Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 27/04/2023; Author: Maida Salkanović
A photo of a monument with both female and male gender characteristics, which is claimed to be a mother monument placed in the European Union, has been circulating on social networks for a long time. The sculpture, however, represents something else.
On April 11, 2023, a collage of two photos showing two statues was published on Twitter. The description claims that these are mother monuments – one in Russia and one in Europe.
On the left, the Mother monument in Russia.
On the right, the Mother monument in the Netherlands – Europe
What world do you want to live in?
At the time of writing this analysis, the post had over 80,000 views and 468 “likes”, and it was shared 79 times. The same photos and claims were published on several Facebook profiles [1, 2, 3, 4]. One of the posts claims that the photos are located in Belarus and the Netherlands.
A photo of a monument of a person with female and male gender characteristics has long been shared on social media, often with the claim that it is a “mother monument” in the Netherlands, and the earliest post we found is from May 30, 2022.
What are the facts?
On June 7, 2022, Istinomer, a fact-checking web portal from Serbia, published an analysis of the same claims and photos and determined that it was an example of anti-Western propaganda. In its analysis from February 6, 2023, Faktograf also dealt with a photograph purporting to show a mother monument in the Netherlands.
The first photo showing the sculpture of a pregnant woman with two children was found to be authentic. As stated on the website Go To Nature, the sculpture is really a mother monument located in the Russian city of Tyumen (Тюмень).
In Tyumen park, which is located not far from the perinatal centre, in 2010, on the occasion of Children’s Day, an interesting sculpture was revealed: a mother (in late pregnancy) with children. It is said that initially the father was also planned in the composition, but then it was decided to leave only the mother (even though she has a wedding ring on her finger) and the naughty children.
Photo: Planrest; GoToNature.ru
The sculpture can also be seen using the Google Street View application, featuring footage from August 2012 that shows exactly where it is located.
The sculpture in the second photo, however, does not represent a mother monument in the European Union. It is indeed located in the Netherlands, but the interpretation of its meaning is not correct.
This is the work of the artist Femmy Otten, and it is an expression of freedom of thought, installed in the Dutch city of The Hague in 2017. The sculpture is called “And Life is Over There”, and according to the artist, it represents the ideal form of a human being:
The Greek god Hermaphrodite literally fused with his beloved. Ever since I’ve been drawing and making my artwork, the genders have merged into each other effortlessly. It’s very natural for me. I can identify with one or the other. It’s strange to me to see women and men as separate entities – we are so deeply connected and our lives are so intertwined. I feel a great urge to merge.
The hermaphrodite was a common motif in ancient Greek art, which is one of the inspirations for Otten’s work. In statements to the media, the author emphasized that for her “this is about equality”. In conclusion, it is not a “mother monument”, as claimed on social networks.
In narratives about the alleged Western devaluation of the family, the motif of the mother is often used for emotional manipulation. LGBTIQ motifs are also used as a representation of the Western threat to the “traditional family”. In this particular case, both motifs were used to create an image of the traditional family values of the East, which are being undermined by Western trends. On January 27, 2023, Raskrinkavanje published an analysis that deals with anti-Western narratives and claims about the “decadent West”.
According to Kremlin propaganda, the West is a corrupt, rotten, immoral and perverse society that is on the verge of collapse and that is trying to “poison” the Slavic nations with “corrupted individualism”. Russia, on the other hand, is a morally superior alternative and a society based on traditional values and spirituality.
Merging the anti-Western attitude with conservatism was […] a clever propaganda trick to reinforce the image of an evil West that threatens Russia and its traditional values, together with all those who question the “impeccable history” of Russia in any way: artists, liberals, gay people and all those who do not treat the Russian Orthodox Church with due respect.
Given all the facts, we rate the claim suggesting that the photo on the right shows a mother monument in the European Union, i.e. the Netherlands, as disinformation.
