FORMS OF INFORMATION IN CONFLICTS: POSSIBILITIES AND FUNCTIONS OF THEIR DIFFERENTIATION – THE CASE OF THE KARABAKH CONFLICT
Christian KOLTER
Defacto Agency
June 19
Unlike the unsettled Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the nearly settled
Kosovo conflict, the unsettled Karabakh conflict is not in the focus
of the international public respectively of the western media. This
affects the level of information about the conflict. There are gaps
of tenable information, which can be filled easily with propaganda
and the like. Moreover, western politics concerning the Karabakh
conflict are contradictory, as they are in the territorial conflicts
from the Kosovo to the Caucasus in general. Since the end of the Cold
War, the West respectively the super powers have tacitly decided that
modifications of borders are no longer admissible and have declared the
independence of the Kosovo-Albanians as exceptional case. All in all,
it’s a half-hearted and risky game to prefer territorial integrity
for the CIS-territories no matter how they are built, while at the
same time stressing the right for self-determination in the name of
humanitarian politics in the courtyard of Europe for the Kosovo. This
situation produces a lot of rhetoric of double standard and good will,
which is sheer (and non-clarified) ideology, especially in connection
with the on-going oil-business.
Unlike the unsettled Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the nearly settled
Kosovo conflict, the unsettled Karabakh conflict is not in the focus
of the international public respectively of the western media. This
affects the level of information about the conflict. There are gaps
of tenable information, which can be filled easily with propaganda and
the like. Moreover, western politics concerning the Karabakh conflict
are contradictory, as they are in the territorial conflicts from the
Kosovo to the Caucasus in general. Since the end of the Cold War,
the West respectively the super powers have tacitly decided that
modifications of borders are no longer admissible and have declared
the independence of the Kosovo-Albanians as exceptional case. All
in all, it’s a half-hearted and risky game to prefer territorial
integrity for the CIS-territories no matter how they are built,
while at the same time stressing the right for self-determination
in the name of Furthermore, the informational differentiation in
the Karabakh conflict is determined and endangered by an info-war,
launched by Azerbaijan trying to compensate its military defeat
with aggressive info-campaigns in the misplaced name of morals,
international law and human rights (like in the case of Khojaly). It
is doubtful, whether western media can handle that info-war without
reinforced counter-information coming from Artsakh and Armenia. This
information is not only countering the Azeri campaigns, but better,
that is more explanatory. In the context of the recent events
that took place near Levonarkh, Azerbaijan exploited the crisis in
domestic politics of Armenia thus launching a test offensive. The most
explications and descriptions I read in German media were completely
adopted from Azeri media. This is alarming. (If the media does not
have first-hand accounts or equivalent informational securities,
it should argue along the lines of probabilities, which here refer
quite clearly to an Azeri responsibility for the incidents. But there
was no independent argumentation and no search for clarification.)
My basic deduction from this case is the following: the more unlikely
it is that one side in an armed conflict can force its will upon the
opposing side (mostly by the realistic threat of annihilation); the
more important are information strategies and forms of knowledge in
the conflict – for its intensification as well as for its settlement.
This implies that the international public (third groups, which
are external to the conflict) assumes a crucial role as observer,
commentator, mediator or even intervening force, and hereby becomes
a part of the conflict dynamics. In turn, this requires that the
international public, although formally external to the conflict, is
seriously interested in the conflict. Thus, it reflects and expresses
their own knowledge and interests as clearly as possible and beyond
good-will rhetoric (like often quite puristic, one-sided and abstract
fixations on human rights and international law). Consequently, they
want the direct conflict groups to do the same. Otherwise, the conflict
deteriorates because of doublespeak and an uncoordinated clash of
international interests, which cannot be cushioned by secret diplomacy.
If we transfer these considerations to the Karabakh conflict, we
can see: despite the fact that Nagorno Karabakh/Artsakh has reached
its factual independence by a military victory, this result and
real equivalents are all together refused by both Azerbaijan and
Turkey. Furthermore, the legal status of the independence of Artsakh
is contested or not recognized by the international community of
states, mostly in connection with the argument or the hidden fear of
a precedent case and its worldwide destabilizing aftermath.
