A group of nobodies get together and declare war against some massive entity like the cell phone industry, perhaps because they believe the radiation is harmful and the towers are a blight. Who cares? Nobody. Even if they topple a tower or two, the cell phone industry is swimming in money; it can reroute calls to other towers while it builds a new one where the old one stood. The wannabe anti-cell phone terrorists are still nobodies, except now they are facing criminal charges.
But what if the cell phone industry alerts its lobbyists in Washington, DC, and then every politician’s speech mentions the “terrorists” who attack the cell phone towers, wreaking havoc on hard-working Americans’ rights to stay connected? What if the government unleashes an army of FBI, police, and special investigative teams to search for the terrorists, breaking down their doors at the crack of dawn and dragging them, kicking and screaming slogans, through the streets to the police station? What if in the process of going after the terrorists, the government breaks a few rules and establishes new ones, causing an outcry in the media about restriction of freedom and front pages with sympathetic profiles of the terrorists in colorful detail?
In this case, the terrorists have received what they wanted. Instead of being nobodies with criminal records, they became celebrities with public figures opining for and against their cause and methods. They get sponsors who have a grudge of their own against cell phone companies or against the government that backed up the cell phone companies. The terrorists get recruits who heard their stories and want to be as famous, as pivotal, as powerful as they. In other words, by causing an overreaction from the powerful—the cell phone companies and the government—the terrorists manipulated them into creating publicity that would build a base of support for the terrorists and would provide them with resources and recruits.
Jujitsu works by using the strength of the opponents against them. For terrorists, the government they oppose is indeed strong, wielding the savvy of its security services coupled with the might of its military and police forces. Jujitsu allows terrorists to position themselves as a dangerous enemy of the government. That status helps the terrorists’ fundraising and recruiting efforts.
The most famous example of a successful jujitsu strategy is al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack against the United States. According to al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the attacks were designed to entice the United States into a protracted battle in Muslim countries that would drain the US treasury and create enough death and destruction to rouse even the most apathetic Muslims to jihad. With the United States in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan— wars we are still fighting more than a decade later—al-Qaeda’s strategy has succeeded.
Jujitsu as a mechanism of mass radicalization is powerful because terrorist attacks incite strong emotions: anger, outrage, fear, and humiliation. These emotions make us want to do something to avenge the attacks, to feel protected and proactive, and to restore our shaken perception of power and control. Terrorists capitalize on both the emotions and the desire to act on them. Emotional decisions are rarely the best ones, especially policy decisions.
The masterminds of the 9/11 attacks counted on us to change our way of life and to prioritize wars that would put a dent in the US financial system, polarizing the population at home and compromising the country’s image abroad. In many ways, we played into their plan.
Beyond the reaction in the United States and in the Western world, the 9/11 attackers counted on jujitsu to work in the Muslim world. Where al-Qaeda failed to radicalize mass publics in Muslim countries, they expected US missiles and drone attacks to do it for them.
A war is bound to create casualties. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no different. Intelligence is never perfect, and mistakes led to attacks on weddings, funerals, and marketplaces; the West called these mistakes “collateral damage” but created outrage nonetheless. United States troops on the ground became convenient targets for ambush or improvised explosive devices. Radical Islamist rhetoric that may have seemed marginal before suddenly became popular. Indeed, the rise of ISIS was part of the fallout from the Iraq war. Al-Qaeda has largely disappeared from the news, but the legacy of its jujitsu politics still haunts us.
As the section on jujitsu politics mentioned, terrorist attacks raise powerful emotions in those they target. The word “terrorism,” and indeed most definitions of terrorism, suggest that fear (terror) is the most prominent emotion that terrorists aim to elicit. And yet fear may not be the most important emotional reaction when it comes to radicalization.
Fear is what psychologists call an “avoidance motivation” emotion. Fear makes those who experience it want to avoid the threat that produced it, if possible. If fear were the predominant emotion in response to terrorism, instead of wars and other retaliation tactics, denial and surrender would be the predominant responses. Instead, terrorists count on and routinely precipitate reactions of aggression, which is the natural response for a different emotion: anger.
To understand radicalization, an increased willingness to use violence for a cause, we are better off focusing on emotions that are “approach motivating,” such as anger and outrage. Humiliation is another emotion that is common among targets of terrorism.
