To begin with, a disclaimer: I am not qualified to solve global terrorism problems.
Having said that, those that supposedly are, don't seem to be doing a very good job of it. I am qualified to question things though as I was born this way, human. Sometimes my questioning is well received, sometimes (often in real life) I am attacked or shunned mercilessly for daring to raise my doubts in the many systems people blindly have faith in.
[Las Ramblas - 2012 ]
Commonly though, I get valuable feedback that develops both my ideas and the ideas of others as we discuss and consider the questions raised, bring in new information and inevitably, raise more questions to answer.
I ask questions because I don't know the answers. Sometimes I ask rhetorical questions to solidify a point or raise difficult issues. But mostly, I am curious for two main reasons, why things are the way they are and why many people aren't concerned with improving the way things are. If you read my writings regularly, you will find common threads that move about these two topics. Sometimes I spend time giving tools to help development, sometimes I show potential risks, sometimes I may inspire, sometimes I could cause harm. Overall, I would like to live in a world where suffering is at a minimum though and the suffering that does exist, we learn from to further reduce suffering. To do this, I think that more discussion and understanding is needed.
Back to the case at hand, Terrorism. Every time I happen to make any connection with current events through news (which I avoid for the most part), social platforms and in the street, acts of terrorism keep getting reported. In my opinion, we are at least partly to blame for this process.
Before you start shouting and screaming from your position whatever that may be talking about the violence inherent in Islam or how the West has systematically pillaged the world, I am not making any excuses for the perpetrators of terrorism. I have no dog in this fight either way other than reduce suffering and just want to look at one particular aspect of what is going on today.
As said, I hear almost daily of some attack and immediately following, a continued investigation into who did it, who claims responsibility, what were the perpetrators background, what devices were used, how they smuggled weapons, victim counts, how many times they caught a bus, what music they enjoyed... It is like watching NFL. Endless statistics flow in.
World leaders get behind the podium and condemn the most recent attack, call for solidarity, vow reprisals, change laws, restrict travel, upgrade security. Media is filled with diagrams of cities showing little graphic explosions of what happened where and eyewitness stories from whoever happened to be anywhere in the vicinity.
Social media is plastered with profile picture flags and messages praying for a particular city, region or the world. The extreme right comes out blazing with their version of events, the left calls for peace and blindly lays blame across big business and greedy governments that do not give enough support etc. Discussions filled with acid and poison fill the screens as people claiming to know best debate the causes of the events, the failures that took place to allow them to happen, the religious dogma that lead to it or the intolerance or their inability to assimilate into normal society that created them in the first place.
The ears, eyes and mind are filled with the flames of terrorism.
Isn't this the aim of the terrorists? To make us pay attention to their cause, to create large divides between groups, to change our habits, laws, behaviours? Isn't our constant reporting and fascination with these kinds of events just creating more division, more fear? At the very least, how is all this global media coverage helping reduce terrorism? And if it is not helping do that, who is it helping? On top of that, where does fake news and propaganda fit into this picture?
For a long time I have questioned the reporting style of mass shootings. For those in Australia, Remember Martin Bryant? In Norway, Anders Breivik? America, there are oh so many it seems so choose one that stands out for you. Martin Bryant killed 35 people, Anders Breivik 77. Now a test: name one of their victims.
We have given those that want 'popularity for their ideas at any cost' a global platform and the innocent victims we use as flags to our cause for revenge, no more than a line in an obituary page, forgotten by the masses, but the fools that did it? Their message lives on. Immortalised. We have given the cruelest of attention seekers the stage as we sit back and watch them fill it with more tragedy than Shakespeare could write in a hundred lifetimes.
Perhaps, like the eloquent words of Shakespeare that has inspired countless playwrights, actors and authors, the hate broadcast from the hearts of a terrorist will inspire similar trends. Sympathisers to the countless misaligned causes that have been poorly justified through weak and irrational minds, or manipulated by one of the many leaders who reaps the rewards from the sacrifices of others. True believers.
There seems to be no need for all of the information on these acts. It doesn't help those actually trying to prevent them and when it comes to something like a school shooting, all of the locals know who the shooter was, there is no need for the rest of the country or world to ever know their name. If anything, if that's someone's way of getting attention, their name can be scrubbed, washed clean from the slate of history as if they never existed at all. The victims can take their place in memories, but no one will remember who the offender was and their miserable lives can be disappeared into vapour.
There is information that can help the community though. Things like how to act in these situations, maybe how to identify risks and more importantly, how to prevent them from happening to begin with. But none of these things require names of individuals or groups of the culprits to be known. If they are international organisations, the police and associated organisations already know their names and can chase down leads if necessary. Perhaps, if needed to locate a suspect, the media and public can come into play, but once caught, they return to the white washing of the person and the groups for which they claim to serve.
But this isn't going to happen. Our fascination with horror far outweighs our desire for ending it. So we pretend that we are acting well, taking an interest in the world and doing what is right, while supporting the terrorist media campaigns, their recruitment drive for more desperate and violent members.
Imagine if they had to pay for all of the free advertising they get. What is the cost of the global coverage, above the fold, prime time, every news feed, every platform real estate? What effect does it have on us when we are exposed to it day in and day out? What effect on the minds of our children raised in a world where horror is the norm? What effect does it have on those that are in risk groups, social outcasts, the ones that feel hard done by, bullied and victimised by a world that doesn't accept them, judged by their own misguided and broken views and ideologies.
Is suffering being reduced by this constant barrage? Are we becoming better people? Are there less terrorists due to this? Are the people vulnerable to the manipulations turning away and seeking help so as not to add to become a member? Are we actually learning anything of value or are we absorbing terror as a sport, an entertainment channel?
I am by no means calling for ignorance to events. Rather, a much higher level of understanding as at the moment, there seems to be only 3 groups that are benefiting: The terrorists and their agendas, the governments and their agendas and the media and their agendas. What about the other 99%?
Taraz
[ a Steemit original - Repost ]
I am reposting this as I think it is unfortunately too commonly relevant. I was just starting to write a separate post on violence in the media when I saw the news from Barcelona, a city that I love, not that that matters. I do not know who the perpetrators were, I do not know who will claim responsibility, I do not care one iota. What I do care about is reducing the suffering rather than feeding the mechanisms that incite and profit from it.
Original post:
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@tarazkp/we-do-not-negotiate-with-terrorists-we-give-them-what-they-want
