Xerxes post on extremism got me thinking a bit, and I went off on a tangent, so here I am.
Firstly, this is controversial, so let's keep it civil, please. We're all entitled to our opinions.
Secondly, before I present my thoughts, I'd like to state I don't really know anything about the cause and origin of Islamic terrorism in the modern world, at least, no more than any Western citizen who reads a few newspapers and has an inquisitive mind would know. I'm not a scholar of islamic history and culture, or a counter terrorism expert.
For this reason, I'm going to have to draw most of my examples from the stuff I've learned about the kamikaze during my degree. Now, this is pretty controversial in itself, and I could really offend some Japanese people by suggesting a link between the kamikaze (who were a weapon of war used to kill soldiers) and modern terrorists who target civilians in suicide attacks. But that's not the point here, the point is, why is someone willing to blow themselves up to kill?
Here are some of the opinions I've heard. Of course, they all tie together, but I'll try and express this when it crops up.
They are brainwashed into doing it/their ideology is focused on doing it.
I'm not sure about this one. There's no denying someone needs an ideological reason to saccrifice their lives, but perhaps brainwashing is a bit too far. Most Kamikaze pilots, I know, did not display any evidence of brainwashing. A cursory glance at their diaries or the quotes attributed them do not hold up to this. They were often reluctant, and prone to indecision and even panic attacks. One man, for example, shortly after confirming his desire to proceed with his mission, is reported to have broken down, screaming 'Mother! The navy is trying to kill me!' Another wrote in his diary that the reason he was conducting his mission was because he had been 'ordered to.' The religious propaganda surrounding Kamikaze pilots, and their rebirth as kami following death, also doesn't seem to have had any significant motivational effects.
Of course, we can't automatically apply this to Islamic terrorists. There is a specific ideology within Islam, but it could hardly be called a brainwashing influence, any more so than any other world religion which features violence in its holy texts (basically all.) There has to be another reason why ordinary Muslims, growing up in normal muslim families from all over the world, volunteer to kill themselves, and I don't think the answer is going to be found (at least not totally, I won't deny religion has an effect) in the ideology of Islam itself.
Since the dawn of human history, there have been people of a thousand different religions and varying levels of zeal prepared to saccrifice themselves for a cause. I don't think islam has any exceptional characteristics which make it prone to produce martyrs of this kind.
Muslims are oppressed, and have no way of fighting back save through self saccrifice.
Suicide bombs have been referred to in the past as 'weapons of the weak', presenting the idea that willingness to die for a cause is created by a supreme feeling of powerlessness, desperation, or other such factors.
I feel there is a relevent factor here, but I don't think it is the main one.
The act of suicide bombing certain implies desparation, but I don't think that explains everything. It's easy to argue 'Muslims feel oppressed by the West (note I use 'west' as a very broad term, intending to include countries like Israel which have been targetted yet are not truly 'western') and the only way they can express this powerlessness is through the desperate act of martyrdom.' Yet there are oppressed peoples and groups the world over which systematically fail to produce a similar level of willingness to self saccrifice.
I think it's fair to say that desperation does occasionally overide self preservation. The very first suicide attacks of world war 2 were actually independent actions carried out by pilots for whom death was imminent in any case. This was not even unique to Japan, pilots from all sides did, on occasions, intentionally commit suicide by ramming enemy targets, but, with the exception of a few cases, this was generally as a response to the certainty of imminant death. When a person is desperate, hungry, or poor, the normal barriers of self preservation can begin to corrode, I think. But I don't think it's enough to explain everything.
Suicide bombings are a supremely effective psychological weapon.
This is my favourite, and I think it's the one I'll generally side with.
The military intention of a suicide attack is not merely to kill. From a military standpoint, the Kamikaze was supremely successful compared to 'conventional' air attacks with a similar number of planes. But this wasn't it's purpose, and this wasn't why it was used. The intention was to indicate abseloute defiance and unwillingness to surrender, and it worked. Perhaps a little too effectively, given the horrible consequences of that assumption.
There are few things more terrifying to humans than death, and few things more important than self preservation. The idea, therefore, that someone would willingly forego self preservation in order to kill us is naturally a terrifying prospect.
I don't believe in a coherent organization called Al Quaeda, because I think it's a naive concept that there's this huge, well organized secret society spanning the entire world with every member answering, ultimately, to osama bin laden. That belongs in a James Bond movie. I believe, from the evidence presented to me, that al Quaeda is a cellular organization, with each cell acting independently, but occasionally cooperating with others. In fact, I'm not even sure there's an organization called al Quaeda at all.. The term could simply be a badge applied to any terrorist cell sharing a similar ideology to that of Bin Laden, and could not denote any actual links or communication.
However, I do believe there are people, perhaps not cat stroking supervillains, but people, who feel they are fighting a war (and of course, whose to say they're not?) It's a desperate war, fought by citizens of weak, impoverished nations, against the most powerful and influential nations on earth.
Hence, ultimately, we have the same situation which created the Kamikaze. We have a war between two parties, one of which cannot win on a conventional level. Thus, suicide bombers can be used to signal a powerful gesture of defiance.
I don't think suicide bombers ultimately do what they do out of desperation, or even religious fantaticism. I think those are both parts of it, but the ultimate answer, for me, is that they're doing it because someone has told them to. Because it's what's expected of them in the circumstances.
Sorry for the long post, but I hope you found my thoughts interesting. As I said, I'm not very informed, and I'm not very authoritive. So if you disagree, or think there's something I've not considered, please say so.
As I said, this is a sensitive issue, so let's keep it civil.