Anger, outrage, and humiliation are powerful motivations to action against terrorists or those seen as affiliated with them. Whether wars abroad, support for politicians using hawkish rhetoric, or attacks on people who share with terrorists their ethnicity, faith, or skin color, these reactions testify to the power of emotions in intergroup conflict. Emotional responses push both terrorists and their targets to violent action.
Humans are loath to kill other humans. All kinds of barriers—physiological (disgust at the sight of blood and guts), moral (prohibitions against murder are part of every religion), and social (social norms regulate and control violence within a group or community)—stand in the way of violence. But these barriers can be lowered.
One way to get past moral and social barriers to killing is to see the target as less than human. If the “other” is seen as not worthy of considerations extended to humans, moral and social barriers to violence no longer apply.
Dehumanization marks any prolonged conflict. Each side, in an effort to prevail over the other through violence, begins to create imagery and rhetoric that separate “us” from “them.” When “they” are seen as less than human—as pests, vermin, or disease—killing them becomes not only easy but necessary.
In the years leading up to World War II, German propaganda created posters, slogans, stories, and films that depicted Jews as cockroaches, rats, and spiders sucking the blood out of the German nation, gorging themselves on the flesh of German youth. Visual depictions of Jews were caricatures that referenced genetic disorders. Metaphors used for Jews in Germany drove home the message that Jews were inferior to Germans in every way, and yet they were taking advantage of Germans.
The result of this dehumanization campaign was the greatest tragedy in modern history, with 6 million Jews dying in the Holocaust. The German extermination machine worked seamlessly, in part because any pangs of conscience, any doubts about the “ultimate solution,” any sympathy had given way in most Germans to emotions usually directed toward pests. Mass radicalization against the Jews in 1930s Germany was immensely effective.
The cognitive foundation of dehumanization is the human proclivity for understanding natural kinds in terms of essence. Bluebirds differ from blackbirds because they are different animals. In layman’s terms, we may think that, deep down inside, they have different essences. An essence—sometimes called nature or spirit—is invisible and enduring. No surgery or dyestuff can make a bluebird into a blackbird.
Human groups can be essentialized, too. What makes a New Yorker different from a Londoner is not just a style of English language but a character permanently stamped by being raised in New York rather than in London, by following football and basketball instead of soccer. Twenty years in London will not make a New Yorker into a Londoner. Essence is forever.
Prolonged conflict between groups produces essentialized stereotypes of the enemy: They are the way they are because, deep down, they share a corrupt and dangerous essence. We, on the other hand, are the way we are because we share a good and cooperative essence.
Mutual essentializing can usually be observed among groups in conflict, including even the boys who were part of Muzafer Sheriff’s Robbers Cave experiment. Before the conflict, the other group was seen in more diverse and less negative terms; after the onset of the conflict, epithets like “pigs” and “stinkers” were used far more commonly to describe the enemy.
In a conflict between terrorists and their targets, each side begins to see the other as not worthy of compassion or consideration. Individual members of the enemy group are seen as largely similar, with the same corrupted essence that cannot be cured and therefore needs to be eradicated.
A member of the Weather Underground, Bernadine Dorn, applauded the brutal murder of pregnant Sharon Tate by calling it a “pig slaughter.” To the Weather Underground, Tate was not a person worthy of compassion but a member of the elite they were fighting against—a pig to be slaughtered.
After the attacks of 9/11, a number of US Muslims were attacked, not because of evidence that they were responsible for 9/11 but because they were of the same religion as the terrorists. Non-Muslim Sikhs were also targeted because their darker skins made them look like they could be from an Arab Muslim country.
Essentializing the enemy makes it easier to kill them; they’re not quite as human as we are. Collateral damage to Arabs and Muslims in the war on terrorism (mentioned in relation to jujitsu politics) does not weigh as heavy on us if they have a different essence.
In these examples we can see that dehumanization via essentializing takes place on both sides of the conflict. Terrorists see us as having a bad essence, and we see terrorists as having a bad essence. Both sides are radicalized in the back and forth of terrorist attacks and government responses. Essentializing supports escalation of violence on both sides.
