One key fact about terrorism that has largely been obscured for Americans because of the Republican Party's strategy of relying on fear of terrorism to win elections is that the goal of terrorism is to produce terror.
It is unfortunate in the extreme for the United States that today's authoritarian Republican Party finds itself with a perceived interest in producing fear among voters that coincides in important ways with the jihadists' goal of producing fear in the Western democratic countries for their own purposes.
So, instead of learning to deal with the fear that terrorists seek to induce, our Republican leaders in the White House and Congress promote fear instead. Zbigniew Brzezinski recently observed that after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Roosevelt White House didn't seek to promote fear among the public. On the contrary, that administration sought to promote confidence and - with the glaring exception of the internment of Japanese-Americans - to dampen fear and hysteria.
One of the best description I've seen of the process of how fear can gradually take over a society is one that unfortunately I haven't been able to locate online. It's "Mit der Angst leben" von Wolfgang Sofsky Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) 03.09.06.
Sofsky begins by talking about how the "will to normality seduces [us] to illusions". Although since 9/11 Europe has suffered only isolated terrorist attacks, nevertheless they were "nevertheless attacks with many losses". He writes, "The global conflict is unmistakable. Jihadists have declared war on unbelievers".
That last statement is true. But stated in such a general way, it is compatable with the disastrously misleading idea that the jihadists "hate us for our values". It's very likely than in terms of emotional intensity, the violent Sunni Salafists hate Shi'a Muslims more than they hate Americans or even Jews, and that they hate those they regard as Sunni apostates even more. The jihadists aren't waging a general war on "unbelievers". They are focusing on particular targets that are based in significant part on the actions of countries toward Middle Eastern conflicts.
Republican Party fear-mongers have reasons to deny the latter and to prefer that people view the jihadists as nihilistic fanatics. Fanatics they are. But their goals are more focused than causing mindless destruction.
Sofsky makes a useful historical point that the jihadist tactic of mass killings represents a different sort of approach to terrorism than the "propaganda of the deed" that has motivated many forms of the sorts of terrorism to which people in Western countries are familiar. The Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany targeted individuals or locations to make a particular political point, as did the Weather Underground in the US, though the latter engaged in bombings of buildings rather than assassinations or kidnappings.
But, he writes, the kinds of terror attacks of which the 9/11 attacks were a part represents terrorism as an act of war. "Terror war is a war of a new type." But the accustomed practices and instruments of war are of limited usage against this type of warrior:
Die Angreifer wollten nicht provozieren, sie wollten die Gesellschaft lähmen. Terrorkrieg ist ein Krieg neuen Typs. Den Staatsorganen stehen Kriegsherren, Milizen, Kommandos und konspirative Zellen gegenüber. Das Blutbad kann überall geschehen, vor Botschaften, auf Marktplätzen, in Vorortzügen, Schulen, Diskotheken. Kein Ort ist sicher. Die Trennlinie zwischen Militär und Zivil, Krieg und Verbrechen ist gestrichen. ... Auch die alte Drohpolitik der Abschreckung versagt. ... Terrorkriege sind - wie alle Kriege - nut zur gewinne wenn der Feind kampftunfähig gemacht wird, durch Demoralisierung, Zerstorung sener Organisatipn und Ideologie, Inhaftiertmg, Tod. Wer sein soziales Umfeld bekehren oder ökonomisch neutralisieren will, hat sich viel vorgenommen.
[The attackers don't want to provoke, they want to cripple the society. Terror war is a war of a new type. The state organs are confronted with warlords, militias, commandoes and conspiratorial cells. The bloodbath can happen anywhere, in front of embassies, in market places, in suburban trains, schools, discoteques. No place is safe. The dividing line between military and civilian, war and crime is erased. ... And the old threat policy of deterrence doesn't work. ... Terror wars - like all wars - can only be won if the enemy is rendered unable to fight, through demoralization, destruction his organization and ideology, arrest, death. He who succeeds in winning over [the enemy's] social environment or economically neutralizes it has achieved a lot.]
But this also means that there can't be any single victory-producing strike, no atom bomb to produce instant victory like the one over Japan (or, at least in the imaginations of air power enthusiasts it did).
Sofsky argues that the potential reservoir for terrorists and the environment in which sympathy for jihadism thrives is a broad one, including significant segments of the Muslim populations in Europe and (obviously) in the Middle East. So, in other words, the possibility for terrorist attacks is one that isn't going to go away tomorrow.
But, if the public views individual attacks as isolated events rather than as part of a larger reality, that makes the potential of each attack to generate fear and panic even greater. "If the house of cards based on illusions collapses, naked panic breaks out". He doesn't make the observation, but that is essentially what has begun to happen in the United States even without new actual attacks on American soil.
He also reminds us that even a deadly attack that claims many victims does not make terrorism an "existential" threat, i.e., it doesn't threaten the existence of a society or nation. At least not by the individual acts. But if the targeted publics allow fear to take over, that does give terrorists a potentially much greater achievement:
Dieser Eskalation können nur widerstehen, indem sie sich wirksam rüsten und ihre Angst strikt eingehen. Statt dessen setzt man auf resolute Prävention.
