Enemy image

Enemy image (prejudice,  illusion)
A misleading view of a person or people, which hampers reconciliation and real communication

Enemy images are labels people apply to others to justify their own opposition to them. In conflicts between two groups, enemy influences are often mutual.

Early history

Worldwide, people have told stories about strangers with incredible and threatening powers, or about dragons or other such monsters, which can be seen as a projection of their fears. In Europe in the middle ages, the drive against witches was a forceful illustration of the power of enemy images to subvert clear thinking.

Post WW2

Post WW2, the USSR was a cogent enemy image for the populations of Western Europe and USA, and may have played a large role in perpetuating the nuclear arms race and cold war.

Post 9/11

Protestors gathered outside the 2002 Bilderberg.
In the same way that knowing a spider is harmless does not necessarily reduce fear of it, awareness of the facts about deep politics does not necessarily entail abandoning emotional attachment to the concept of the enemy image.

Many nations which a democratic process in practise have just two large political parties, which are often seen as opposites. These nations' political discourse is often dominated by enemy images, which represent an emotional barrier not only to people's reconciliation, but to more important realisations about the state of society - such as, for example, the role of the deep state in nurturing factionalism. Enemy images hide the fact that the party political system has little real cogency, but this realisation in itself does not necessarily entail rejecting enemy images.

Strategy of tension

Full article: Strategy of tension

Arguably, "terrorists", "paedophiles" or in some cases even "Muslims" could be understood as enemy images, in that people do not sympathise with them as fellow human beings. Less arguably, establishment organisations such as the commercially-controlled media nurture people's fear not only to sell copy but as a tool of social control. The complicity of intelligence agencies remains a matter of some conjecture in more modern cases, but it well established in Operation Gladio, where false flag attacks were carried out and falsely blamed on communists. Post 9-11, Gladio/B has substituted Muslims for nationalists.

Non violent communication

Full article: Non violent communication

Marshall Rosenberg created non-violent communication, a system of communication in which removal of enemy images is crucial to enabled dialogue and concensus.

Response

Marshall Rosenberg encouraged people to overcome enemy images by avoiding judgmental language or labels, and by not seeking to punish people.

Fictional depiction

George Orwell's 1984 features the "Two Minutes Of Hate" in which party members are expected to hate a person named "Emmanuel Goldstein".  

Examples

Page name	Description
Domestic extremism	An enemy image used to try to justify repression of alternative ideas
Extremism
Islamic terrorist
Osama bin Laden	A CIA operative, heavily involved in CIA covert operations such as Operation Cyclone and Gladio plan B.
Non-violent extremism	An enemy image used to try to justify violent repression of those who advocate non-violent change.
Violent extremism
Witch