Understanding and Defusing Human Bombs: The Palestinian Case and the Pursuit of a Martyrdom Complex

Understanding and Defusing Human Bombs: The Palestinian Case and the Pursuit of a Martyrdom Complex1 - A Working Paper - Presented to: The Panel on “Challenges and Opportunities in Combating Transnational Terrorism” International Studies Association, 2004 Nichole Argo, M.A. Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (Tel Aviv University) Preventive Defense Project (Stanford University) nargo@stanfordalumni.org +972 2 563 7116 ABSTRACT This study seeks to ground an old question—What are the motivational relationships and processes driving individuals to self-sacrifice and murder?—in a new unit of analysis: community. Interviews with preempted Palestinian suicide bombers and their social networks point to a 2-phase mechanism. Phase I, the pre-decision period, is influenced by community resistance which can, in time, transform notions of risk, loss, and sacrifice into symbolic capital, i.e. an economy of honor. Within a strongly internalized social identity, the bomber commits to the idea of doing a mission. Phase II, mission preparation, shifts from the dynamics of will to dynamics of focus. Ties to this world are minimized; thoughts and acts are channeled to the mission and afterlife. Policy recommendations include political and military tools for dismantling terrorists’ greatest weapon—symbolic capital. 1 This paper constitutes the first write-up of interview findings. Thanks to Brenna Powell for her helpful comments on the initial layout. All critical feedback is welcome. I. INTRODUCTION The Policy-Importance of Martyr Motivations The use of human bombs has become a preferred tactic in weak-against-strong insurgencies: over two decades, the raw number of worldwide suicide attacks has shot up, while the annual total of worldwide terror incidents has decreased by almost half. The tactic is incredibly lethal, and often targeted at civilians: while human bombs accounted for only 3% of terror attacks between 1980-2001, they were responsible for half of all deaths due to terrorism (note that these figures exclude September 11 because of its anomolous death toll).2 While some analysts argue that the tactical embrace of suicide terror (ST) is unlikely to spread the way policymakers fear it might,3 there can be no doubt that its existence at present constitutes a major threat to the world today. Furthermore, terrorists themselves recognize it as their most efficient and effective means of influence, a great military equalizer against democracies whose counter-insurgency hands are bound by humanitarian law, casualty-averse polities, and the need for international legitimacy.4 Traditional concepts of deterrence, premised as they were on the will of the enemy to survive, offer us little in our quest to meet the threat. The most common course of action, seen as the obvious root of the problem by governments, has been to root out perpetrating organizations. Unfortunately, dismantling terrorist capabilities to prevent ST is a challenge unlike any western militaries have faced.5 Loose networks, informal financial transfers, local cell structures, and the camouflage or even support of local civilians are formidable obstacles to terrorist identification, apprehension or decapitation. Indeed, almost three years of a U.S. “war on terror” have failed to meet several basic military objectives (i.e. preempting major international attacks, arresting top al-Qaeda leadership, etc.). In Israel, the IDF frequently wins battles to root out what it identifies as terrorist infrastructure, yet it is far from clear that these military victories yield long-term success.6 Assassinations, closures, collective punishment and even area seiges have not eradicated bus bombings or terror networks; in fact, recent statistical studies within the Israeli national security apparatus show that the number of attempted attacks have increased with collective, stronghanded counter-terror policies.7 In short, there seem to be two take-aways. First, in the war against terror at least, military victory has ceased to mean success. In fact, under conditions of protracted group conflict— asymmetric nationalistic and/or territorial campaigns against an oppressor/occupier—wars 2 These figures belong to Robert Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Bombers,” The International Herald Tribune, Op-ed, 10/23/03. 3 Stathis Kalyvas and Ignacio Sanchez-Cuenca situate its appeal in the type of communal support enjoyed by any particular resistance organization. See Kalyvas and Sanchez-Cuenca, “Accounting for the Absence of Suicide Missions,” unpublished paper, 2003. 4 Pape notes that ST is most frequently exacted against democracies. 5 See Ariel Levite and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, “The Case for Discriminate Force,” Survival 44, n.4 (2002), pp.81-88. 6 Some analysts consider them provocations, arguing that “preemptive attacks” supply continual recruits for Hamas, Fateh and Islamic Jihad. Stephen David considers this amongst various viewpoints in “Fatal Choices,” Policy Paper, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, 2002. 7 Interview with national security official, anonymous, 1/2004. 