TERRORISM AND THE MEDIA
By Ahmed JEBRANE
Under the title “Theories of Prevention,” Ian Gough Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics noted in 2013 that such theories “are conspicuous by their absence.” Prevention regardless of the area it focuses on, is a difficult concept. How to establish a causal relationship between the impact of a set of precautionary interventions or preventive measures and an outcome that is a non-event, namely, in our case, the absence of acts of terrorism? After all, the same non-event outcome of the event could have happened anyway, without active interventions aimed at eliminating or mitigating the causes and without targeting the alleged drivers of radicalization, extremism and terrorism?
While we are all interested in the future since we will be spending the rest of our lives there, we have very limited control
over our future. Yet we can control (but never fully) at least some parts of the future, namely those we are willing and able to actively shape ourselves, rather than leaving that future to the whims of free will, opportunism and the fantasies of demagogues and preachers who claim their ideology or religion has all the answers. The way we look at the world determines what we see and the action we are likely to take. Without a realistic understanding of the drivers of change in our societies, we could, if we are not careful, cut down the wrong tree. The best way to approach the subject is to use the instruments of science that allow us to methodologically question our assumptions and develop theories that can be tested. This is easier said than done in the field of prevention. Ian Gough has pointed out that “prevention policy rests on two fundamental foundations, both of which are contested concepts.
First, the scientific understanding of cause and effect and the possibility of prediction. Second, the policy of prevention presupposes a certain capacity for government-controlled intervention in social life. But here are some of the questions that deserve closer examination and adequate answers:
● What exactly do we mean by “terrorist prevention”?
● What are the main causes and drivers of terrorism that need to be addressed and, where possible, neutralized or reversed to achieve effective prevention?
● What kind of measures and interventions are most appropriate for upstream, mid-stream and downstream terrorism prevention?
● How to prevent terrorist attacks planned in one country, carried out in a second country against a target belonging to a third country?
● How can more or less spontaneous single-actor attacks on random civilians in public spaces, carried out with weapons as common as knives and cars, be prevented?
● Should we first and foremost look for preventive, tactical operational measures, or aim for structural prevention strategies?
● Should we focus on reducing terrorists' capabilities or on reducing their motivations?
● Should priority be given to building the resilience and preparedness of their victims and potential targets?
● Should we prepare for high impact (but low probability) attacks or focus primarily on high probability (but low impact) attacks?
● How should we assess, monitor and evaluate prevention and preparedness efforts?
The focus is on the first of these questions, “what exactly do we mean by terrorism prevention”? It is said that a problem well defined is a problem half solved. While that's certainly an exaggeration, there's more than a grain of truth to it: conceptual issues should be taken seriously. Building theories on shaky conceptual foundations is like building on sand. So what is terrorism prevention? Answers were sought and given by academics and government agencies.
Framing terrorism prevention as radicalization prevention is a viable approach. However, this is probably too narrow a framework since it implies that only radicals commit acts of terrorism. Yet there is considerable evidence, for example, of reactionary (counter-)terrorism by state-linked opponents and false flag operations carried out by operatives of rogue regimes; they are definitely not radical or radicalized although what they are doing is “extreme” compared to “normal” politics. The link between radicalism and radicalization, and even more so between radicalism and terrorism, is not always present or direct. Furthermore, radicalism should not be confused with extremism either. More recently, some equate the prevention of terrorism with the prevention of “violent extremism”. Extremism, like radicalization, can actually precede many manifestations of terrorism. Yet the prevention of terrorism, the prevention of radicalization and the prevention of extremism are not quite identical, although there can sometimes be significant overlaps.
