Pete
09-14-2005, 07:45 PM
Not sure if this is worthy of being posted here but I typed it up for a friend's magazine and thought I might post it here...
Fear Culture
We live in a dangerous world today. Terrorist attacks pose a constant threat to our safety and we put ourselves at risk every time we leave our homes. Soon, things will be so dangerous that it’ll make more sense to just stay indoors and shut the world out.
This is the picture that a lot of people have of society today – reinforced not only through bombastic news coverage but increasingly isolationist government policy. It is becoming a battle of us vs them – we being the sane western majority and them being the Islamic extremists who are hiding in our country and waiting to strike down the infidels.
Since 9/11, Bush’s ‘War On Terror’ has polarised political policy to an extent that hasn’t been seen since the Cold War. However, this time we don’t have the comfort of identifying the bad guys as being safely ensconced behind an iron curtain – in fact sometimes now we’re not even sure who the bad guys are. So far, the best way to deal with this terrorist threat has been to invade any Islamic country that has a cache of oil… err… terrorist training camps. This subjective policy of choosing to go after the Islamic fundamentalists first and foremost is an odd decision, as so far little has been done to address terrorist threats closer to home – for example the IRA, UVF and militant American Christian paramilitary groups. There is very much a sense of the ‘Coalition’ targeting enemies that can be beaten relatively easily with the purpose of being seen to be doing something rather than engage in difficult political dialogues with ‘dangerous’ countries like North Korea who could be seen as a far greater danger to world security.
In this New Cold War, government advice has returned to the duck and cover rationale that proved popular in the 1960s. Only this time it’s more of a case of send out a few booklets to the Great British public telling them to stay home, tune in and freak out. The recent attacks in London on the 7th of July have shown the effect that twenty four hour news coverage has had on the public consciousness and the way in which news is ‘subjectively’ reported. On the 7th of July, wild reports of shootings at Canary Wharf and other explosions were broadcast live on air by news corporations that wanted to be first to the punch even if the information they were broadcasting was based purely on speculation. This is a very worrying development as, in a situation that is already highly charged, I fail to see how piling further proclamations of doom that are unproven will help inform the public. Newscasters seem to revel in divulging gory details during the event itself – treating disaster with the disconnected glee usually reserved for partisan sports broadcasters. This further fuels the fires of hysteria, frightening the living daylights out of members of the public hundreds of miles from London and further traumatising relatives of those whose loved ones are in London and unaccounted for. This then leads to a panic that culminates in bomb scares nationwide for the next few weeks. There now seems to be an accepted news policy of ‘as long as we report it first, it doesn’t have to be true at a later date.’ - something the government realised didn’t work with the WMDs in Iraq fiasco.
This leads to a society that is constantly looking over its shoulder, practically begging for ID cards to identify this terrorist underclass. Unfortunately the terrorists who were responsible for the events on the 7th of July were all British nationals, so ID cards would not have prevented their actions. This highly charged social atmosphere cannot be allowed to worsen as we have already seen how a knee-jerk ‘shoot to kill’ order issued to police resulted in the accidental shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. These measures taken to make us all feel safer aren’t working and it is time for the media to take responsibility for the way in which their reportage of volatile events can further damage society in the wake of already traumatic events. Visible policing might make us all feel a bit safer, but is it actually helping dissuade the terrorists from their ideological conviction that Britain is an enemy of Islam?
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have served only to increase support for Al Qaeda in both countries and continued occupation of the Holy Lands is further damaging the perception of Britain as an imperialistic country, involved in the Bush crusade to spread Christianity and capitalism in a neat package to the Middle East whether they like it or not. Attempts to win hearts and minds in Iraq are unlikely to succeed when civilian casualties and daily reminders of occupation are the reality experienced by most Iraqi citizens.
Closer to home government policy and news casting are causing increased instances of racism and division within the modern multicultural Britain. The BNP doubled its vote in the 2005 election, a very worrying sign that a lot of people are now supporting its overt ‘Keep Britain for the British’ message. The perception of some sections of society is that if I we can stop foreigners getting into the country then we’ll be safe from attacks – think gated communities on an international level. The idea that people born and raised in Britain could want to join terrorist networks and perpetrate attacks, while true, is too unsettling to accept as fact. This fear of the faceless ‘them’ has created a worryingly divided culture where skin colour and religious belief are becoming the justification for violent attacks.
