Introduction

Abstract

The 21st century was accompanied by fear, first of all of the terrorist threat, then of losing one’s job, of losing one’s traditional family values, and also of the weakness of the state. We live in societies of fear, a feeling that serves to win elections in the United Kingdom, the United States or Colombia, and is an excuse for some governments to backtrack on the recognition of human rights and their guarantees.
If the unifying factor of the peoples is trust, fear causes the opposite effect, division, insecurity, suspicion, and many take advantage of these weaknesses in their electoral speeches and when they come to power they govern by sowing fear. Now the West lives in a democracy of fear.