A martyr is someone who peacefully accepts suffering and death for a cause. A martyr is a powerful force for radicalization on both sides of a conflict.
For the cause the martyr upholds, the sacrifice is a signal to others that someone valued the cause more than life. The worth of the cause is therefore lifted above everyday concerns for all who care about it. The supporters of the cause now have the martyr’s sacrifice as a benchmark against which to measure their own dedication. When someone gives a life for the cause, excuses for not giving money, time, or effort become petty.
For the bystanders who are not yet committed to the martyr’s cause, the sacrifice tells a story about the conflict that is simple and convincing. The martyr knew she would be attacked and maybe killed. She did nothing to provoke the attack. The fact that she was attacked nonetheless means those who attacked her were unjust. She did not reciprocate violence, raising her above most humans’ morality. The fact that she was attacked or killed nonetheless paints her persecutors as cruel. She gave her life for something she believed in. This makes her cause important, measured in the scale of sacrifice.
Thus, martyrdom defines the conflict. On the one side are high morals, pure motives, and a worthy cause. On the other side are injustice, cruelty, and questionable motives. Many bystanders will be moved by a martyrdom to support for the martyr’s cause.
In contrast, for the side that punished the martyr, the story will be about a challenge to the natural order in which those with power stand to lose power and status to those who challenge them. This zero-sum conflict (one side stands to lose, the other stands to gain—there can be no compromise), painted by the martyr in moral tones, presents a difficult choice for those in power. Either they have to admit they have done wrong in persecuting the peaceful martyr, admitting their moral failure and giving up their political standing, or they have to deny the moral failure and hold on to the power with everything they’ve got. As you may guess, the latter is a far more common choice than the former.
For that reason, peaceful martyrdoms of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela resulted in escalation of violence from those who attacked them, leading to armed conflict between the sides where before the martyrdom there was only political tension.
In other words, martyrdoms radicalize their supporters, their opponents, and passive bystanders in the conflict they represent. The conflict that often follows a martyrdom radicalizes sides even further.
The tactic of suicide bombing has become increasingly common in recent decades. Suicide bombers often record themselves before their missions in “martyrdom videos” or in writing (e.g., Atta’s Manual, a document found in the baggage of the apparent ringleader of the 9/11 attackers, Mohammad Atta). Islamist suicide bombers call themselves “shaheeds.” The translation from Arabic shaheed to English “martyr” trespassed cultural differences in understanding of martyrdom and resulted in an added clout for suicide bombers.
Unlike the martyrs of the West that followed the Christian tradition of martyrdom embodied by Jesus Christ, suicide bombers use violence—indiscriminate violence at that. Where Gandhi could be a symbol of purity of motives, where Nelson Mandela painted his persecutors as cruel and unjust, suicide bombers share only one characteristic with the martyrs of the West: They give up their lives for their cause.
At best, that puts them in the same category as soldiers—they can be seen as heroes by supporters of their cause. But they are not martyrs. Their sacrifice is no testament to the purity of their motives because mass murderers can’t claim purity. Their sacrifice is no indictment on the evil of their targets because the attacked did nothing to enact the bombers’ claim of their evil.
The use of the word martyr to describe suicide bombers is an unwarranted mantle to them and an undeserved threat to their Western targets.
Reality is complex, and conflicts have an added layer of complexity in which each side attempts to represent reality in a way most beneficial to its own interests. Even something as routine as a car accident can be viewed completely differently by the two drivers involved in it. Who was at fault? Who hit whom? Who was speeding or driving recklessly? Police need to get involved to resolve these questions, and they can’t always do so definitively. The complexity of political conflicts is infinitely greater. Framing is a way to capture the conflict in simple terms.
Of course, with simplification, some of the facts are left out. What the frame captures and what it leaves out will determine how the audience will perceive the conflict, which side it is likely to support, and which emotions it is likely to experience. Without altering the facts in any way, framings can sway the audience in opposite directions.
Consider the contentious issue of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One framing of this prison emphasizes the fact that people detained there are terrorism suspects who are dangerous and must be kept far from our homeland where they can do us harm. They may have information about terrorists at large with plans to harm the United States. Therefore, any efforts at getting this information, however brutal, are necessary to keep us safe.