1 against capabilities seem to surface new terrorist infrastructures. Every “terrorist” comes from a home, a network and a community whose support, however ambivalent, can be galvanized as easily by a military and/or status infliction as it can by the originating cause.8 One way to think of these communities is as concentric circles around the terrorist, seen in Figure 1. Unfortunately, as this paper will argue, it is in just these settings (of protracted group conflicts/threats) that the elements of a martyrdom complex are likely to be mobilized. Figure 1. Concentric Circles Surrounding the Terrorist Social Body (local, nat’l, ethnic) Family/Peers Perpetrator Second, and relatedly, within the terrorist arsenal, where the most highly advanced weapon requires $150 and a body,9 motivation has become synonymous with materiel. One reserve soldier in the IDF spoke to this after his routine in Jenin, Operation Defensive Shield, 2002: ... “there’s no way to break the system of terror in the West Bank, because the system is now in the minds of the people, in the minds of the teenagers, and what we’re doing by this operation is giving them more reasons to build that system. The government talks about how many guns and bomb factories and suicide belts it’s capturing in the offensive, of how we are going to break the terrorist infrastructure. But what infrastructure? I think the most terrifying thing here—and maybe it’s something that a lot of people don’t want to see—is that there’s very little of an infrastructure to break.”10 For western governments and their militaries, destroying capabilities to prevent terror and save lives will not be enough. For academics, this means that efforts to understand organizational goals, structure and dynamics, while critical,11 are also not sufficient. Effective counter-terror 8 Majorities in seven of eight Muslim populations surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project expressed fears that the U.S. could become a military threat to their country. Majorities in France, Germany and Spain hold a somewhat to very unfavorable view of the U.S. Osama bin Laden received a vote of confidence to the most trusted world leader in Palestine, and highly trusted in Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco and Pakistan. Bortin, Meg. "In War's Wake, Hostility and Mistrust: Polls Show U.S. Isolation." International Herald Tribune, 4 June 2003, pp. 1,6. 9 See Nassra Hassan, “An Arsenal of Believers,” The New Yorker, 2001. 10 NYT, January. 11 This can also be a fascinating inquiry, locating sponsoring organizations at the crossroads of manipulating and capitalizing on popular sentiments. It is, however, outside of the scope of this study. See John Elster, who looks at individual and organizational motivations in “Suicide Missions: Motivations and Beliefs,” to be included in Eva Meyersson Milgrom, ed. Suicide Bombing from an Interdisciplinary Perspective, Princeton UP, 2004; also, Kalyvas and Sanchez-Cuenca, “Accounting for the Absence of Suicide Missions,” in Milgrom, ed., 2004. Also, Mia Bloom examines organizational motivations in the Palestinian case in particular with “Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share and Outbidding,” unpublished chapter. 2 policies will require an understanding of the concentric circles surrounding the terrorist, and the thresholds by which individuals pass between circles. This paper is the first step in a quest to develop a martyrdom complex, a diagnostic mechanism tracing the transformation of social norms (whereby loss/risk, normally a negative valence, becomes positive—a form of social capital) in communities resisting stronger powers. What Roger Petersen portends, and what my own research the past 9 months intuits, is a participatory mechanism.12 This mechanism occurs when events create a paradigmatic role that transforms risk into benefit. The most obvious and effective role a person can play is clearly outlined; to not perform it can become an emotional burden, and in a dense social community (a lot of face to face contact) where the example continually surfaces, a recurring one. This paper is divided into five parts. Section II introduces the Palestinian case, as well as my interview design. Section III examines past approaches to the study of human bombs— largely a linear, causal enterprise whose theories have been consentually rejected by most analysts today. Data from my own interviews is strewn throughout, and I offer an analysis of where linear variables—even their taxonomy—veer off course. Section IV expounds upon interview findings, specifically the expressive purposes of martyrdom; it introduces principles of a martyrdom complex, and outlines additional research directions. Section V discusses policy relevance and applicability across cases, delineating concrete ideas for mitigating the social effects of counter-terror campaigns in regions of protracted or developing group animosity. II. RESEARCH DESIGN The Palestinian Case On April 16, 1993, at a roadside café at Mehola Junction, Hamas operative Tamam Nabulsi drove a van into a parked bus and detonated it. This was the first suicide terrorist attack in Israel by a Palestinian terrorist group. From 1993 until 30 September 2000 there were a total of 23 suicide attacks, or .24/month.13 The first year of the intifada, suicide attacks perpetrated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, jumped to 2.6/month. When al Aqsa joined the campaign in January 2002, things grew even more violent—averaging 4.9 attacks/month. Since then and until April 2003, Palestinians have attempted and carried out more than 250 suicide attacks:14 Over 150 of the suicide terrorists were Hamas members, at least 80 were members of Islamic Jihad, more than 39 were members of the Fatah movement, at least 5 were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and three were members of the Forces of Palestinian Popular Resistance. As of April 2003, 198 of the terrorists had come from the West Bank, 54 were residents of the Gaza Strip, seven lived in East Jerusalem or within the Green Line, and two made their way to Tel Aviv from Great 12 Petersen identified a “pseudo-martyrdom complex” in his analysis of Lithuanian resistance against German and Russian occupation during the mid-20th century. See Petersen, Resistance and Rebellion (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001). 