About the author
Holger is a management consultant turned volunteer. He loves to take pictures, run around in the sun, dive and he has never met a beer in his life he didn't like.
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“Please report to the propaganda desk!” I holler across the office to get my colleague’s attention. The propaganda desk, you see, is my desk. I am the dedicated propagandist. I was appointed over lunch.
I am German, but I think the other reason for my new, enthusiastically announced appointment is the fact that I have a shiny new MacBook that can put videos on YouTube in about the time it takes my colleagues’ computers to start minesweeper. Also, I haven’t cared to shave parts of my face for a while so I loosely resemble a slightly overweight Che Guevara with sunburn and a German accent.
When I arrived in Belize seven months ago, I started working as a volunteer consultant, trying to have a positive impact, one PowerPoint slide at a time. I quickly discovered that many things in Belize are different and exotic, even if they are called by a familiar name. The word “meat” for example means anything of a bovine origin. In Belize, chicken and pork are not meat.
Another big difference is the perception and communication of time. Belizeans will tell you that they will do something “right now”. This can describe any duration of time that falls between “rather soon” and “never” – largely depending on how much they like you. The one thing it does not mean is: “Right now”.
Also, it is up to you to figure out how much they like you.
Being every bit as anally precise as you could imagine a German consultant with a knack for accounting, blurry communication like this drives me nuts.
My jobs used to be working out strategies for sustainable tourism development. Marketing plans. Financial audits. Now my assignment is producing a 30 second video for TV.
“Hello! Propaganda Desk, please”, I repeat, my voice travelling around the corner of the L-shaped office to an invisible coworker.
“Right now” he replies.
Wednesday, 3:32 pm, on the streets of Belize City
I never planned to go into politics. Or propaganda.
But here I am, walking the streets of Belize City, interviewing locals and tourists for a video. “Why did you come to Belize?” I ask the tourists. “Why do you think tourists come to Belize?” I ask the locals.
There’s one answer that I am looking for. And it doesn’t take very long at all until I get it.
Belize has a large Barrier Reef all long its coast. The opinions vary if it is the second or third largest reef, depending on how you measure large. Either way, take my word for it: it’s a large reef. It’s very pretty and the major tourist attraction in Belize.
It is also about to be killed.
In a deal that was leaked after the deed had been done, the Belizean government sold oil drilling concessions to the entire country to 18 oil exploration companies. Including the reef.
“We came here to see the reef”, says the second tourist I interview.
Cut. Moving on.
“Belize needs tourists”, says Dr. Coconut, a Belize city icon who sells coconuts “with or without rum but always as COLD as the north pole” to tourists day in and day out.
It’s a wrap.
When the information about the oil drilling concessions was leaked, there was a public outcry. A coalition of NGOs formed to fight the plans and to bring a referendum forward against the oil drilling offshore and in protected areas.
The Belizean constitution in fact provides for a referendum. If you read it, you cannot but help thinking of an 80 year old lawyer in his pajamas, writing with a toucans quill, under the influence and during a moonlit night, giggling and mumbling “nobody will EVER do this” to himself. But it is in there nonetheless. So the coalition set out to do it.
Wednesday, 6:30 pm, Propaganda Desk
Make it short. Make it simple. Appeal to emotions. Show faces that people can identify with. End with a clear appeal to action.
Also, panpipes always go well with aerial video.
I lean back and look at my 30-second piece of political propaganda and wonder why this has to be political. After all, the message is: “Do not destroy a World Heritage Site.” That’s really more a question of decency and integrity. Shouldn’t be political, right?
My eyes wander to the “Offshore drilling is not Belize!” sticker on my desk.
Here, everything is political.
Belize has a two party system. Both parties are run by a selection of affluent and influential families that don’t bother much competing on issues or political agendas. One side tends to nationalize large companies while the other ones tend to privatize. Writing this piece on my laptop running on batteries during an evening blackout, I can’t help but think the electricity company is probably better at switching their org chart from public to private and back than at paying their bills and providing electricity. In an environment where party affiliation is paramount and political stances matter as much as the intricate differences between snow and freezing rain, public perception of political decisions is a question of loyalty. Also, loyalty and complacency requires a lot less effort than questioning and challenging government actions. And it comes with fewer repercussions.
No surprise then, that when the referendum was denied on the grounds of government saying that most of the required signatures had bad handwriting, nobody really cared.
I finalize the 30 second clip of nature footage and sound bites about jobs in tourism and send a link out for review.
Thursday, 10:12 am, Propaganda Desk
“We need someone with a credible position to make the final appeal” reads the e-mail from the reviewers. “Who wants to do it?” I reply and receive a whole lot of e-mail silence in return. Imagine one of those ghost city tumbleweeds rolling across my inbox.
I can’t blame them. In this environment, personal repercussions when picking a political fight are to be expected. I settle for a video without a publicly known spokesperson and finalize the clip.
Thursday, 4:35 pm, the streets of Belize City
“Vote No on offshore drilling on Wednesday’s referendum” says the president into my iPhone. Passion for the reef and democracy won him over after all and he agreed to do the shoot. My DSLR is at home, so the phone will have to do.
The problem is not that Belizeans are for the offshore drilling. Surveys have shown that more than 80% are opposed. The challenge is to activate them to go to the polling stations on Wednesday, 29 February.
Because there will be a referendum after all.
Watching democracy in the making is a powerful, energizing experience. When government turned down the official referendum, the coalition turned around and started staging their own popular vote. A rogue plebiscite. The Peoples’ Referendum. The idea is to create so much publicity and internet buzz that government can not ignore the voice from the street. A voice that will only sound if the street actually goes to the polling station.
Enter the propagandist. After a 26-hour-long career in propaganda that I split between Google and the streets, let me tell you: There are but two angles that you can work in this situation: Patriotism and jobs.
Patriotism was already on the (very popular) bumper stickers, this is the time for the job angle.
I add the president’s appeal to the video, finalize once more and send an e-mail to everyone involved. The spot is ready to be delivered to the local TV stations. As I am ready to pack up and hit the bar for Thirsty Thursday’s Happy Hour and some Karaoke, my phone vibrates.
It’s the president.
“Dude, this has to go viral”.
I fire up the Mac and pull up YouTube.
Friday, 2:35 pm, Propaganda Desk
The video has been online for 20 hours. It’s close to 180 views. I wonder what the critical mass for “viral” is. The video is not funny or awe-inspiring. But it comes with a sad story of something beautiful that is about to be destroyed and the hope to do something about it. And it has buttons under it that have thumbs on them – which is very important in a day and age where democracy is a movement largely dependent on social networks and the number of digital fans.
There are two pages of comments from three different continents. People seem to care. How long until we have enough clicks and comments to impress people with it and show that the world will not accept a few politicians endangering the Belize Barrier Reef?
I call up a Belizean friend and tell him about the video. “I’ll check it out,” he says.
“When?” asks the anal German propagandist and runs a finger along his his not quite established activist’s mustache.
“Right now”, says the Belizean.
Let’s hope its soon enough to make a difference.
Did people come to the referendum? How did it play out? Did the mustache finally grow?
Those and more questions you didn’t have before reading this will be answered here shortly. Stay tuned for the next article in this series!
Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut6Oz9zLmis