McDonald's in paradise?

ND Batra, The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta

How advertisement, one of the most widely practiced forms of indoctrination through seduction, creates and transforms our desires and wants into compelling needs is a fascinating field of study that should not have been ignored by counter-terrorism experts.

Just as the culture of consumption has been driving people, for example, to McDonald's to consume billions of hamburgers and tons of French fries, the culture of Paradise/Afterlife that Islamic militants, al-Qaeda and its decentralized networked franchisees, preach to the Muslim youth, has been driving them to jihad suicide. Both cultures promise fulfillment: Here or hereafter. So did Communism.

The subliminal seductions of jihad are no different in the final analysis from what Communism had to offer in the heady days of Leninism and Maoism. Communism, however, could not withstand the onslaughts of consumer culture and its endless capacity for self-renewal. It collapsed as a dream unrealized. So would militant Islam if confronted the same way.

Is al-Qaeda and its franchisees creating the same psychological conditions under which a person's desires and dreams become compelling needs? According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, there is a hierarchy of five primal needs that drive human beings to action to seek satisfaction: Physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization. Maslow said that a person would tends to fulfill his physiological needs for food and shelter first before he seeks to satisfy other higher order needs.

But experience shows that once the basic needs of food and shelter are satisfied, some people seek to satisfy other needs simultaneously instead of seeking their satisfaction one after the other in a hierarchical order, as Maslow suggested. In fact the need for self-actualization, realizing one's potential, summed up best in the slogan "Be all you can be," may become so paramount in a person due to indoctrination that he may minimize or even forego other needs.

Mass media and advertisement have turned the USA into a culture of high consumption, although it wasn't always so. Beginning with the Penny Press in early 19th century and later on through the yellow journalism of Randolph Hearst, news media began to depend increasingly on advertisement revenues. Business and industry needed advertising to reach masses in order to increase sales.

Thus began the symbiotic relations among the three, the media, advertising and industry, to create the American consumer whose desires must be cherished and wants must be transformed into dire needs. By turning malls into places of leisure and pleasure, marketers and advertisers have been transforming shopping into an enjoyable experience. "Shop until you drop" leaves little time for any thought for the Afterlife. Christmas has become a secular marketing experience and a major driving force for the economy.

By bringing consumers into a desirable media mix, by segmenting population into demographics and psychographics and by demanding media companies to create cultural programs that not only support commercial products but also create a cascade of compelling needs, advertisers have created a culture of desire that makes people work harder so that they can buy and consume more.

Every year, for example, the auto industry comes up with new models with varied psychological appeals and lucrative incentives for the consumer to get rid of his old car even if it is in good condition and go for a newer model. The advertising industry created "soccer mom" and told her that she needed a van to chauffeur her children from school to ballpark. Admen have made SUVs a vehicle of choice for many Americans. After 9/11, auto- manufacturers saw the consumer need for greater security and today's SUVs give a feeling of strength and power like armored vehicles.

Advertisement is nothing but what Aristotle said about Rhetoric: The faculty of using all available means of persuasion. Advertisers have been using target marketing to reach and persuade their audiences more effectively. Similarly, instead of looking at the Muslim population of a country as a monolithic mass, it should be segmented demographically for specific messages. For example, the message for a Muslim woman with her overpowering needs for family and children has to be different from what is aimed at the youth.

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia, West Asia satellite networks that do not hesitate to broadcast messages from Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, out of fear or favor, would have no problem in airing commercials that persuade Muslims to reach for their wallets rather than their guns. Nike, Coke, McDonald's, Britney Spears, Hollywood/Bollywood, figuratively speaking, would ultimately win over the destructive culture of Afterlife. Militant Islam with its bloody mission of worldwide jihad would go the way of Communism with its bloody global revolution. The Arabs (and other Muslims too) would rather trade than kill, if history has any lesson.

The writer is Professor of Communications, Norwich University, Vermont.