Photographer : GadgetGirl@Flickr
I left my backpack on the train in 1999. Someone from Trans-Adelaide picked it up and rang the number on the tag.
Last week I did the same thing and Trans-Adelaide rang the bomb squad who blew up my uni notes—presumably they had trouble trying to defuse my German essay.
I’m angry, and not just because I spent ages on that essay, but because everyone’s so paranoid about being blown up by terrorists. Get over it—the chances of it happening are minuscule. You’re far more likely to die of food poisoning, get hit by a car or be murdered.
Feel better?
The myth
In the 2001 State of the Union Address, US President George Bush told us of a powerful organisation called al Qaeda, which had ‘thousands’ of terrorists that ‘hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.’ Both the former prime minister, John Howard, and the Leader of the Liberal Party, Brendan Nelson, said in September 2007 that terrorism was the greatest threat to our nation.
We are told that there is a highly organised terrorist network which is, at this very moment, plotting our demise. Some hide out in sophisticated terrorist lairs, desperately trying to lay their evil hands on weapons of mass destruction. Others have infiltrated our society—they could be anyone—and are poised to attack us at any time, in any place.
But in truth, that’s bullshit. It’s about as real as my German essay.
The truth
The US Department of Homeland Security has spent millions of dollars searching for terrorist cells in America—they didn’t find any. The American military spent months searching for terrorist hideouts in Tora Bora, Afganistan—they didn’t find any. If al Qaeda really is such a powerful and well-resourced terrorist network, then where are the apocalyptic attacks we’ve been alert (and alarmed) about?
‘A perfectly plausible explanation is that there are no terrorists here (in the West),’ writes John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University in the respected New York journal Foreign Affairs. ‘I don’t say there’s no threat, but the threat has been massively exaggerated.’
In reality, al Qaeda is a miniscule group, most of whom killed themselves in 2001. The group hasn’t committed another terrorist attack on the West since.
The Madrid bombing was committed by various foreigners, as well as Spanish nationals. The London bombings where carried about by English nationals who where ‘inspired’ by al Qaeda, and the Bali Bombings committed by an unrelated group on their home soil. Other than loosely shared ideologies and names, none of these groups had any connection or contact with each other, or ‘al Qaeda’.
Al Qaeda is, in fact, a ‘brand name’ for terrorism that we have created. Osama bin Laden had never actually referred to his group as ‘al Qaeda’ until after the 2001 attacks when he found out that was the name being used in the West.
Jason Burke is the author of Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam. ‘That bin Laden ran a coherent organisation with operatives and cells all around the world of which you could be a member is a myth. There is no Al Qaeda organisation... That idea of a coherent, structured terrorist network with an organised capability simply does not exist.’
Calm down
We have an irrational fear of terrorism which is spurred on by politicians, the media, and our own emotions. The graphic images of 9/11 have been burnt into the western consciousness.
Benjamin Friedman from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) likens attitudes about terrorism to shark attacks and kidnappings. ‘Terrorism is strange, uncontrollable and forms a ready mental image. So people overestimate terrorism's risk and demand excessive protection from it.’
Politicians’ dire warnings of attacks are like parents warning their children of boogey-men. They announce that only they can protect us, and protecting us is easy, especially when nothing’s there.
The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself
Not only is the fear of terrorism irrational and false, it’s downright dangerous. While we hide beneath the sheets fearing terrorists under our beds, we ignore issues which pose a far greater threat to our lives, from basic healthcare to global warming.
Over US$1 trillion has been spent on the ‘War on Terror’ by the United States Government alone, not to mention the troops, time, energy and enormous international effort. Imagine what we could have done with those resources.
We could have provided clean drinking water worldwide, massively reduced the planet’s dependence on fossil fuels or given every ActNow member a few billion dollars.
Terrorism 101
So now that we know there is no al Qaeda, what is there?