13 See Bruce Hoffman, "Suicide Terrorism: The Tamil and Palestinian Movements," unpublished paper, August 2003. Figurs were taken from the Haifa University National Security Studies Center database. 14 The number of “successful” attacks to date stands at 124+. Israeli ministries differ on the exact number due to definitional differences of suicide bombing. 3 Britain. One-third of the suicide terrorists were university students or graduates - a distribution representing a considerably higher level than the average education of the Palestinian population as a whole. All of the bombers (including seven women) have been Muslim Arabs.15 The Palestinian case is interesting because it embodies a social transformation in the embrace of suicide bombing. The rise in public support for istash’had operations (suicide bomb operations) is shocking, having at times tripled as compared to pre-intifada polls. Interviews with preempted bombers and their families could surface useful insights into how a “culture of martyrdom” comes to be social fact. Interviews were conducted between November 2002 and November 2003 with 15 preempted Palestinian bombers (in Israeli prisons), 3 would-be bombers, 2 senders, and their related communities. The bomber demography was as follows: • • • • • Male, age 16 - 37 6 Hamas, 5 PIJ, 5 Fatah, 2 PFLP 5 of the preempted bombers were caught, 5 sought to detonate and experienced a malfunction, and 5 arrived to the scene of attack and did not complete the mission. About 1/3 were born to refugee families 14 single, 2 married, 2 engaged The first part of the interviews included a standardized set of questions (measured 0-1, or via scaled response) testing popular causal hypotheses re the motivations of a human bomb: wealth, depression, status in community, loss/revenge, institutional coercion, previous resistance investment, prison experience, torture, and religion. The second section gathered detailed recollection of the days or weeks spanning predecision to attempted execution or capture. “Details” included social ritual (rallies, funerals, dinners, prayer..), daily schedules, contact with sponsoring organization and/or the decision to confide to friends/relatives about the mission, as well as the individual’s thoughts and feelings. A third section of each interview sought to inform analysis at the community level, asking interviewees and their networks to map social and status relationships in their communities. It sought evidence of strong communities—dense face-to-face networks that support norms of reciprocity—via open-ended questions. Specifically, it sought to: a) gauge thresholds for community support of suicide bombing according to time and precipitating events; b) identify resistance roles and measure collective participation in resistance (nonviolent as well as violent…non-violent actions serve as focal points reinforcing norms of sacrifice); and, c) identify social and organizational responses to Israeli counter-terror actions in or near their community.16 15 See Shaul Kimhi and Shmuel Evan, “Who Are the Palestinian Suicide Terrorists,” Strategic Assessment v.6, n.2, Jaffee Center for Security Studies, Tel Aviv University, September 2003. 16 Phase II of data collection will link the findings discussed within this paper to observable social structures. From April – July 2004, while attempting to hold constant variables such as perceived threat (numbers of IDF casualties, lock-down, etc.), organizational capacity (strength of terror organization within each village), and elite (local elite) 4 III. MOTIVATIONS DEBUNKED Bombers as weak, irrational fanatics Since 1983, when Hezbollah first deployed human bombs against French and U.S. forces in Lebanon, efforts have been made to understand the type of person that would blow themselves up. In general, explanations have focused on one or more elements that would temporarily remove someone from their right mind; how, after all, could someone abrogate from the impulse to life? Separate, but relevant to other cohorts of terrorists, is how could someone intentionally take the lives of innocent civilians along with them? Today, analysts are in accord on one thing—there is no typical profile for the suicide bomber. Recent statistical and qualitative analyses have debunked most single-variable explanations for suicide bombing (i.e. poverty, pathology, depression, revenge, etc.),17 with a couple of interesting exceptions: Alan Krueger found that political oppression serves as a likely predictor for suicide bombing to take root, and Basel Salameh, an economist at Kansas State, finds interesting correlations between economic well-being and violent