Chapter Eleven
Beyond Martyrs and Terrorists
Having contemplated a wide range of dissenting groups, from violent to peaceful and from publicity-hungry to clandestine, several important points have emerged which can give us some idea as to how public relations can help and undermine groups whose ideas challenge the status quo. While a study of ISIS, for example, may not at first seem relevant to a group such as Occupy or Stop the War, given their significant differences on almost every level as movements, we have seen in fact that there are pertinent lessons to be learnt. The way in which ISIS has used social media and film could inspire the most peaceful group, and the way in which it has alienated people with violence could dissuade other groups from accepting such behaviour. That said, the fact that ISIS’s opportunistic sadism has attracted not only recruits but also an audience suggests a voyeurism (at least) in many people, which can help us understand why the media covers some stories as if they are action movies, and not others.
The main findings that have emerged from the cases covered are: (a) Violence and other illegal behaviour often gets publicity, but usually doesn’t help the cause, and is unsustainable long-term; (b) Non-violent civil resistance has been shown to be more effective than violent, but it can be hard to get publicity, so must be managed well; (c) While the Internet can be useful for some groups, it is best seen as one tool of several, and it is necessary to understand the risks involved in over-reliance on the Internet; (d) Often investigative journalism (particularly in association with groups such as WikiLeaks) is the most effective means of dissent, where the public relations is focused on the political problems themselves rather than individuals and a group’s image. Art, music and literature, furthermore, are often overlooked but have proven uniquely valuable over the years as means of dissent as well as means of more detached (or philosophical) critique and contemplation about the issues dissenting groups are concerned with.
Of course different groups will have particular PR strategies, depending on their various principles and aims, but the ideas that emerged from a broad discussion on dissent and the media should give us an understanding of the ways in which groups are successful, or less so. The murder of Lee Rigby for example, showed what not to do if one wants to be taken seriously. Elements of the Tea Party movement’s strategy, however, along with successful populist groups such as Stop the War and Occupy, show the specific measures that have worked to their benefit, which can therefore be applied elsewhere. Covert measures as used by WikiLeaks and Anonymous, meanwhile, have worked in the short term, but have provoked great repression from above because they involved illegal action, which may even have had a negative effect on other dissenting groups (although, conversely, their findings have inspired many to fight for civil liberties and be aware of state repression and surveillance).
Overall, dissenting groups run the risk of being depicted (almost by default) as reckless, extreme, and impulsive or irrational, to varying degrees, according to their behaviour but also an existing stereotype of dissent as illegitimate and possessing ‘Romantic’ qualities (at best), and criminal, threatening qualities (at worst). A public who are treated as a docile audience rather than politically powerful participants in a democracy seem to justify this presentation of political actors as mere pantomime villains, and the running of society as a spectacle. If that is to change then it is that public who must demand it and engage with politics seriously, as well as political actors who can encourage and lead them in doing so.
The Future of Dissent
So what can be done to redefine dissent, and utilise the democratic right to protest, in a culture where the trivialisation of dissent can sell stories and weaken anti-establishment political thought? The ideas that emerged from this discussion suggest that when handling the media, first of all, careful risk management is key, especially with regard to publicity. A clear and long-term PR strategy and plan to manage the media makes sense, including: other tactics aside from demonstrations and an over-reliance on publicity; avoidance of violence, and disassociation with violent factions, as this is not good publicity in the long term; and infiltrating or influencing the media where possible, to define the narrative. Propaganda goes both ways after all.
Dissenting groups can of course use the media to their advantage through telling the public of their grievances, repression and injustices, which will support the cause and likely increase its popularity and acceptance. While the established media may have no interest in representing dissenting groups accurately or sympathetically, meanwhile, local media may do, as well as counter-culture publications and art more generally. A movement that is embraced by its own community, whether local, cultural or political, is likely to be more sustainable than one that is not.
It also helps to know what (and whom) you are up against, to be intelligent about spotting infiltrators and predicting repression. Police and other spies regularly infiltrate non-violent and violent groups; this should not be a shock, but an expectation, or a risk to be managed. By knowing legal rights, having legal representation on hand, and keeping good relations with the authorities where possible, a dissenting group has a far better chance of affecting political change, and being sustainable.
It is important, furthermore, to remember that dissent, when legal, is a democratic right, not a crime. An asserted effort must be made to sustain that democratic right, in the face of reforms that may effectively criminalise these democratic rights. This is perhaps the most important point: if a group’s aims are democratic in essence, then the awareness of undemocratic reforms and punishments is key. Any democratically orientated dissenting group should campaign against undemocratic reforms even if it is not its main political focus, for its own sustainability and legal right to function. The main threat to dissent is undemocratic criminalisation of that dissent.
