Apart from the economic fears and the fear of the unknown generated in a liquid modern world, fear of terrorism plays an important role in the formation and the domination of culture of fear in this respect. In an environment where governments around the world make use of fear narrative to lead the masses in compliance with their agendas, it is very natural for the fear of terrorism to hold a significant place in people’s life. In recent years, terrorist attacks have significantly increased and stopped being from exclusive to war-ridden regions in constant turmoil such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Egypt, and Palestine and so on. The globalisation of terrorism started in the 1970s14. After that, it evolved to become more affiliated with a religion. Looking at the statistical data about the terrorist incidents from the 1970s onward, there is a drastic increase in the numbers. The number of terrorist attacks in 1970 was 651, the highest number was recorded in 2014 by 16.903 attacks, and in 2017 the number fell to 10.900 (https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism). This dramatic increase in the number of terrorist attacks is accompanied by the negative globalisation spreading fear all around the world.
The relatively easy manner of the spread of modern terrorism and the fear of it has been enhanced by the idea of an ‘open society’ as mentioned earlier. Concerning that in Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty, Bauman comments on the condition of contemporary men and women in an insecure negatively globalised liquid world as follows:
14 “International terrorism became a prominent issue in the late 1960s when hijacking became a
favoured tactic. In 1968, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked an El Al Flight. Twenty years later, the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, shocked the world"
(thoughtco.com).
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If the idea of an ‘open society' originally stood for the self-determination of a free society cherishing its openness, it now brings to most minds the terrifying experience of a heteronomous, hapless and vulnerable population confronted with, and possibly overwhelmed by forces it neither control nor fully understands; a population horrified by its own undefendability and obsessed with the tightness of its frontiers and the security of the individuals living inside them – while it is precisely that impermeability of its borders and security of life inside those borders that elude its grasp and seem bound to remain elusive as long as the planet is subjected to solely negative globalization. (9)
Exposure to the side effects of the globalisation in a liquid world, all the societies around the globe have become prone to the negative effects of it. Having no place to hide from it makes the task of avoiding these side-effects an unending task for contemporary men and women.
In this global world, all these terrorist attacks can reach every individual somehow. They can witness them on their way to home or to work, watch the news about the attacks, see the short videos of an attack published on social media accounts.
This circumambient aspect of terrorism makes it ever-present in the lives of contemporary men and women. For instance, after the 9/11 attacks, the government of the US declared to make the homeland secure again. However, the conflict in the Middle East is continuing and the world after the US' Iraq offensive has never been the same again. Especially after the bombings in London and Madrid, social security became a number one priority and people have grown willing to waive from their freedom to become more secure. “Anti-terrorist policies designed in the interest of national security and border protection forged a climate of unprecedented state-legitimated terror against phantasmatic others: US visions of the “axis of evil” or the figure of “the terrorist” are as illusive as reactive—fueling a popular desire for fortified borders” (Linke, 3) The updated security protocols at airports, spending more time at the checkpoints have diminished people’s right of privacy in the sense that they have to
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expose all their belongings in the event of a suspicious situation. All have been made to alleviate the fear of the threat of a terrorist attack and to incur a safe space against those attacks.
Considering the tendency to choose security over freedom, Füredi comments that:
Most accounts on the culture of fear and its fixation on security and safety tend to illustrate their argument by pointing to the really big and spectacular threats that are regularly featured in the media. This rhetoric of catastrophism surrounds the threat posed by climate change, global terrorism, the nuclear arms race and a variety of different epidemics to the safety of the human species. (loc. 3508)
Consequently, it is rather natural for people of the liquid world living in such a constant and even exaggerated fear, to choose to be secure instead of living freely. In this sense, everything that provides a more protected way of life is accepted to keep the threats at bay. Osama the Hero (2005), in this sense, reflects the typical fear of terrorism and the way it is perceived among the “vulnerable” members of a given society.
