BALANCED RISK REDUCTION: DOUBLE GAIN

It is understandable that we have primary reactions to terrorist attacks in the form of fear, indignation, rage, despair, passivity or cynicism. But we should try to soon reinstall objectivity and balance in our reactions. Sound safety policy leaves emotions out, identifies in a balanced way the large dangers and applies the available resources according to the size of the dangers. Such regaining of perspective can also help us to overcome our primary reactions that remain understandable but are not realistic.

In a review of large dangers, terrorism does not score high. In the Netherlands on average less than one person yearly dies through terrorism. At the same time 750 people die in traffic accidents and 135,000 through illnesses. Objectively seen, traffic safety deserves 750 times more, and health care 135,000 times more resources than the fight against terrorism.

Worldwide, the number of deaths through terrorism has grown quite fast through outbreaks of large-scale violence in West Asia and now comes to 30,000 per year. At the same time about 300,000 people die annually because of global warming. Objectively seen, the reduction of climate gas emissions and support for climate victims deserves10 times more resources than the fight against terrorism. 

Because in the traffic 1.2 million people die every year, objective policy making applies forty time more resources to traffic safety than to the fight against terrorism. And when we look at the about 60 million people who die from diseases each year, the danger of terrorism is entirely dwarfed.

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VERSTANDIG VEILIGHEIDSBELEID: DUBBELE WINST

Het is begrijpelijk dat wij op terroristische aanslagen reageren met primaire emoties als heftige angst, woest agressie, wanhoop, passiviteit of cynisme. Maar het is zaak om daar telkens weer zo snel mogelijk overheen te komen. Een verstandig veiligheidsbeleid brengt evenwichtig in kaart wat de grote gevaren zijn en wendt naar gelang de omvang van die gevaren de beschikbare middelen aan. Zo’n relativering brengt niet alleen meer veiligheid maar helpt ook om afstand van misleidende emoties te nemen.

Bij een overzicht van grote gevaren komt terrorisme niet hoog op de prioriteitenlijst te staan. In Nederland vielen er sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog, afhankelijk van de definitie, ongeveer 35 doden door terroristische aanslagen. Er overlijdt dus gemiddeld per jaar minder dan een persoon door terrorisme. Tegelijk overlijden er elk jaar 750 mensen in het verkeer en een nog veel groter aantal, 135.000, door ziektes. Nuchter gezien verdient verkeersveiligheid dus 750 keer meer aandacht en ziektebestrijding 135.000 keer meer aandacht dan terreurbestrijding.

Wereldwijd is het aantal terreurdoden snel gestegen door conflicthaarden in West-Azië en komt nu uit op 30.000 per jaar. Tegelijk sterven er ongeveer 300.000 mensen per jaar door opwarming van de aarde. Nuchter gezien verdient het inperken van klimaatgasuitstoot en hulp aan klimaatslachtoffers dus tien keer meer aandacht dan terreurbestrijding. 

Omdat er in het verkeer ongeveer 1,2 miljoen mensen per jaar omkomen, leidt nuchter beleid tot veertig keer meer aandacht voor veiliger verkeer dan voor terreurbestrijding. En als je kijkt naar de ongeveer 60 miljoen mensen die jaarlijks door ziektes overlijden, valt het gevaar van terrorisme helemaal in het niet.

FRENCH OPPRESSION AND DUTCH PREVENTION

France has, much more than other European societies, a history of terrorist attacks. The common explanation is that they maintain a neglected and rejected underclass that as a result becomes a hotbed of resentment and violence.  

The French police mainly reacts with spying and violence to the consequences of alienation. 

In the Netherlands we have neighborhood police who are peacefully and sensitively in touch with the local population and help reducing or precluding processes of alienation.

As the contact person for my immediate neighborhood, I am in close touch with neighborhood police officer Hans van Lent.

http://people.umass.edu/estaub/HPCN_A_247018staub.pdf

OVERATTENTION TO TERRORISM: CAUSES AND RISKS

Killings by terrorism arouse much more attention and emotions than, for instance, the much larger numbers of people killed by car drivers, bacteria and viruses. A combination of causes may be at work here.

ABSTRACTION

Not many feel affected by abstractions. Therefore, large numbers of traffic incidents don’t evoke emotions like single incidents do.

MEDIA

Because traffic accidents happen so often, the media reduced paying attention to those daily killings on the road. They don’t see such killings as news anymore.

REMOTENESS

Most of the 1.2 million traffic deaths happen in the Third World, whereas western media focus on what happens in the west and reach audiences in the Third World.  Third World media reach much less western audiences and perhaps even focus less on traffic deaths.

