Category: Terrorism

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Mediawatch Politics Terrorism

Lessons in Fear (after Munich)

fear munich akkuza

It’s a new thing now. Not Pokemon I mean, but this habit to drop “and Munich?” in conversation without as much as a semblance of intent to actually engage about the matter beyond signalling a mutual acknowledgement of the existence of yet another horrible event marking the simultaneous deaths of multiple human beings. “And Munich?” dropped at some part of an exchange is meant to imply a plurality of emotions, feelings and thoughts without actually dealing with them. In post-fact, emotion driven society there is a whole series of “taken as reads” packaged in a two-word reference.

“And Munich?” means that they have stricken again. It means that we are condemned to live another series of days in anxious attention watching the news to hear about how yet another subset of innocent victims had their lives cut short and how the state can do nothing or seems to be unable to do anything about them. “And Munich?” means that the terrorists are winning the war and that all we can do is share a feeling of helplessness as the multi-headed hydra strikes again with wanton abandon and without any recognisable pattern. “And Munich?” definitely implies that the refugee/immigrant problem is out of hand and that whether we like it or not it must be stopped. “And Munich?” includes the sentiment that now even Merkel’s Germany is no longer safe from gun or truck wielding maniacs so why should we be safe? “And Munich?” insinuates that we are living under constant siege and in constant fear and that nothing seems to be able to save us.

Therein lies the problem. Social discourse prefers not to engage but rather to wallow in emotional dysfunctionalism. There is no effort to define beyond the effortless generalisations and assumed truisms that sweep everyone and everything under the same carpet and into the same media-wrapped boxes of cliches. Munich showed us the direction in which we are moving when it comes to fear-based social reasoning.

The first clues came with the breaking news. “Shooting in Munich” did not need any further elaboration. We, and when I say we I mean the global media village’s spectators, were already braced for the worst. A series of automated events were expected to be put into place. “The escalation”, “the police reaction”, “the heroes on scene”, “the vindication”, “the first amateur videos and reports”, “the rise in number of reported victims”, “the stand off”, “the resolution”, “the global political condemnation”, ” the solidarity and mourning” and of course “je suis Munich”. All these steps were in place in our collective minds once the our medium of choice tweeted us the breaking news that there had been a new “Shooting in Munich”.

Then came the early analysis as the events continued to unroll before our eyes. Munich Police stated that since a man had wielded a gun in public this had to be treated as a terrorist attack in order to mobilise the maximum resources to counter its effects. It was an interesting honest statement at a very early stage. As far as I can recall it is the first time that while we had an “attack” in progress we were given direct access to the security protocols of the nation in question. The official reaction is, rightly I add, tuned to assume that we are dealing with a terrorist of the organised (ISIL) type and then question that assumption later. The reasoning is clear and pragmatic – in the worst case scenario the security forces are right and they have all the means to deal with the issue. In the best case the attack is not really a terrorist attack but one that seems to be so due to the circumstances and still all means have been deployed to minimise the damage.

It turns out that the Iranian born 18-year old who went on a shooting spree in a shopping district of Germany’s third largest city was actually emulating a Norwegian far-right madman who had gone on a shooting spree among a group of political youths on an holiday island in Norway. The Iranian was more Breivik and less Daesh. Yet we would only find that out over 24 hours after the events. As it turns out, the Munich police deployment of security measures – blockdown on transport, curfew, assumption of other shooters involved in the attack – may have saved more lives and contained the damage. Similarly, the social mindset as the events unfolded demonstrated a “trained” mentality among the general public. Twitter hashtags offered support and shelter to anyone stranded in the potential zone of carnage, Facebook triggered a fine-tuned function that helped people show that they are safe and sound, the media (or most of it) knew better than to defy police instructions not to share videos and images at the peak of the crisis.

So what lessons do we draw from the Munich attack? Early the next morning I put the following post on facebook:

One of them is as old as the word itself: it takes FEAR and TERROR to make a TERRORIST. Not ISIL, not an organised network of sharpshooting ideological maniacs, not immigrants who got in under the radar with intent to kill, not far right extremists with an agenda. Those are all masks and labels that hide the real danger – misfits, renegades, angry individuals who will prey on the new mindset of fear. One man with a gun is no longer a criminal – he is a terrorist (hasn’t crime always spread terror?) and the third largest city in Germany is locked down.  The biggest cause of fear is lack of knowledge. Today’s society needs new ways of responding to these realities. Part of that development lies in understanding how and why all this is happening.