Dissent can, however, adapt to even undemocratic and unfair repression, and repression can alienate the people that the (UK and US) governments depend on for power. The question for these governments is whether they want their own people to become ‘the enemy within’, or whether it’s a better idea to compromise with their demands, when democratically presented. This is why going the non-violent, legal route is best for dissenting groups in the long term; it is the best shot at true change, with the eventual support of the population, community and ultimately the government that is meant to represent them.
It would be ideal to move into a world beyond PR, where substance matters more than rhetoric, and where people are not so easily swayed by tabloid tales of heroes and villains and a political system that often resembles a pantomime. Must we accept a world where people seem to respond to this political circus, rather than reason alone? In a world where people are taken in by stories of villains and heroes, rather than facts and good arguments – should dissenting groups communicate their political points accordingly? While it may be overly idealistic, on this point I would suggest the greatest change. Rather than simply seeking to control the narrative in which one plays a part, as the next section will explain, it makes sense (I think) to change the way the narrative is told. Only then can we hope to move beyond the usual clichés of political theatre.
Changing the Narrative
One of the main ways in which art, literature, music and journalism work is by changing the narrative of the cause and people it explores as its subject, as we have seen in various cases so far. Bobby Sands, for instance, through self-sacrifice, changed the story of the Troubles, and public perception of his cause. Many others have taken the path of self-sacrifice (or ‘martyrdom’, depending on a religious influence), to convince others that they and their cause are the victims rather than the ‘bad guys’ or guilty party in any given conflict. Since the political spectacle tends to dismiss most ambiguity in favour of simple binaries of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘winner’ and ‘loser’, it makes sense that some dissenters, frustrated by perceived misunderstanding of their specific situations, would engineer a stunt whereby they place themselves in the ‘good’ role – in these cases by emphasising their victimhood, endurance, and, sometimes, creating a story of strength and ultimate death that recalls stories of the Saints and other religious and mythological figures.
In South Vietnam in the 1960s, a group of Buddhist monks set themselves on fire (separately) to protest the persecution of Buddhists under the rule of the Roman Catholic government led by President Ngô Dinh Diệm. Self-immolation, in this context, was part of a long religious tradition as well as being a tactic of political dissent. “Non-violence is more than a strategy in this tradition; it is a way of life that respects all life” (Fierke, 2013, 161). More recently, in Tunisia in 2010, 27 year-old Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the country’s capital, Tunis, to protest maltreatment by the Tunisian authorities. The event sparked the Tunisian revolution and the wider Arab Spring.
In the case of Bobby Sands, martyrdom served as a foil to the ‘terrorism’ narrative that had thus far dominated public perception of Irish Republicanism. In other cases, however, such as Palestinian suicide bombers, the use of the idea of martyrdom can fuel the terrorist narrative. The main difference is that with Sands (and other individuals who died for their cause) only the dissenter(s) died; with suicide bombers, many uninvolved others die too. In the case of Sands, he was guilty of very little, and any damage seemed to be directed at himself. He came across as symbolising the tortured and the victimised. While suicide bombers also play this role, it is combined with other techniques and roles, to change their narrative in another way. The suicide bomber brings many other people down with him or her.
Suicide bombing serves a tactical role as well as a symbolic one, furthermore: if a group doesn’t have drones or other high-tech weaponry, then a human ‘bomb’ can facilitate that focused attack, without depending on money or technology. An individual carrying explosives can target a specific place or person with relative ease. Symbolically, too, a suicide bombing projects an image of fearlessness and ultimate selfsacrifice along with, obviously, terror. In the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, suicide bombers recalled religious ideas about personal honour and redeeming oneself through martyrdom, as well as solving a tactical issue of wanting to target specific places and people without the necessary equipment. Hamas delivered the message that their group, their people, would sacrifice anything, and were thus braver than the Israelis on account of self-sacrifice. It also made them a formidable enemy; with suicide bombers, they posed a grave and adaptable threat.
Al Qaeda followed Hamas in this use of suicide bombing, and the conflict between Western armies and the ‘terrorist’ Al Qaeda also became a ‘war of masculinities’, as discussed previously with reference to ISIS. In the case of Al Qaeda, the implication of using suicide bombers was that their group and people represented a more fearless, ruthless form of masculinity, compared to the Western type. In short, Al Qaeda communicated through suicide bombing (and other ruthless forms of violence) that they were bigger and braver, more masculine than the West.
In these cases of political violence, symbolic warfare and physical aggression were combined in the use of suicide bombing, to change a narrative (from losing, ill-equipped groups, to fearless, determined threats to the West). Sands, previously, along with nine other young men, used the hunger strike to undermine the story of his cause being terrorist, and transformed the story and cause’s image in that way.
