Science exposes the myth of suicide bombers
The article was originally titled Murdercide
20.4.2006
By: Michael Shermer, Scientific American
The photo is from a website in memory of Assaf Tzur, a high school student who was killed in an attack on route 37 in Haifa - The bus was taken to a performance designed to illustrate the issue of terrorism, and is shown throughout the US
"You should be very proud of me. It's an honor, and you will see the results, and everyone will be happy... whatever you do, put your head down with genius, out of a goal, never remain without a goal, put it in front of you and always think: 'For what.'"
- The farewell letter left to his wife Ziad Jarrah, the terrorist who shot down Flight 11 in a field in Pennsylvania on September 93.
suicide
Science exposes the myth of suicide bombers
The police have an expression to describe the actions of people who put themselves in circumstances that force the police to shoot them: "suicide by a policeman" according to the nature of this language, suicide terrorists commit "suicide by murder", so I suggest calling their actions "suicide": killing people with malicious intent through suicide.
The reason we need semantic precision is that the topic of suicide has attracted the attention of scientists who understand that it is the product of two states unrelated to suicide: a state of ineffectiveness and a state of detachment. Thomas Joyner, a psychologist from Florida State University, wrote in his eye-opening scientific essay "Why People Kill Themselves" (Harvard Press, 2006): "People seek their own death when two basic needs disappear from their lives: the need to belong or connect with others and the need to feel that we are effective in our relationship with others or in our ability to influence them."
According to this theory, the people who chose to jump from the Twin Towers and not burn to death in them were not suicidal, neither were the passengers on Flight 93 who bravely fought the hijackers for control of the plane that eventually crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, nor were the hijackers who flew the planes into the buildings.
Science contradicts the propaganda that suicide bombers are poor, uneducated, alienated or disturbed. Mark Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist at the Institute for Foreign Policy Research, found in his research that three-quarters of the 400 al-Qaeda members he examined came from upper or middle class. More than that, he says, "the vast majority of them, about 90% of them, came from warm and unharmed families, and 63% studied in colleges, compared to 6-5 percent as is customary in the third world. These are the best and brightest in the society they come from." Nor were they unemployed or without a family. "Far from that, 73% were married and the vast majority had children... three-quarters had a full or part-time profession. They include engineers, architects and civil engineers, and especially scientists. Very few studied humanitarian subjects, and surprisingly only a few had a religious background."
Joyner hypothesizes that a necessary condition for suicide is getting used to fearing the pain involved in the act. How do the terrorist organizations cause this condition to be met among their recruits? One way is psychological reinforcement. Ami Fedhzour, a researcher in political science from the University of Haifa, wrote in his book "Terror through Suicide" (Politi Press, 2005) that the celebrations surrounding the suicide attacks and their commemoration that began in the 80s changed an entire culture and turned it into a culture that worships martyrs and suicides. Today, suicide bombers appear on posters like sports stars.
Another method of control is "group dynamics." Says Sageman: "The future terrorists join the jihad through social ties that existed before with people who are already terrorists or who decide to join as a group. In 65% of the cases, previous friendships played an important role in the process." These personal connections help overcome the natural tendency to avoid self-sacrifice. "The suicide terrorists in Spain are another perfect example. Seven terrorists share one apartment and one saying: 'Tonight we are going to die, guys.' You can't betray your friends, so you join." It is likely that each individual would not have done so.
If so, one of the methods to reduce suicide attacks is to target dangerous groups that influence individuals, such as al-Qaeda. Another method, says economist Alan B. Kruger of Princeton University, is to increase civil liberties in countries that nurture terrorist groups. Analyzing the US State Department's terrorism data, Kruger discovered that "countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, from which relatively many terrorists have emerged, are economically prosperous countries, but their citizens lack freedoms. The likelihood that suicide bombers came from poor countries with a tradition of protecting individual freedom is low. It is therefore clear that freedom to assemble and demonstrate peacefully without interference from the government greatly helps to provide an alternative to terrorism."
Next let the liberty bells ring.
A call to Muslim immigrants to accept the values of secular societies
From the Mamari website
A reformist columnist in the daily "Al-Ethad" published in the United Arab Emirates, Yusuf Ibrahim, calls on Muslims abroad to recognize the secularity of the countries they immigrated to and not to try to impose their Islamic values on the secular majority.[1] Below are parts of his article:
"An important thing happened recently in Australia and made us ask ourselves who we are and what kind of attitude we should have towards others? When foreigners come to Islamic countries to work, live, or visit, we insist that they respect our Islamic and Arab traditions. Also, we expect the foreign workers in our countries to respect the customs of our religion and sometimes we even go overboard and require their wives to cover their heads with a veil, and require them not to eat in public during the days of Ramadan and to refrain from eating pork, drinking wine, etc. [...] In all Islamic countries, anyone who who is accused of hurting the feelings of the residents [...]
It is the right of Muslims to impose Islamic values on their peoples and countries, as long as they constitute the majority. The problem is what happens when the Muslims are not the majority, similar to the situation in America, Europe, Australia and some Asian countries […] Are the Muslims who emigrate abroad able to insist on applying the laws of the Islamic Sharia to themselves and others, even in cases where it is clear that they are a minority? Are they able to challenge the prevailing secular cultures in Western societies, or oppose the desire of these societies to separate religion from the state? […] In secular countries do Muslims have the right to build mosques, teach the Koran or support the religious schools? Must a Muslim have the right to marry more than one wife in America, Russia, Europe and China? Can they impose the punishments listed in the Koran there? […]
In principle, the whole matter boils down to our views in relation to others, to the question of whether we believe that others have rights or not and to the question of whether Islam is a religion capable of existing in a secular environment without condescending to others, especially in regards to civil laws in Western democracies.
The matter returns us once again to Australia. Last week, the conservative Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, summoned to his office a large group of Muslim clerics from the Muslim community living on the continent and presented them with an ultimatum. He said that Australia, which is fundamentally a land of immigrants, demands from everyone who stays there [...] 'full loyalty' to the secular Australian constitution and not to any other law that prevails in the countries from which the immigrants came [...] Fearing that the Prime Minister's words are not clear enough, added his deputy and minister The current treasurer, Peter Castillo, that Muslim clerics must adhere to secular laws and if they do not, they must leave Australia [...]
The issue of 'live and let others live' has become an existential issue. In accordance with the current democratic values and other values, most non-Muslims live in systems based on the separation of religion and state [...] since it is unlikely that the situation will change [...] it will be necessary for our Muslim brothers living abroad to live according to shared values with people who prefer secularism. The Muslims living abroad cannot assume that they are able to impose their values, just as we do not allow the Christians living among us to impose their values on us [...]"