[Societies can only resist this escalation so far as they are truly prepared and strictly keep their fear under control. Instead, one aims at resolute prevention.] (my emphasis)
But the multiplication of controls and checks and oversight over daily life can actually be counterproductive if done incorrectly:
Die Vorsorge sucht die Freiheiten zu beschneiden, welche die Terroristen ausnutzen: die Religions- und Reisefreiheit, das Brief- un Fermeldegeheimnis, das Vorrecht des Individuums ... sein Leben zu führen.
[The preventive measures seek to reduce the freedoms that the terrorists exploit: the freedom of religion and travel, the privacy of letters and electronic communications, the prerogative of the individual to lead his own life ... ]
But such restrictions of freedom wins popular support. (He's describing a process, not reporting on opinion polls.) And, if imagination and fear are allowed to run wild, a vicious circle sets in:
Sprengstoff kann überall versteckt sein, in Einkaufekörben, Fahrradtaschen oder Kinderwagen. Je harmloser ein Behälter, desto gefährlicher. Der Erfindungsgabe der Angreifer waren noch nie Grenzen gesetzt. ... Jeder Zeitgenosse kann ein Täter sein, jeder Nachbar, jeder U-Bahnpassagier. Wer kennt schon alle Masken der Terrorkrieger? Je weniger einer auffällt, desto verdächtiger ist er. Unauffälligkeit war schon immer die beste Tarnung.
Allgegenwärtige Prävention erzeugt ein Klima stetiger Alarmierung. Wird überall kontrolliert, muß die Gefahr überall lauern, Der Maßnahmen ist kein Ende. Denn je mehr man weiß, desto sicherer weiß man, daß man noch nicht alles weiß.
[Explosives can be hidden anywhere, in shopping baskets, bicycle bags or strollers. The more harmless a container, the more dangerous. The creative ability of the attackers have never yet had limits placed on them. ... Any contemporary can be a pertetrator, any neighbor, and subway passenger. Who knows all the masks of the terror warriors? The less someone stands out, the more suspicious he is. Inconspicuousness has always been the best disguise.
Ever-present prevention creates a climate of rising alarm. If everywhere is controlled, the danger must lurk everywhere. There is no end of the [security] measures. The more one knows, the more certain one is that he doesn't yet know everything.]
That description of Sofsky's of how the spiral of fear can work is an impressive one. And one that we in the United States are in danger of falling into deeper and deeper, and not only in the US. Just yesterday I returned from vacation on a flight from Heathrow Airport in London direct to San Francisco. Several seats over in the same row was a crying baby, something all air travellers experience sooner or later.
The six-month-old was disturbed by the take-off and landing, probably because of the unfamiliar and unpleasant sensations they can cause in the ears. But the baby also became very fussy during the flight. It turns out that the parents weren't allowed to bring the child's baby food on board. They had been told by airport security that baby food would be available on the flight. But, oops! It wasn't.
Fortunately for the child and the peace of the nearby passengers, the service staff were able to find suitable food that could be mashed up and fed to the baby.
But this is where we are right now. A group of Muslim fanatics in Britain with a plot that was far from actual implementation gets busted. And suddenly officials are pissing their pants over the threat of terrorist baby food!
Is this what our "global war on terrorism" has come to? Perpetual pants-soiling over imaginary threats of terrorist baby food, terrorist toothpaste and terrorist lipstick? Is this how free peoples should confront the threat of religious fanatics who attack us? Is this what all the macho posturing by the Cheney-Bush administration and their supporters over the last five years has reduced us to?
Sopfsky doesn't offer any cure-all policy prescriptions. He does make what should be fairly obvious observations that just denying the dangers isn't sensible or realistic, but, "Hysterical prevention sends us into a dead-end, though." He continues:
Der Traum von der vollständigen Sichtbarkeit entspringt nicht den Erfordernissen des Schattenkrieges ... Weit wirksamer sind Methoden der klandestinen Kriegführung: Infiltration des Milieus, gezielte Anfklärung, Koordination des Wissens und der Destruktivkräfte, plötzlicher Überfall, energische Verfolgung.
Das sicherste zuvile Mittel ist die Einhegung der Angst. Bleifat die Panik aus, stößt der Terror ins Leere. Menschen überwinden ihre Furcht, indem sie die Gefahr wahrnehmen, Illusionen verabschieden, blindes Staatsvertrauen reduzieren. Im Ernstfall sind Freiheitsbeschränkungen aufs Nötigste zu begrenzen, strikt zu befristen und öffenlich zu kontrollieren.
[The dream of complete security does not rise to the challenge of the shadow war... Much more effective are methods of clandestine conduct of war: infiltrating the milieus, targeted explanations [i.e., education/propaganda], coordination of knowledge and the destructive powers [police and military], sudden raids, energetic suppression.
The most sure civilian means is the overcoming of fear. If panic doesn't occur, terrorism goes nowhere. People overcome their fear bytaking the danger seriously, geting rid of illusions, reducing blind trust in the state. When genuinely necessary, the reduction of freedoms should be limited to the necessary, stricly limited in time and publicly controlled.]
The famous Rooseveltian line, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," may not have lost all its relevance for today's problems.
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