Well there is an idea, a banner for disaffected Muslims and radical Islamists to unite under. A banner which we the West, with the help of bin Laden, have created. A banner which didn’t exist before 2001.
This is the real threat of terrorism—it’s what inspired the ‘home grown’ attacks in London and Bali. But it’s being comprehensively ignored under the current ‘War on Terror’.
Terror-fied
Terrorism relies on us being terrified; it is our response to terrorism that determines its impact. 9/11 didn’t just kill thousands of people, even worse, it made us terrified.
The 9/11 attacks created fear and suspicion which still lingers today. By creating so much panic we have elevated trivial groups like al Qaeda to a level of power they could have only dreamt of. Al Qaeda provoked the West into reacting with what many, nationally and internationally, perceive as the ‘War on Islam’.
To potential terrorists, reality doesn't matter—but perceptions do.
Suspicion and fear of Muslims at home, from racist jokes to Pauline Hanson’s calls for a ban on Muslim immigration, are divisive. The fiasco with Brisbane doctor Mohammed Haneef has further alienated the Muslim community. So do recent revelations that ASIO officers illegally detained a 22-year-old Muslim medical student.
Similar and even more ridiculous attempts at prosecuting ‘terrorists’ have occurred overseas. In the US authorities claimed that a homemade video of rides at Disneyland was actually preparation for an attack. It turned out that the ‘Islamist terrorists’ where really just Muslim tourists.
On the London Underground police shot an innocent man seven times in the head when they confused him with a terrorism suspect.
The international kidnapping and torture of suspects, called ‘extraordinary rendition’ by the US government, is arrogant beyond belief. In one case the CIA kidnapped a man from Milan, Italy, and then flew him to Egypt to ‘legally’ torture him. When it realised he had no information they released him, more than a year after he disappeared. In Italy there are now arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives linked mission.
But it doesn’t matter what you think of the Iraq war, ‘extraordinary rendition’, Guantanamo Bay or racial profiling. Justified or not, they feed into the argument that the West is engaged in a war against Islam. An argument that may be pushing moderate Muslims into extremism, especially if they are excluded from mainstream society.
In a 2006 report called Bringing it Home, the respected UK-based think tank Demos said: ‘The government’s response to terrorism is alienating the very communities it needs to engage, and that their growing sense of grievance, anger and injustice inadvertently legitimises the terrorists’ aims, with or without their active consent.’
Don’t get me wrong
I’m not saying we should ignore terrorism. But we should put it in perspective. Blowing up people has always been illegal—we don’t need new laws and we don’t need new wars. We need to focus on better integration and cultural understanding not just for warm fuzzies, but for our own good. We should approach terrorism calmly and with rationality, and treat it like any other crime.
If we are terrified, then the terrorists have won.
Want more, think I’m wrong?
Below is the third of three BBC documentaries by Adam Curtis which examine the rise of fundamentalist Islam and the West’s reaction.
If you’d like to query or challenge anything, drop me a line in the comments box.
How do I know this?
ABC 2007, Terrorism threat more immediate than climate change: PM, 28 September,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/28/2045948.htm
Briggs, R et al 2006, ‘Bringing it home—community-based approaches to counter-terrorism’, Demos,
http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Bringing%20it%20Home%20-%20web.pdf
Burke, J 2007, ‘There’s no single story to Al Qaeda, The Guardian, 11 November,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2209191,00.html
Curtis, A 2004, The power of nightmares: The rise of the politics of fear, BBC
Friedman, B 2005, ‘The hidden cost of homeland defense’, Audit of Conventional Wisdom, MIT, May,
http://mit.edu/cis/pdf/Audit_11_05_Friedman.pdf
Mascolo, G & Gebauer, M 2007, ‘CIA in the dock’, Der Spiegel,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,458821,00.html
Mueller, J 2006, Is there still a terrorist threat?: the myth of the omnipresent enemy, Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct,
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060901facomment85501/john-mueller/is-there-still-a-terrorist-threat.html