While the problem of terrorism prevention is partly related to the difficulties of prevention in general, it is also based on the fact that there are many definitions of “terrorism” which are remarkably different from each other. While the UN has been debating the question of the definition since 1972, no consensus
has yet emerged among the 193 members of the UN General Assembly regarding terrorism. Is it important ? Why is this important? The problem of definition is also a problem of response. The broader a definition, the more terrorism there is to combat and the more difficult it becomes to prevent it. If countries have different definitions of terrorism, the extradition of terrorist suspects and mutual assistance becomes more difficult and often impossible. A phenomenon sometimes expressed by the misleading expression "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Definitions are important and part of the lack of success in preventing terrorism has to do with a lack of conceptual rigor. Many factors contribute to the stagnation and ineffectiveness of the field known as Countering Violent Extremism. Among the most important issues are the lack of definitions of key terms, the lack of consensus models for extremism and radicalization, and the lack of interest in understanding extremism as an inter-ideological phenomenon.
Terrorism, as a political act, is situated at the crossroads of individual and collective action, of the emotional and the rational, of the conventional and the unconventional. It can be the strongest form of protest, the weakest form of rebellion, or a specialized tactic in a larger process of tyranny or war. There are many types of terrorism, the most important being:
● Lone wolf/actor terrorism
● Vigilante terrorism;
● Separatist (ethno-nationalist) terrorism;
● Left-wing terrorism;
● Far-right terrorism;
● Religious terrorism;
● Cyber terrorism;
● Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism;
● State (or regime) terrorism.
Should terrorism prevention address all of the above manifestations or should it even go beyond these ten types of terrorism and also address political violence in general which some governments use more or less as synonyms for terrorism. Therefore, the prevention of terrorism should cover all
manifestations of the entire spectrum of political violence, including certain forms of armed conflict not regulated by the international community.
Terrorism not only has many variants, but has also been defined in many ways. However, as noted above, we still do not have a legally binding definition of terrorism as an international crime, one agreed upon by the UN General Assembly, despite the fact that an ad hoc committee on terrorism and a working group, established by the Sixth (legal) UN General Assembly, has been searching for more than twenty years for a single definition on which all 193 UN member states can agree. All he has produced so far is this broad yet vague draft definition:
Art. 2.1. of the draft UNGA Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism: "Everyone commits an offense within the meaning of this Convention if that person, by any means whatsoever, unlawfully and intentionally causes:
a) Death or serious bodily harm to any person;
b) Serious damage to public or private property, including a place of public use, a facility or to the environment;
c) Damage to property, premises, installations or systems referred to in paragraph (b) of this article, resulting or likely to result in significant economic harm, where the conduct is intended, by its nature or context, to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or refrain from doing any act. »
The accumulation of any person, any means, any act in this draft definition indicates a lack of precision which may have serious implications for the prevention of terrorism. While the UN General Assembly has been unable to reach a consensus definition due to, among other things, differing views on issues such as the inclusion or exclusion of "popular struggle for self-determination” (especially with regard to Palestine and Kashmir), an academic definition of terrorism which is not legal but socio-scientific in nature has gained some acceptance among scholars.
In 2011, the following formulation emerged: Terrorism refers, on the one hand, to a doctrine about the presumed efficacy of a special form or tactic of coercive and fear-inducing political violence and, on the other part, to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative and direct violent action without legal or moral constraints, primarily targeting civilians and noncombatants, exercised for their propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and parties to the conflict. Terrorism as a tactic is employed in three main contexts: unlawful state repression; propaganda agitation by non-state actors in peacetime or outside conflict zones, and as an illicit tactic of irregular warfare employed by state and non-state actors.
The doctrine referred to in this academic consensus definition was developed in the second half of the 19th century when the inventions of dynamite and the rotary press began to interact. At that time, terrorism, a term derived from the French Revolution of 1793-1794 and applied first to state crimes, was called "propaganda by the fact" and mainly referred to the revolutionary agitation of anarchists and socialists in Russia , France and some other European countries. Since the 1870s, the nascent rotary press enabled terrorists to reach the masses through commercial and political party-owned newspapers. Gone are the days when, after an assassination attempt on an oppressive ruler, terrorists had to put up posters on city walls telling people why they did what they did. Newspapers, eager to sensationalise such acts, will now take it upon themselves to spread terrible news for some (the victims and those who identify with them) but not for others (those who share some of the same goals as those motivating the terrorists ) depending on which side of the proverbial political fence they sat on.
