Technology is terrorisms most effective ally. It delivers a global audience | Jason Burke
March 24, 2019The suspects live broadcast of the New Zealand killings reveals such acts are always as much about instilling fear as inflicting violence
Terrorism is effective because it always seems near. It always seems new. And it always seems personal. Ever since the first wave of terrorist violence broke across the newly industrialised cities of the west in the late 19th century this has been true.
It feels personal because, although statistics may show we are many times more likely to die in a banal domestic accident, we instinctively conclude from an attack on the other side of the street, the city or, in the case of New Zealand, the other side of the world, we might be next.
Terrorism always seems near at least when it happens in an environment resembling our own because the shocking images on our phones, televisions or newspapers erase the distance between us and the source of danger. It always seems new because although each attack follows a familiar timeline the first reports amid chaos and confusion, statements by police and politicians, analysis from commentators waking up in successive time zones, the identification of attackers and victims, condolences and flags at half-mast, debates about radicalisation etc each is unique. In the 1970s, terrorism expert Brian Michael Jenkins famously said that terrorism was theatre. This succinctly captured its spectacular, performative nature. These days, it seems more like an endless TV series that everyone wishes was over but that everyone watches nonetheless.
That Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian who shot dead 49 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, broadcast the attack live on Facebook via a helmet-mounted GoPro camera is a new low, but a logical and sadly inevitable one.
Most people naturally assume that the technological changes that influence terrorism are those involving weapons or explosives. But the big shifts in this field happened long ago. Dynamite was patented in 1867 and automatic weapons became widespread after the Second World War. If terrorists have made the occasional use of chemical weapons or a hijacked plane, the vast proportion of modern-day attacks use technology that, in its essentials, is not new. What has changed beyond recognition are the media that enable individuals or groups to disseminate their message.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us