A couple of days before everybody in Malta caught the 50 Shades of Grey fever and became an expert on literary soft porn and diverse fetishes, they were engaged in another bout of collective hysteria – about the supposedly imminent Isis invasion. That’s right, prior to swooning at the thought of being tied up and whipped by a weirdo millionaire, the chattering classes were agitating about the threat of being captured and tortured by odd jihadis.
Facebook was littered with thousands of desperate pleas calling for the government/the EU/ the United Nations/Nato/Barack Obama/Angelik Caruana to do ‘wake up and smell the coffee’, to protect us from invasion, to stop concealing the imminence of the invasion and to do something.
These pleas were rounded off by multiple exclamation marks – because you know, world leaders and international organisations are greatly influenced by exclamation marks. They probably only vote for military action if they see millions of exclamation marks.
Well, our online moaners were contributing considerably to the quota, as well as to the collective mood of panic.
Maybe it’s because I’m fatalistic or maybe I haven’t grasped the urgency of the situation, but I fail to see how this hysteria is going to help. Of course, we do well in trying to keep abreast with developments and expecting our leaders to do the same while not underestimating the danger of the situation, but other than that – what?
It seems everybody has been transformed into a security and foreign relations expert with experience in handling guerrilla warfare waged by bloodthirsty jihadis.
The only problem is that they’re on Facebook instead of Castille or the White House with their finger on the button that will trigger nuclear weapons.
People don’t appreciate the complexities of the situation. They would like to imagine a clearly identifiable enemy in a contained territory that is easily accessible by our superior military forces – a sort of videogame version of war with no death or pain. That’s why there are all these calls for immediate action.
I find it reprehensible to play on people’s deepest fears to spread panic – even if it attracts a few more hits. Why fuel the climate of fear?
In the real world, terrorists don’t sit around in a handily-convenient spot holding signs saying ‘Nuke Me Now’. Our armed forces are great but not a huge military might. There are logistical, legal and political issues that have to be considered carefully before we commit ourselves to any particular plan of action. These are the factors the government is keeping in mind I suppose, rather than any particular wish to be a modern-day Neville Chamberlain in the Med.
The media aren’t helping morale with its irresponsible and inaccurate reporting. A local news portal has uploaded photographs of little children crowded together in a cage. They are all wearing orange jumpsuits. The headline of the piece is ‘They are threatening to burn Syrian children alive in protest’. The implication is that IS is going to follow up the murder of the Jordanian pilot who was burnt alive by burning little children. In fact, this impression is strengthened further by the first sentence in the article, which states that IS has threatened to kill Syrian children if aerial attacks against the group do not cease forthwith.
This is followed by a vague reference to a protest but it is not made clear that it is a Syrian protest group (not Isis-related) staging a protest against President Bashar al-Assad. A perfect example of fudging a report to produce suitably alarmist clickbait. I find it reprehensible to play on people’s deepest fears to spread panic – even if it attracts a few more hits. Why fuel the climate of fear?
I’m not advocating ridiculous morale-boosting propaganda and concealing news, but sensible and accurate reporting that is not deliberately distorted to be sensationalist. As for the rest running around like headless chickens and spurring each other on to depths of desperation, perhaps they should be thinking about the benefits of a stiff upper lip and just getting on with life. We’ve gotten so used to kicking up a fuss about our First World problems that we‘ve lost the ability to face the idea of adversity, without a huge moan on Facebook.
Every minor issue (children’s party bags, discontinued lipstick, scarcity of red quinoa) has become an occasion for an emotional outpouring on social media and a search for virtual shoulders to cry on. Perhaps we should go back to the thought behind the original “Keep calm and...” catchphrase. It was originally commissioned by the Ministry of Information before World War II and was meant to be a morale-booster underscoring resoluteness in the face of danger.
The original text read “Keep calm and carry on”. A companion poster read “Your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory”. That’s the spirit we should be emulating – not blubbering before we’re blitzed.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt