The world around us and behavioural context
Exposure to Context and Confirmation Bias; Woolwich attack in London
The subtle changes in semantics…
Dealing with Social psychology, links were made explaining how perfectly average and foremost law-abiding citizens,
can turn into potential dictators, torturers, and butchers, provided that the context would allow them to develop these
specific characteristics. The need to conform to the behaviour of the group, or to distinguish oneself by the same desire
would be subject to the person’s own latent wish to be “recognised” to “do the right thing, or expected action”. The
examples discussed clarified the behaviour of the German people during WW2, and can predict fairly accurately, the
behaviour of any of us, given the context in which we may find ourselves in any given situation. Although I concur with
the idea that this behaviour is explained accurately, it can never serve as an excuse, behind which these acts should be
made legitimate.
Where the need to “distinguish oneself” may clarify the public execution of a UK Army official in a crowded high street in
London. The incident itself took place outside its proper context of an Al Qaeda operation and was also not “ordered” by
any Jihad related group. Despite these facts the use of the word “Terrorism”, has been applied liberally and arbitrary by
the media and has now become synonym for all who practice the Muslim faith. Whitehall Officials state that : “The
dividing line isn’t between Muslims and everyone else; it’s between terrorists and everyone else.” However, such
statement precludes any other interpretation of the current understanding that terrorist acts are executed primarily by
Muslims by the sheer mention of the distinction; the West being identified as its target (Cameron: “… attack on
Britain…”).
It is mandatory therefore to look closely at the definitions Terrorism[2] and Terrorist. The two terms have one major
aspect in common; the concept of Fear through mind manipulation. Terrorism is intended to breed and spread fear
globally for a specific group of extremists aimed at obtaining or asserting its political and ideological goal, whilst the
Terrorist is mainly interested to instill fear to exert his/her power, either through attac hing him/herself to a group that will
provide the excuse to do so, or as an individual with a specific wish to be “recognised” by their peers and distinguish
him/herself by the very act.
It is the actual manipulation of this fear that has been exploited intentionally by the media, serving a political agenda. On
the side of the extremist groups that use terrorism to instill, spread fear, and blackmail by means of their acts of violence,
there seems a total lack of awareness that by realising their specific goals, they are merely providing their opponents
with an equally powerful tool; the phenomenon of the “common” enemy. In this way Governments can take decisions
that will lead to wars like Afghanistan and feel secure in doing so, as there will always be a retaliation from this common
enemy that will confirm the bias already locked in the minds of their citizens. It is an age-old stratagem used by
Governments all over the world “divide to rule”, and the more people seem to be unwilling, through fear, to open their
minds to make themselves familiar with other cultures, religions, to even trying typical foods …. the wider the gap will
grow and the more power will be given those who use these tools for their own means.
There seems to be a worrying tendency to allow ourselves to be influenced by opportunists[3] and populist hatestatements[4] from politicians, organisations, and the media, which will not result in level headed approaches to the real
problems we need to resolve globally; unequal division of wealth, food and water supplies, and the ecological issues of
our planet. In democratic societies we have the power to vote and make politicians accountable for policies that are
proposed for implementation. We should claim that statuary democratic principle as our personal responsibility,
specifically our duty to inform ourselves about issues that concern us all. We have been witnesses to murders – in my
lifetime – of those who stood for another way to tackle a variety of issues; Kennedy, Luther-King, Gandhi and more
recently, Rabin. It is evident that the real threat, danger and terror is not to be expected from the “common enemy”, as
Governments would like us to believe, but should be feared most from the extremists[5] living amongst us within the
boundaries of our own society, culture and organisation.
To summarise the specific relation between the public execution and its effects as described above, there are a number
of behavioural phenomena that were discussed during the lectures in week 6;
Conformity as a general feature, which will enhance the desire to distinguish oneself,
The authority aspect of political leaders and the assumption that reports in Newspapers are always a reliable sources to
obtain information,
Our own actions in relation to the external influences and the necessity to take ownership of our own responsibility,
The risks involved by allowing others to make up our mind for us (confirmation bias) and the phenomenon on “mind
manipulation”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22630304 andhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/23/woolwich-latest-developmentslive
An act of Terrorism is intended to breed fear, psychological manipulations through acts of violence. The fact that the
public murder was executed by men - obviously deranged - was not the act of a group of people who are practicing the
Islamic faith as the average Muslim is not sympathetic towards the propaganda voiced by Jihad supporters. The
distinction needs to be made between those who will commit acts of violence because they have a criminal intent and
conveniently hide their mental state behind a very opaque veil of true ignorance (compare the events in Norway: Anders
Behring Breivik-2011); politics, religion, ideology etc. To assume that Muslims worldwide can be identified with acts of
violence executed by those who claim they are their representatives, would be repeating mistakes from which we should
have learned in WW2; a group was stigmatised for religious reasons. The real danger lies in the way governments want
to exploit that fear to work for their political aims; the more we let our fear determine our thoughts about another group,
the better position governments have to strengthen their foothold in the political arena. Both parties use a sophisticated
method of “thought manipulation” by the same use of fear and terror, whereby those who are mad enough to put their
violent tendencies in practice serve the purpose of those representing the religious views of a distinct minority, whilst
enforcing the position of those who project our fears in a “communal enemy”, conveniently hiding their own
incompetency of governance.
http://akke-myrielle.tumblr.com/post/51298894000/module-3-international-criminal-law-case-western
[3] http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/norwegian-mass-killer-breivik-becoming-cult-figure_843196.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/pork-laced-bullets-designed-to-send-muslims-straight-tohell/2013/06/21/aff2247a-daaa-11e2-b418-9dfa095e125d_story.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-202_162-1202/massacre-in-norway/
Akke M. Draijer-de Jong
Delft, 22 June 2013