I do believe that is our biggest lesson yet. We have come to realise that due to a combination of circumstances that include the immediacy of breaking news and coverage we are a society that easily falls prey to fear and helplessness. Crimes and criminals that involve deaths and victims are no longer to be treated “simply” as such but as part of a wider bigger problem that is holding all of society at ransom. the new crime of “terrorism” is like nothing that we have ever seen before – mainly BECAUSE of the immediacy of the breaking news when the situation is no longer limited to the immediate closeness of wherever the events unfold but involves a whole global community. This sense of communal fear and helplessness was previously not achievable by similar groups as ISIL operating on the basis of terror and fear – the IRA, the Brigate Rosse, Bader Meinhoff, the PLO.

This psychological hostage situation is exacerbated because all the while society will carry on with its own agenda and there will unfortunately always be the misfits, the renegades and the angry individuals who will commit crimes that would in all other circumstances not qualify for the “terrorist” moniker but that will henceforth contribute to the generation of mass hysteria and uncertainty.  It is important for all of society to take time and understand such acts – in order not only to be in a position to better react to them in the future but also to try, as far as possible to avoid them ever happening.

The best way to fight fear is with knowledge.

Categories
Mediawatch Terrorism

Killing in the name of (Labelling Hate)

killing in the name of _ akkuza

In the wake of the Orlando massacre in which a gun toting madman entered a nightclub and coldly killed 49 other persons much debate has centred around “intent” and “motive”. One particular morning show on Sky UK featured a walk out by an angry guest columnist who was frustrated by the hosts’ obstinate refusal to acknowledge that the attack was “homophobic”. “Had this been a synagogue we would be talking about an attack on Jews and solidarity with the worldwide Jewish community”, he stated moments before storming off (I paraphrase), “Why don’t you call this what it is… an attack on LGBT community?”.

In Paris, a few days later a lone man armed with a knife brutally killed two employees of the police force stabbing the man to death on the street before holding the man’s partner hostage in her own apartment and ending her life shortly before the RAID police intervened killing him in the process. A three year old daughter survives the couple. The French government speaks of “indoctrination” and following of the “principles” of ISIS.

Both the Paris and Orlando attacks have been “claimed” by ISIS. Some sick mind sitting in the Middle East sees yet another tragedy unfold and rushes to own it as his own – as that of an ideology, part of some twisted form of religious goal. They are now not only armed with fear but also by ownership of the thousands of twisted and unhappy minds that exist around the world. Any dysfunctional misfit with a grudge against society is now a potential weapon in the hands of ISIS. That is what it boils down to.

And what do we focus on? We focus on labels. We are busy jostling over “victim rights” – this time it’s the LGBT community, last time it was the Free Satirical Press, there’s a threat that it could be the Sporting Comunity too. We’re doing it all wrong. I am in no way saying that there should be some form of diminution of empathy and solidarity with whatever part of society is struck, far from that. The LGBT and Policing Communities have been hit in the last week. Solidarity with the communities is normal in a caring society. It is however imperative that such attacks are put in context using a strong dose of rationality and reason.

Focusing on the the nature of the victims does not help at all. It only leads to a loss of focus. The truth is that it is all of society that is threatened – as it always has been – by the existence of misfits and grudge-bearers who would do more than write a letter to the editor complaining about how society’s mores have gone to the dumps. Intent and motive is beside the point if not only to understand how much pent up anger exists or needs to exist in an individual before he resorts to violence. The Orlando and Paris killers may have pinned their banner to ISIS and some contorted view of a religion but the fact remains that their twisted acts are the result of violent social misfits.

It is not even their creed or origin that should be under focus but the reasons why they failed to fit so badly in the societies in which they were brought up. Badly enough to pick up a gun or dagger and kill fellow human beings. Badly enough to not care.

If we fail to understand this and continue to squabble about labels and ideas we will remain far from avoiding such massacres in the future.

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Immigration Middle East Terrorism Values

Know your enemy

know your enemy _ akkuza

The language of war has returned ever since the Paris Attacks. The French PM has not held back the ballistic rhetoric and insists on qualifying this as a war between France and Da’esh (they hate that name). In doing so, Hollande steps into the shoes of George W. Bush who similarly had declared war on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda shortly after the sad events of 9/11. Ever since 13/11 (European calendar) Hollande has upped the tempo and has even resorted to invoking international clauses before the UN in order to intensify the attacks on Da’esh.