Dennis Kelly starts Osama the Hero having all the characters on stage and speaking in the same scene albeit of different contexts. Characters have their flow of conversations; though there is a dialogue, it does not include all the other characters on stage. Throughout the play, the conversations between the characters lack total clarity if not completely vague. Responses overlap with each other; different responses correspond to different responses; these overlappings in some parts coincide with each other and form meaningful dialogues. Louise and Francis having a conversation consist of short sentences, vague in meaning. The audience is unable to figure out what is the point of their discussion. Gary is talking alone on the stage signifying the character's marginality. He voices his different thoughts about some subjects. Judging from the
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things he says and considering the way people think of him, it can be construed that his classmates in school regard him as unordinary.
Louise and Francis are talking about something that Francis is furious about.
Their conversation consists of short sentences and includes outbursts of angry statements from Francis. These have repetitions and do not properly connect to anything or make him clear about what he has been saying. This represents the lack of intellectual background of these characters and despite that; they are the leading characters in terms of finding and punishing the so-called guilty person who is responsible for the bombings and the arsons. Their conversation sheds a light about what kind of people are they:
LOUISE: We have to have this discussion because you're likely to get yourself into trouble again.
FRANCIS: I'm older than you, Louise, and please don't say things like that, because that's just really fucking stupid.
LOUISE: You're likely to go off.
FRANCIS: You're not Nelson Mandela, Louise LOUISE: You're likely to get some idea in your head FRANCIS: Kofi Annan, you're not Kofi Annan, Louise LOUISE: and someone is likely to get hurt because of your brain.
FRANCIS: And what about you? What about your brain?
LOUISE: What about me?
FRANCIS: Are you going to help me or not?
LOUISE: Are you going to calm down.
FRANCIS: I'm calm, I'm calm, this is calm…
GARY: I watched things on telly, American things, and I'd think that's what I wanna do, I wanna be a pathologist, or I wanna go skiing and then the programme would end and
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I'd turn and look at my mum and in my heart I knew that she was sitting in
her own urine again and I'd have to admit FRANCIS: I'm not going to hurt anyone.
GARY: I'd get a funny feeling
FRANCIS: I'm not going to use violence
GARY: I have to admit that I'd get a funny feeling in the pits of my stomach
FRANCIS: I'm not going to be a bad person.
GARY: and then I would feel bad.
FRANCIS: I'm going to kick the fucking shit out of him.
(loc. 701)
Louise is trying to calm Francis down lest he does something that could put him into trouble. Maybe because of that, Francis says that she is not Mandela or Annan hinting that she cannot calm him down peacefully. In addition to that, Louise is afraid of Francis that he might have an idea that could hurt someone, signifying that Francis has the potential to do so. The style of their speech, the way he expresses his anger, outlines their ignorance. Amid their lines, Gary’s lines are introduced providing a perfect juxtaposition to point out his character. The audience hears him talking about his naïve dreams, how he aspired to American things. While Francis is boiling with anger, Gary feels bad about the feeling he has in his stomach regarding the condition of his mother.
After Francis burst out signalling what he is going to do a certain person, Mandy and Mark’s conversation takes place. They are talking about being famous people, being at the centre of attention. Completing each other’s sentences, they say that it is not about the money:
MANDY: it's more about saying
MARK: signings, jets, dinners with religious leaders MANDY: saying something to people out there
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MANDY: saying something to ordinary people, just MARK: because that's what we are, ordinary is MANDY: that's what we have is an ordinary MARK: to be honest
MANDY: our appeal
MARK: if that's what we have, if appeal is MANDY: oh we do
MARK: oh we definitely do, yes, alright MANDY: we do
MARK: we do have that, that appeal, but the point is MANDY: the point we'd like to make
MARK: is that we are just ordinary, an ordinary MANDY: we sit in front of the television and eat MARK: chips
MANDY: fruit
MARK: fruit, yes, though sometimes, but yes, we sit there with our little boy
MANDY: little Armistice
MARK: we sit there with our little Armistice MANDY: beautiful little
MARK: beautiful little Armistice, yes, just like any ordinary couple anywhere in any world
MANDY: and the point we'd like to make is that it's easy to look at us and think
MARK: you know MANDY: look at them MARK: envy
90 MANDY: well…
MARK: you know, look at them MANDY: but we are you
MARK: and that's why we'd like to be a beacon MANDY: a beacon of hope and dreams that shines out across this world and says
MARK: and says
MANDY: and says it's possible.
