Riassunto esame lingua inglese, prof Demata, libro consigliato Representations of war and terrorism, Demata

THE ANALYSIS OF BUSH'S IDEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE

2.1. Introduction: George W. Bush and his war on terrorism, 2001-2003

The most important aspect of Bush's ideology is religion, being the element allowing the unique relationship with societal order of discourse expressed by USA politics. The other is neo-conservativism.

2.2. Bush's presidential ideology: religion and neo-conservativism

American Presidents speak from a position on authority and power. President has always been in a priviliged position as a maker of meaning. The words are expected to express leadership and persuade heares. Public speeches and addresses play a key role, which is kind of recent, as before WW2 presidents rarely spoke to the public, and when they did they almost never embraced populist language/policies. Then media era came having an increasingly social role and rhetorical leadership became a necessary instrument. The President's ablity to persuade his audience has gradually become the most necessary.

skill that a president has to possess in order to fulfill his mandate and implement his policies successfully. Speaking is governing. Fairclough societal order of discourse see presidential utterances supporting an ideology uniquely endowed with power and authority. His personal and institutional profile embodies the dominant ideology, those values and beliefs which are prevailing within the national community. The factor that has played the most important ideological role for all American Presidents has been religion (Christianity). It is a feature shared by all modern Presidents, which must meet certain religious standards as Christian values dominate general perception of American public life. God is a pervasive presence in American society and culture. American political discourse is imbued with religious values. "God bless America" connects religion with American power and identity. God is also used often in times of war as a source of blessing and protection and as a rhetorical skill.and ideological instrument to legitimize political motivations in support of military action against the "enemy". With Bush politic is religion. God is invoked as the guiding principle of his policies. For Bush, religion and politics, God and Nation are so intrinsically, it is impossible to separate the two spheres. He also claims Bible's authority would overrule that of the USA Constitution itself. Bush's ideology is rooted in what has been called Neoconservativism, an ideology originating from the religious Right, a broad network of very powerful and organized militant Evangelical groups (Bible Belt). Bush constantly uses religious images, biblical keywords, which take the name of political fundamentalism, almost messianic. When Bush speaks of terrorism, he has always used a kind of messianic language and discourse which has a strong moral and fundamentalist bias. No American president before Bush has ever emphasized so strongly both God's guiding role in human affairs and the need to fight evil in the world.history and America's historical mission to spread Christian values. Bush's Christian fundamentalism has acted as a sort of moral cement to a new set of policy principles which had been outlined by the Project for the New American Century ever since 1997. It elaborated a new strategy for USA foreign policies with the key goal to promote American global leadership. This affirmation of American power and hegemony at all costs is expressed in an imperial ideology morally legitimised by a dichotomy in which America is set against the rest of the world. The set of policies elaborated by the Project for the New American Century became the strategic and ideological guidelines for American policy in the Middle East and Bush's discourse of war and terrorism. The moment of deep crisis generated by the events of 9/11 provided Bush with the opportunity to mobilise the whole nation around his vision of the world and of the role of the United States. It is exactly in moments of crisis such as

Religious fundamentalism can help the public to overcome their fears and uncertainties. The collective sense of national identity, based on a sense of inclusion and protection for "us" as opposed to "them" is likely to be strengthened by religious fundamentalisms, which also provide the national community with a very attractive and reassuring set of ideological and moral dogmas.

Intertextuality and ideology in Bush's discourse

Reasons for Bush's discourse success can be found in the fact that people can connect his words to happenings in their social system. As with any text, Bush's speeches hold an intertextual dialogue with other texts. By using terms referring to certain kinds of previous discourses and texts, Bush makes his texts intelligible for his hearers, but these texts are intelligible only within the frame Bush wants to put them. In any intertextual act, the text's author also uses certain prerogatives of power, as he or she

decides to include or exclude elements from past texts. Bush's discourse is very convincing exactly because his audience can immediately relate to a specific ideology encoded in the President's language. Two key ideologies: He recalls the ideology of Christian fundamentalism and the ideology of American history, specifically, the national pride and military glory of USA (during WW2), which are also key prerogatives of power. He uses words in an ideologically charged meaning, these words immediately recall the older discourse and texts in which they had been used along with their own specific ideological signification such as the expression "Axis of evil". It is used to describe nations such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea which harboured terrorists and threats USA security. This expression has played an influential role in creating the frame through which the public has perceived the problem of terrorism and the question of whether to go to war with Iraq. The "Axis of