One thing that has really been getting at me ever since this war discourse has begun is the frequent reference to the facts of the Paris Attacks as though they are the first time ever that a European nation is facing terror and terrorist attacks. The modern generation of politicians seem to have a faint, or non-existent, grasp of the recent history of their continent. It would appear that it is the first time that a group of men opened fire on innocent civilians, the first time that bombs went off in a major European city, the first time that a sporting event was directly in the line of fire and – to add the events of the Russian events on the Sinai – the first time that a plane was bombed or hijacked by terrorists.

As if this historical distortion is not enough we have to also add the fact that the context of all this terror-talk is a Europe that is already submerged in fear-mongering in relation to the “threat” of immigration. The Paris Attacks occurred within the context of a major continental upheaval with regards to immigrants and refugees and we had no time to factor in the issue of continental values that was still very much unresolved at the time.

What do I mean by historical distortion? This is a generation of politicians that are used to selling their wares through very efficient marketing and rhetoric. They are used to manipulating facts and figures in order to infuse feel good factors. Just take a look at “Our economy is booming” Renzi and Muscat for a clear example of what is meant. These politicians are now faced with a concrete problem and have to seem as efficient as when they are trumping up figures to make their economy sound beautiful. So they tell us that this is a danger such as we have never seen before. In one fell swoop the deeds of the IRA, ETA, Baader-Meinhoff, Brigade Rosse and the PLO (and PLF) are vanished away.  According to the new rhetoric the bombings at Liverpool Street Station, Bologna or the shootings at Munich are just fiction.

Muhammad Zaidan (Abu Abbas for enemies) never existed. The governments of Thatcher and Craxi never had to deal with terrorist cells. No. Only now are we at WAR. The enemy is everywhere. That is what they want you to believe.

Does this mean that a terrorist threat from Da’esh should be ignored or is not so bad as they make it sound? Nonsense. What I mean is that this sudden linking of terrorist attack to acts of war has consequences that go far beyond dealing with them as the type of security threat that they really are. With the death of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind behind the Paris attacks, we were told that he was very probably the mastermind behind most of the other attacks that occurred recently – or that were foiled. from the shootout in Verviers to the foiled Thalys aggression  – it was Abaaoud. When you read the facts that are available in terms of 70s and 80s terrorism it begins to look very likely that we are dealing with a cell of extreme terrorists.

This kind of cell is a bunch of individuals disgruntled with society in very much the same vein as a Breivik or your average US High School Shooter in the US. It is now also clear that they are raised and bred in Europe only to abscond to war zones like Syria to get “training” in much the same way as the Che Guevara’s of other decades rushed to zones of popular revolution. The “ideology” is an excuse or pressure valve justification to unleash pent up anger at a society that they claim misunderstands them. When they do manage to succeed with one of their plans to explode or kill that is when Da’esh steps in to claim ownership. Which is fortunate for Da’esh because, as they themselves claim in their newsletters, any action that is successful and perpetrated by anyone can be claimed as originating from them no matter how spurious the link is. This makes Da’esh look much larger and organised on the European mainland than it really is.

The flaws in European security relate to the inability to flag disillusioned individuals, the facility with which they can obtain weapons in a society that does not treat guns and bombs as liberally as the US and finally, the biggest flaw is looking for a massive organisation where there most probably is none. Da’esh’s hand in all this is ‘limited’ so to speak in obtaining a monopoly on fear. The ultimate aim for Da’esh is to provoke the “Us and Them” mentality – and they hope to recruit more than just a handful of misplaced youths with suicidal tendencies. That is why the war language serves Da’esh more than it serves your average European state.

It may sound crazy at this moment in time but I strongly believe that Europe – particularly the Union – has much bigger problems than the terrorism threat. The main issue here is the search for a Europe of Values with common intent. It is that Europe that failed to take shape when Giscard d’Estaing’s constitutional convention failed to deliver a clear definition of the Europe that we all want. It is only by defining what it is and what its values are that Europe can finally stand up and be clear about its position vis-a-vis the immigrants that are looking to it as a place of refuge or economic improvement. When we can tell refugees and immigrants who we are and what standards they must conform to then we can really wage the real war that counts. The war on ignorance and intolerance.

Before you face your enemy it is important to know thyself. Nosce te ipsum.