14th International Pragmatics Conference University of Antwerp, Belgium

26-31 July, 2015

The Pragmatics of Written (Terror) Threats: Assessing Online Threats by Nigerian Terrorist Groups

 

Innocent ChiluwaDept of Languages

Covenant Univerity, OTA, Nigeria

Introduction

• A verbal threat is an intentional act that uses language to send a message ‘conveying both the intention to perform an act that the addressee will view unfavourably and the intention to intimidate the addressee’ (Fraser, 1998:159).

• A written threat is a ‘written information which implies or explicitly states the potential of harm delivered to targets or victims, or agents acting in their behalf’ (Smith, 2006:8). This will include letters, cards, or notes that communicate threats that intimidate the receiver or place the threatened in fear.

Terrorism and the Internet

Studies in communication and social security has established that terrorist groups utilize the Internet for the purpose of propaganda, recruitment, incitement and radicalization (Behr et al, 2013; Conway, 2012; Aly, 2010; Steven & Newman, 2009; Cornish, 2008; Weimann, 2004). They also utilize social media platforms to issue warnings and threats, as well as disseminate hate speech and linguistic violence against institutions and governments accused of undermining their rights to exist (Ungerleider, 2013; Chiluwa & Adetunji, 2013).

Online threats

In Computer-Mediated Communications (CMC), written threats may come in form of emails, text messages, tweets, blog or Facebook posts written to individuals or groups.

Terrorist threats also come in form of letters, declarations, statements, “press release”, or videos, sometimes with accompanying music or lyrics (later translated into English from Hausa/Arabic in the case of Nigeria) for the attention of presidents, governors or heads of institutions.

In this study, online written threats include all forms of written threatening communication on the Internet targeted at individuals, governments or institutions expressing a resolve or commitment of the threatener to harm, kill or destroy the threatened. Some of such messages threaten to overthrow governments or make certain countries or states ungovernable in an attempt to destroy existing government structures and introduce an alternative system (e.g. an Islamic state).

Main argument of the study

• According to Salgueiro (2010), threat and promise are the two sides of the same coin since they ‘constitute an inseparable pair’ and perform ‘directive-commissive acts’ (p.214). However, threatening is viewed as an ‘intrinsically hostile act’ (p.220), while promising is not.

Threatening, Promising, Warning

• Fraser (1998) distinguished between promising, warning and threatening as different types of commissive acts.

• This study argues that warning, promising and threatening possess the same linguistic and pragmatic structures and perform the same functions in the context of conflict/terrorism discourse. They are viewed as the same form of threatening communication following Searle’s (1975) categorization of commissive acts.

• This study also shows that contrary to performing basically commissive acts, threats, promise and warning perform other speech/pragmatic acts identified by John Searle (e.g. representative – informing, asserting, stating); directive (i.e. ordering/commanding); and declarative (i.e. making pronouncements), especially in the Nigerian security context.

Nigerian Terrorist Groups• Boko Haram: (western education is sacrilegous) Founded 2002: began armed resistance: 2009

• Blamed for over: 10,000 deaths• Operates in Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Niger and Chad

• Current Leader: Abubakar Shekau

• Ansaru: offshoot of Boko Haram. Founded 2012. condenms Boko Hara‘s attacks on Moslems. Concentrates on foreign interests; better known for kidnapping

• Operates in northern Nigeria• Leader: Abu Usmatul al-Ansari

Boko Haram Founded: 2002Began armed resistance: 2009Blamed for over 10,000 deaths Leader: Abubakar Shekau

Ansaru Founded: 2012Condenms attacksOn MoslemsKidnaps foreign nationalsLeader: Abu Usmatul al-Ansari

Activities and goalsThey seek the: • Creation of an independent Islamic state in northern Nigeria solely administered by Sharia laws.

• Restoration of Sokoto Caliphate (a type of unified theocracy) after Uthman Dan Fodio (1754-1817)(e.g. Shekau announced that the captured town of Gwoza in northeastern Borno state in August, 2014, was under an Islamic caliphate.

• Unconditional release of their members imprisoned by the Nigerian government.

the United States Department of State, on the 13th of November, 2013, announced the designation of Boko Haram and Ansaru as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), following their link with Al-Qaeda and their activities in global terrorism (START November, 2013). Boko Haram leader has since expressed support for IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Threat as commissive-conditional promise

• Interestingly Salgueiro (2010:217) argues that ‘the most interesting promises and threats are those in which the main objective of the utterance is not commissive (i.e. to commit S conditionally or unconditionally to do something), but directive (to get R, the receiver, to do something).’ Hence, he distinguished between ‘commissive-conditional promises or threats’, and ‘directive-commissive conditional promises or threats.’

• ‘In a commissive conditional promise or threat, the speaker’s future action is conditional on the satisfaction of some condition, but the main objective of the promise or threat is not to get R to bring about the satisfaction of that condition, which it is typically not within the receiver’s power to do.’ This proposition follows the general traditional understanding of threats as a type of commissive conditional promise that takes place in the normal everyday life (i.e. if you do/don’t this, I will/not do this…)

Threats and violence as revenge acts

• Threats examined from a background of conflicts link violence and threats of violence with some cultural and historical reasons - where terrorism and religious extremism are viewed as a revenge act for some perceived victimization that happened in the past. In this context, threats assume a new meaning and new pragmatic structures.

Threatening as simple commissive act

Interestingly, the present study will show that threats by terrorist groups do not necessarily anticipate the performance of certain conditions; they appear rather like simple commissive acts, where the speaker commits himself to the performance of a future act.

Here, warnings, promises or threats are handed down like an unconditional promise, where the performance of the threat is viewed as retaliation to perceived injustice, or denial of some rights. Because threats by terrorist groups often appear like a commissive promise or a mere information of a predetermined future action, the threatened sometimes questions what the conditions are to be met in order to the avoid the threatened outcome or what the threatener really wants.

Threats as commissive statements

In an 18-minute video posted on YouTube on May 1, 2012, entitled: ‘Alh Manu,’ Boko Haram, explained their reason for the bombing of ThisDay newspaper in April, 2012 and further threatened to bomb ten other media houses including the VOA Hausa service for spreading ‘falsehood,’ against the sect. Part of the threats reads:  

This lady that committed this crime, the judgement on her is to be killed at any opportunity; and the media house is also supposed to be driven out of existence whenever there is a chance to do so. We are just getting the opportunity to attack the media house and we are hoping to continue these attacks until we drive them out of existence.’ For video see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDqv6srmoI4

The lady in question was the ThisDay reporter who was accused of ‘dishonouring’ Prophet Mohammad in her report.

Data/Methodology

• The data for this study are online written threats contained in seven (7) online publications referred to as ‘statement,’ ‘message,’ or ‘open letter,’ accredited to Boko Haram and Ansaru.

• Most of these online publications (published between 2009 and 2012) were originally written in Hausa and translated into English most likely by some educated (English-speaking) members of the groups.

DataThe data are culled from the following online publications:• Boko Haram’s open letter to the Kano State Governor (August 2011).(See http://muhdlawal.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/bokoharams-open-letter-to-kano-state- governor-august-2011/• Boko Haram’s statement (August 09, 2009) (see Vanguard, August 9, 2009)• Boko Haram’s statement (published in Leadership, April 25, 2011)• Boko Haram Leader’s (Imam Abubakar Shekau) message to President Jonathan (Jan. 12, 2012)

• Boko Haram video transcription (May 1, 2012). (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDqv6srmoI4)

• Why we kidnapped the 7 foreign workers – Ansaru (see:• http://www.africanspotlight.com/2013/02/18/why-we-kidnapped-the-7-foreign- workers-new-terror-

group-ansaru• Copy of Statement: Ansaru group claims it killed 7 foreign hostages, states reason.

(See: http://www.africanspotlight.com/2013/03/09/video-copy-of-statement-ansaru- group- claim-it-killed-7-foreign-hostages-states-reason/

Analysis: Threats as declaratives

• Contrary to the traditional linguistic structures of threats, often referred conditionals i.e. the conditional ‘if you do/don’t do...I’ll do...’ or a disjunction ‘you do...or I’ll do...’ (see Rooij & Franke, 2010), many terrorist threats in the data appear as simple/complex declarative sentences that simply give information, make claims and assertions; thus they perform Searle’s representative acts. SP1-SP3 below are examples from the data:

 

Examples:SP1. ‘We are informing the government of France that we would continue to attack its citizens anywhere in the world as long as the government does not retract on its policies’ (Ansaru’s threat to France).  SP2. ‘We follow the tenets of the Quran and anybody that thinks he can fight God shouldn't think his prayer or praying in the mosque can save him! Any Muslim that cheats and hides under the cloak of religion, if we know such person, we won’t hesitate to eliminate him.’ (BH open letter to the Kano state governor).

Threats as statements and pronouncements

While the above examples give information and express the intention to perform actions, (though with some bit of conditions, i.e. if the French government do not retract their steps or if any Moslem cheats…), some others in the data, make declarations and pronouncements. Such pronouncements or ‘statements’ are often introduced by - that clause as in the following examples:

ExamplesSP4. ‘For the first time since the killing of Mallam Mohammed Yusuf, our leader, we hereby make the following statements: ‘That we have started a Jihad in Nigeria which no force on earth can stop...  SP5. ‘That from the Month of August, we shall carry out series of bombing in Southern and Northern Nigerian cities, beginning with Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu and Port Harcourt...’

SP6. ‘That we shall make the country ungovernable, kill and eliminate irresponsible political leaders of all leanings, hunt and gun down those who oppose the rule of Sharia in Nigeria and ensure that the infidel does not go unpunished.’ SP7. ‘That very soon, we shall stir Lagos, the evil city and Nigeria's South West and South East, in a way no one has ever done before. Al Hakubarah.’ (BH statement, 2009).

Structure of threats in terrorism discourse

Rather than the conventional linguistic formula for threats in everyday discourse (i.e. ‘if you do this, I’ll do this...’ or ‘you do...or I’ll do...), the structure of threats in the discourse of terrorism as in the present study will appear like the following:

• ‘Because you’ve done this, I/we will do this...’ or ‘I/we will do this, because of this...

