| The Propaganda of the Deed
It’s the worst mass terror attack on Western European
civilians since the Lockerbie bombing. “This is Madrid, not
Baghdad!” cried out one eyewitness in what is now being dubbed
Spain’s September 11.
The Guardian described the carnage as “like
a modern version of the gruesome wartime images painted by Goya"
and said the body count was a sign of “terror inflation,” that
no terror group post-9/11 could expect the media coverage and
mass fear reaction in the West without causing death in the
hundreds or thousands.
It must match the macabre grandeur
of 9/11. 3/11 did just that.
The Madrid bombings were a
textbook example of the propaganda of the deed, a concept
associated with late 19th and early 20th
century assassinations of the Russian Tsar Alexander II and U.S.
President McKinley and bombings that began after dynamite was
invented. The idea is to use one violent deed that others will
emulate. 3/11 is the offspring of 9/11 because terror groups,
like good marketing firms, study each other’s methods of
persuasion.
Thirty backpacks were placed
underneath seats for simultaneous detonation during the morning
rush hour commute. A few of the dynamite fuses were duds and
fortunately the Spanish trains were running late so that the
planned detonations did not take place inside the rail
stations. But the deed was a “success” in that it used a
violent act to awaken the public consciousness and potentially
inspire violence in other metro areas. Media reports came
rushing in and the finger pointing began.
The message to the public was “no
one is safe anywhere,” exactly what the planners wanted.
Germany’s tabloid Bild said
that although Madrid was targeted, “we’re all are in the
crosshairs of terrorism.” The Italian daily La Repubblica
wrote, "Whoever thought the American ‘devils’ were the only ones
in the sights of Islamic terrorism was wrong. We are all in the
same boat."
Although never immune from
terrorism, many Europeans were driven by a false sense of
security after 9/11. Something on such a grand scale in mass
slaughter could never take place inside Europe but was reserved
for the U.S.A. that projects its economic, military, and
cultural might so far and wide.
The immediate reaction was to
finger something homegrown, the Basque separatist group ETA,
responsible for 850 deaths in its 35-year history. ETA quickly
denied the well orchestrated attacks in three separate commuter
rail stations and said that such lethal bloodshed wasn’t in
ETA’s modus operandi.
Even in Terror 101, groups tend to
take credit for their work.
This left open theories that an Al
Qaeda or Bin Laden-inspired group was taking the terror on the
road away from the terror “over there” in Kabul or Baghdad to
the cultural capitals and tourist-rich centers like Madrid,
perhaps a London, maybe a Los Angeles.
Just yesterday as early reports of
the Madrid bombings were making their way to the U.S., I led a
discussion in my American media class about the delicate
relationship between press and government in wartime and
national crisis. It evolved into why we haven’t had anything on
a 9/11 scale happen again in the U.S. and a student quickly
piped up with his decisive conclusion: “Because we’re fighting
back in Baghdad, not New York.”
Symbolically speaking, Baghdad is
remote and out there and doesn’t touch our hearts and minds like
downtown Manhattan does. Unless you know someone or have a
loved one stationed in Iraq, you are probably not thinking too
much about terror and war these days.
The clear signal from Madrid is
that the real world isn’t on MTV, it’s from Madrid to Milan,
Kenya to Kent State, and Baghdad to Berlin.
Yesterday’s attack is a chilling
reminder that we’re all riding these trains together. And the
opportunity lost after 9/11 when the world’s people tried to
come together to denounce violence in all its forms cannot be
lost this time. Two million people came together today as one in
downtown Madrid to denounce these bombings and say “no mas” to
those who want to destroy democratic societies. We Americans
must stand together with our Spanish friends, denounce the
despicable violence that perpetuates retaliation and striking
back, and declare a new allegiance to strengthening global civil
societies.
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