MARK: If it's possible for us, MANDY: If it's possible for us, MARK: It's possible for you
MANDY: It's possible for you too, to be like us.
Pause.
MARK: Though not all of you. (loc. 713-744)
These lines emphasise the popular culture-oriented thinking in the contemporary world.
People are constantly exposed to their lives on social media 24/7, abolishing the sense of being an individual, lifestyles of the celebrities are praised and put on a pedestal, and they aspire to become one of them. Here the two, act as if they were one of them, trying to give a message to other people. For instance, they name their kid Armistice. As contemporary states employ hit-and-run tactics in waging war against terror, this results in a continuous war separated by small intervals for rearming. In this free-from-territory-proxy-war era, peace has a long way to arrive than it had in the previous century. Since they are so willing to give a message, be an exemplary person for other people they name their kid per the contemporary realities. Therefore, acting as the
“praised celebrities” they named their, supposedly imaginary, kid Armistice. Armistice means “temporary stopping of open acts of warfare by agreement between the
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opponents” (merriam-webster.com), and considering the contemporary military conflicts, especially the one that started in Syria in 2009, there is no end in them just short intervals.
While they continue their conversation, Mark asks Mandy to let him touch her.
In the following lines, it is seen that Mark desires her sensually; he just wants to touch her. For instance, he says:
MARK: just let me touch your shoes, the soles of your fucking shoes,
I don’t care, just something. (loc. 956)
No matter the topic, Mark tries to change the subject to his desire. For instance, while they are talking about the interest of the media, Mark changes the topic to the problem of privacy and then talks about his desire:
MARK: Without the public, I mean, you know, but sometimes I sit alone and I close my eyes and I imagine what it would be like to brush my lips against her hair, to breath in the air that was once trapped in the fibres of her skin, to take the moisture from her breath deep into my lungs and eat it, digest it, and part of me feels like cutting a piece out of myself. (loc. 854)
In contrast to this, Gary as being the different one in this group, his dream about having a girlfriend is rather naïve:
GARY: have a fantasy where I ask a girl out. She says yes.
I take her to Heathrow airport and we spend the entire day watching the planes taking off and it's a beautiful day, the sun's shining, she's laughing at my jokes, I think she has blonde hair, but I could be wrong. And what's strange is that when it ends I often feel that an organ in my stomach has disappeared. Funny, eh. I’m not stupid. (loc. 774-787)
As the website The Stage commented about the play and its characters, it is clear that they are “particularly odious breed of celebrity obsessed, intellectually-challenged thugs" (thestage.co.uk). They have their worlds, they do not have a wider perspective about their surroundings and considering the way they behave, they are exceedingly
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exposed to the narratives of the tabloid media. Consequently, these characters tend to be biased people and they can be inclined to accept their way of thinking as the sole truth without the need of consulting other sources. This hints at the way they perceive the upcoming trial of Gary under the faulty deductions made by Francis to label him as the perpetrator of the incidents took place in their neighbourhood endangering their well-being.
The relationship between Mandy and Mark supposedly disturbs Francis, since he regards him as a pervert as a reaction to his affair with Mandy. Looking at Francis and Louise’s conversation, it is very evident from Francis’s statements that he is about to make some deductions about the incident. He directs the conversation and does not stop until he gets what he wants to hear.
FRANCIS: What do you think of an old man walking out on his wife of twenty-two years?
LOUISE: I think you’re getting angry.
FRANCIS: What do you think of an old man walking out on his wife of twenty-two years and inviting an underage girl into his garage? Someone no-one likes.
