Close to forty years ago, I had the privilege to meet a man who worked for the Algerian Telecommunication Ministry and to spend two weeks with him as an interpreter for a training program he was attending. He was a small man in his mid-forties, built like a professional cyclist, somewhat reserved, almost shy, but I was immediately attracted to him because his face and eyes carried many more years than his age. After a few days, he felt comfortable enough to tell me his story.

During the Algerian war, he was a telecommunication officer for the FLN and was captured by the French paratroopers. Because he had a lot of important knowledge, he was given the top level treatment. Left in a covered well with no food or water for a few days, he was taken to the torture chamber. It was a large room full of torture equipment, left from the Middle Ages, but what really made his heart jump was the splash of blood way up on the very high ceiling…

That splash of blood was the symbol of extreme violence.

More than an act, violence is an intention, no matter what the outcome is. The World Health Organization defines it as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”

The intention does not have to be rational; only a minority of human violence can be understood as rational. I believe most of human violence is created by fear. It is the violence of the hunted, not the one of the hunter, that is most prevalent. It is the fear that comes with the loss of control or the likeliness of loss of control that creates violence.

The mountain lion cut off from her pups will kill to regain control. The manager afraid that someone might detect his lack of self confidence abuses his employees. The alcoholic drinks to forget he has lost control and then, as he forgets, becomes afraid to lose control and violently projects that fear onto people around him. Fear of encroachment from others on our personal lives drives violence against other cultures, other races, other ways of living, other ways of thinking, other religions.

Violence is more than an act or a word; it is an intention driven by intense fear; it is the expression of that fear. The 9/11 terrorists acted on fear, a long built up fear of being overrun by the culture of the United States of America as it is pictured in the media.

The terrorists who blow themselves up, those who plant bombs, plot attacks are just driven by the fear they will not survive as a people, as a culture. They may be an immediate threat but the greatest threat comes from the fear-mongers who are the root of the violence. They are power-angry politicians and wealth-seeking media moguls who use fear to promote their own interest regardless of the cost.

In the case of the September 11, 2001 attacks, neither politicians nor media really paused to ask “why?”.  Answering that question could have open a path to peace, would have diminished the fear,  but it was an unwelcome door to criticism, to losing political power. It was not the story that anyone wanted to hear and would not have generated any profit.

No one talked about the decades of US policies that generated so much fear and hatred in the region, about the US sanctions on Iraq that resulted in the starvation death of half a million Iraqi babies and the claim in 1996 by the US Secretary of State that those deaths were worth it.   Few talked about the tens of thousands of Arab fighters, armed to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, that were left without any support once the Russians withdrew. Angry and alienated, some caused mayhem in their own countries; others joined Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida.

In this case, like in many others, the publishers and TV producers manipulated the information and decided to present a distorted view for the purpose of generating profits. The cost to society may have been two wars, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

Today the media continues to present the scary perspective when it is possible. In doing so, it has promoted the violence of extremists over the compromise of moderates because they provide “good TV” as one of the ABC 20/20 producer once put it.

How can you stop this cycle of violence?

First remember that any really frightening fact will be hushed up for fear of creating a full-scale panic. Then whenever you feel scared by a news article or a TV program ask yourself: “What am I not being told?”, “What is another way to look at this?”. Keep digging, look for alternate sources on the Internet. Every time you discover that the information is biased, use the viral power of today’s communication: write letters to the editor, advertise the lies to friends and family, in a blog or on a social media page and show how important it is to pass on to others.