PURPOSE

It seems that the intentional killing by terrorists evokes widespread attention and emotion. Car drivers don’t kill on purpose and therefore evoke less attention and emotion. But criminals also kill on purpose and yet evoke less attention and emotion than terrorists do. Terrorists differ from car drivers and criminals in that they kill to install fear and uproot the societal system, the social balance, the status quo.

US-THEM 1

Especially Muslim terrorists are seen as foreigners attacking westerners, as ‘them’ attacking ‘us’, in order to install fear from the outside and uproot the societal system, the social balance, the status quo. Most killing by car drivers and criminals do not come from the outside.

US-THEM 2

But also within the west there are us-them divides that do not lead to extreme attention and emotions drawn by terrorists. One of the biggest gaps in the Amsterdam society is between bikers and car drivers. Bikers behave in anarchistic ways and cars kill bikers. They have a clear-cut us-them divide. In fact, many at both sides fear or hate the other side.

Neveertheless, hardly any traffic accident raises much attention and emotion by the media and the local government. But the general public are very much aware and concerned about the ongoing killing on the roads. This us-them divide between the general public on the one hand and media and government on the other is yet another one in the Netherlands that does not raise fierce attention and emotion. Therefore, us-them divides in themselves do not seem to be a convincing explanation of the widerspread and fierce attention paid to terrorists.

GOVERNMENTS

Some governments welcome external enemies in order to rally the population and keep their attention away from internal troubles. Terrorists provide excellent opportunities to rally the people. Some governments have perhaps even facilitated such opportunites. Research has uncovered examples of such manipulations.

SECRET SERVICES

Secret services welcome any fear for external enemies, hoping more breaches of privacy protection will legalized or secretly introduced. Reasons for mobilizing the population against an external enemy are highly welcomed and perhaps even created by the some secret services. Research has uncovered examples of such manipulations.

ARMIES

Army leaders welcome fear for external enemies, hoping next military action will be started. Reasons for mobilizing the population against an external enemy are highly welcomed and perhaps even created by the somke army leaders. Research has uncovered examples of such manipulations.

ARMS

Arms producers welcome any fear for external enemies, hoping next war will come. Reasons for mobilizing the population against an external enemy are highly welcomed and perhaps even created by some arms producers. Research has uncovered examples of such manipulations.

SUMMARY OF EXPLANATIONS

As governments, secret services, army leaders and arms producers may see chances to benefit from Muslim terrorist attacks, they may tend facilitate widespread attention and emotions. Moreover, such attacks are easier to absorb by the public than abstract numbers and are therefore attractive for media that seek audiences. Western populations are even less interested in abstract numbers of road accidents in non-western societies. Many people get more aroused by intentional killing than by unintentional killing, while disregarding the numbers of casualties in themselves. The primary us-them instinct is especially strong when it comes to terrorists with a foreign background.

POLICY

As common citizens we may notice that our insticts, media and governments create in us attention and emotions not corresponding to the distribution of real dangers, such as expressed in numbers of casualties. We may urge governments to apply resources according to the real distribution of such dangers.

HOW HOLY IS THE DUTCH COW

See how Amsterdam municipality officials divide the public space, making pedestrians conglomerate on pavements that are narrow and full of horizontal and vertical obstacles, and offering space that is by far the widest and without obstacles to just a few cars that pass now and then.

HOW BROADMINDED ARE THE DUTCH

Racism that is molded

In a strong tradition

Will all the more resist

Getting acknowledgment

But the broadminded Dutch

In wide majority

Claiming not be racism

In maintaining Black Pete

Are now having full chance

To prove broadmindedness

When they see that Black Peet

Has become the new Saint

570 DUTCH KILLED, 20,000 WOUNDED

While our politicians are up in arms, the police is all over and the news media can't stop talking about a terrorist threat, the Association for Traffic Victims will commemorate 570 people who were killed in the traffic last year.

http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1012/Nederland/article/detail/4186766/2015/11/15/Twintigste-herdenking-verkeersslachtoffers.dhtml

This is apart from around 20,000 people injured in traffic accidents, out of which some will die later and others remain disabled for the rest of their lives.

WISDOM LOST LIKE FROST IN THE SYRIAN SUN

NATO and Russia wanted to limit their military involvement in the Syria-Iraq area with the argument that you cannot escape from the violent complexity once you get involved there.

But now that ISIS has killed a small number of Russians and French, vastly smaller than the number of victims made by the Syrian government, the snake nest argument vanishes like frost in the dessert sun, and Russian and NATO governments preach yet another large-scale and old-fashioned military intervention in Asia.

