Symbolic Terrorism - Research Paper Example

Symbolic Terrorism Introduction Terrorism represents a serious threat to the safety ofthe world community. The number of acts of terrorism is constantly increasing imposing strong psychological impact on people. Terrorism has already received the status of an integral part of todays social, economic and political world, and it also undergoes changes caused by the process of globalization. The character of acts of terrorism, the motivations of their organizers and performers also greatly changed today. Destabilizing a situation in the world and causing considerable political, economic and moral consequences, modern terrorism turned into a global problem. The resolution of this issue will predetermine the future of mankind, because recently created uncontrollable types of weapon threaten the existence of a civilization. Terrorism is a serious problem of the modern world, however, there are many historical facts, which prove that it is not a new phenomenon. Now scientists started considering conflict and terrorism separately, notwithstanding that they have many common features. The distinction between these two phenomena was made because of the “new terrorism” which appeared in 1990s. Now more attention is paid to ideological or symbolic aspect of terrorism. The given work will investigate terrorism in the context of symbolic struggle. Symbolic component of terrorist activity is determined by symbolic nature of social systems. A symbolic aspect as a political measurement of the purposes represents one of the basic elements of the definition of terrorism. This aspect makes terrorist act differ from a usual crime (Strachan, 2011). When a terrorist wants to kill a soldier, especially when he protects a military memorial, and his real purpose is the parliament, it is already political. Richmond states that: “as the divisions between war, peace, conflict and terrorism, between friend and enemy, soldier, criminal, and civilian break down, there is now potential for a critical reading of the insights this presents. The terrain on which violence has been traditionally deployed has now shifted to a more symbolic terrain requiring a reassessment of the assumptions terrorism and conflict studies rest on” (Richmond, 2003, p. 289). A man is operating a number of objects, which replace other objects, processes, relations. Some objects can be understandable only to their creators or to a small group of people, but other objects are clear to the majority of members of the society. Their clearness is caused not only by the popularity, but by the “authorship” as these symbols should be produced by the whole society. Such symbols concentrate the essence of the system, processes, relations and, as a constructive elements of the system, determine its stability. These symbols first of all represent the object of terrorist attack. According to Richmond: “terrorism and asymmetric forms of conflict are now perceived as “tools of diplomacy” and so have definitively entered the world of symbols, information, and communicative control, which have marked the use and misuse of diplomacy” (Richmond, 2003, p. 292). Let’s analyze the example. Choosing an object for the attack Al-Qaida hardly aimed at destroying as many Americans as it was possible and a couple of expensive skyscrapers. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were the symbol of America like the White House and the Statue of Liberty. According to mass media, the social role of Twins was very important as they represented a great symbol of the well-being of the nation. They embodied the ideas about the best democracy in the world and about the best way of life of the Americans that should serve as an example for other nations. Americans admired them and were very proud of them. Twins served as a symbol of a great state and social system. Moreover, the world suffered from military actions for decades. America took part in many wars, but not on the territory of the US. The attack directed at Twin Towels should have caused the greatest harm as would have damage the feeling of safety, the symbolic strength of the country (Martin, 2010). It is the symbolic significance of the objects that explained the reaction of Americans and the whole world to the terrorist attack that happened on September 11, 2001. It was a shock considered as a national catastrophe. The USA faced one of the most serious problems it had not gone through since December 7, 1941. 74% of the US population agreed that this event was the most disgusting in the American history (White, 2005). Twin Towels represented a symbol of economic strength of America not only for Americans itself, but for the whole world. The economic consequences of such attack were even more significant than the harm from the destruction of buildings and the death of people. It was the blow to perception of life and idea of a world order. Richmond explains: “terrorism in its contemporary form can perhaps be described as “beyond war” in these terms, in the sense that although it aims at material injury, its key objective is to impact the virtual, to undermine the belief in the virtuous on behalf of the victim, to attack the symbolic, and to undermine the very assumptions of the target population (particularly relate to their security)” (Richmond, 2003, p. 295). The new features of social communications based on the information technologies significantly change the influence of symbolic actions and the role of symbolic struggle in the conditions of social and political confrontation (OHair & Dan, 2008).  The destruction of Twin Towels would not have had such an effect in badly integrated information space. It is believed that the main part of the financial facilities of terrorists is spent not on the preparation implementation of terrorist acts, but on the informational processes and information space modeling. Relaying the ideas and advertizing terrorist organizations, modern mass media also serve as a channel of informational manipulations, which strengthens the symbolic effect. It means that the information space serves not only as a facility, but also as a field for the symbolic struggle – the struggle for the right understanding the essence and the main accents of the events. Richmond states: “ultimately, terrorism has become a symbolic act, albeit highly dangerous, but one that tries to undermine assumptions about security, and related norms, but does not realistically expect an overall victory” (Richmond, 2003, p. 296) The expansion of world information space and cultural interpenetration serves as a major factor of social tension increase in certain regions. An aggressive absorption of culture and national values of the “unsuccessful neighbor” by the more developed state happens through the influencing the consciousness of general population. The real threat of loosing national identity arouses brightly negative reaction to the "aggressor” in certain representatives of these peoples and nationalities and such reaction is not always conscious. Conclusion Understanding the meaning of symbolic aspect of terrorism can help find the ways of struggle with it and its influence. The main line of the symbolic struggle is the drawing a border between “we” and “they”. It seems that this border naturally appears between the society that endured a terrorist attack and the terrorists who apply awful measures and kill innocent citizens. Symbolic methods used for terrorist attack to arouse fear and disgust can be overcome only by means of symbolic methods. The example of September 11, 2011, which was discussed above, showed that Americans withstood not only due to the measures against Afghanistan and strengthening police powers. They withstood also due to the application of symbolic facilities: symbolical capital of the international solidarity and symbolical capital of national unity. Turning to symbolic values, calling for the unification of the nation on the basis of religious feeling contributed to unity strengthening. References Richmond, O. (2003). Realizing Hegemony? Symbolic Terrorism and the Roots of Conflict. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 26:289–309 OHair, H. Dan (2008). Terrorism: Communication and Rhetorical Perspectives. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press Inc. Martin, G. (2010). Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications Strachan, H. (2011). The Changing Character of War. United States: Oxford University Press. White J. R. (2005). Terrorism and Homeland Security: An Introduction Hardcover. Cengage Learning, 5 edition Read More