Lawrence Peter Ampofo
Chapter Seven: Community Engagement, Technology, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Spain
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Chapter Seven: Community Engagement, Technology, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in SpainIntroductionIncreasingly, the creation and maintenance of myths, particularly with the proliferation of new internet and Web technologies is becoming a key counter-terrorism strategy in Spain. A thorough understanding of the nature of online and real-world communities can provide counter-terrorism organisations with a strategic advantage. The complexity and importance of the delivery of core narratives from a range of actors and their positive interpretation by target audiences was analysed and discussed in Chapter Five. It was concluded that, while target audiences are exposed to narratives from a range of sources in a multi-directional fashion, the effective delivery of core narratives is of utmost importance to actors involved in the nexus of technology, terrorism and counter-terrorism. This chapter focuses on analysing understandings that exist of the relationship between technology, terrorism and counter-terrorism from the perspective of online and real-world communities. In particular, it will examine whether online groups are generally influenced by discussions from very active communities and the extent to which they take information as writ from influential organisations such as the Government and other prominent counter-terrorism organisations. It will also analyse the extent to which online communities in general attempt to gather and assert influence online by informed amateurs who are adroit in the use of media technologies for communication. These groups of informed amateurs, who influence discussion online, have been termed the “new intellectuals” (Fisher, 2003), and it is predicted that these audiences will have greater sway in the influence of attitudes and behaviours online. The issues of better integrating Islamic minority communities into Western societies, eradicating radicalisation and engaging local communities have been at the forefront of global counter-terrorism discourse and policy planning since the attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 by al-Qaeda. The terrorist attacks on the Madrid and London transport systems in March 2004 and July 2005, respectively, did much to shift the focus of Spain’s counter-terrorism and national defence strategy to emphasise less the historic domestic terrorism threat from ETA, and direct more resources towards the threat posed by international terrorism (Sageman, 2008). As evinced in Chapter Four, in order to counter the threat of home-grown and international terrorism, the Spanish Government focused significant resources on positive engagement with the immigrant Muslim community as the principal means of averting future attacks after the Madrid terrorist attacks on 11 March 2004. Maintaining open and constructive dialogue and cooperation with local immigrant communities to prevent radicalisation, and future attacks, is an essential element of Spain’s counter-terrorism strategy. For this reason, the Spanish Government has implemented a wide range of real-world policies that encourage dialogue and cooperation with its immigrant Muslim population in the hope it can ‘deny terror groups an environment in which to recruit more members’ (Celso, 2006: 136). However, it is important to note at this juncture that although Spain’s counter-terrorism strategy has focused on communities in the real world, it has not, to date, highlighted the importance of engagement with online communities. The scholars Thomas Barnett and Philip Bobbitt supported the notion of the importance of engagement and attaining knowledge of communities in order to mitigate any risks against international terrorism, especially in the age of globalisation. The relevance of the theoretical frameworks within their theses are discussed in detail in Chapter Two. Barnett outlined the importance of allowing flows of migrants to move freely as it is an important step in integrating countries residing in the non-Integrating Gap into the Functioning Core (Barnett, 2005). Philip Bobbitt, in turn, argued that it is important to engage with other communities, because in the age of internet and Web technologies, greater numbers of people from communities all over the world would become vulnerable to radicalising discourse. He argued: ‘[B]y “moving from the physical sanctuaries of the 1990s to virtual sanctuaries on the internet, the terrorists reduce[d] their risk. No longer does recruiting occur only in the physical locations like mosques and jails. Instead, alienated individuals in isolated national niches can make contact with a new imagined community of fellow believers around the world”’ (Bobbitt, 2008: 58). As analysed in Chapter One, the internet and the Web can be conceived as socio-technical spaces where social and cultural artefacts are created (Markham, 2008) and communities of people exert significant influence on the development of the technologies as well as on each other. In this context, online communities