Elizabeth Anderson: Geographical Determinism and Terrorist Attacks in the United States.

After the lecture of De-radicalization, I was thinking about how our world is geographically and politically divided. Through social exclusion is a natural process but when combined with geographical determinism becomes problematically harmful. One way we categorize and divide ourselves is through the nation state. We identify with our nationality and the boarders of our countries allow us to be part of a group. We receive services based on citizenship. We also have stereotypes about people based on where they are from. Identifying one’s self as a citizen of a nation state is critical as it allows for states to interact on the international scale. It theoretically grants citizens rights and protections under the law. However, when we divide ourselves we create an ‘us’. With this, we automatically create a ‘not us’ - or a ‘them’.

I am interested in how people view social exclusion after terrorist attacks. After a traumatic event like a terrorist attach people often come together, and create groups for solidarity and support to get though trying times. But inevitably, by including and supporting some, one automatically excludes and creates distain of others. In this post, I would like to question the way the US news represents terrorism. Could it be that the definition of terrorism is bound with geographical determinism and that this paradigm fuels a political agenda? A real life conspericy theory?? I think maybe.

 What is geographical determinism?

Geographical (or environmental) determinism has a complex history in measuring the trajectory of human development based on orientalism. It is when we judge people and have stereotypes about them, based on where they are from. We create generalized ideas of what they ‘must be like’ on the premise of what we know about the place they come from; often a misguided and problematic schema full of bias.

I am from the United States. I strongly identify as an American, but there is also a lot about me that is unique and has nothing to do with the nation I come from. Geographical Determinism is for example, when someone who is just meeting me, thinks that because I am an American, that I must also be snobby, fat, unintelligent, bad at geography, rude, privileged, wealthy, ect. It is when someone asks me if I identify with the Kardashians or might associate me with Trump. Another common assumption is when people question my duty and connection to my family. Until people get to know me these speculations are arbitrary and problematic. They are simply untrue. This is geographical determinism.

I will come back to geographical determinism but now I would like to switch gears. In America this past week there was a terrorist attach in Manhattan. Eight people were killed as a man drove a rental truck along a bike path, hitting innocent civilians with his car, and leaving dead and strewn across the pavement. He left the truck with fake weapons in his hands, after crashing into a school bus. He was shot and detained by the New York City Police Department, and is in custody awaiting a trial.

There was also a terrorist attach in Las Vegas a month back. 58 people were killed and 489 people were injured as a gun man opened fire from an adjacent building on innocent people attending a country music concert. The police discovered when entering the shooter’s hotel room that he had killed himself.

Only one of these tragic events was portrayed as a terrorist attach by the media in the United States.

Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov is a 29-year-old man who is responsible for the 8 dead in Manhattan. He is from Uzbekistan but has been living in the US since 2010. He is married, and works as an Uber driver. When the truck used in the attack was searched, the police found a letter explaining that the Saipov killed in the name of ISIS.

Stephen Paddock was a 64-year-old man who was born in Iowa, United States. He was a multimillionaire who made his money from investing in real estate. He had a girlfriend who is now in the Philippines. He had no criminal record and owned many guns legally. His brother said he had, "No religious affiliation. No political affiliation. He just hung out,” (CBSN, 2017). His father was a bank robber and on the FBI’s most wanted list for eight years. ISIS claimed responsibility for the shooting, however the FBI found no connection between Paddock and ISIS.

The media in the United States portrayed Saipov’s actions as terrorism, but Paddock’s actions as those of a mentally ill person. The ways events such as these are portraying have huge implications. They are political and lead to discussion and ultimately change policy, international discourse, and foreign policy.

I now want to pose a question: Why wasn’t the mass shooting in Las Vegas not considered terrorism? According to Oxford Dictionary of English -

Terrorism: noun: the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

Why wouldn’t a mass shooting be labeled as terrorism? Why is the term terrorism used only in connection with the Islamic state? With the East? With the orient? Isn’t that geographic determinism? We see terrorism only when a man of color, with Eastern background is responsible for killing, but when a white man, born and raised in the US murders 58 people, the term terrorism is not used. In Las Vegas, terror was inflicted upon more people in an unofficial (not state justified) use of force, but not represented by the media or government as terrorism.

It seems political to me that the United States only used the word terrorism when it legitimized the ambiguous and never ending “War on Terror”. With this logic, the United States uses the media to portray their agenda, to legitimize the use of force in the East, and to control the conversation about domestic terrorism and gun control.

After the Las Vegas shooting, instead of talking about domestic terrorism the conversation focused on gun control and mental illness. However, neither illegal guns nor a previous history of mental illness was brought as legitimate findings form the investigation. Was it not terrorism because it was an American? Or because he was not Muslim? Or because he was white? Instead of talking about mental illness after the attach in Manhattan, people debated terrorism, boarder control, and ISIS’ ability to infiltrate the US.

The discourse of these two tragedies in regard to the presence and absence of the word ‘terrorism’ shows how geographical determinism is a real problem in the United States. The media and government control the conversation when they describe the ‘other’ as terrorists and don’t apply the word to domestic situation that warrant the term. Both what happened in Las Vegas and in Manhattan were tragic and horrible events. But if we only use the term ‘terrorism’ when talking about an attach by someone from the East, we are blindly practicing geographical determinism and orientalism.

Works Cited

•  Becket, Stefan. "Stephen Paddock: What We Know about the Las Vegas Gunman." CBS News. CBS Interactive, 03 Oct. 2017. Web. 
•  "Human Geography." Syskool. N.p., 08 Aug. 2017. Web. 
•  Justin Carissimo, Peter Martinez, Elisha Fieldstadt. "Here Are the Victims of the Las Vegas Shooting." CBS News. CBS Interactive, 04 Oct. 2017. Web. 
•  Prokupecz, Shimon, Eric Levenson, and Brynn Gingras. "Source: ISIS Note Found near Truck Used in Manhattan Terror Attack." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Nov. 2017. Web.