INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE ARE THE WORST ENEMIES OF FEAR AND HATE !

AUGUST 3:

Information and knowledge are the worst enemies of fear and hate.  If you do not know, you tend to fear. And you often hate, what you do not know. At the same time you are more at risk being manipulated by people, who want you to see things their way.  Or you may say it in another way:  if you do not know the facts you often see things only as black or white.  Just like a person who is totally colour blind.

This has been my fundamental conviction all my life – and certainly during my 50 years in communicating about Europe and EU. 

Make sure that you present credible information – and that you make it understandable.  Make people feel ownership to it themselves. And if you manage to present the information in a relaxed and perhaps humoristic way it also helps 😊

If people are un-informed society is in deep trouble. Just have a look at today’s USA ☹

Information is about EXPLAINING.  Not about DEFENDING. This is the job of the politicians. Of course, there is a fine dividing line between the two.  A good and professional communicator must always have that on his or her mind.  If you put your foot wrong once, you and your credibility are in danger.

This has been my personal “road map” all the way in my professional career. From my time in Denmark with a rolling exhibition about EU in a train travelling around Denmark for three months, to temporary local EU Offices in cities all over the country - to the creation of a group of well-informed speakers, who were very good communicators ( called TEAM 92 and later TEAM EUROPE ).  And later during my time in Brussels, where we created the free service called EUROPE DIRECT. We invited people from all over Europe to call a special free number – 00800 6 7 8 9 10 11 – and they would get information in their own language about whatever interested them concerning Europe.  Our motto was: Europe is no further away than the nearest phone.   

TEAM EUROPE and EUROPE DIRECT still exist and are very much used.

Of course, some people react negatively saying: Stop this EU propaganda!   Funnily enough, these are most often people, who personally are anti-EU and do not want factual information to disturb or even destroy their internal perception of the world. They have never understood – or will not understand - the difference between Explaining and Defending. Or said in another way:  Good and reliable information and communication is about HOW. Not about WHY.  This is for the politicians.

Why do I write about that now?  Because I am at the moment writing about my active life in communicating Europe during all these years.  And you know what?  I will continue to do the same for as long as I can chew a softly boiled egg 😊

Here is an illustration of our work to inform and explain about Europe:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EU's RELATIONS WITH THE WORLD

Yesterday you got my overview of the Brexit situation.   Some people think that the EU after the UK left as a member does not mean very much, does not have much influence – and should instead start a new strategy with cooperation with countries around the world, incl. the Commonwealth. To those people I want to say:   Either this assertation is put forward to stimulate the discussion for the sake of the discussion.   Or it is an effort to start a discussion far away from the realities ☹ This inspires me to make a brief overview of the role of the EU in the world. Today I will do it point by point.   Later I will go into more details on some of the points: 1.       EU is with its 466 mio. inhabitants one of the most interesting markets in the world. This was also what the Brits were told by f.ex. Australia and India, when they tried to make these countries particularly interested in their market with 66 mio. people. 2...
Read more

MY FIRST SCHOOL DAY - April 2, 1952

Image
MY VERY FIRST SCHOOL DAY -  April 2, 1952: Today ( April 2, 2021 )   it is exactly 69 – sixtynine – years ago, since I started going to school. This is a long time ago. It was in 1952. But I still remember it, as if it were yesterday. Can you understand that ? It was a wonderful, sunny morning.   I had for such a long time been looking forward to going to school.   Ok, I could already read and I could also write reasonably.   But I wanted to learn much more. And quickly! I knew that we were 4 kids in our village, who should start that day. Two girls and two boys. I knew the other three well. Remember, we lived in a small country village, where everybody knew everybody. The first school day was always sort of a party to us.   Our parents came along to the school on that first day. And we all had put our nicest clothes on, of course. Our farm was about 1 ½ km from the school.   We walked there, my parents and I.   On the way I could...
Read more

MAY 9 - EUROPE DAY

MAY 9: This day is EUROPE DAY.   The day, when the French foreign minister Robert Schuman on behalf of his government presented the so-called Schuman Plan.   Its essence was that European countries should start a very close cooperation with strong commitments, so that war between them would be impossible in the future.   How could you make war impossible? The participating countries had to give up their sovereignty over their coal and steel production and together create joint institutions, which would be responsible for the management of coal and steel in the future.   And as coal and steel are both essentials in any war, this would make war between the countries impossible. The man behind the plan was the French official, Jean Monnet. Six countries supported the proposal right away:   France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.    And the new European institution, called the European Coal and Steel Communit...
Read more