The Power of Nightmares

The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC series of documentary films, written and produced by Adam Curtis.

This documentary argues that a group of neoconservatives benefited from exaggerating the scale of the terrorist threat from which they offer to protect their people, as they have tried to benefit by exaggerating the threat of communism in the 1970s and 80s; that the fortunes of neo-conservatism and radical Islamism are closely connected; and that some popular beliefs about these groups are inaccurate.

Introduction

According to the programme's introduction:

In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life, but now they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us: from nightmares.

They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand. And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism, a powerful and sinister network with sleeper cells in countries across the world, a threat that needs to be fought by a War on Terror. But much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It's a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media. This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created, and who it benefits.

At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world, and both had a very similar explanation of what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today's nightmare vision of a secret organised evil that threatens the world, a fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.

Distribution

The Power of Nightmares was first broadcast on BBC Two in three hour-long parts on consecutive Wednesday evenings in the autumn of 2004. The series was rebroadcast in late January 2005 on three consecutive nights, with the final part updated to reflect the Law Lords ruling from the previous December that detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial is illegal.

Although the series has not been shown on U.S. television, its three episodes were shown in succession on 26 February 2005 as part of the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, USA. After the film, Curtis made a public appearance and led a discussion in which he expressed pessimism about an eventual American TV airing or DVD release. It has, however, played in some small independent theaters.

Curtis has also stated: "Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11. A head of the leading networks who had better remain nameless said to me that there was no way they could show it. He said, 'Who are you to say this?' and then he added, 'We would get slaughtered if we put this out.' When I was in New York I took a DVD to the head of documentaries at HBO. I still haven't heard from him."

An edited two and a half hour version was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2005, with Pathé buying up distribution rights to exhibit this version in cinemas worldwide.

The Power of Nightmares was aired in Canada in April 2005 by CBC Newsworld.

In Australia, the programme was to be screened on SBS commencing 2005-07-12 [1], however this screening of the series was cancelled. An e-mail response enquiring as to this cancellation was worded "SBS Management made the decision that in light of the recent London bombings it would not be appropriate to screen the series at this time." SBS rescheduled the series and it was screened over three nights commencing 2005-12-06 [2].

The program can be purchased from Amazon.com [3], and has been widely distributed for download on the Internet.

Documentary

The documentary consisted of three parts.

Part 1 - Baby It's Cold Outside

In the 1950s Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian civil servant turned revolutionary, and Leo Strauss, an American professor of political philosophy, both came to see western liberalism as corrosive to morality and to society. Qutb had been sent to the U.S. to learn about its public education system but was disgusted by what he saw of its society. They each argued that radical measures, including deception and (in Qutb's case) even violence, could be justified in an effort to restore shared moral values to society, and their arguments heavily influenced radical Islamism and American neo-conservatism, respectively. Senior American civil servants and politicians influenced by neo-conservatism came to believe anti-communist propaganda and saw it as an evil force against which the U.S. should be presented as a force for good. This propaganda included Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney formation of Team B which over-estimated Soviet military technology and the William Casey-led CIA assertion that various terrorist organisations were backed by the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Qutb became influential in the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and was then jailed after some of its members attempted to assassinate President Nasser.

This was first broadcast on Wednesday 20 October 2004. Its title is taken from a popular song which Qutb heard played at a church-organised dance for young people, which he saw as symptomatic of the immorality of American society.

Part 2 - The Phantom Victory

In the 1980s the Islamist mujaheddin and the neo-conservative-influenced Reagan administration temporarily cooperated in fighting a common enemy, the Soviet Union and the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Although the Soviet Union was already on the verge of collapse, both groups came to believe that it was their actions in Afghanistan that had caused it to fall. However, other attempts by Islamists to incite popular revolution failed, and the neo-conservatives lost power in the U.S. as the presidency passed to George H. W. Bush and subsequently to Bill Clinton. Both groups, having failed to achieve lasting political influence, identified new targets to attack: the neoconservatives sought to demonise Clinton while the radical Islamists decided that those who had not aided their cause were legitimate targets for violence.

This was first broadcast on Wednesday 27 October 2004.

