The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
White supremacist terror mimics life in a war zone
The El Paso and Dayton shootings are the most recent reminders that safety is fragile and lately fleeting.
When public perception of security dwindles, and engine backfires in Times Square lead to panicked fleeing and chaos, it’s hard to not draw parallels to life in a war zone — living in constant fear, becoming desensitized to violence, expecting the worse from political leaders or not really knowing what to expect on a daily basis at all.
But I don’t know anything about living in a war zone. At best, I can only imagine what the loss of democracy, the erosion of normalcy and the degradation of governmental infrastructure does to daily life. So I asked someone who does.
Tina Susman, senior editor for Time magazine, has covered conflict abroad for nearly two decades while working as an international correspondent for the Associated Press, Newsday and the Los Angeles Times.
Simply put, she doesn’t think we’re on the cusp of civil war or democratic destabilization, but she does see worrisome parallels.
“When you see the range of mass shootings — from a festival, to a nightlife area, to a shopping center, and not long ago to a school — it makes you so edgy and it’s reminiscent of those days in Baghdad and other war zones I’ve lived in,” she said.
The unease brought with each mass shooting that robs citizens of their peace of mind is not dissimilar to what happens to civilians in war zones who haven’t pledged allegiance to any side. The constant uncertainty the comes after each car bombing in wartorn areas has an uncanny resemblance to the heightened distrust that happens here when we find ourselves in large crowds at a strip mall, concert or campus after the latest mass shooting.
“I’m not saying we’re in a civil war here,” Susman said. “But being someone who has lived in places that have been, it makes you wonder if it could happen here.”
I called Susman to get some insight on how close we are to something that feels like a civil war. To me, it seems illadvised to ignore the turbulence in our politics and to overlook how maladaptive our leaders have been on gun control and the reality of white supremacist terrorism. But it’s also clear that we’re not in the thick of war at the moment. So, what do we call this nebulous period of nonwar?
“I remember when I was covering Iraq, back in 2006 and 2007,” Susman said, “In my early months there, there was a discussion about whether to call what was happening there a civil war. There were American troops occupying the country, a lot of the violence was because of that but there was a lot of internal violence, as well.”
Eventually, she said, her colleagues at the LA Times started calling a spade a spade. But, by that time, it was a clearer call to make. To better understand our current situation in the States, I asked if she could identify some of the telltale precursors of civil conflict and what are some of the incidents that force people into realizing they may be in the throes of it.
“It varies obviously, but the main things that bring people to that realization is a front line,” she said. “You need a front line to have a war. Whether that’s a physical border, neighborhood or a blockade … you can have many different front lines. In Baghdad, the whole of Iraq was a war zone, but Baghdad had certain areas that were offlimits to the Sunnis or the Shias.”
There aren’t any clear and widely agreed upon front lines in the U.S. at the moment, so we may be good on that piece. Next, she talks about clear lines of opposition.
“When I was covering Liberia, there were seven to nine factions during their civil war,” she said. “You have to have clearly laidout sides and clear demands. That kind of separates it from an allout brawl.”
The candidacy of nearly 30 Democratic presidential hopefuls and splintering of the Republican Party may be an indication of clearly defined opposing lines. And except for the clear endeavors to attack as many people as possible, most shooters don’t always list demands. Though I don’t think that alone is reassuring.
In the face of the everincreasing white supremacist mass shootings, our political polarization disables progressive action of any kind. Time and time again we find ourselves in a diplomatic stalemate unable to enact reasonable gun control to address the issue. So in response, the violence continues and the public is forced to acclimate to the constant fear of domestic terror in the form of increasing hate crimes, mass shootings and raids on the latest demographic under attack.
“I haven’t seen anything like this before, because most of the wars I’ve covered were already well underway,” she said. “One big difference here is that generally when push comes to shove, we’re a country of negotiators. We have the civility to prevent civil war.”
What we see happening now, Susman said, feels like inertia — constant acts of terror and no equally matched response to prevent it. As a result, we just get more of the same.
Domestic terror aside, we don’t seem to be in or approaching civil conflict. But I think that’s only because civil conflict has clearer lines.
Mercy Quaye is a social change communications consultant and a New Haven native. Her column appears Mondays in Hearst Connecticut Media daily newspapers. Contact her at @Mercy_WriteNow and SubtextWithMercy@gmail.com.