The social climate seems more volatile now than it has been since the morale panic of the 1970s over muggings, and in Northern Ireland tensions over parade routes have once again flared up in the ugliest possible way just days after a momentous and proud victory over the English team in the World Cup qualifiers. It would be a very small sacrifice for both Republican and Loyalist factions to decide that parades are causing a huge amount of trouble for the majority of the population, and in the 21st Century it would be a good idea to abandon the triumphalistic culture of marching. I’m sure there are members of both sides that are simply there for the traditional aspect of the parades but there is now a trend of outright thuggery that has become linked to parades – and if the only way to eradicate it is to stop parades then that is a small price to pay. A harder line needs to be taken against thugs who think they can get away with civil disorder under the banner of political activism – punish offenders as heavily as their crimes require. I highly doubt that if petrol bombs were being thrown at cars and police officers in London that the Metropolitan Police would pursue a policy of containment. I also believe that Tony Blair would have a fair bit more to say on the matter if it was on his own doorstep. Northern Ireland does not have a functional devolved government and so it is still the responsibility of the Prime Minister to condemn the thuggish behaviour and instigate an appropriate police-led response. Leaders on both sides of the community have said they are no longer being listened to by the thugs responsible for these deplorable actions, and with no widespread condemnation or repercussions what is going to stop such attacks?
Perhaps before the police force of the world embarked on a war on terrorism, they should have asked whether a war on terror is actually feasible. Ideological motivation for terrorist attacks is being largely ignored, with Tony Blair stating that he doesn’t believe that the War on Iraq contributed in any way to the London attacks. This shows a bull headed lack of understanding for the processes that create a mentality where terrorism seems like the only legitimate way to attack the countries that are invading the Middle East. There is no dialogue with the populace of these countries to explain why the USA and Britain felt invasion would help them in the long run, and when your home has been destroyed and your family killed it is easy to understand why revenge seems the best course of action. Isn’t that how many felt in America after 9/11? Many see invasion as an attack on their faith and Bush’s right wing Christian beliefs aren’t helping to dispel this. The globalist policy of the US totally ignores the idea that some countries are happy with their non-Christian religion and even if a country has democratically elected their leader (Cuba), unless they agree with US foreign policy they are going to find themselves on the US hit list of evil doers.
These are indeed dark days we are living in, but not for the reasons that seem to overwhelm news broadcasts every night. Society itself is no more dangerous than it was fifty years ago – but the ideology in Britain could be seen as far more incendiary – based so much more on division than social solidarity than it has been since before the Civil Rights movement. Government policy is focussing on attack as the best form of defence, when in fact understanding and empathy would be far more powerful weapons in the fight against terrorism and its causes. State funded terrorism still needs to be tackled, but ignoring the ideology that creates terrorism in favour of more ‘practical’ solutions is a dangerously short sighted plan. Tolerance and equality should be the innate goals of a free society, and should Britain as a fragmented, fearful and divisive culture be trying to spread ideals of peace to other countries?
Fear Culture
We live in a dangerous world today. Terrorist attacks pose a constant threat to our safety and we put ourselves at risk every time we leave our homes. Soon, things will be so dangerous that it’ll make more sense to just stay indoors and shut the world out.
This is the picture that a lot of people have of society today – reinforced not only through bombastic news coverage but increasingly isolationist government policy. It is becoming a battle of us vs them – we being the sane western majority and them being the Islamic extremists who are hiding in our country and waiting to strike down the infidels.
Since 9/11, Bush’s ‘War On Terror’ has polarised political policy to an extent that hasn’t been seen since the Cold War. However, this time we don’t have the comfort of identifying the bad guys as being safely ensconced behind an iron curtain – in fact sometimes now we’re not even sure who the bad guys are. So far, the best way to deal with this terrorist threat has been to invade any Islamic country that has a cache of oil… err… terrorist training camps. This subjective policy of choosing to go after the Islamic fundamentalists first and foremost is an odd decision, as so far little has been done to address terrorist threats closer to home – for example the IRA, UVF and militant American Christian paramilitary groups. There is very much a sense of the ‘Coalition’ targeting enemies that can be beaten relatively easily with the purpose of being seen to be doing something rather than engage in difficult political dialogues with ‘dangerous’ countries like North Korea who could be seen as a far greater danger to world security.
In this New Cold War, government advice has returned to the duck and cover rationale that proved popular in the 1960s. Only this time it’s more of a case of send out a few booklets to the Great British public telling them to stay home, tune in and freak out. The recent attacks in London on the 7th of July have shown the effect that twenty four hour news coverage has had on the public consciousness and the way in which news is ‘subjectively’ reported. On the 7th of July, wild reports of shootings at Canary Wharf and other explosions were broadcast live on air by news corporations that wanted to be first to the punch even if the information they were broadcasting was based purely on speculation. This is a very worrying development as, in a situation that is already highly charged, I fail to see how piling further proclamations of doom that are unproven will help inform the public. Newscasters seem to revel in divulging gory details during the event itself – treating disaster with the disconnected glee usually reserved for partisan sports broadcasters. This further fuels the fires of hysteria, frightening the living daylights out of members of the public hundreds of miles from London and further traumatising relatives of those whose loved ones are in London and unaccounted for. This then leads to a panic that culminates in bomb scares nationwide for the next few weeks. There now seems to be an accepted news policy of ‘as long as we report it first, it doesn’t have to be true at a later date.’ - something the government realised didn’t work with the WMDs in Iraq fiasco.
