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“They Want Us to Be Afraid” “They want us to be Afraid” Anne Aly Mark Balnaves VOLUME 6, NUMBER 6 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE DIVERSITY http://www.Diversity-Journal.com First published in 2007 in Melbourne, Australia by Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2007 (this paper), the author(s) © 2007 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <cg-support@ commongroundpublishing.com>. ISSN: 1447-9532 Publisher Site: http://www.Diversity-Journal.com The INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE DIVERSITY is a peer refereed journal. Full papers submitted for publication are refereed by Associate Editors through anonymous referee processes. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.CommonGroundSoftware.com. “They want us to be Afraid” Developing a Metric for the Fear of Terrorism Anne Aly, Edith Cowan University, Australia Mark Balnaves, Edith Cowan University, Australia Abstract: There is a range of scales to measure different psychological and behavioural responses to fear in the research literature. However, there is no summative measure for community fear. In this paper the authors report on a major national survey of Australian Muslims and the broader community that creates a metric, or barometer, to measure fear among communities in Australia after 9/11. The paper will also report on major qualitative research investigating community re- sponses to the media and political discourses on terrorism and fear. These quantitative and qualitative data provide a picture Australian Muslim communities under siege. The findings reported in the paper are a part of an Australian Research Council (ARC) project on the responses of Muslim communities to media reporting on terror. Keywords: Measures of Fear, Australian Moslem and non-Moslem Responses to Media Reporting of Terror, Agenda Setting of the broader Australian community. The findings I am scared. Scared in a sense that if it did of this study were used to inform the development happen, what the hell is going to happen to us? of an innovative quantitative metric of fear designed Sheikh Faizal Gaffoor quoted in the West Aus- to measure how Australians are responding to the tralian Newspaper, 11 November 2005. fear of terrorism. Research into the effects of fear on social behaviour has traditionally focused on two OLLOWING THE TERRORIST attacks patterns of behavioral responses to fear: restrictive on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon behaviours which assume that people constrain their Fin 2001, polls in the United States revealed a behaviour to avoid circumstances considered unsafe, heightened level of fear and anxiety about the and assertive behaviours which involves people ad- likelihood of further terrorist attacks. According to opting protective behaviours in circumstances con- one poll, 52 percent of Americans said they could sidered to be unsafe (Liska, 1988). An analysis of imagine themselves or a loved one as a victim of a empirical evidence collected was conducted in the terrorist attack (Kakutani, 2001). Despite the fact first stage of the project to develop a construct typo- that risk assessment studies in Australia underline logy of fear (Becker, 1940). The results pointed to that the actual risk of a terrorist attack is marginal in the fear of terrorism as affecting both restrictive and comparison to many other mortality risks such as protective behaviours. As the first of its kind, the smoking and car accidents (Mueller, 2004; Viscusi, metric of fear measures the extent to which Australi- 2003), Australian polls also indicated heightened ans are constraining their behaviours and adopting levels of fear and anxiety about a possible terrorist protective behaviours in response to the fear of ter- attack in Australia. According to a poll published in rorism. the Sydney Morning Herald in April 2004, 68 percent of Australians believed that Australia was at threat The Fear of Terrorism of an imminent terrorist attack (Michaelsen, 2005; Viscusi, 2003). There is no internationally accepted, unitary defini- A national project at Edith Cowan University tion of terrorism. A brief review of the literature on funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery terrorism reveals over 100 definitions. In Australia, Grant (Safeguarding Australia) examines the nature terrorism is defined by the Australian Defence Force of the fear of terrorism operating within the Australi- as the “use or threatened use of violence for political an community since the September 11 terrorist at- ends or for the purpose of putting the public or any tacks. The project incorporates a qualitative research section of the public in fear” (Martyn, 2002). Among study on audience constructions of the media and the various definitions of terrorism that exist is the popular discourse on terrorism. This stage of the universal notion that terrorism uses violence, targets project compares the impact of the terrorism dis- non-combatants, is