An alternative framing emphasizes the fact that many of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners have not been tied to terrorism; instead, they are victims of mistaken identity or of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, because of the special status of the prison, they are kept there without the legal due process that other US prisoners get. The brutal treatment they receive is likely to turn them into radicals with a grudge against the US government at whose hands they suffer, turning them into new threats to US security. Reports and photographs documenting maltreatment at Guantanamo Bay are used by terrorists to radicalize new recruits and mass publics.
As you can see, each frame is comprised of facts, not fiction. And yet they lead to opposite conclusions. One suggests Guantanamo Bay must be kept operational; the other suggests it must be closed. One frame suggests Guantanamo Bay makes the United States safer; the other suggests it creates new threats.
Long-standing conflicts consist of many contentious issues like Guantanamo Bay, and each can be framed in a way to emphasize some facts and de-emphasize other facts. As a result, framing of a conflict is a way of guiding perceptions of it in a particular direction.
Framing can emphasize mechanisms of radicalization—grievance, group polarization, martyrdom, and dehumanization. A demonstration that started peacefully ended with clashes between the protesters and police. One framing will emphasize the peacefulness of the protests, leading to the conclusion that police were unjustified in using violence and creating a political grievance among those who agree with this framing. Another framing will emphasize the protesters’ throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police, justifying police action and creating a different kind of grievance among those who subscribe to this frame. Those who support protesters will, in the process of group polarization, drift further in their sentiment from those who support the police. Both protestors and police will see themselves as victims and the other side as perpetrators of injustice and perhaps even inhuman. At this point, what started out as framing will end up as radicalization.
A frame is static; it describes things as they are. A narrative is dynamic; it describes how and why things got this way. A narrative is a story. “Why do they hate us?” was the question then President George W. Bush asked in response to the 9/11 attacks. His answer was “They hate us for our freedoms.” The narrative suggested by this answer depicts the United States as having elicited envy in the 9/11 attackers (and those who supported them), which led to their plotting the acts of terrorism. Why did they attack? “Because of our freedoms” was the answer proposed by the Bush administration.
Of course, the attackers’ narrative, evident in their writing and in their leader Osama bin Laden’s recorded video speeches, was completely different. It described how the United States supported corrupt puppet regimes throughout the Muslim world that pumped cheap oil for the West at the price of poverty in the Middle East, dividing the Muslim umma (community), and bringing bad morals to Muslim lands.
Talking about the cause of the same event, one narrative paints the United States as a shining city on the hill; the other paints the United States as a sinister spider gorging itself on everything good that the Muslim nations have. The emotional alliances and implications that would stem from these narratives are radically different as well. In one case, protecting the freedoms that the United States exemplifies is the right thing to do. In the other case, fighting against US hegemony is the right thing.
So narratives are different from frames in that they describe not the “what” but the “why” and “how.” Instead of taking a snapshot of the events, narratives talk about the causes of the present and the likely trajectory into the future.
Another difference between narratives and frames is that while frames talk about facts, albeit simplified and cut to a particular form, narratives don’t have to adhere to facts and can instead rely on mythology. Narratives often use sweeping generalizations, such as “All X are Y” or “X always does Y to us.”
Those who subscribe to a particular narrative often do so because the emotional connotations of the narrative resonate with their own emotional and political commitments. A narrative often heard in Western countries is that terrorism is about Islam.
“They [Muslims] are the reason this is happening.” This part of the narrative answers the “why” of terrorist attacks. The reason for the attacks, according to this narrative, is that there is something fundamentally wrong with Muslims and with their religion of Islam.
Notice how this falls into the mechanism of mass radicalization that we call dehumanization. When someone has a “bad essence,” an immutable integral part of them, then the only way to protect against the bad essence is to get rid of those who carry it.
A common conclusion of this narrative is a demand that all Muslims be banned from travel to Western countries, deported, walled off, or even bombed out of existence. Notice also that, should a government follow this path—deporting Muslims, putting them in internment camps, or engaging in a war with Muslim nations, another mechanism of radicalization, jujitsu politics, is likely to gain momentum. A narrative radicalizes through the same 12 mechanisms of radicalization as were laid out in Chapters 3 and 4.