"Evil" phrase could only gain such importance because of the President's uniquely privileged position of power within the "societal order of discourse", which has allowed him to create and dominate the political and linguistic agenda.

The word "Axis" belongs to a history discourse: the "Axis" was formed by those dictatorial or fascist regimes, Germany, Italy and Japan, against which free democracies, including the USA, fought during the Second World War. "Evil has very explicit and definite moral overtones as part of the Christian worldview.

The success of the "Axis of Evil" phrase depended on the merging of two discourses: the Second World War and the moral Christian significance.

Terrorism is evaluated in the same terms as those past enemies (German, Italy, Japan) of America and the free world. Bush qualifies terrorism by comparing it to those "murderous ideologies" of the past century.

Bush delineates a thorough

The association between terrorists and hostile regimes (in this case Saddam's Iraq). While Bush says that "this threat is new" and that the war on terrorism and those who support it is a "different war", at the same time compares America's struggle against terrorists to past wars, and specifically the Second World War.

The frequency of the word "history" in Bush's speeches highlights the importance of the role played by America and her soldiers in the new theatres of war. History also repeats itself in the conclusion of the war, a conclusion which is inevitably positive for the United States. The present is read through the past, as the glory of America of the Second World War is being repeated in the war on terrorism (victory against it).

The President stresses that the people who died on 9/11 came from a variety of places, not just America, as terrorists would target everybody, irrespective of their nationality. The list of the victims'

nationalities highlights the fact that terrorists targeted the whole world, not just America. In order to defeat terrorists and those who harbor them, America will lead a coalition of allies from all over the world – just like in the Second World War. America is the chosen nation to pursue this world war on terrorism and will fulfill this historical role. Bush’s commitment against the “Axis of Evil” and his determination in affirming that his country has a guiding role in history, is set up alongside the discourse of religion, but the two discourses often become one. Another word with crucial intertextual implication is crusade, a word that can recall both patriotic and Christian frames, but not only this: using this particular word gave the question the image of a war on Islam too. (In fact Bush’s administration had to precise the object was a minority of dangerous fanatics, and not Islam or Muslims per se). The intertextual connotations of “Crusade” point.to a worldview in which good and evil are neatly separated. Bush constantly constructs a discourse of war based on Christian authority and sources. In doing so he often refers to the general idea of war and USA endeavours (sforzi) against terrorism as a journey, another word with deep metaphorical implication, just like mission, words that are used also referring to international organisations. The latter word in particular has both religious and military meaning. The merging of the discourse of Christianity into that of war is confirmed by even more explicit intertextual links with older texts, that is, quotations. Quotations from the Bible are very often, two of them are explicit: The first occurs after the 9/11 attacks, the second occurs in the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq. By quoting from Psalm 23, Bush places the words of consolation for victims. The sufferings of Americans are located as part of the path of pure faith, as if Americans had the privilege of having chosen, and

having been chosen by, God.

The second quotation is from Bush’s speech addressed to American soldiers, who are “defending (their) country and who, like the Prophets carry “a message,” consisting of the prophet Isaiah’s “words”. Bush’s quotation from the Bible enables him to develop an ideology in which religion plays a key role: in their being associated with the words of the Prophets, American soldiers are invested with the mission of spreading God’s words in the world. The Old Testament is used not only to validate American actions, but to generate a full identification of Americans with the words and meaning of the Bible.

There is a second class of biblical passages in Bush’s speeches which are partially modified. These quotations are less evident as they are not explicitly acknowledged as quotations by Bush. However, they were certainly recognised by most of his audience, who