intended to intimidate and creates course as experienced by Muslim Australians to that INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE DIVERSITY, VOLUME 6, NUMBER 6, 2007 http://www.Diversity-Journal.com, ISSN 1447-9532 © Common Ground, Anne Aly, Mark Balnaves, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: [email protected] 114 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE DIVERSITY, VOLUME 6 a state of terror. Importantly, all definitions agree ized worlds. In his speech delivered at the United that fear is the ultimate aim of terrorism. Nations Security Council Ministerial Session on Fear is perhaps the most intense of human emo- Terrorism on January 20, 2003, Colin Powell invoked tions and can manifest itself in a variety of ways. the rhetoric of a clash of civilisations and urged “We Fear can be a rational response to the presence of a must rid the civilized world of this cancer…. We real danger or an irrational response to an imaginary must rise to the challenge with actions that will rid danger; it can paralyse or it can motivate; it can serve the globe of terrorism and create a world in which a political purpose or it can serve a deep psycholo- all God’s children can live without fear”. US Presid- gical need, it can be instinctive, inherent to our psy- ent George Bush, in his address to the joint houses chological makeup or it can be historically specific. of Congress shortly after September 11 stated “This Private fears, such as phobias, are legacies of indi- is the world’s fight. This is civilisation’s fight” (cited vidual psychologies and experiences. The fear of in Brown, 2002, p. 295). The political discourse on terrorism however, is typically a community fear terrorism in Australia is one in which Australia is arising out of conflicts between societies. Community recurrently portrayed as being at threat of an immin- fear impels societies to re-affirm their collective al- ent terrorist attack. In a series of media releases since legiance to a set of common political values and to the September 11 attacks, Australia’s Prime Minister mobilize against an identified threat to these values. John Howard has recurrently referred to Australia This often finds expression in aggression, marginal- as being at imminent threat of a terrorist attack. In isation, alienation and rejection of anything or any- December 2002 the Prime Minister released the first one who challenges the shared values and cultural of what was to be many counter-terrorism packages worldviews of a particular society. and issued a media release stating “Australia has Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade been at a heightened level of national security alert Centre and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, a since September 11 2001. This extended period of new discourse of terrorism has emerged as a way of heightened alert for acts of terrorism is unpreceden- expressing how the world has changed and defining ted in Australia’s history” (National Security Cam- the way things are today (Altheide, 2004). Terrorism paign, 2002). Earlier that year, after the Bali bomb- has become the new metonym for our time where ings in Indonesia in October, the Australian Prime the ‘war on terror’ refers to a perpetual state of Minister announced amendments to Australia’s alertness as well as a range of strategic operations, counter-terrorism laws, reiterated his previous state- border control policies, internal security measures ments about security and added that the Bali bomb- and public awareness campaigns such as ‘be alert, ings were a personal attack on Australia, “The terror- not alarmed’ (Aly, 2005). The ‘atmosfear’ of terror ist attacks on the United States last year revealed that has permeated the construction of the Western world we are now operating in a new security environment. as constantly at threat of terrorism. The media and The Bali bombings tragically brought that directly political construction of September 11 and the sub- and personally home to Australians” (Counter-terror- sequent ‘war on terror’ is one in which the West is ism review, 2002). In a media release on the in a perpetual state of alert from a foreign, alien, strengthening of the counter terrorism laws, the politically defined ‘other’, where, as Brian Massumi Prime Minister stated, “while we have been fortunate (2005) states, “Insecurity…is the new normal” (p. not to suffer a terrorist attack on our soil, Australians 31). have been the victims of attack overseas and Aus- The evolving media and popular discourse on tralia itself has been a target for terrorists in the past”. terrorism frames the war on terror as a global battle In reference to the need for legislative reform, the between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and ‘the West’ and ‘others’, Prime Minister referred specifically to the circum- whereby the ‘others’ become the objects of fear, stances of the London terror attacks, “The terrorist concern and suspicion.
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