Psychological, theological, and thanatological aspects of suicidal terrorism.

AuthorPiven, J.S.
PositionSacred Violence: Religion and Terrorism

Suicide actions are the most exalted aspect of the Jihad for the sake of Allah.

--Sheik Yussuf Al Qaradawi (1)

[H]old tightly to the religion of God. Guide your children to the mosque and instruct them to attend the Qur'an and recitation lessons, and teach them to love jihad and martyrdom.

--Shadi Sleyman Al Nabaheen (2)

This work focuses on the psychological motivations of those who destroy themselves and others in the name of God. It must be stated at the outset that a psychological reading is not a moral or ethical evaluation of such acts. This piece does not debate whether such deeds are justified, and does not endorse or excuse acts called "suicidal terrorism," but seeks to explore and illuminate complex and elusive aspects of ideology and behavior. In addition, it must also be stated unequivocally that this paper does not essentialize people labeled terrorists, reduce them to a single type, archetype, caricature, or diagnose them as raving lunatics. It does seek out the dynamics of unconscious fantasy, and dwells upon the enigmatic speeches and texts of terrorists who drape their own actions in a theological language that sanctifies death. This paper is not a condemnation of Islam, but rather an elucidation of how ignominy, misery, and oppression catalyze a theology that transforms abjection and victimization into heroic apotheosis.

Suicide bombing is more than a conscious strategy designed to murder and terrorize enemies and oppressors. A psychological understanding of suicide bombing consequently requires more than a delineation of the stated motives and putative goals of the attack. There are numerous motives to murder others, and one must distinguish the form of the attack from the various motives and fantasies that are channeled into this strategy.

Not all suicide bombers have the same philosophy or political agenda. Suicide bombers hail from different countries, societies, cultures, and organizations, and they have different experiences, emotions, and ways of imagining life and death. They have been molded by divergent cultures, families, religions, and events. If suicide bombers perform similar acts, this does not mean that every one has the same purpose, mindset, or psychological organization. People can perform the same act with vastly different conscious and unconscious agendas, desires, strivings, and compulsions, and this means we must question--or even reject outright--the possibility that the act of suicide bombing is merely an intentional strategy of identical impetus for all performers. A psychological approach to suicide bombing is initiated by the axiom that there are profound and powerful motives of which people are completely unaware, and indeed, do not wish to know.

This article therefore attempts to understand not only why suicidal terrorists say they are destroying themselves and others, but also what is not being said: what is disavowed, obscured, and fulfilled in suicide bombing beyond the awareness of the actor. The task is to dissect some of the salient motives of suicide bombers by examining the cultural matrices and discourses that define, compel, validate, and exalt the strategy of destroying the self in vengeance against others.

PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT RESEARCH ON SUICIDE BOMBERS

Much of the prominent work on terrorism focuses on strategic, political, and socioeconomic factors. Hafez argues that destroying oneself in a terrorist act is a strategic decision based on the calculation of the cost of one's own death compared to the lives eradicated. (3) Suicide terrorism is a stratagem employed by weak groups suffering from limited resources and the asymmetrical power advantage of militarily superior opponents. (4) Terrorist groups are thus protective of their scarce financial, material, and human assets and prioritize secrecy and preservation of their organizations, waging indirect, but efficient, types of warfare to impair their adversaries, while vouchsafing their own people and resources. (5)

For Hafez, what is putatively irrational or emotive violence is actually methodologically effective asymmetrical war. (6) Palestinian suicide bombers, for instance, are unlikely to defeat the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) who have vastly superior training, armament, and prodigious resources that enable them to tolerate considerable material losses. (7) Unsophisticated weaponry and conventional tactics have been ineffective against the IDF, while incurring severe Palestinian casualties. (8) Targeting civilians, however, effectively terrorizes Israelis, impairs their economy, and steers settlers from the occupied territories. (9) The disproportionate paucity of sacrificed "martyrs" compared to the abundance of murdered Israelis creates a more symmetrical "balance of terror." (10) According to Hamas' overseas Political Bureau member Muhammad Nazzal, conventional military tactics within the occupied territories resulted in an average of one Israeli casualty for every twelve Palestinians killed, whereas suicide bombings within Israel's 1948 borders yielded nine Israeli deaths per martyr. (11)