Similar, threat structure was issued by Ayman al Zawahiri to the US and its allies in 2005, the threatening statement gave the reason for the threatened terrorist attacks and ended with certain ‘conditions’ for peace in the following words:• SP8. ‘You shed rivers of blood in our land so we exploded volcanoes of anger in your land... Our message to you is crystal clear: Your salvation will only come in your withdrawal from our land, in stopping the robbing of our oil and resources, and in stopping your support for the corrupt and corrupting leaders.’

Interestingly, threats by other terrorist groups in Africa (e.g. Somalia) follow similar linguistic structure. Example SP9 below is a threat by the Al Shabaab of Somalia. SP10 was a threat by bin Laden.

SP9. ‘If you think jihad will stop after killing men, we say, that is a lie...You non-believer Obama, we tell you now is the time for war for the sake of God.’SP10. ‘The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your houses as soon as they are complete, God willing... The proof of that is the explosions you have seen in the capitals of European nations’ (Osama bin Laden, 2007) (see Blanchard, 2007).

Since a threat is understood as any information which explicitly or implicitly states the potential of harm to a target or prospective victim, the above declarations are viewed as expressing both explicit and implicit threats.

Threats as directive-commissive acts

In explaining ‘commissive conditional promise or threat’ Salgueiro (2010) argues that the speaker’s future action is conditional on the satisfaction of some condition, but the main objective of the promise or threat is not to get the promisee or the threatened to perform that condition, which it is often not within his power to perform. For instance, (using Salgueiro’s example): • If I win the lottery, (I promise that) I’ll buy you a car

• If they make me head of the department, I’ll make life impossible for you (p.217)

In example (ii), the threat may never even be carried out since it depends on a condition beyond the threatener and the threatened. In the same vein, the Nigerian security situation is more complex in the sense that where Boko Haram or Ansaru, puts up a condition or a demand at all, such conditions are generally not within the power of the threatened government or the institutions to perform.

Examples• ‘We are informing the government of France that we would

continue to attack its citizens anywhere in the world as long as the government does not retract on its policies’ (SP2 above).

• SP11. ‘We do not believe in any system of government, be it tradi tional or orthodox, except the Islamic system which is why we will keep on fighting against democracy, capital ism, socialism and whatever. We will not allow the Nigerian Constitution to replace the laws that have been enshrined in the Holy Qur’an; we will not allow adulterated conventional education (Boko) to replace Islamic teachings. We will not respect the Nigerian government because it is illegal.’

(See ‘the ongoing campaign of terror in Nigeria...’ Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(3), p.4)

Promising and warning as threats

• One of the conditions for a speech act to count as a promise according to Searle is that the promise must be in the advantage of the ‘promisee,’ and the difference between a promise and a threat is that ‘a promise is a pledge to do something for you, not to you...a threat is a pledge to do something to you, not for you...’ (Searle, 1969:58 cited in Mey, 2001:99). In the context of terrorist threats however, it appears the other way round. A ‘promise’ by Boko Haram or Ansaru is to do something to you and not for you. In SP15 below, the promise in question is actually a threat

SP13. ‘We promise the West and Southern Nigeria, a horrible pastime. We shall focus on these areas which is the devil empire and has been the one encouraging and sponsoring Western Civilization into the shores of Nigeria.’ SP14. ‘We promise to demolish 500 buildings for any one of our houses that the government destroys.’ (Boko Haram)

• Going by Searle’s distinction between a promise and threat, although the Promiser may use the word ‘promise’ as in the above example, there is no promise unless it is to the advantage of the Promisee. And because it is not often conventional to say: ‘I/we threaten you,’ terrorist groups (e.g. Boko Haram) would prefer to use the expression: ‘we promise,’ when in actual fact, they mean ‘we threaten.’ A similar example in SP14 below is a threat where again the word ‘promise’ is used.

Illocutionary force of explicit and implicit written

threats• Are written threats likely to be perceived with stronger illocutionary force than oral threats? The illocutionary force of an utterance or a written statement is responsible for the way the recipient will perceive it. As a matter of fact, the perception of the source of a threat as coming from an established violent terrorist group like the Boko Haram or Ansaru enhances its illocutionary and perlocutionary forces.

• But I argue that written threats are likely to convey stronger illocutionary force. The perception of a written statement as conveying a serious threat to life will naturally cause more serious fear of sudden attack, insecurity and (in an extreme case) depression than the verbal threat. This is because written/documented communication is generally more associated with longevity and permanence than oral communication.

• When certain promises are documented they are often viewed as more certain and sure. Thus, written online threats as promises and warnings are asynchronous digital communications that have an additional advantage of being stored or archived and retrieved at a later date. And each time, they are retrieved; their illocutionary force is reenacted, re-invigorated and perceived afresh. Hence, the threatened tends to perpetually live in fear. There is no doubt that the Nigerian government and other threatened institutions do not take the threats likely, especially as many of the threats are regularly being carried out.