are influential entities, able to sway events both online and in the real world. Examples of this are seen in the organisation of the largest anti-terrorist demonstrations in the world against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)) in February 2008 as a Colombian engineer, Oscar Morales, organised more than 12 million people in 190 countries to demonstrate against the organisation using social networking sites such as Facebook (where he created a page entitled Un Millón de Voces Contra Las FARC). The effect of these demonstrations was seen in the fact that FARC ‘saw more demobilizations and desertions than it had during a decade of military action’ (Ross, 2010: 3). In addition, the influence of communities was seen in the violence that occurred as a result of the disputed Kenyan Presidential Elections in 2007 as bloggers and general online users posted information on the violence that the Kenyan Government was reluctant to publish. The event gave rise to the prominent crisis-mapping website, Ushahidi, which allowed individual people to form real-time communities by posting information about an event or topic and be able to witness the collective effect of such information production in real-time (Meier, 2009). The development and eventual propagation of Web 3.0 technologies will ensure that people will be constantly connected to the Web. Online users will be able to connect to other like-minded people and form communities for any number of issues from wherever they happen to be, not just from a desktop computer. In addition, online communities will be able to gain access to data, thereby making an increasing number of elements that comprise society to be more transparent, open and accessible. This will help online users access new services to make more informed decisions about where they place their attention and, in particular, it will increase the opportunity for certain organisations and influential persons to affect the attitudes and behaviours of other users (Bell & Dourish, 2009). This vision of Web 3.0 and in particular the real-time Web, Semantic Web, ambient computing and big data, predicts that the physical and online worlds will combine until the possibility emerges that in order to fully understand behaviour, and by implication obtain a strategic advantage, in one realm, it will be essential to understand the other. Web 3.0 will lead to further opportunities for terrorist organisations to achieve their strategic objectives, as outlined in Chapter Six. The openness of information flows will lead to the development of new knowledge, as well as innovative ways of disseminating knowledge, information and narratives that terrorist organisations could capitalise upon. This is problematic for governments as terrorist organisations are finding that a wide range of communities can assimilate their narratives from multiple sources, particularly those who find the need to express their grievances online, as witnessed in Chapter Five. The need to achieve a thorough understanding of influence as part of an effective counter-terrorism strategy is reflected in a study by the Spanish terrorism scholar Fernando Reinares. He constructed a sociological profile of a typical Jihadi terrorist by interviewing 188 men incarcerated in a Spanish prison. From this he deduced that incidents of international terrorism in Spain could be avoided if the Government constructed more compelling messages for its citizens and set about constructing stronger relationships with both the Spanish and immigrant communities. This type of strategy, he contended, would have a strong chance of success as al-Qaeda itself is an ideological entity whose ideas and strategies are used by both well-organised and well-financed North African terror organisations, or by disaffected, isolated people in Spain. Al-Qaeda’s influence is all the more powerful as a result of its prominent digital profile (Wilton Park, 2011). Reinares’s case study above supports the assertion from the Judge responsible for prosecuting those responsible for the 11 March attacks, Juan del Olmo, that the Madrid bombers were influenced by online content from al-Qaeda (Sageman, 2005, 2008). More, therefore, needs to be done to attain influence online by the Government to effectively counter the narratives filtering down to Muslims online (Reinares, 2006). By extension, such understanding of online behaviour could also lead to an enhanced understanding of the Spanish population in general to better serve it. Directory: portal -> files -> 4733003 files -> Impact case study (ref3b) files -> Ethics and Factual Television: a short history files -> P. O. Box 27, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland tel. 358-9-191 58080 / 22216; fax 358-9-191 58096 / 23008 files -> The impact of a pledge campaign and the promise of publicity: a randomized controlled trial of charitable donations files -> Diversity and Voice: the Political Participation of Young People in the European Union files -> Chapter 15 a voice in Decision Making: young children in Denmark Stig Broström Introduction Download 1.29 Mb. Share with your friends:
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