These governments lose their wisdom because they are better at joining the overexposure of terrorist attacks and primary emotions of the population than keeping an eye at proportions and counting the numbers of victims.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/islamic-state-has-killed-many-syrians-but-assads-forces-have-killed-even-more/2015/09/05/b8150d0c-4d85-11e5-80c2-106ea7fb80d4_story.html

THE MUTUAL EXCLUSIVITY TRAP IN DEALING WITH TERRORISM

In the comparison between terrorist attacks and road accidents, the main difference is how victims die and the main similarity is that victims die.

The challenge is to avoid getting absorbed by one or the other reality, while acknowledging that two realities can exist next to each other. But as in more cases, we can fall in the trap of mutual exclusivity: either one reality is true or the other reality is true.

Perhaps this trap of mutual exclusivity has to do with the fear that creates the ‘us-them’ divide: "Them is what can turn dangerous any time, and us is what I can always trust." Such fear can make us blind for the bad things of us and the good things of them.

WARFARE OR ROAD SAFETY

It is illuminating to compare terrorism with dangerous roads and when we say we cannot make that comparison we misunderstand what is a comparison, lump together cause and effect and forget false government policies. 

A comparison has similarities and differences, and in this case the similarities relate to effects and the differences to both causes and effects. 

SIMILARITIES

If it comes to a similarity, people killed by terrorists and people killed by cars are similar: they all died.

Next similarity is that people killed by terrorists and people killed by cars all deserve to be mourned, individually or collectively.

DIFFERENCES

If it comes to differences, terrorists and cars are obviously not the same kind of killers.

Another difference is that if we give widespread attention to terrorists they will like that, whereas killing car drivers usually do not.

If it comes to make the world a safer place, the difference is that cars are way more dangerous than terrorists. So, not the fight against terrorists but the fight against car accidents needs our first attention and for a long time.

But unfortunality, yet another difference is that killing by terrorists makes many of us more nervous and indignant than killing by cars.

Difference number four is that governments use terrorist attacks to further breach privacy, employ more secret service officers, wage wars and give the arms industry more profits, instead of using car accidents as reasons to improve road traffic and save more than a million lives each year.

FEAR AND EXCLUSIVITY

In the comparison between terrorist attacks and road accidents, the main difference is how you die and the main similarity is that you die.

The challenge is to not get absorbed by one or the other reality, but to acknowledge that two realities can exist next to each other. But as in more cases, emotions can make us fall in the trap of mutual exclusivity: either one reality is true or the other reality is true.

Perhaps this trap of mutual exclusivity has to do with the fear that creates the ‘us-them’ divide: "Them is what can turn dangerous any time, and us is what I can always trust."

Such fear can make us blind for the bad things of us and the good things of them.

RELIGION DOES NOT WEAR CLOTHES

Religion is not a concrete entity existing as a social unit on the ground or as a cloud up in the air. Religion is a word that we give the status of concreteness because we fall in the trap of reification, treating an abstraction as if it has a material existence. Some even fall in the trap of anthropomorphization, seeing religion as if it acts like a human being.

But religion is an emperor without clothes. Human beings are the really existing entities. It’s people who share their spiritual experiences with others in certain rituals and buildings and have installed certain codes of conduct.

Therefore, religions do not bring violence or peace. People do.

RELIGION IS NOT A DRIVING FORCE

Religion is not an actor, not a force. It is a field where human action takes place, just like the fields of economics, politics, arts, sports, education or the media where human action takes place. At those fields, human action is organized by common patterns of internal, psychological processes and externally observable behavior.

For want of better terms, some call those two common patterns culture and behavior. If we adopt those terms, we can say that culture and behavior influence each other in individual people and in more or less recognizable systems.

Systems of cultural and behavioral interaction change over time, often or in the end with interaction between such systems as well. Then it may seem that, for instance, changing religious behaviors also create behavioral changes at other fields of society.

But behavioral patterns do not change behavioral patterns directly, they do that through culture. Culture remains to be the medium. Behaviors change culture, culture changes behaviors and so on.

Such systems of ongoing causation happen at any field in society, including at the field of religion. Just like at other fields, the field of religion has a system of culture and behavior.

Systems of culture and behavior can have internal patterns of ongoing causation but usually interact with other parts of the entire society.

To add, common patterns of behavior are not only shaped by culture, but also by contacts with neighboring societies, by genes and by such physical influences as the types of available food, the weather, the sun and the moon.

Another important caveat here is to notice that social life does not consist of closed systems. More less recognizable systems have gradual overlaps, openings and lose ends. And there is a vast variety of individual action. Finally, there are the individual, subjective outlooks and experiences.

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