Recent criticism of the Government’s relative silence on the threat of international terrorism here fails to appreciate the difficulties of communicating about the risk of rare events.
Until recently the public was content in the belief that international terrorism was something that occurred in other jurisdictions struggling with fragmented communities at home and unpopular military actions abroad. This was supported by the Government’s position that there was no specific threat from international terrorism here.
However, the presence of the Irish flag in a propaganda video released by Islamic State (Isis) apparently tells a different story. According to security analyst and academic Tom Clonan, the video indicates that Ireland and Irish citizens are priority targets for Isis militants.
The video, and the recent attacks in Paris, have led some security experts to question the way the State has been communicating with the public about the risk of international terrorism.
The State is confronted with a conundrum in this regard. How do you effectively communicate with the public about an event that may never transpire? We know that communicating about low-probability risks is fraught with difficulty.
On one level this is because when we are told that an attack is possible but remote we place greater emphasis on the attack component of the message rather than the probability component, in what is called the base rate fallacy. This fallacy can lead to vigilance at best or crippling hypervigilance at worst.
Waning effect
Second, while we may become vigilant immediately in the wake of such a message, the effect will quickly wane as we tire of worrying about an event that may not materialise. The State may be better advised to wait to issue advice on vigilance until a specific threat is present, as to do otherwise could reduce societal preparedness in the longer term.
Third, if the State wishes to create a vigilant society, at some level at least, it needs to create a fearful society. This is because people will not become vigilant unless they perceive the consequences of an attack to be severe and that they are susceptible to being caught up in the attack.
The difficulty, of course, is that fear drives communities apart, limits mobility and can have an impact on psychological and physical quality of life.
Paris attacks bystander
Finally, one of the assumptions of communicating about the risk of terrorism is that in doing so the State is better positioned to prevent an attack. This assertion is not necessarily true. According to French news channel BFMTV, prior to the Bataclan debacle in Paris a bystander observed the attackers – “dressed like thugs”, with “weird faces” – sitting in a car with “lights out and engine running”, and reported them to police as being potential drug dealers.
“I would never have thought there would be terror attacks,” he said, despite France’s recent experiences with jihadi- inspired terrorism.
A vigilant society needs to be vigilant only to suspicious behaviour and to be willing to report it to authorities. Citizens do not need to be able to identify terrorists.
There is little value in disseminating detailed information on non-specific threats that only serve to create a short-term increase in fear and vigilance at a time when an attack is unlikely. During such periods, it is the role of the State’s intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to worry about prevention and preparedness. The public is better served thinking about, and acting to prevent, more pertinent threats to our wellbeing.
This is not to say the Government should be silent during this time, but rather that a tempered, factual and non- emotive message is required.
Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald adopted this approach over the course of 2015, advising that while Ireland is not immune to international terrorism there is no information to suggest a specific threat at this time.
She also stressed that we need not fear a religion or community but rather terrorists alone. She did not increase our current threat level when the Irish flag was included in the “global coalition against Islamic State”.
Then again, Singapore, a city state committed to eliminating Islamic State, and a known target of Isis-inspired terrorists, did not decrease its threat level having been omitted from the coalition in the same video.
Dr Kiran Sarma is a lecturer in psychology at NUI Galway. He leads a group researching risky and extreme behaviour and the newly formed National Centre for Security Research