Modern Terrorism is like a Stage Performance

 

Taking away the audience might reduce the performances

I have often wondered what transpires in a terrorist’s mind before he pulls that trigger that ends an innocent life. Does he really believe that his cause is noble and that his act is justified? Does the smell of his victim’s blood remind him of the human life he has taken? Or does he still hold unto his belief that those he smothers are less human?

Some scholars have advised that we should not assume that terrorists are irrational, if anything, it is their rationality that drives them into committing acts of mass terror. By killing a few innocent people they expect to cause mass psychological casualties. And in this, with the help of mass media, they have always succeeded.

With the emergence of social media, instant messaging and all sorts of quick communications, terrorists have found a big audience for their inhuman performance. The media ethics that once defined journalists from amateurs is no longer followed. Just like teenagers in a theatre performance, filming parts of the play to share with their peers, we have all fallen into these acts; we have played into the hands of terrorists, granting them their greatest desire: an audience.

With our smartphones we take videos and pictures of a terrorist beheading a human being and then proceed to share with the public. We scan through our twitter and Facebook feeds in search of horrible videos and pictures, that we may share them with our friends.

No matter how condemning our captions are or how angry we appear, we are witnesses as well as perpetrators. We might as well be considered as fans.

It is true that as the public, we deserve to know what is happening in our country and around the world and in this, the media has done well to act as our surrogate. But at what cost?

This is not easy to answer but the following paragraphs might drive the reality home. Believe it or not you are unsuspecting audience who has paid to watch the beheading of a loved one.

The kind of terrorism we have experienced in the recent past can be called ‘modern terrorism’. If you are wondering what that possibly means, you are not alone. This kind of terrorism is like a theatre performance. It has all elements of drama, complete with an audience.

This performance like any other begins from a narrative stage. At this point the terrorists are convinced of their uniqueness as a chosen people. A special breed. A representative of a supreme god in an evil world.

They begin their indoctrination program, teaching young generation as well as old people a story of their perceived uniqueness. This story becomes a reservoir of beliefs that every member must subscribe to, and are often handed down to generations through a word of mouth and recently through means of mass communication.

People are encouraged to go out and try to sell this story of a unique people to others. But then, there emerges a small group that believes the wider community is ineffective and that through violence, many people might be scared into buying their narrative. This small group is what we now call extremists. They are the people who plan scare performances. They are the ones who go out to recruit the cast.

The cast may include experienced actors from among them, those who have performed in other stages around the world or they may include newly recruited local youths. Ones who have been indoctrinated to believe that by killing innocent people – people whose humanity they have lowered and their existence questioned – they are doing a supreme god a service. Like every good actor, they have rehearsed their roles excellently and they are faithful to the script.

Rehearsals usually begin when the experienced actors cross our porous borders often by bribing agents who masquerade as security officers.

These actors are usually hosted by our very own people. They live on the hospitality of their unsuspecting victims, who through their ancestors’ teachings and that of their gods, believe that it is noble to welcome strangers as they might be angels in disguise or ancestral spirits roaming from house to house, looking for a person to bless.

Choosing a stage for the performance is a very important step. It must be a place the audience will care about. The players prefer the direct audience, those who will pay for this performance with their own blood, to be of young age and extremely helpless.

The actors may rehearse in secret places but their impending performance is not entirely a secret or unknown to authorities. Often, they are confident that the authorities will ignore warnings given by either the public or the intelligence officers, and if the authorities choose to stop them (this is very rare), they will do so when it is late. Many a times the authorities have ended up being part of the much anticipated audience.

These actors have nothing to lose, to die during a performance or to live to perform another one is both a win. Theirs may be a painful performance but it is welcome, as the worst that can befall them, death, is still a victory.

The truth is, these actors are not in the business of selling their narrative: They are angels of death, who have been disowned by the brothers and sisters they are allegedly part of; their main goal is to punish those who have a different narrative from theirs. There is no instance when they even pretended to offer their victims a chance to be part of their narrative.

I believe we can stop these performances. First, we should deny these actors an audience, for what is a performance without its audience?