According to Hafez, recruiting and training suicide bombers is also relatively inexpensive compared to the protracted arming and encampment of guerrillas. (12) Accomplishing their missions with superior versatility and accuracy, suicide bombers are the smartest bombs ever manufactured. (13) Their impact is also psychologically devastating because of the horrific sense that they are committed, unwavering, and undeterred by the risk of death. (14) Such notions about the strategic effectiveness of martyrdom as a "war of attrition" that could decimate the Israeli economy, jettison immigrants from Israel, generate pervasive dread in Israeli domiciles, and establish a "balance of terror" were confirmed repeatedly in conversations Hafez had with supporters of llamas in the West Bank. (15) Indeed, the Israeli love of life was construed as the "principal weakness" enabling the suicide bombers to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies. (16)

Among the recent plethora of studies, Pape's 2005 monumental work also incorporates comprehensive profiles to analyze suicide bombing as political strategy rather than the consequence of Islamic fundamentalism. Pape claims that over 95% of suicide attacks are campaigns orchestrated by sizeable militant organizations with substantial public support. (17) Suicidal terrorism is positively correlated with military occupation by the United States, which colludes with corrupt undemocratic regimes and dictators. (18) Suicidal terrorism therefore derives predominantly from countries considered American allies, where large segments of the populace resent American imperialism, occupation, and interference. (19)

Hence, while Muslim fundamentalism is usually touted as the primary motive for suicidal terrorism, Pape claims that the essential motive is expulsion of an occupying military presence. (20) The most prolific perpetrators of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, which is a primarily secular Marxist-Leninist group "adamantly opposed to religion." (21) Thus, suicide campaigns invariably have a demonstrable secular political agenda to force the withdrawal of military occupation from homeland territories. According to Pape, democracies such as the United States have repeatedly acquiesced to the demands of such terrorists because suicidal techniques have proved strategically efficacious. (22) Such palpable effectiveness thus explains the increase in suicide bombing, as opposed to fundamentalist, theological, or eschatological motives. (23) Religion becomes a more crucial factor when the occupying military presence represents a divergent theological tradition, hence amplifying the sense that oppression and invasion are imbued with religious crusade and domination. Religion, then, only intensifies the feelings of victimization and hatred for the oppressors, rather than initiating it.

This perspective thus interprets terrorist motivation as a response to proximate issues. In such studies, terrorism is considered a reasoned response to political injustice and humiliation. Numerous authors thereby purport to examine the emotional responses of terrorists, but then rescue terrorist emotions from any implication that terrorists are driven by non-rational reactions. Though some analysts conspicuously outline a host of non-rational feelings and fantasies--not to mention paranoid and even delusional responses--authors such as Stem, Robins and Post, Atran and Berko, Wolf, and Addad assert unequivocally that terrorists are not pathological. (24)

One given in the war against terrorism seems to be that suicide attackers are evil, deluded or homicidal misfits who thrive in poverty, ignorance and anarchy.... As logical as the poverty-breeds-terrorism argument may seem, study after study shows that suicide attackers and their supporters are rarely ignorant or impoverished. Nor are they crazed, cowardly, apathetic or asocial. If terrorist groups relied on such maladjusted people, "they couldn't produce effective and reliable killers.... (25) This argument admirably avoids the unfortunate tendency to stigmatize those we find criminal or aberrant as mentally ill, negating their humanity and deligitimating their causes as the deliria of mental defectives.

Such evasion consequently ignores the implications of its own evidence, however, and often renders such studies contradictory, shallow, and facile. The quote above also conflates ignorance, impoverishment, cowardice, and insanity, as though mental illness were a malady only of the indigent and craven. According to the above assumptions, proof of sanity resides in the notion that since terrorists are not misfits and maladjusted people, they must be devoid of any form of psychopathology or any other non-rational motivation. The explicit proof is that effective killers cannot be mentally ill, since they would then be...

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