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the wake of 9/11 and leading into the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Galip
Isen cuts to the "essence" of terrorism and its power in everyday
life. Considering the rhetoric of fear that provided the needed
public support to wage a dubiously named "war on terror" in Iraq,
Isen calls to mind the "success" of September 11th in its ability
to radically reorganize American consciousness and freedom, and
suggests an alternative solution to the problem of terrorism.
Rather than rely on the outmoded and inefficient mechanisms of
brutality and repression, Isen points to the powerful techniques
used to win support for an unsupportable war, and suggests that
intelligent discourse itself (rather than violence) may be the only
viable strategy by which the violence of terrorism can be rendered
inert.
Galip Isen
<2> A few weeks after the carnage of 9-11, The Village Voice
[3] commented "the whole thing was a prophetic fantasy come
true all as it had been on the screen." Indeed, there are
probably more passages presaging a terrorist attack of similar
mode and magnitude in a plethora of pulp fiction, from Mario
Puzo to William Safire or Tom Clancy than in texts on political
science, international relations, sociology, history or
psychology. Therefore, it can be argued that the American (and
world) public, the media, Hollywood producers, paperback
publishers etc. had reason to see such an eventuality as
sufficiently plausible to warrant attention and merit the
interest of culture consumers. So can it be safely assumed that
numerous government agencies tasked with technical and
psychological preparedness against such emergencies, must have
pored over a respectable array of intelligence reports, worst
case scenarios, contingency plans, preemptive measures and so
on, to anticipate and alleviate the effects of an imminent and
devastating attack [4] by terrorists.
<16> Pres. Bush's January 30, 2002 State of the Union address
consolidated the support for the war against terrorism which,
after Afghanistan, now openly targeted Iraq [53]. "Defense" was
established as the highest budget priority [54]. Gradually,
toppling Saddam appeared as an urgent necessity in the
Americans' political agenda, though sending troops to the
Middle East or going to war with or without the backing of
allies [55] were, for a time, a matter of dissension [56].
<24> To silence the gun, it seems, not more and more powerful
guns are needed as much as inspired voices that when speak
their minds, drown the rumble of explosions [80].
Notes
[4] Ehud Sprinzak wrote how experts from more than a dozen
government agencies simulated a biological terrorism scare at
the white house and the game was scooped by the New York Times
in the late 90's. Ex- Defense Secretary William Cohen said a
mass destruction terror event is "not a question of if it will
happen but when it will happen". See: Ehud Sprinzak, "The Great
Superterrorism Scare," Foreign Policy (Fall 1998) 112: 110-124,
p. 110-111. After the explosion at the Olympic Park in 1996,
Lance Morrow (1996) wrote in Time that Americans were losing
their historical sense of immunity from terrorism, an evil
hitherto considered alien was beginning to assume shape like a
"Polaroid photograph." [^]
[8] The Gallup Organization, March 20, 2002; June 10, 2002;
June 14, 2002. [^]
[13] Totem is used here in the sense Sigmund Freud writes of,
as a system of social organization reinforced with religiously
articulated taboos, which through its symbology maintains order
and continuity through super-ego functions. S. Freud, Totem and
Taboo, trans. N. Berkes, Remzi, Istanbul, 1971: 158-232. [^]
[22] The "author" is not necessarily the person who does the
actual writing or speaking as much as the authority, or the
"unifying principle... lying at the origins of (their)
significance as the set of (their) coherence". The "author" is
thus the source that implants unities and coherence, its links
with reality into the text. See: Foucault, The discourse on
language, p.153. [^]
[40] The Gallup Organization June 14, 2002. The finding that
half of Americans saw in Osama and Al Qaeda a bigger threat
than Saddam Hussein can be attributed to the deeper and "real"
impact of 9-11.† [^]
[44] The fear was certainly felt elsewhere too -- hence the
quotation marks alluding to the post-1789 "reign of terror" in
France. [^]
[47] It should be remembered that such was also the case after
the Oklahoma City bombing. Gerbner calculated that an American
views an average 38 thousand murders on TV shows by the age of
18. He postulated that the risk behind vicarious violence is an
acceptance of a police state that ensures security in exchange
of liberal freedoms. See: Vivian, The media of mass
communication, 2001. [^]
[65] Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2003, CBS-New York Times,
Feb 14, 2003, CNN-USA Today-Gallup February 28, 2003. [^]
[67] CNN-USA Today-Gallup, March 18, 2003 March 21, 2003. [^]
[72] The survey reports wide support "in all corners of the
world" for the democratic ideals and free market economy as
well as globalization. Respect for fundamental values of the
modern culture that the U.S. too, has long promoted seems to be
on the rise rather than on the wane. [^]