s book, his third on the topic of propaganda, dives into the world of Sefton Delmer, a British wartime propagandist. Beginning in 1941 Delmer created radio stations, with the purpose of undermining the nazi propaganda. Characters in his shows would pretend to be renegade nazis and initially, many Germans thought they actually were. When German prisoners of war were asked if they listened to these radio broadcasts, (such as Der Chef) forty per cent of them said they did. Delmer’s success in hoodwinking the Germans came at least partly from the fact that although British, he had grown up in Germany and spoke the language very well. He understood, you could say, the German psyche, although he also suffered at school, he was bullied by the other boys because he was British. He understood that you do not get people to change their minds by being dismissive or moralizing, but rather, his persuasive propaganda was designed to show the German people that the nazis did not really care about them. He made out that he was on their side, he gave tips for example on how to fake an illness, if you wanted to leave the front line.

From 1943 on, he wanted the Germans to understand what he was doing, in other words that it was Britons masquerading as Germans.

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Propaganda, Peter says, is all about identity, it gives you a group identity, it gives you someone to be – for example, in nazi Germany, being an Aryan gives you a superior sense of self, enhanced by a special uniform. This was further encouraged where German soldiers were given journals to record their lives and cameras to take selfies of where they had been. This is the theatrical side of propaganda, like social media today, you are playing a part. Today, he says, we all blur public and private on social media.

When he started to research Delmer’s work and character, he found him interesting because he was not partisan in the blinkered way of thinking that one side is bad and wrong while the other is all good. He saw that some people genuinely enjoyed being part of the nazi group, and he believed that people made conscious choices, they were not simply brainwashed dupes. Delmer understood that propaganda is not simply a linear flow from an authoritative source to passive-minded people who are acted upon, but that people also participated, felt, responded, reacted, it was not a one way process. Equally, he did believe that we can take control of our lives. Delmer’s purpose, Peter said, was to return their agency to people, to encourage them to think for themselves, act for themselves, and this sounds quite relevant for today. He had a dramatic outlook on life, he was an adept at psychological masquerade, and he believed that it is precisely in masquerade that we can reveal who we are.

Orlando Whitfield’s book All that Glitters continues with the theme of masquerade and downright deception. It focuses on Inigo Philbrick who Orlando met at Goldsmiths when they were both art students. Orlando was impressed by the confidence of this 19-year-old who lived in a ‘genteel squat’ in Great Russell Street and seemed, enviably, already plugged into the art scene. They become friends, and for a while, partners in the art world.

Their paths diverged as Inigo rose fast in the art dealing world, in what is known as the secondary markets, where one does not have contact with the original creator of the work. Orlando had previously worked in publishing as an editor and liked the personal contact, he preferred to deal with the artists themselves. Orlando and Inigo still kept in touch although the latter’s lifestyle became very different from Orlando’s. Inigo was forever flying off somewhere, which, Orlando says, may look glamorous, all this jumping on jets, but is actually very tiring. He also questions if Inigo was really friends with the seriously rich people he spent time with, surely, he thinks, it must have been boring to be around these people, who ‘yacht in’ (rather than get up very early to catch a cheap easyjet flight from London, as his interviewer Francisco Garcia did), who stay in hotels which are always the same, and who are forever wanting to be somewhere else.

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Orlando thinks that Inigo did not really intend to scam people, it was rather that he believed he could make financial deals on a knife edge, and that they would work in his favour. But the bubble burst, his financial deals failed, toppling one after another, like dominoes. When Inigo was on the run from the law, he contacted Orlando again, wanted him to write ‘his version of events’. Orlando (who declined) wondered if it was because in the past Inigo had always managed to get Orlando to do his bidding, but he now found that his appetite to do that, had diminished.

When Francisco suggests that ‘scammer lit is in vogue’ Orlando agrees, and says that there is an interest too, in the people who run scams, in what makes them tick, their psychology, why do they decide to take this path in life, and how is it that they are often so successful? He gives a clue to this when he admits that Inigo upset the lives of many people who were duped and ultimately defrauded. But what really intrigues him is that he was attracted from the start to his energy, confidence and beliefs, and even after knowing him for many years, knowing how he operated, there were times when he chose to believe him, even when he knew that Inigo was lying.

This echoes Sefton Delmer, who said that propaganda (or persuasion) is not just a one way force exerted on passive recipients – a conscious choice is made. So who do we choose to believe? The current social climate suggests that we need to arm ourselves with all the available information, not to fall victim to scams, baseless theories or propaganda.

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