Part 3 - The Shadows in the Cave

In the late 1990s the Taliban set up military training camps in Afghanistan for Islamist fighters. Most were only interested in fighting in their home countries, but Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and follower of Sayyid Qutb, paid the Taliban to allow them to recruit volunteers for attacks on the U.S. from these camps. Prosecutors for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings believed bin Laden organised them and wanted to convict him in absentia by showing that he headed a criminal organisation. Jamal al-Fadl, a former associate of bin Laden, conveniently described just such an organisation to them, which the investigators called al-Qaeda. While bin Laden apparently aided the attacks he had no organisation through which he could command and control them; al-Fadl seems to have told investigators what they wanted to hear in return for money and witness protection. Similarly, while bin Laden provided funds and volunteers to carry out the September 11, 2001 attacks, they were actually planned by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Following this attack, the neo-conservatives were able to convince George W. Bush to begin a War on Terror and to paint al-Qaeda as an international network of terrorists. The war in Afghanistan removed bin Laden's main source of recruits, but the U.S. military and the Afghan Northern Alliance also captured and killed many people in the Taliban camps that had nothing to do with him. The story circulated that bin Laden and the core of al-Qaeda had retreated to an underground complex in Tora Bora, but an exhaustive search revealed no sign of this. Al-Qaeda could not be found because it never really existed; Islamist terrorists are connected only by ideology and not by an organisation that can be cut off at its root.

The arrests of various groups of suspected terrorists in the U.S. following the September 11 attacks failed to find any substantive evidence, but did show a lot of imagination on the part of investigators. Similarly, in the U.K., arrests under new terrorism laws have resulted in only 3 convictions of Islamists, all for fundraising. Much of the media coverage of potential terrorist attacks is also highly speculative and sensational. For instance, a terrorist attack using a radiological weapon, referred to by the media as a dirty bomb, wouldn't kill many people from fallout because the radioactive material would be spread thinly by any explosion. However, the neo-conservatives had found they could use the threat of Islamist terrorism, and the claimed possibility of sponsorship by Iraq, as an enemy against which to unite the U.S., and other politicians such as Tony Blair claimed an important role in protecting their countries from attack. Politicians and counter-terrorist agents have decided that they must be proactive in imagining the worst possible attacks and in stopping those who seem likely to carry out attacks.

This was first broadcast on Wednesday 3 November 2004. Its title appears to refer to Plato's allegory of the cave and to the belief in the complex in Tora Bora.

Accolades

"The Power of Nightmares, a three-hour BBC documentary directed by Adam Curtis, is arguably the most important film about the "war on terrorism" since the events of September 11. It is more intellectually engaging, more historically probing and more provocative than any of its rivals, including Fahrenheit 9/11." The Nation

Criticism and responses

Various attacks have been made on the programme, its author, the BBC and the arguments presented. Curtis has responded to some of the criticism.

The program is, or presents, a conspiracy theory

David Aaronovitch has suggested that the programme "is a conspiracy theory".

Curtis replies: "The use of fear in contemporary politics is not the result of a conspiracy, the politicians have stumbled on it. In a populist, consumerist age where they found their authority and legitimacy declining dramatically they have simply discovered in the 'war on terror' a way of restoring their authority by promising to protect us."

The programme neglects to analyse the impact of economic interests

Critics such as MediaLens, who believe that US government policy is shaped to a large extent by powerful business interests, point out that Curtis did not address this aspect.

Curtis accepts this criticism as "serious and important". However, "Both the neoconservatives and the Islamists have become powerful and influential and I chose to make a series of films that explained the roots of their ideas and how they were taken up, simplified and distorted. You want me to have made a different series [about] a perfectly good and very important subject - but different." [4]

The neoconservatives were "misrepresented"

Clive Davis in "The Power of Bad Television" at the National Review claims that the characterisation of neoconservatives' views in the programme is inaccurate. He has also suggested that the degree to which neoconservatives have been influenced by Leo Strauss is greatly exaggerated. Further he maintains that this programme suggests that "it is Strauss, not Osama bin Laden, who is the real evil genius."

