Alexis Kouros: Don’t lead us to fear

Magma: Alexis Kouros: Don’t lead us to fear 9.10.2011

The date is 17 September 2011, just six days after the tenth anniversary of September 11. The place is Helsinki, Finland. Five men in black suits and serious faces are sitting side by side. These are not just any men, they are top-ranking officers of the Finnish criminal and security police.

In front of them is an army of journalists, photographers and TV cameras. The media has come to report the shocking news that these men are going to announce. A shower of flashes lights their faces and the clicking sound of camera shutters fills the air.

The first-ever terrorism-related arrests have just been made in Finland. This is a scoop that no journalist would want to miss. It will be the top headline for all radio and TV channels tonight and papers tomorrow. "Terrorism just moved one step closer to Finland," they are sure to write.

The officials' lips are tight. That is all they have said. The press struggles to put the fragments together with information from other sources. It turns out that two Somali citizens have been arrested for sending a small amount of money to Al-Shabaab, and probably recruiting one person to join the group.

Apparently, the Somali citizens have taken sides in a domestic conflict going on in their country - no threat whatsoever to Finland or Europe. Why is this made into such a big deal? Isn't that what NATO is doing in Libya under the mandate of protecting civilians? Al-Shabaab has links to Al-Qaida, but so do many of the anti-Gaddafi NTC fighters and commanders.

So what is the whole fuss about, with a press conference where the most common answer is, "we can't tell you"? The suspects have been monitored since 2009, so why arrest them now?

A week later, an interview with the security police (SUPO) director, Antti Pelltari, gives some clues to the mystery. SUPO had received funds to send informants to Nairobi and Addis Ababa since last year - and it's not sure that it will be granted again.

"With the €850,000 of extra money, we were able to ward off terrorism significantly also in Finland," he tells Helsingin Sanomat. "We don't have the fund in our next year's budget so far. I'm worried about how we can keep the level of terrorism prevention up."

In a similar case in July the police announced in a press release that in the first six months of this year more crimes have been committed in Finland than in the same period ever in the history of the country. "Rapes have increased 50% and robberies have become common," said the release. The police chief, Mikko Paatero, added that at the same time the number of police and their budget is being cut. Until Lasse Kärkelä, a sharp HS journalist noticed that the increase is due to modifications to the law and statistical changes. Also several other crimes have, in fact, decreased!

Interestingly, just a couple of months earlier - in another release - the police had announced that registered crimes in the country had decreased by 10,000 last year!

Could it be that, once again, the officials were spreading fear to get their funding?

Terrorism is "to rein by the use of fear". Who is the on in above mentioned cases who spreads fear, the two arrested Somalis or the officials with their press conference?

Fear has been one of the main instruments of controlling individuals and societies throughout history. "Behave, or the country will fall into the hands of thieves and murderers," kings and dictators have told their people for ages. Mubarak's police even changed clothes and looted people's homes in Cairo to reverse their revolution.

Fear of terrorism encourages us to give away our civil rights, to keep people in secret prisons and let them be tortured. Fear of crime makes us lock our doors and avoid strangers. Fear of disease and pandemics makes us buy medicine and queue for vaccines. Fear is also probably the most powerful marketing instrument in the hands of speculators who want to sell us "safety".

We live in constant fear. The polar ice may melt, nuclear war could erupt, Islam is coming, aliens could attack, asteroids could hit the Earth and the economy could collapse. Some of these fears and concerns are, of course, valid and a good reason for a call to action. Too often, however, the "outrage effect" is used to magnify one danger over others - although the reality is totally different.

During the last few winters, swine and bird flu epidemics have been used to terrify the masses into buying medicine and taking vaccinations, while harmful lifestyles and the old diseases like regular flu still kill more people than new epidemics. The chances of a Finn being hurt by a terrorist attack is almost zero, yet we are spending lots of money and resources on sending spies to Africa while no budget is being spent on preventing recurrences of school shootings, which is a far greater threat faced by our young.

Fear could be a healthy reaction in animals and human when well founded. When unrealistic, it is called anxiety and considered pathological. This state of social anxiety is used by our politicians and corporations for extortion or to herd us to obedience, or consumption.

However, the world has changed and you can't rule people by fear anymore. The Arab Spring proves this. Fear is the worst of motives to which only the weakest of leaders resort. Now, more than ever, we need hope. We need visionary leaders who show the way forward and turn our attention to the basic values of life, to love and peace, friendship and mutual assistance, to equality and tolerance.

Today we are all being frightened by the threat of a financial crisis. Our leaders and politicians repeat on daily basis that the situation is grave. Greece is going bankrupt. The euro may fall and the apples will dry on the trees. The masses will become unemployed and anarchy may erupt.

Well, the Greek economy is only 2% of the Eurozone. If we translate Greece into "American", it would be Louisiana. The state of Louisiana is defaulting even worse than Greece, yet there is no talk of the dollar falling. Attention: speculators at work!

Interestingly, one of the reasons Greece is defaulting is also fear. The Greek military spending is one of the highest in the world. The country spent over 10 bn euros on its armed forces in 2010 and was ranked the 3rd as the largest arms purchaser in the world in 2004. Funny enough, Turkey, the country against which Greece is arming itself, was one of the first to give financial assistance to the troubled country.

Well, Greece has given Europe many good things too. One of them is the great writer Nikos Kazantzakis. The epitaph on his grave at Heraklion reads: "I want nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

Lucky the one, who can achieve this while alive.