The fight against terrorism is called anti-terrorism or anti-terrorism, with the State, the security forces and agencies being the main agents that carry out this task.
Since terrorism is an ongoing phenomenon, the fight against terrorism must adapt to new forms of terrorism to succeed. Therefore, the fight against terrorism is a complex phenomenon, difficult to interpret.
- For all these reasons.
- The use of metaphors to understand it is widespread.
- Metaphors are style figures in which a word or phrase represents a different object or idea suggesting a similarity or analogy.
The use of metaphors is used to understand complex phenomena in a simple way, however, metaphors also simplify phenomena and give a false sense of total understanding.
Thus, if metaphors help to better understand the phenomena they represent, they forget other concepts that, being incompatible with metaphor, are left out.
The metaphor of war indicates that war is between states, that the enemy is an identifiable national entity that opposes our nation, so the existence of both is impossible, one of them must disappear because there will never be agreement.
In other words, it is a “zero sum” conflict; one’s victory entails the defeat of the other. The enemy wants to destroy us, so we must defend ourselves by conquering or destroying their territory.
On the other hand, being in a state of war has other connotations, for example, national unity and mobilization to support the cause; in this way, critics are blamed as antipatriotes or traitors.
Likewise, going to war implies values such as solidarity, heroism, courage and sacrifice. Certainly God is on our side, because the moral dimension is clear.
Obviously, wars will be won with the military. The head of state must concentrate all powers, which can lead to the restriction of freedoms.
Enforcing the law and going to war are two ways to protect the citizens of a country. The choice of one or the other depends on the magnitude of the threat.
While the metaphor of war focuses on the enemy, the law focuses on crime. Limits are also more defined in this metaphor.
It begins as soon as the law is violated and ends when the corresponding penalty is paid. Among the resources used are social protection and education policies.
The law enforcement metaphor focuses on the culprits and does not tolerate collateral damage such as war. As a result, costs are lower. Also, instead of killing, the punishment is usually prison, so in case of problem, the damage caused is less than in times of war.
“Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible and demanding it at gunpoint. “Christopher Hitchens?
The previous two metaphors deal with manifestations of violence, but not the factors that caused it. The metaphor of the social epidemic uses the epidemiological triad consisting of an external agent, a sensitive host and an environment that puts them in touch.
In addition, the vector or transmitter is in the environment, applied to terrorism, the agents are terrorists, while the vectors are the channels used to spread ideology, so the environment would be one that promotes militancy, such as conflict or repression. politics.
This metaphor of counter-terrorism as a social epidemic also has other implications, for example, there are people who are vaccinated. These people would be immune to officers because they have motivations to succeed, such as psychological strength or social support.
Counterterrorism would aim to prevent contagion or, in this case, radical ideology, which would belong to the agent or virus. Another implication is that radicals can be “cured. “
The previous three metaphors on the fight against terrorism see terrorism as an external problem that poses the need to solve it.
However, the prejudice reduction metaphor considers the interaction between the two communities whose conflict can lead to terrorism, so this metaphor represents a group of people with negative attitudes towards another group.
Therefore, transforming these people and their attitudes or, in other words, reducing prejudice would be the strategy to follow.
Thus, eliminating misperceptions and building a common identity would be the objectives of the fight against terrorism in the face of this metaphor, the maximum representation of which is the contact between members of the different conflicting groups.
In short, metaphors, in addition to simplifying and helping to understand, have greater implications, so we must be careful when we use them to interpret reality.