But as we focus on destroying ISIL , over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands. Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks, twisted souls plotting in apartments or garagesâthey pose an enormous danger to civilians; they have to be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence. That is the story ISIL wants to tell. Thatâs the kind of propaganda they use to recruit. We donât need to build them up to show that weâre serious, and we sure don't need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is somehow representative of one of the worldâs largest religions.
US President Barack Obama , 2016 State of the Union Address.
In his last State of the Union address on 12 January 2016, President Barack
Obama said that an exaggerated perception of the threat of terrorism can have negative consequences for the United
States. He went on to say that such an exaggerated threat is exactly what terrorist
groups such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISâalso known as
ISIS or ISIL)
1 desire. Obamaâs
remarks about terrorism were similar to what many politicians and public figures have been repeating since the attack on the Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. At that moment, the world realized that terrorists could stage spectacular attacks in order to attract
media attention, effectively forcing journalists
to broadcast the attack and to repeat their messages as part of the information flow. Since then, there has been a long public debate about the need for a more responsible discussion and
media representation of terrorism-related messages in order to prevent the spread of fear and terror, which is what terrorists want (Nacos,
1996). This is one reason why President Obama
asked Americans to avoid exaggerating the threat of ISIL
: because doing so could needlessly damage the country, playing into the enemyâs hand.
Terrorism damages societies in multiple ways. Terrorism destroys human lives. Terrorism damages a countryâs economy. For example, the total costs of the 9/11 attacks were estimated to be somewhere between $80 and $90 billion (Kunreuther, Michel-Kerjan, & Porter, 2003; Sandler, 2014). Terrorism also has serious consequences on the health and psychological well-being of the survivors. Scientific studies conducted shortly after 9/11 attacks showed that the attacks provoked post-traumatic stress disorder both in New York City and across the United States, especially for those who spent more time viewing TV coverage of the event (Schlenger et al., 2002). Terrorism, however, can also damage societies even when it does not happen, through an exaggerated perception of threat and its negative consequences.
What is the potential harm that an exaggerated threat of terrorism can do to a society? In his speech, Obama mentions two potential harms. First, Obama says that it makes Americaâs enemies stronger. ISIL would love to be perceived as the ultimate threat for the United States, because it makes them appear powerful. Being cast as an existential threat to the United States makes ISILâs recruits feel that they are joining a powerful force that can threaten even the worldâs greatest military power. Interviews with former ISIL recruits reveal that the perceived success and power of the group was one of the drivers that made ISILâs call irresistible to them (Burke, 2017). ISILâs propaganda, especially in the first year after the proclamation of the caliphate, only depicted the successes of their offensives, almost entirely excluding the defensive operations (Winter, 2015). ISIL sought to create impressions that it could defeat all its enemies, including the United States. Of course, this has never been objectively true on military grounds . Nevertheless, an exaggerated perception of the threat in Western media surely played into ISILâs hands and aided them in their campaign of recruitment.
Second, Obama warned against the risks of alienating the Muslim world, which is a key ally in the fight against ISIL . A struggle for hegemony is happening within the Islamic world, with opposing forces competing for leadership and authority over the global ummah, the global community of Muslims . ISIL has been fighting for binding legal authority upon all Muslims in the world, but this ambition is contested by other forces within Islam. According to Obama, when someone conflates Islam with ISIL , it helps ISIL in its quest for legitimacy in front of the Muslim world and weakens those Muslim voices and forces that challenge the terrorist group , which are a key ally against ISILâs terrorism, both domestically and internationally.
In this book, I argue that an exaggerated perception of terrorism threat can damage societies in a third way, one which is more subtle and potentially very harmful. I argue that it can push democracy to its limits because it increases public support for draconian and anti-democratic attitudes, it exacerbates differences between ideological and religious groups and it erodes trust between immigrants and host societies.
The choice between exaggerating and playing down the threat of terrorism is motivated, in part, by ideology. Previous research found that fear-inducing emotional appeals are selectively deployed at times of declining public support for governments and their counter-terrorism policies (De Castella & McGarty, 2011). Australian former Prime Minister John Howard used fear-arousing statements about terrorism in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and at times of declining support for government policies (De Castella, McGarty, & Musgrove, 2009). Left-wing and progressive leaders are often accused to underestimate the threat of terrorism: for example, Obama was harshly criticized for describing ISIL as a JVâjunior varsityâbasketball team, a grave under-estimation of the terrorist groupâs ability to wreak havoc throughout Syria, Iraq and numerous locations around the world (Contorno, 2014). Conversely, right-wing and populist leaders obsessively focus on terrorism using emotive language that amplifies the perception of threat, to advocate for anti-immigration policies. For example, after the Nice terror attack on 15 July 2016 (when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a 19-tonne cargo truck at speed into a crowded Bastille Day promenade knocking down hundreds of people, killing 86 and injuring 434), Donald Trump tweeted: âAnother horrific attack, this time in Nice, France. Many dead and injured. When will we learn? It is only getting worseâ (Rinke & Solovyov, 2016). The tweet is a clear example of how right-wing leaders like Trump amplify fear and threat perception by emphasizing the risk of future harm (âitâs only getting worseâ, Trump wrote). This is exactly the opposite of what Obama said in his 2016 State of the Union address: Obama argued that it is important to avoid the exaggeration of the threat and the conflation of Muslims and terrorists. Trump not only amplified the perception of threat, but he also associated terrorism and Islam. As we know, one of Trumpâs key policies aimed to prevent terrorism was the Muslim immigration ban, which prevented refugee admission and travellers from countries arbitrarily claimed to be at risk of exporting terrorists (Shugerman, 2017). This policy assumes that terrorism can be prevented by stopping immigration from certain countries, even though there is no convincing evidence to support this assumption, as almost all terrorist attacks in recent years have been carried out by people who have grown up in the societies that they targeted (Bump, 2017; Friedman, 2017).
When we look at the right-wing leadersâ narratives on terrorism, Europe is not different from the United States. After the wave of terrorist attacks that France experienced in 2015 (including the 13 November attacks that killed 130 people in Paris), Marine Le Penâs far -right National Front party obtained a larger-than-expected share of the vote. Le Pen framed the result as a consequence of âgovernment inactionâ and âcrazy, undiscerning immigra...