This leads to a society that is constantly looking over its shoulder, practically begging for ID cards to identify this terrorist underclass. Unfortunately the terrorists who were responsible for the events on the 7th of July were all British nationals, so ID cards would not have prevented their actions. This highly charged social atmosphere cannot be allowed to worsen as we have already seen how a knee-jerk ‘shoot to kill’ order issued to police resulted in the accidental shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. These measures taken to make us all feel safer aren’t working and it is time for the media to take responsibility for the way in which their reportage of volatile events can further damage society in the wake of already traumatic events. Visible policing might make us all feel a bit safer, but is it actually helping dissuade the terrorists from their ideological conviction that Britain is an enemy of Islam?
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have served only to increase support for Al Qaeda in both countries and continued occupation of the Holy Lands is further damaging the perception of Britain as an imperialistic country, involved in the Bush crusade to spread Christianity and capitalism in a neat package to the Middle East whether they like it or not. Attempts to win hearts and minds in Iraq are unlikely to succeed when civilian casualties and daily reminders of occupation are the reality experienced by most Iraqi citizens.
Closer to home government policy and news casting are causing increased instances of racism and division within the modern multicultural Britain. The BNP doubled its vote in the 2005 election, a very worrying sign that a lot of people are now supporting its overt ‘Keep Britain for the British’ message. The perception of some sections of society is that if I we can stop foreigners getting into the country then we’ll be safe from attacks – think gated communities on an international level. The idea that people born and raised in Britain could want to join terrorist networks and perpetrate attacks, while true, is too unsettling to accept as fact. This fear of the faceless ‘them’ has created a worryingly divided culture where skin colour and religious belief are becoming the justification for violent attacks.
The social climate seems more volatile now than it has been since the morale panic of the 1970s over muggings, and in Northern Ireland tensions over parade routes have once again flared up in the ugliest possible way just days after a momentous and proud victory over the English team in the World Cup qualifiers. It would be a very small sacrifice for both Republican and Loyalist factions to decide that parades are causing a huge amount of trouble for the majority of the population, and in the 21st Century it would be a good idea to abandon the triumphalistic culture of marching. I’m sure there are members of both sides that are simply there for the traditional aspect of the parades but there is now a trend of outright thuggery that has become linked to parades – and if the only way to eradicate it is to stop parades then that is a small price to pay. A harder line needs to be taken against thugs who think they can get away with civil disorder under the banner of political activism – punish offenders as heavily as their crimes require. I highly doubt that if petrol bombs were being thrown at cars and police officers in London that the Metropolitan Police would pursue a policy of containment. I also believe that Tony Blair would have a fair bit more to say on the matter if it was on his own doorstep. Northern Ireland does not have a functional devolved government and so it is still the responsibility of the Prime Minister to condemn the thuggish behaviour and instigate an appropriate police-led response. Leaders on both sides of the community have said they are no longer being listened to by the thugs responsible for these deplorable actions, and with no widespread condemnation or repercussions what is going to stop such attacks?
Perhaps before the police force of the world embarked on a war on terrorism, they should have asked whether a war on terror is actually feasible. Ideological motivation for terrorist attacks is being largely ignored, with Tony Blair stating that he doesn’t believe that the War on Iraq contributed in any way to the London attacks. This shows a bull headed lack of understanding for the processes that create a mentality where terrorism seems like the only legitimate way to attack the countries that are invading the Middle East. There is no dialogue with the populace of these countries to explain why the USA and Britain felt invasion would help them in the long run, and when your home has been destroyed and your family killed it is easy to understand why revenge seems the best course of action. Isn’t that how many felt in America after 9/11? Many see invasion as an attack on their faith and Bush’s right wing Christian beliefs aren’t helping to dispel this. The globalist policy of the US totally ignores the idea that some countries are happy with their non-Christian religion and even if a country has democratically elected their leader (Cuba), unless they agree with US foreign policy they are going to find themselves on the US hit list of evil doers.
These are indeed dark days we are living in, but not for the reasons that seem to overwhelm news broadcasts every night. Society itself is no more dangerous than it was fifty years ago – but the ideology in Britain could be seen as far more incendiary – based so much more on division than social solidarity than it has been since before the Civil Rights movement. Government policy is focussing on attack as the best form of defence, when in fact understanding and empathy would be far more powerful weapons in the fight against terrorism and its causes. State funded terrorism still needs to be tackled, but ignoring the ideology that creates terrorism in favour of more ‘practical’ solutions is a dangerously short sighted plan. Tolerance and equality should be the innate goals of a free society, and should Britain as a fragmented, fearful and divisive culture be trying to spread ideals of peace to other countries?