| Submit your comments on this article |
| Terror Networks & Islam |
| What motivates Suicide Bombers? |
| 2005-07-18 |
| Everyone seems to be assuming that the London suicide bombers and suicide bombers in general are motivated by hate of the West and non-muslims, mixed in with despair at the situation that they personally and Muslims in general find themselves. The debate on causes, root and otherwise, is predicated on these assumed motivations. I say assumed because there is no real evidence to back these contentions and to be frank, they look to me like projection - the commentator is imagining what would be needed to drive him/herself to such acts. A few years ago I was in the unsual position of observing groups of muslims and where I could ask myself 'What makes Muslims different?' The conclusions I came to lead me to think suicide bombers are motivated by something quite different and far more rational. About 5 years ago I was hospitalized in the Singapore General Hospital for well over a month. I shared a room with three other patients (not always the same three). The unit I was in dealt with a condition that Malays are particularly prone to. So, most of the time, there was me, a Malay and a Chinese in the room. There are a few things you need to understand for this story to make sense. Spend any time in hospital and you rapidly get extremely bored. I found I was watching Chinese historical dramas and Malay game shows (without subtitles), languages I don't understand. While, Singaporeans have a reputation as abiders by rules, I have never in my entire life come across a set of rules so comprehensively ignored as the hospital visiting rules. Large groups of visitors would arrive any time of the day or night, some even stayed in the hospital room. A family of three camped in the room for over a week while the father was in the hospital bed. You may think that being a Caucasian in Asia makes you stand out. In fact the opposite happens. You get ignored. Its like people edit you out of the scene. Many years ago I studied psychology and I still retain the habit of observing how people behave in certain situations. The groups were always segregated by race. Only Malays visited a Malay and only Chinese visited a Chinese. All Malays in Singapore are Muslims and almost no Chinese are. It was fairly normal to have a large group of Malays and a large group of Chinese in the room at the same time and how they behaved was strikingly different. The Chinese treated it like a social occasion, an opportunity to catch up with people and chat. They often brought food (for themselves not the patient) and their kids. The Malays by contrast were much more formal and functioned as a group where each knew their position and kept to it. There was none of the spontaneous social interaction of the Chinese. So what has this got to do with suicide bombers? The conclusion I reached is there was a very strong sense of social order in Malay and hence Muslim societies (which other experiences has reinforced). Each person has a well defined role and expected contribution. The phrase that came to mind was 'social cohesion'. The group is valued more highly than the individual, unlike the Chinese who are much more like Westerners in valuing the individual. In such an environment the notion of sacrificing oneself for the group, becomes more natural (as the group is more important than the indivdual). So when I read statements about Islamic 'militants' 'defending Islam', I think that is their real motivation. They don't hate us, nor do they feel despair at their own situation. What they feel is threatened by us - our mores, ideas, entertainments and culture in general, and that threat is existential. While we talk about cultural clash as a fairly abstract concept, to Muslims it's real and immediate. What they want most of all is to keep us away. The suicide bomber is sacrificing himself in order to protect the group by increasing the seperation from our society and its corruptive influence. Not only does this makes more sense to me than the hatred and despair thesis, it is also more rational because it is likely to work. This analysis leads me to conclude that attempts to integrate and assimilate Muslims will result in more suicide bombing. Its not the answer, at least in the medium term. It also leads me to conclude that societies with large Muslim minorities have a serious intractable problem that can only be solved by physically removing them. This will require that the social problems from Muslim minorities will have to get a lot worse before the hurdle of forced relocation can be crossed. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #12 What motivates suicide bombers? Well, shit for brains as a starter. |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2005-07-18 21:26 |
| #11 Lack of education (in general) among suicide bombers ... also has a lot to do with it. That's patently false. There's a study floating around that states that something on the order of 4/5 of suicide bombers are college educated, most in the west (you can guess the conclusions drawn thereafter). That same study goes on to conclude that the profile of a typical homicidal jihadi bomber is: college educated (probably in the non-Muslim west), comes from a family & background that's not particularly religious, comes from a family that we'd consider middle class (wealthy or very wealthy by local standards), etc. These are not poor, hopeless, desperate, unwashed masses who've been misled by zealots, they're generally cold, rational, well-educated, folks living comfortable lives who make conscious decisions that they believe will further a cause they believe in very much. The old liberal canards of poverty and oppression just don't play here. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-07-18 21:19 |
| #10 I've also seen reports that some parents are proud of their suicide bombing offspring. Certainly, large parts of some(?) muslim societies agree with the tactic. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-18 20:07 |
| #9 Phil, if your thesis were correct, then the parents of suicide bombers would have nothing but positive things to say. However, I've read several accounts of Palestinian parents who were outraged that their children were convinced/coerced to become suicide bombers. In these cases, either someone did not know their place or didn't give a damn. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2005-07-18 19:26 |
| #8 There also is the widespread problem with male sexual identity, and sexual abuse aftermath, among the younger suicide bomber crowd. And there are issues stemming personal ego-centric motivations of personal "honor" in association with being "macho," attempts at reclaiming identity, (or of, essentially, being awarded a new one) that have little to do with "protecting" the larger social group, although they may pay lip service to that concept, and yes, some may believe they are doing that. Lack of education (in general) among suicide bombers and the clerics promising sexual fulfillment in Moslem paradise also has a lot to do with it. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2005-07-18 19:16 |
| #7 They caught one the other day, and he was high as a kite. In other cases, the bad guys have tricked mentally retarded individuals into carrying bombs. Don't discount the prevalence of coercion, by drugs and other means. |
| Posted by: Mike 2005-07-18 18:02 |
| #6 I think suicide bombers are the tip of a much bigger iceberg and whether a particular terrorist knows they are going to kill themselves or not is immaterial, since we know suicide bombers do exist. My point was that an awful lot of people are presumimg irrational motivations for these people and developing prescriptions based on these presumed motivations, which in my view will make the terrorism problem worse. To a degree I agree with Phil F. that assimilation is the answer. What I am questioning is 'Are we prepared for what will happen on the road to get there?' Or 'Is it worth the pain of trying to assimilate a group that violently resists assimilation?' In general, I'm an optimist and think for most problems there is at least one good solution. However, for unassimilated moslem minorities I think there is no good solution and the prescriptions proposed are based on a fundamental mis-understanding of the problem, and as a result the problem will get worse. And finally, TechCentral had a good article a couple of weeks back about how people want to believe that there is always a solution and if a problem is not getting solved it's because evil people are thwarting the solution. Whereas the reality is some problems are difficult and intractable without a good solution. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-18 17:35 |
| #5 Phil_b, what's the source? Its my own personal experience. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-18 16:26 |
| #4 Do suicide bombers use timers? The London terrorists did... they must have thought they were on a Madrid-style mission. |
| Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) 2005-07-18 15:03 |
| #3 Phil_b, what's the source? |
| Posted by: gromgorru 2005-07-18 11:42 |
| #2 Actually, I think it takes a whole chain of motivations to create a suicide bomber. first, the potential bomber has to be a believer in a cause second, the potential bomber has to believe that his/her own death will be a glorious stoke for that cause third, the potential bomber needs emotional coersion (or at least support) from a cohort group - maybe they need role models too probably it is even more complex than this |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-07-18 11:03 |
#1
Well, it seems to me that assimilation is the social tactic that Europe has not tried, and found wanting.
This sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy if you ask me. Bleah. | ||
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-07-18 09:08 |