Each person interprets events according to their experience and perspective on reality. Cognitive frameworks (CFs) play a significant role in this, as they influence that interpretation. CFs are mental structures formed by knowledge dating back to our earliest interactions (family and home).
However, the so-called “war on terror” is also a cognitive framework, underpinned by another framework: that of good versus evil, anchored in a double metaphor. The first is “war,” which is framed within a context of defense against attacks. The second metaphor is “terrorism,” the terror caused by someone who, in a given geopolitical scenario, becomes a threat, sometimes unidentifiable, and therefore may fall outside the framework of international law because it is difficult to define.
The “terrorist” is a fearsome enemy who is represented as a danger, which activates in us, from the MC of morality, the one that governs us, the negative emotion of insecurity, thus justifying his annihilation or extermination, by military or economic means.
The "war on terror" framework originated with the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in Manhattan, New York, USA, during the presidency of Republican George W. Bush. Following this attack, Arab Muslims were portrayed as the primary terrorists.
In 2025, Venezuelan immigrants (and Americans in general) who were in the process of obtaining immigration status in the North received "terrorist" treatment, being considered as criminals and even monsters, which negatively affected their identity, despite the fact that other Venezuelans have stood out internationally in different areas, such as science (Jancito Convit and Humberto Fernández Morán).
Now, the radical left is portrayed as the terrorist, even though equality, respect for human rights, and solidarity among peoples are essential values of progressive movements, which look to the ancestral past in search of a balance of power relations to guarantee life on the planet, holistic well-being, and respect for human dignity. Ultimately, nothing threatens the peoples of the world more than social injustice, the common enemy.