We can also ascertain that the international public orientates its
observations, statements, and attempts at mediation of the conflict
towards constellations of political and economic alliances. Or else,
they are based on too abstract, too idealistic or too puristic
legal argumentations, which explain or clarify nearly nothing (they
are lacking political analysis or power as interpreting factors)
and blame everybody, so to speak. Moreover, these arguments often
reveal more about the problems and interests of the commentators’
countries than about concrete ideas for a settlement. Eventually we
are witnessing an increased internationalization of the Karabakh
conflict. The unsettledness and international involvement in the
conflict serve Azerbaijan as basis for an info-war, which addresses the
half-informed international public and challenges the indispensability
of informational differentiation.
Considering all this, we can say and ask, the international public
is interested in the Karabakh conflict, but is it a serious or a
seriously pursued interest? Which informational differentiation
in the Karabakh conflict should the international public be aware
of? Is the international public nowadays able and willing to deal
with different information strategies in and around the conflict,
(which is necessary as precondition for saving the minimum of
informational differentiation, which is again integral to the
settlement)? Concerning their information strategies, what can
or should the direct conflict groups do to overcome the vicious
circles and particularistic strategies of mutual suspicions about
hidden motives and reproaches of unscrupulous instrumentalization –
in order to make a settlement more probable?
Since it is impossible for me to come up with comprehensive solutions,
for an approximation to these questions, I would like to discuss
shortly some theoretical aspects concerning forms of information
in conflicts, which I will illustrate by some examples from the
Karabakh conflict.
1. Different forms of information or knowledge in conflicts
For my informational analysis concerning conflicts, commonly
used distinctions, such as official/unofficial, governmental/
non-governmental, conflict group-related/not conflict-group-related
(or – based) information is quite insufficient: – as all these
distinctions do not say anything about the validity, consistency or
quality of the corresponding information.
Instead, I suggest holding on to old if not old-fashioned categories
and focusing on the incessantly developing criteria to distinguish
between these categories.
In (and about) conflicts we can – not always easily – distinguish
between political and scientific information and knowledge. Just
as political information and programs can be included in scientific
analysis scientific information can be used or misused in political
communication.
However, politics care about collectively binding decisions of living
together (or separately); science cares about reasons, arguments,
and theories of everything (which is explainable). They (that means
reasons, arguments, and theories) overstep or even negate the limits
and borders of the collectives and cannot claim binding character
by repressive law, but only by voluntary, respectively reasonable
imitation of scientific conventions.
But in order to provisionally analyze information differentiation in
conflicts, I think we need at least a third category namely ideology
or ideological, which is harder to distinctly identify all the more
as the differentiation and attribution of ideology is conflicting
and even more often an element of the conflict itself.
Ideology is about unchanging concepts, ideas, and convictions and
about group-privileging aims – thus is anti-scientific (against
evolution of cognition) and particularistic (against political and
legal equality and universalism).
If Azerbaijan tries to compensate its military defeat by launching
an info-war via internet, TV and newspapers, it is in order to reach
informational hegemony. Obviously, there is a lot of ideology in
it: sheer and crude propaganda (for example: "Armenians as fascist
occupants of Azerbaijani territories"), old- and new-fashioned
conspiracy theories (for example: "Armenians as henchmen and favorites
of the West as well as of Russia, in former times and in times of
the Karabakh conflict" or "Armenians as initiators of the pogroms in
Sumgait", pseudo-scientific theories (the ethno-genetic theory of the
Albanians presenting the Azeris as their privileged descendants with
corresponding territorial claims), but also trickier strategies of
disregarding or denying of consolidated knowledge in the misplaced
name of relativism, pluralism or freedom of discourse (for example:
strategies of negationism, which deny the Armenian genocide)
and finally, and surely connected with the latter, an exclusive
self-victimization of Azerbaijan (Khojaly as genocide against Azeris,
which is untenable, even if we assume Armenians as offenders in and
around Khojaly).