LOUISE: I like her.
FRANCIS: Not too bright, vulnerable, what do you think of that?
LOUISE: I think you need to get out, get a job, get moving.
FRANCIS: What do you think of that?
LOUISE: sitting in here watching FRANCIS: What do you think of that?
LOUISE: curtain twitching, it's not healthy, that's – FRANCIS: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?
LOUISE: I THINK IT'S BAD!
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FRANCIS: Thank you. Thank you. (loc. 787-797)
This micro-society has the same rules just like the macro version of it and if there is something bad it has to be considered bad by all of the members out loud just like Louise does in this extract. Deep down in his mind, Francis fear of this perverted behaviour, one has to object it, and this should not be tolerated lest it open the way to poison other members of this society. Füredi states about the fear in a society that
“[f]ear is determined by the self, and the interaction of the self with others; it is also shaped by a cultural script that instructs people on how to respond to threats to their security… Cultural norms that shape the way in which we manage and display our emotions also influence the way that fear is experienced” (2). Since that relationship between Mark and Mandy is not in compliance with the cultural norms of the given society, it fosters a fear of perversion. Within the atmosphere of the culture of fear, this condition triggers other emotions as well to fight against that fear. In this respect, it is evident that Francis is angry, hateful, and paranoid about the situations that do not correspond to the given social script. His angry statements, shouts can be an example of this condition. For instance, he is suspicious about what he has been doing in his garage that has a secret door:
FRANCIS: No. Please don't talk to me about garages.
D'you know why he's put a door in the garage?
LOUISE: To get in and out –
FRANCIS: FUCKING HELL, LOUISE, HE CAN GET IN AND OUT THROUGH THE GARAGE DOOR, THE FUCKING BIG DOOR AT THE FRONT, IF THAT'S – Pause. He's put a door in that door, the big door, he's put a little door in the big door so he doesn't have to open the big door and no-one can see inside. (loc. 940-950)
He is a pervert; he has a secret door and thus he is bound to be doing something behind those walls. Amid this fearful environment, paranoia is let loose and shapes the behaviour of these people.
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In this liquid world where fear has the reigns in its hands, people tend to become overly suspicious, irrationally fearful, avoidant with the purpose of guiding themselves, finding their way out, however, there is no way out of this environment utilizing individual efforts. Since the emotion of fear is labelled as "negative" and "damaging,”
following the psychological findings, as Füredi puts it, it becomes ‘demoralised’. With the demoralisation of fear shaping people’s perspective, anything that arouses fear has to be avoided or taken away. However, constantly living in such an atmosphere, fear evolves or fosters some other extreme feelings since there is a mutual relationship between emotions15. In this regard, it is quite natural to have anger, hate, paranoia, suspicion, anxiety etc. In Moral Blindness, Leonidas Donskis comments about the fearful condition in the contemporary world:
I fear, therefore, I am. Another side of that same coin, fear nurtures hatred, and hatred nurtures fear. Fear speaks the language of uncertainty, unsafety and insecurity, which our epoch provides in large quantities and even in abundance. The proliferation of conspiracy theories and vigorous, albeit simplistic, approaches to the European Union reminds us of how difficult or even unbearable our life can be in constant doubt and uncertainty. (96)
The players in Osama the Hero are living a life that is “in constant doubt and uncertainty”, however, Francis is the one who is the most obsessed about that fear that he tries to obliterate the fearful objects to maintain the security of his society.
As people are being bombarded by a narrative that is constantly urging them to be on the look all the time and telling them all the things they should fear, since fear is bad and has to be cured and to avoid or destroy these fearful objects; people tend to develop paranoid tendencies as a consequence. In this excessive state, only white and black exist, they seek ways to stay on the side of white. Clarke and Hogget in their
15 Paul Thagard explains, “Emotions are causally interconnected, with one emotion tending to lead to another. If you fear someone, you may become angry that they have made you fearful” (“How Fear Leads to Anger”).