Music

• Title theme: "The Big Ship" on Another Green World by Brian Eno
• Incidental: "Becalmed" and "In Dark Trees" on Another Green World by Brian Eno
• Incidental: Soundtrack from Citizen Kane, film score by Bernard Herrmann, 1941.
• Incidental: Soundtrack from The Ipcress File, by John Barry
• Incidental: Soundtrack from Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, by Ennio Morricone, 1970

• Part 1 credits: "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer, 1949 version
• Part 2 opening: "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
• "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle" (possibly by Singer-Gene Autry; Music-Joseph Lilley;Lyrics-Ranke Loesser, c1942)
• Afghan war: "Colours" by Donovan
• Part 3 credits: "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" by B.J. Thomas

Not in order

• The theme from the 1987 movie Prince of Darkness - John Carpenter
• The repetitive piano section from Halloween in the haunted house.
• Charles Ives - Symphony number two - 5th movement.
• Putnam's Camp from Three Places in New England.
• Excerpt from Central Park in the Dark
• a piece by Ennio Morricone from the 1980 Pontecorvo film Ogro
• Shostakovich - Lyric waltz from the Ballet Suite No 1
  • excerpt from The Young Lady and the Hooligan
• Soundtrack to The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea by Paul Sawtell and Jerry Goldsmith

See also

Concepts discussed

• Jahiliyyah

Media

• The Century Of The Self - A documentary in a similar vein also by Adam Curtis.
• Pandora's Box - A series also by Adam Curtis.

References

• The Power of Nightmares Transcripts

Books recommended by Adam Curtis to follow up watching the series

Islamism

• Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam ISBN 0674010906 by Gilles Kepel and his earlier book, The Prophet and the Pharaoh ISBN 0520085434
  • His latest book is The War for Muslim Minds ISBN 0674015754, but this was not mentioned by Curtis.
• The best insight into the ideas behind all this are in the writings of Sayyid Qutb - in particular Milestones (also translated as Signposts Along the Road) ISBN 0911119426
• The Failure of Political Islam by Olivier Roy translated by Carol Volk ISBN 0674291417 and
• Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah by Olivier Roy ISBN 0231134983
• Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam by Jason Burke ISBN 1850436665
• "By far the best book on Afghanistan" The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, Second Edition by Barnett Rubin ISBN 0300095198
  • and his follow up called The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State ISBN 0300063768
• "And Zawahiri's own account of the struggle which is actually very revealing - it is translated as Knights under the Prophet's Banner," says Curtis. "I think you can still find it on the internet." Excerpts are here, translation here

The history of Neoconservatism

• The Rise of the Counterestablishment: From Conservative Ideology to Political Power by Sidney Blumenthal ISBN 0060971401
• Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea by Irving Kristol ISBN 0028740211
• Leo Strauss and the American Right by Shadia Drury ISBN 0312217838
• The Anatomy of Antiliberalism by Stephen Holmes ISBN 0674031857 (Antiliberalism by the same author?)
• Recasting Conservatism by Robert devigne ISBN 0300055943 [5]
• The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom ISBN 0671657151

"The weirdness of the 1990s"

• Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock ISBN 0812930991
• The Gang of Five: The Leaders at the Centre of the Conservative Crusade/Ascendancy (title depends on edition) by Nina Easton ISBN 0743203208 (paid download as PDF file)

External links

• Part 1 official page
• Part 2 official page
• Part 3 official page
• "The Power of Nightmares" revisited
• BBC News article on Cannes premiere
• Power of Nightmares re-awakened - Questions from BBC viewers answered by Curtis
• CBC News — The Passionate Eye — "The Power of Nightmares"
• The Power of Nightmares at IMDb
• Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian, May 12, 2005, "The film US TV networks dare not show" - interview with Adam Curtis
• Interview with Adam Curtis at Cinema Scope
• Interview with Adam Curtis at GreenCine
• Creating Islamist phantoms, Adam Curtis writes for the Guardian, August 30, 2005.

Video

• Argument of "The Power of Nightmares" summarized
• Documentary Film Network: Watch "The Power of Nightmares" Free Online now!
• View at Google Video

Reviews

• The Nation: Beware the Holy War: The Power of Nightmares
• The Guardian: The making of the terror myth and Al-Qaida is no dark illusion (the latter by David Aaronovitch)
• Christian Science Monitor: Politics of 'fear over vision' explored on British television
• National Review: Clive Davis - The Power of Bad Television
• Robert Scheer: Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman? printed in The Nation[6] and the Los Angeles Times[7]
• Crooked timber: "The Power of Nightmares"
• samizdata.net: Nighmares about Nightmares
• dadablog Power of Nightmares