After the rotary press of the 19th century, came the radio of the 20th century. It became primarily an instrument of state terrorism, much like the newsreels played in cinemas before the main film in the years between the two world wars and beyond. Later, from the 1950s, television would be responsible for broadcasting propaganda on behalf of non-state terrorists. Today, with the Internet, we have reached a stage where terrorism has
simply become a “by-product of the enormous reach of the mass media”. New information technologies give contemporary terrorism much of its oversized punch.
Mass media and social media are major structural factors that facilitate terrorism. They pay attention to terrorists, air their grievances and demands, and allow them to gain the respect and, in some cases, the legitimacy of some of those who share their grievances or goals, if not necessarily their methods. The heart of terrorism is the combination of violence and communication in addition to armed propaganda.
Behavioral sciences attest today that the lethal impact of a terrorist act is not more important in the eyes of its author than the fact of contemplating the extent of the public spectator of his act. From the point of view of the history of ideas, terrorism is first of all a "propaganda by the fact". A performative communication strategy of psychological manipulation by which mostly unarmed civilians, who are often complete strangers to the perpetrators of violence, are deliberately victimized in order to impress third parties (a government or part of society, or the general public opinion), using depictions of demonstrative violence in front of a witnessing audience and/or through induced coverage in mass and social media. The criminal act becomes the spectacle of fear. The only way to end it is for the public to stop buying tickets. Because the day we stop paying attention to the videos broadcast by terrorist groups and those relayed by the security forces concerning the dismantled sleeper cells, the pandemic of terrorism will fade. That day, the terrorist out of the spotlight; will be considered an ordinary common criminal. For if classic terrorism was once synonymous with belonging to an exclusive club, contemporary terrorism has become an international business franchise that may soon be listed on the stock exchange.
If one could eliminate, or at least drastically reduce, the communicative spread of terrorists' demonstrative public performances, acts of violence for publicity purposes, terrorism would lose most of its appeal. However, severing the communication link between victims of terrorism and target
audiences would involve a form of censorship that is a very high price to pay for what, in most societies, is still more of a nuisance than an existential threat. Nevertheless, attempts to block or at least reduce the access of terrorists to mass audiences are on the increase and constitute one of the methods of preventing and controlling terrorism, increasingly used by undemocratic regimes.
The arrival of the Internet, which now reaches and connects more than half of humanity, has made the task of controlling the harmful effects of instantaneous communications of violence much more difficult for democratic states. Major social media platforms (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.) now have thousands of so-called “content moderators” tasked with removing terrorist and other unwanted content from the internet. Undemocratic governments (eg China) have used more forceful approaches to media silencing. Given that terrorism is, at its core, violence for communication, the prevention of terrorism cannot exclude interventions aimed at minimizing, or even neutralizing, the communication strategies of terrorism.
Based on this communication function, acts or campaigns of terrorism aim to intimidate and terrorize the public or a part of it, to discipline, control or deter targeted (sub)groups or to impose their obedience. On the other hand, some spectacular terrorist acts can also mobilize sympathizers and transform some of them into sympathizers and new recruits. Acts of terrorism can be used to obtain specific political concessions (such as the release of prisoners) from the government, but can sometimes also be used to provoke overreactions from the regime in power in the hope of divisive and to polarize communities. In short, acts, and in particular campaigns of terrorism, are instruments of influence warfare between parties to the conflict that involve not only government and rebel forces, but also sectors of our communities and abroad, all linked by mass and social media as the nervous system of an increasingly global society. This multiplicity of functions and objectives of terrorism makes its prevention difficult and difficult.