Second, our security personnel at the borders should be reminded of their patriotic duty. They should know that by accepting those few coins in form of a bribe, they have sold the blood of their brothers and sisters.

Third, Philip Gourevitch, writing in We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, tells a story about school girls who were killed by the militia because they could not accept to be grouped as either Hutu or Tutsi. Will Kenyans, stand as a group and shame the Al Shabaab that seeks to group them according to their religion?

Finally, if somebody is out to kill you and he is convinced that your death is a service to his master and you know that at no cost will he spare your life, must you die like a hog?

 

I encourage you to follow me on Twitter @mchanganuzi or better still email me your opinion at vincent.ogoti@fulbrightmail.org

 

 

Uprooting the Radicalization Seed

I once taught boys and girls in Nairobi. These kids were refugees who had been moving from one country to another seeking for a better life.

They had spent most of their ‘running time’ in developed countries. Some had even gone to school in the US, UK and Australia among other countries.

It occurred to me that these kids had moved to Kenya because most of them could not be kept in schools in those countries. Their parents had brought them to a low risk country; a place they thought their children will get an opportunity to complete their education as opposed to spending time in a juvenile prison or worse eating a bullet.
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This great city might be wiped out, if we fail the fight against terrorism

Unlike in the developed countries, Kenyan schools are understaffed and they lack psychologists or social workers who can identify strange and unacceptable behavior in these kids. Local teachers are also ill equipped in identifying these behaviors which range from drug abuse to radicalization.

Contrary to their parents’ beliefs, most of these kids could not even be kept in those private schools generally considered as cow cash, where most owners are believed to only care for money. These children could not even meet the least tolerable behavior to keep them in those schools. They were either kicked out for disobedience or drug abuse.

Though traits of radicalization might be obvious at this time, teachers may not identify them – as I have said, they have not been trained in identifying such behavior.

In fact, I remember teaching at a school where some boys smoked bhang and all teachers had no idea because we didn’t even know how bang smelt. It took a new teacher, one who had experience having used bang at one point during his college days, to unmask a ring of boys who were peddling drugs in the school. It was easy to help them after identifying their problem.

Not every school can get this lucky. I believe majority of teachers in Kenyan schools, are morally upright and religious (at least the one I have worked with are). They do not have firsthand experience in drugs or such behaviors as radicalization. Teacher training that ought to fill this gap is very shallow. How can they be expected to solve a problem they can’t even identify?

Some parents whose kids have been kicked out of formal schools, take them to the ever unregulated mushrooming tuition centers in Nairobi. Most of these centers are run by untrained teachers. Many a times, these centers serve as ‘holding’ camps, where parents drop their kids in the morning and pick them in the evening. What the unsuspecting parents do not know is the fact that their kids get worse in these centers. What do you expect when children who have been expelled from multiple schools meet at a center run by untrained teachers, whose employer cares about numbers than the quality of education offered?

Handling children who have been religiously indoctrinated and especially those who come from conflict prone areas, should not be taken for granted. I believe, if the Kenyan government is truly committed in tackling radicalization, they should begin in schools. Better still they should begin their campaigns at the universities and colleges that train teachers.

The government should ensure that all centers that purport to offer any form of education are vetted for quality and compliance to ministry of education  standards of education.

It is time the ministry of education ensured that only those Kenyans who are qualified and registered as teachers have access to classrooms. Radicalization is a seed. It has to be planted, watered and tended to in order to grow. It would be better as a nation if we ensured that the seed is never planted. If by any mistake, like the present terrorism problem in the country has revealed, the seed is planted, then we need smart teachers and all those who deal with children to uproot the seed before it germinates.

I encourage you to follow me on Twitter @mchanganuzi or better still email me your opinion at vincent.ogoti@fulbrightmail.org

What Al-Shabaab Really Wants

Creating Mass-Mediated Fear Part 1

 I have followed conflicting news on the social media about a suspected Al-Shabaab attack on the police in Yumbis, Garissa. Some media houses have reported 5 police officers injured  While  others have reported several officers dead. BBC reported that “20 Kenya police policemen feared dead after suspected Al Shabaab attack…” The reports in social media are even more conflicting. The Ministry of Interior has maintained that nobody has died and that only one police officer has been injured.  This kind of reporting proves that public perception of the Al-Shabaab threat and the danger it poses seems to be disproportionate to their actual capabilities. 

Al-Shabaab is fighting a highly developed and complex form of psychological war which aims to accomplish political ends by bearing on our emotions and attitudes. I think they have managed to induce fear and worry that is more than the actual damage they have caused.

How important is this psychological warfare to Al-Shabaab’s goals? I do not claim to know what Al-Shabaab really wants but I do know, from widely circulated claims, that they want the Kenya Defence Forces out of Somali. Some Kenyans including key politicians have severally called for such an action.

I doubt that Al-Shabaab will leave us alone even if KDF left Somali. The truth is: Al-Shabaab wants to evoke reactions that imperil our young democracy.

Their strategic intent is to create huge numbers of psychological casualties by attacking key institutions, as they did in Garissa University College.

Contrary to what most Kenyans think, Al-Shabaab’s most important weapons are not guns or bombs but rather the uncertainty, fear, and alarm that their attacks and threat have produced. It will be wrong to even imagine that Al-Shabaab have a military capability matching ours, they depend upon the strategic benefit of inciting a perception of vulnerability that far exceeds realistic dangers, an aim that depends heavily upon mass media publicity.

They have undermined our sense of security, disrupted our everyday life, and managed to sway public opinion by creating what Ganor calls “an unremitting, paralyzing sensation of fear”
 This kind of heightened environment has led to political disaffection and diminished confidence in our government. They have driven us to a corner where Kenyans feel that they have to either choose continued terrorism or giving in to Al-Shabaab’s demands.
   Judging by the reactions of Kenyans, it seems that Al-Shabaab has won round one. 

The Africa I know

My earliest introduction to Africa was through books. High school History and Geography curriculum and to some extent Social Studies and Religion covered key topic about Africa.
The Africa I got to know through these subjects and through my teachers was an Africa that I admired. I learnt about a people who had a unique culture. I read about a people humble enough to welcome strangers who later colonized them. I read about a people who suffered due their generosity. I read about a people courageous enough to demand and fight for their freedom.

This was a beautiful Africa.

Though this Africa was materially poor, it was rich in kindness. Whole village raised children and everybody was a brother. Then came the age of modern media. It changed everything. It shook what I knew about Africa.

I watched documentaries about past and current dictators in some African countries. I watched coup de tats taking place in some countries in Africa. I watched famine claiming lives of children and women in some countries in Africa.

This was a chaotic Africa.

As an adult I have gotten opportunities to read books about Africa. These books are mostly written by journalists (most of them are foreign), social workers and expatriates. These books have documented what Chinua Achebe calls ‘Africa’s tortured history’. It does not matter whether they are writing about politics, economics or social lives of the people of Africa, the image is always grim – of course there are few exceptions. These books are reinforced by the occasional feature articles in major newspapers and television magazines on cable networks.

Economically, I have come to know Africa that cannot feed its people. It is an Africa where people live below one dollar, children breast feeding from dead mothers etc.

Politically, I have to know Africa where tribalism is the bloodline of politics. By default all African leaders are corrupt and the electorate ‘stupid’. Socially, I have come to Africa as a country. Though most journalists and writers have what I can call fairly good education, they constantly ignore the facts and realities in Africa for instance, that Africa is a continent and not a country.

This is a tortured Africa.

But there is an Africa my heart knows and understands. I call it mother Africa. It is an Africa that I was born into and perhaps I will die in. It is an Africa with diverse people with different cultures. A people conversant with the challenges they face from day to day. A people that never give up amid all these challenges. An Africa that like any other continent has a good story waiting to be told. An Africa that is developing just like any other continent.

Reading books about Africa, watching television about Africa and reading magazines such as National Geographic introduced me to a strange Africa; an imagined Africa. There is a time I felt that I should move far away from the ‘tortured’ Africa and never return. But then I grew up and discovered that not everything we read in books or consume from the media is true.

I searched for my Africa, the Africa I knew as a boy growing up in rural Kenya. It is a beautiful Africa. Not because of its wild animals, though it might as well be, but because of its people.

This is the Africa I know.

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