IMAGES OF TERROR: WHAT WE CAN AND CAN'T KNOW ABOUT TERRORISM

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IMAGES OF TERROR: WHAT WE CAN AND CAN'T KNOW ABOUT TERRORISM, by Philip Jenkins. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003. 194pp. Paperback 24.95. ISBN: 0-202-30679-8.

Reviewed by Stephen A. Simon, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. [e-mail]

Since the late 1970s, the U.S. government’s official position on Iraq’s level of involvement in international terrorism has undergone a number of dramatic shifts which cannot be explained by contemporaneous changes in Iraq’s actual ties to terrorist activities. On the domestic front, despite hundreds of violent attacks against abortion clinics by anti-abortion groups since the late 1970s, the FBI did not classify such violence as terrorism until the mid-1990s. And anti-Castro and Puerto Rican nationalist groups repeatedly engaging in terrorism have not entered the public’s consciousness as terrorist menaces to anywhere near the same degree as Middle Eastern groups relying on similar tactics. According to Philip Jenkins, author of IMAGES OF TERROR, the explanation for these apparent puzzles lies largely in the social construction of terrorism—the institutional dynamics and political processes which shape generally accepted interpretations of terrorist incidents.

In this concise and crisply written work, Jenkins, who is a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University, examines issues relating to terrorism from the perspective that political problems are socially constructed. (He has previously written on the social construction of other societal problems, including serial murder and child abuse.) The focus is on how common understandings of problems are shaped by the interactions of politicians, bureaucracies, interests groups, and members of the media, each pursuing their own personal and institutional interests. By uncovering biases and tendencies that are largely built into the institutions responsible for framing political problems, Jenkins argues for a healthy skepticism in considering the version of events pronounced by public officials and publicized by the media.

Pointing to the conduct of past investigations, Jenkins notes, for example, that American foreign policy interests can easily influence the investigative directions which law enforcement agencies pursue most energetically. The FBI has reasons not to steer inquiries in directions likely to implicate countries with which the Administration is eagerly seeking to improve relations. Law enforcement also tends to favor accounts which depoliticize the motives of those engaged in large-scale acts of violence, particularly explanations emphasizing the unstable mental state and isolation of the perpetrators. It is more difficult to criticize law enforcement for failing to prevent the unpredictable acts of a crazy person than the acts of organizations whose motives and tactics are well-known to authorities.

The media, Jenkins argues, tend to publicize official accounts without exposing the built-in biases likely to influence the development of those accounts. Due to the secrecy surrounding counter-terrorism, and the extremely limited number of potential sources, journalists seeking to maintain access to highly placed authorities can ill afford to offend. Moreover, writers who stray from orthodoxy may subject themselves to ridicule if their views are discredited (as an example, Jenkins notes the negative publicity Pierre Salinger received following the thorough rejection of his theory that TWA flight 800 was destroyed by a U.S. navy missile.) Fear of being labeled as a crank, conspiracy theorist, or bigot may also dissuade journalists from pursuing certain angles which run contrary to the currently prevailing wisdom.

more: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/Jenkins1103.htm

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1. TERRORISM IS BEING FORCED TO LOOK AT THIS SIMIAN