The Techniques of Terror and Fear

By Daniel Franklin E. Pilario, CM

COVID-19 Militarism

A recent article in The Diplomat goes: “Manila’s overall response to the pandemic has been fraught with incompetence and rife with terror” (The Diplomat, 05.12.2020).

It is incompetent and negligent on different counts. It downplayed the effects of the pandemic in the first month. We were accepting (and some news say, continue to accept) Chinese workers and tourists “not to hurt China” even as Southeast Asian countries closed their gates. It looks like no one is in charge in our response – the Health Department is not prepared even in the purchase of PPE (personal protective equipment) causing the death of many medical personnel in the first weeks. It has consistently refused the call for “mass testing”; and instead prefers to test a privileged section of the population, mainly, government dignitaries and their cohorts.

The Philippine response is terroristic. From Day One of the community lockdown, police officers changed to new war outfits altogether; and came in full battle gear with armed with high powered firearms at check points. “Stay at home” protocols were for strict compliance. The president threatened to impose Martial Law, if people continue to be “pasaway”. Arrests were made and several people were shot dead.

This “shotgun approach” to a medical crisis brought about countless deaths to medical practitioners, pain for their families, hunger and dislocation to many, especially the poor who rely on daily wages. The existing “no work, no pay” policy leave no safety nets for the poor; the dysfunctional social service system leaves millions of vulnerable families helpless.

The same reign of militaristic terror in the midst of the pandemic is also present in Mexico, Indonesia and United States, no name a few. Aljazeera’s headline for Mexico goes: “Corona virus pandemic hasn’t stopped the disappearances.” Like the Philippines, Indonesia employs retired military generals to head the pandemic response committee. If the 9/11 attacks led to the “war on terror” in the United States, this pandemic can also usher the same.

Fascist populism merges with militarism to engage the virus in a “war” – for that is the only game they know how to play: to wage war.

Throwback to Calvary and Back

One can just imagine the terror that crucifixion brings to people of the first century Palestine. It was meant to instill fear. Inflected on lower classes – slaves, criminals, lawbreakers – as punishment for rebellion and insubordination, crucifixion was meant to be a deterrent.

“By public display of a naked victim at a prominent place – at a crossroads, in the theater, on high ground, at the place of his crime – crucifixion also represented his utmost humiliation, which had a numinous dimension to it… Crucifixion was aggravated further by the fact that quite often its victims were never buried. It was a stereotyped picture that the crucified victim served as food for wild beasts and birds of prey. In this way, his humiliation was made complete” (Hengel, 1977).

The “dogs beneath the cross” are enough deterrence to onlookers not to do the same.

And Jesus apostles were so affected. One denied him. Another committed suicide. The rest scampered for safety, except for some few others, his mother included, who stood at the foot of the horrifying cross. They later hid in the upper room afraid to see the world. The Sanhedrin technique of terror worked.

The same things happens during the pandemic. “Stay at home” – a medical advice enforced with checkpoints and guns became so effective.

On the one hand, it not only forced people to lock themselves in, some of whom suffered mental health complications after three months.

On the other hand, it emboldened the military to use force regardless of situations – whether people were hungry desperately looking for food and work or very sick desperately searching for cure. There was one straight jacket solution – enforce the law. Imprison them! Shoot them dead! Not buts, no ifs. No distinction. No mercy. Well, unless it is one of their own. And for the critics, the same technique awaits: the anti-terrorism bill!

But this this nothing new and peculiar. The same technique also runs through modern politics from Machiavelli and Hobbes to Hitler and beyond. “Fear is strengthened by a dread of punishment which is always effective,” Machiavelli writes in The Prince. The politics of fear now rules the international “war on terror”, the emerging fascist populist governments, and, as we have seen above, the response to the pandemic crisis.

In the fight against terrorism, all States use terror tactics themselves. One wonders who is the real terrorist. In the fight against the virus, authorities dress up and prepare for “war”. The same propaganda banner consistently reads: “we are under attack” – from 9/11 to COVID-19.

“Fearism” is a new word – recently popular in academic circles and ordinary life. It makes the experience of fear to be the new normal. This same cultural matrix is made invisible but very active and effective. In the process, the stranger is constructed as fearsome because he or she poses as a danger to our imagined political, moral or religious identities.

Used by preachers and politicians alike, fearism divides us from them; separating “masunurin” from the “pasaway”; the citizens of good standing from those who are intent to destroy society. The problem with fear is that it produces distorted perceptions. Motivated by anxiety, people could no longer think and act well. Ruled by fright and panic, people accept anything peddled as truth and, in effect, panic and do anything; or freeze and do nothing.

In The Monarchy of Fear (2018), Martha Nussbaum writes: “Our narrative of fear tells us that some bad things can easily happen. Citizens may become indifferent to truth and prefer the comfort of an insulting peer group who repeat one another’s falsehoods. They may become afraid of speaking out, preferring the comfort of a leader who gives them womb-like feeling of safety. And they may become aggressive against others, blaming them for the pain of fear.”

And for this techniques of terror – from the angry crowd in Pilate’s courtyard to the killing of drug addicts in Duterte’s “war on drugs”, to the assault on the hungry poor brought about by the pandemic – millions died and continually die.

BACK TO THE GOSPEL

For those who are afraid, for those who are sick and hungry, and those who suffer deep pain, Jesus tells us something consoling and meaningful in the Gospel today.

For those who inflict pain and abuse power, there is also something here for you (e.g., about concealing and revealing; about light and darkness).

It might help to just read it as Matthew wrote – sine glossa, without gloss, without exegesis, without commentaries:

“Fear no one.

Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.

Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I will deny before my heavenly Father.” (Matthew 10: 26-33).



Daniel Franklin Pilario, CM
St Vincent SchoolofTheology - Adamson University
danielfranklinpilario@yahoo.com
06.20.2020