I think Artsakh and Armenia cannot avoid the competition of ideas and
arguments in, about and around the conflict, including the criteria
for knowledge production, which enables them to identify the forms
of information being effective in the Karabakh conflict. This leads
us to the question, who or what is differentiating these forms.
2. Who or what differentiates information in conflicts?
Are powerful persons or groups differentiating the crucial
knowledge? – It is possible, that influential persons (authors,
politicians, entrepreneurs) or groups (lobbies, parties or other Power
Institutions) control some medias and hereby can partly define and
differentiate the forms of information as well as the epistemological
status of disseminated knowledge in and about conflicts. – But: the
more relevant and/or internationalized a conflict becomes, the more
improbable is a one-sided design, definition and differentiation of
information and knowledge in and about it. The world’s complexity
does not allow any group proper control over information on phenomena
like internationalized conflicts. We can analyze influences of groups
and persons, but if we reduce the differentiation of information to
them, we get stuck in the impasse of conspiracy theories, explaining
"everything and nothing". For example, the opinion expressed by
some Azeris according to which the US-Armenian lobby determines
US-policy in the Karabakh conflict is in stark contrast to the
turns and contradictions of US-policies in the Caucasus. Hence,
the informational influence of particular groups is not decisive. –
Also in conflicts, the definition and differentiation of knowledge
may not be reduced to groups: this is an encouraging point.
Are interests differentiating the crucial knowledge? More abstract
than persons or groups, economic and/or political interests often
serve in analyses as designing and defining variables of knowledge
as well as the interpreting factor of information in conflicts. Thus,
for many cases we can easily identify groups and decisions and hereby
information strategies as agents of interests; but if we want to
provide a stronger analysis, this interest-centered approach makes us
lose orientation. On the one hand, if we start to go more into detail
we come across groups and decisions deviating from their alleged
interest. Groups and their decisions in concrete processes lack the
consistency of a clear interest, they partly have to forget about
interests, they often do not know (or identify) them or they serve
diverging or even incompatible interests and so on. Therefore, even
on a more abstract level we cannot make profound analyzes or reliable
predictions of complex phenomena using the category of interest, and
consequently not of the phenomenon of informational differentiation
in conflicts. Interest only clarifies information, if they are very
abstract which in turn suggests that the conflict groups and people
in general serve almost the same interest (happiness, welfare, and
maintenance of power…). – We cannot sufficiently differentiate
information in conflicts using the category of interest.
Instead we have to find and outline some cognitive rules both as
differentiating criteria and real factors. They are applied by
relative and partial observers, who are independent from ethnic or
organizational membership, and who both take into consideration
and go beyond economic or political interest. This requires an
international public to be willing and able to share, discuss,
and develop criteria and standards of both knowledge production and
distribution, an international public who resists regional prejudice,
privileges or preferences. Nevertheless, regional characteristics
can survive while using and enriching these global standards. Thus,
internationality or the common ground of global discussions (in
politics, arts, science, law, etc.) is rather defined by the same
problems than by the same answers. All this leads to the conception
of a political, scientific, ethical and legal universalism, which is
compatible with contemporary phenomena of pluralism or relativism,
and which I consider to be fundamental for the settlement of the
Karabakh conflict. But in this particular case, it is quite doubtful,
whether the international public is observing the same problem.
3. How can information in conflicts be or become
differentiated? (Possibilities of informational differentiation)
Bearing in mind the categories of scientific, political and ideological
information, we can identify internal and external differentiation
of information in conflicts. Internal differentiation consists of
statements and decisions made by direct conflict groups or by indirect
conflict groups who intervene from a formal outside.
External differentiation consists of observations made by the
international public (that is by third groups external to the
conflict). Their observations are neither determined by the conflict,
nor do they contribute to its dynamic. (Everything can be used and
misused elsewhere). Moreover, I subsume under external differentiation
texts and statements regardless of the speaker’s/author’s group
membership if they overcome particularistic points of view. This
means, they use criteria, which explain their aims and means only
within the limits of their own group and its position in the conflict.
It is obvious that there is no clear or absolute border between
external and internal differentiation, there is a fight over
this border, over its shifting, its blurring, its definition, its
conservation and so on, according to what the context requires. We can
even observe incessant switching to the other side, if the resonance
corresponds to the implicated or intended messages. If Azerbaijan,
considering respectively presenting itself as victim, wants the UN to
demand the Armenian retreat, this is about shifting the border between
internal and external differentiation: because it is an attempt to
integrate the half-informed international public into the internal side
of the conflict. Azerbaijani information strategy classifying Khojaly
as genocide aims at blurring the borders between internal and external
differentiation as well as between politics, science and ideology. It
is a fierce political struggle over the informational borders of
the conflict, in which science plays a crucial and ambivalent role
to discriminate ideology. It is only after science has succeeded
in saving itself, that we can expect it to be of practical use. We
are constantly exposed to the danger of particularism, tempting us
to encircle universal or at least supranational values of science,
politics, law and so on with expectations which serve only our
own group. This temptation we must resist. But what goes beyond
particularism? I think the right for national self-determination
does go beyond particularism. It is compatible with political and
legal universalism; it includes the potential right for all people
for self-determination. The only real objections to it are one-sided
imperial dreams.
In conflicts, the value of information is often systematically
put into question. One part of the way out of the conflict leads
over the upgrading of information, which can only be reached via
differentiation.
4. Why do we need different forms of information in
conflicts? (Functions of informational differentiation in conflicts)
I see two main and abstract functions of informational strategies and
differentiation in conflicts: outward (it is the) reputation of the
conflict group’s decisions and expectations, respectively the plans and
proposals supported by the group (we can also say: outward reputation
is about general recognition of more or less specific aims and means,
for which the group is assuming responsibility.) The main function
inward is the control over the power resources of the own group. That
is also to weaken the opponent’s power resources. I think both
functions are unavoidable. Other and more concrete functions are more
optional and subordinated to reputation and control: clarification and
disinformation, appeal to or isolation from international interests,
limitation and intensification of the conflict.
There is no peaceful alternative to the competition of defining and
re-defining the limits and contents of these functions, especially
if the conflict is unsettled. It requires a public that is able
and willing to identify and set out its provisionally diverging
expectations in the conflict, in order to reach a differentiated
language as common language and as common ground for a settlement.
5. Some final comments for a little outlook 1) It is a crucial point to
continue and, if possible, strengthen the efforts to bring the Karabakh
conflict more into the focus of the international public. This is
necessary to ensure discussions about and beyond patterns and effects
of established political and economic alliances, and to handle the
info-war, on which Azerbaijan pins its hopes (connected with massive
armament).
2) The Karabakh conflict has to be an object of research also outside
of Artsakh, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as outside of think tanks –
it is by far relevant and complex enough to be broadly analyzed.
3) Although the distinction between propaganda (ideology) and tenable
information is political, this distinction is defined and re-defined
only by the means of science. A non-catastrophic settlement needs
the fight for informational differentiation. In that fight, despite
the political, financial, and media resources of Azerbaijan, the
matter of Armenian self-determination in Artsakh is hardly beatable,
particularly since the propaganda sins of the Azeri science are severe.
4) I’m confident, that one day the matters of territorial integrity
and national self-determination will be mediated more consistently
in international law and politics. The name of Kosovo will not
rest, not even after its complete settlement. The double standard
of decisions and settlements will at least approximate each other
by virtue of developing and comparing perspectives in the name of
an incomplete universalism. Not least because of their inner and
mutual contradictions, the super powers cannot forever separate their
courtyards from their no man’s lands. There are some signs, that the
long way of imperial dreams is reaching its end – and leads to the
sober equality of national groups.