Also, I have proofread.. but I'm very tired, so sorry about the grammar.
Firstly, this is controversial, so let's keep it civil, please. We're all entitled to our opinions.
Secondly, before I present my thoughts, I'd like to state I don't really know anything about the cause and origin of Islamic terrorism in the modern world, at least, no more than any Western citizen who reads a few newspapers and has an inquisitive mind would know. I'm not a scholar of islamic history and culture, or a counter terrorism expert.
For this reason, I'm going to have to draw most of my examples from the stuff I've learned about the kamikaze during my degree. Now, this is pretty controversial in itself, and I could really offend some Japanese people by suggesting a link between the kamikaze (who were a weapon of war used to kill soldiers) and modern terrorists who target civilians in suicide attacks. But that's not the point here, the point is, why is someone willing to blow themselves up to kill?
Here are some of the opinions I've heard. Of course, they all tie together, but I'll try and express this when it crops up.
They are brainwashed into doing it/their ideology is focused on doing it.
I'm not sure about this one. There's no denying someone needs an ideological reason to saccrifice their lives, but perhaps brainwashing is a bit too far. Most Kamikaze pilots, I know, did not display any evidence of brainwashing. A cursory glance at their diaries or the quotes attributed them do not hold up to this. They were often reluctant, and prone to indecision and even panic attacks. One man, for example, shortly after confirming his desire to proceed with his mission, is reported to have broken down, screaming 'Mother! The navy is trying to kill me!' Another wrote in his diary that the reason he was conducting his mission was because he had been 'ordered to.' The religious propaganda surrounding Kamikaze pilots, and their rebirth as kami following death, also doesn't seem to have had any significant motivational effects.
Of course, we can't automatically apply this to Islamic terrorists. There is a specific ideology within Islam, but it could hardly be called a brainwashing influence, any more so than any other world religion which features violence in its holy texts (basically all.) There has to be another reason why ordinary Muslims, growing up in normal muslim families from all over the world, volunteer to kill themselves, and I don't think the answer is going to be found (at least not totally, I won't deny religion has an effect) in the ideology of Islam itself.
Since the dawn of human history, there have been people of a thousand different religions and varying levels of zeal prepared to saccrifice themselves for a cause. I don't think islam has any exceptional characteristics which make it prone to produce martyrs of this kind.
Muslims are oppressed, and have no way of fighting back save through self saccrifice.
Suicide bombs have been referred to in the past as 'weapons of the weak', presenting the idea that willingness to die for a cause is created by a supreme feeling of powerlessness, desperation, or other such factors.
I feel there is a relevent factor here, but I don't think it is the main one.
The act of suicide bombing certain implies desparation, but I don't think that explains everything. It's easy to argue 'Muslims feel oppressed by the West (note I use 'west' as a very broad term, intending to include countries like Israel which have been targetted yet are not truly 'western') and the only way they can express this powerlessness is through the desperate act of martyrdom.' Yet there are oppressed peoples and groups the world over which systematically fail to produce a similar level of willingness to self saccrifice.
I think it's fair to say that desperation does occasionally overide self preservation. The very first suicide attacks of world war 2 were actually independent actions carried out by pilots for whom death was imminent in any case. This was not even unique to Japan, pilots from all sides did, on occasions, intentionally commit suicide by ramming enemy targets, but, with the exception of a few cases, this was generally as a response to the certainty of imminant death. When a person is desperate, hungry, or poor, the normal barriers of self preservation can begin to corrode, I think. But I don't think it's enough to explain everything.
Suicide bombings are a supremely effective psychological weapon.
This is my favourite, and I think it's the one I'll generally side with.
The military intention of a suicide attack is not merely to kill. From a military standpoint, the Kamikaze was supremely successful compared to 'conventional' air attacks with a similar number of planes. But this wasn't it's purpose, and this wasn't why it was used. The intention was to indicate abseloute defiance and unwillingness to surrender, and it worked. Perhaps a little too effectively, given the horrible consequences of that assumption.
There are few things more terrifying to humans than death, and few things more important than self preservation. The idea, therefore, that someone would willingly forego self preservation in order to kill us is naturally a terrifying prospect.
I don't believe in a coherent organization called Al Quaeda, because I think it's a naive concept that there's this huge, well organized secret society spanning the entire world with every member answering, ultimately, to osama bin laden. That belongs in a James Bond movie. I believe, from the evidence presented to me, that al Quaeda is a cellular organization, with each cell acting independently, but occasionally cooperating with others. In fact, I'm not even sure there's an organization called al Quaeda at all.. The term could simply be a badge applied to any terrorist cell sharing a similar ideology to that of Bin Laden, and could not denote any actual links or communication.
However, I do believe there are people, perhaps not cat stroking supervillains, but people, who feel they are fighting a war (and of course, whose to say they're not?) It's a desperate war, fought by citizens of weak, impoverished nations, against the most powerful and influential nations on earth.
Hence, ultimately, we have the same situation which created the Kamikaze. We have a war between two parties, one of which cannot win on a conventional level. Thus, suicide bombers can be used to signal a powerful gesture of defiance.
I don't think suicide bombers ultimately do what they do out of desperation, or even religious fantaticism. I think those are both parts of it, but the ultimate answer, for me, is that they're doing it because someone has told them to. Because it's what's expected of them in the circumstances.
Sorry for the long post, but I hope you found my thoughts interesting. As I said, I'm not very informed, and I'm not very authoritive. So if you disagree, or think there's something I've not considered, please say so.
As I said, this is a sensitive issue, so let's keep it civil.
Also, I have proofread.. but I'm very tired, so sorry about the grammar.