But claiming martyrdom (with or without other victims) isn’t the only way to change the narrative. While making oneself look like the ‘good’ victim or the fearless military threat has proven effective in the cases mentioned (usually in situations where religious identity is important), making the other side look ‘bad’ works just as well, and usually with less victims – which seems far more sensible to me, not only in the sense that violence alienates people no matter how aggrieved a side feels, but also because it seems a grave waste of life and potential to throw people into the firing line for the sake of sending a message, however important that message is. If a group is aggrieved, then committing heinous acts of violence, whether against the self or not, seems merely to muddy the waters and make peace and reconciliation extremely difficult, if not impossible for a long time.
Often exposing atrocity is far more powerful than wreaking vengeance anyway: Abu Ghraib, for instance, was such a scandal because it showed the apparently ‘good’ America acting sadistically and inhumanely. Merely avenging crime simply brings your own side down to the level of the perpetrator – as the US was seen to do by allowing torture of prisoners during the War on Terror. To fight terror with terror seems absurd, after all.
In order to challenge the propaganda surrounding the British Army, and specifically its recruitment drive targeted at teenagers and even children, Veterans for Peace UK made films (Action Man: Battlefield Casualties) that showed, with some dark humour, the real impact of war on soldiers and veterans, rather than the state-sponsored bravado and glorification of conflict. The ‘action men’ in the films include “PTSD Action Man… with thousand-yard stare action” and “Dead Action Man... coffin sold separately.” “Paralysed Action Man” has legs that “really don’t work” (Gilmour, 2015).
More subtly, novels such as Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds provide a more nuanced account of war that exposes not simply ‘good’ and ‘bad’ but the complex combinations and moral difficulties associated with, in this case, serving in the War on Terror. Similarly, though from an earlier time, Hemingway’s Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises speaks of the disenchantment and numb despair that followed the Second World War for the so-called ‘lost generation’.
These novels are not really what we would think of as ‘public relations’. And yet when it comes to the public understanding something as complex but oft-simplified as war, as ‘good’ and ‘evil’, as injustice and despair – well of course it takes a few hundred pages of empathetic prose to communicate any genuine message about the reality of these situations. And that, ultimately, is what is required if people are really to relate to one another. If the aim of public relations, in the sphere of politics or elsewhere, is to communicate messages and ideas and emotions to the public, then a group or individual must do more than stand in a space, shouting (or blowing themselves up), waiting for other people to tell their story or explain their actions. They must tell their stories themselves. They must explain their experiences, their ideas, their injustice – and perhaps not only through the most obvious channels and using the most clichéd tropes.
There have been a lot of martyrs for a lot of stories about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in the press about politics. I’m sure Nietzsche would have a lot to say about that merry-go-round of saints and sinners and their respective wills to power; that this sort of slave morality is reprehensible and ultimately weak, perhaps. That rather than spin between binaries in reaction to one another, it may be better to become somewhat free-spirited (Nietzsche, 1886), or the ‘sovereign individual’ (Nietzsche, 1887). I won’t go into a spiel about Nietzsche here, but I do think that there is something to be said for bucking the trend, those roles of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and being more imaginative and free in our discussions of what it is to be an individual in society, and how we relate to and participate in politics.
This book has been a series of contemplations rather than a prescriptive text, which is all that really makes sense when different dissenting groups have such varying situations and demands; I cannot hope (and do not wish) to provide a comprehensive guide to protest PR, as such. However, if I may take a moment here as this book concludes to have some point of reflection, I would like to be a little on the libertarian side of things, to take that idea of the ‘free spirit’ and ‘sovereign individual’, and adapt it to my own times and dilemmas. Should I wish to be subversive, I would do so by stepping back, stepping away, and taking time to think before acting. I would focus on keeping our civil liberties protected from passing state interests, sparked by fear of elusive ‘baddies’. I would retreat and think and then tell the stories that seem important. I would support those who write them.
Perhaps the essence of this book, then, comes down to a rather simple message after all: a wish to tell stories of substance rather than perform re-runs of a clichéd pantomime show, where political actors play simply the villain or martyr. A hope that we can see beyond horror shows and shock tactics and keep a clear head. A wish to explain things properly, and to appeal to reason and emotion at once; to change the narrative from one of excessive simplicity and emotional manipulation to one of common sense and intelligence. Have slogans, by all means, but do not end the conversation there.
Dissent, then, even if its ideals are Romantic and revolutionary, and even if the individuals involved are too, should be careful not to let those ideals dominate the image of the movement in a negative way, and to be aware that certain tactics, while reminiscent of rebellions past, are not practical for a group intending to affect real political change in the existing political climate. Self-control, planning and intelligence are more important. As Shelley wrote:
Blood for blood — and wrong for wrong –
Do not thus when ye are strong.
With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay,
Till their rage has died away.
If we pay attention to the Romantics, we can see that they had more to offer than battle cries, aesthetic violence and heroic failure. They also promoted peaceful civil resistance, integrity, open-mindedness, persistence and humility. It is these aspects of their ideals and work that we would do well to remember, and to publicise.