activism, and between number of Palestinians killed and number of attacks against Israelis.18 As for profiling, however, most of today’s bombers are “normal” individuals within their communities. Faced with this news, analysts seem unable to offer a positive explanation for what is a growing phenomenon. I walk through past hypotheses because they still largely drive popular assumptions today, but also because a thorough assessment of why they veer off course is a good prelude to introducing a new mechanism. Psychopathology In many ways, what began as psychologist Ariel Merari’s thesis in the late 1980s still dominates public perceptions. To test it then, Merari interviewed preempted Palestinian bombers incitement towards martyrdom, I will analyze communities which have generated a high, medium and low number of bombers (Nablus- 20%, Hebron/Balata – 8%, and Ramallah - 1.5%) according to community structure and participatory experiences. 17 During the first decade of contemporary suicide terror (ST) with Hezbollah in Lebanon, many policy-makers attributed the phenomenon to coercion, or “forced suicides,” by rogue governments, i.e. Iran. See Daniel Pipes, National Interest, n. 4, p. 95 (1986). Later data, however, showed that even Hezbollah executed operations not approved by Iran. See “Hizballah,” Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Intelligence Resource (21 May 2002), www.fas.org/irp/world/para/hizballah.htm. Later, analysts would assume the opposite, that ST organizations thrived in contexts of anarchy: see S. Telhami, New York Times, 4 April 2002, p. A23. Meanwhile, in the field of psychology, original assessments attributed ST to individuals, calling it “the psychopathology of the assassin.” See Ariel Merari, in W. Reich, Origins of Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990), p. 206. Raphael Israeli originally believed ST to stem from poor family backgrounds (Terrorism and Political. Violence, v.9, n.96, 1997), while today’s research shows that neither depression nor backgrounds deviating from the social norm can explain the data. See Andrew Silke, The Psychologist, v. 14, n.580 (2001). 18 See Krueger, Alan B. and Jitka Maleckova. "Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" Paper, Princeton University, 2002. Also, Basel Salameh, “Economic Conditions and Resistance to Occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: There is a Causal Connection,” unpublished paper, 2003. 5 and the families of successful bombers; these “psychological autopsies” spanned the normal distribution of the Palestinian population, even being above it in terms of education and income.19 Similarly, Nasra Hassan, a Pakistani relief worker, interviewed nearly 250 aspiring Palestinian suicide bombers and their recruiters throughout the 1990s, concluding: "None were uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded or depressed…They all seemed to be entirely normal members of their families." These bombers (and their colleagues)—individuals willing to kill themselves in order to kill others—were “normal” people, often young, altruistic and unattached, believing they had found a way to give to their communities. Was the dehumanization and moral disengagement experienced by these individuals visa-vis the enemy permanent? All-encompassing? The answer is no, because they don’t evince the empathetic inability of criminal murder profiles. In June 2003, Anat Berko, a criminologist from Bar Ilan University in Israel, compared interviews with slight and serious criminal offenders to those who organize and send human bombs. All subjects were asked to talk about their victims; next they talked about their families; then, they were asked to talk about the victims again. Berko hypothesized that the interlude on family could serve to humanize and sensitize the “other.” According to Berko, the senders (all educated refugees, none of whom were overly-religious) reflected a “double moral infrastructure.” They exhibited minimal compassion in the first phase, but still felt they had to justify their actions against the victims. Most experienced an emotional “flooding” in discussion of their families. They returned to speaking about their victims with increased compassion. In contrast, the criminals had no empathy for their victims in Phase I; Berko reports that their humanitarian feelings actually declined in Phase III. She concluded, “We need to light inside [of them, the senders]…an emotional spark by giving faces and names to the victims…we can do this through their families. Mothers are extraordinary persons in their eyes… address the circles around them.”20 Berko thought that the enmification necessary for these senders to kill Israeli civilians might be reversed, that moral disengagement was a function of social setting. This was reflected in my own interviews. Asked to respond to the statement that their action would have killed innocent women and children, bombers in this study exhibited varying abilities to morally disengage from victims. 7 bombers selected their own targets, and 4 of them chose military sites out of respect for civilian life. One, age 37, explained: “I could have done a much larger number if I executed the mission amongst citizens in the central bus station of Tel Aviv. But I didn’t do it because I wanted to kill only soldiers.”21 All the bombers had thought about ethics, and seemed to have resolved their views in one of two ways: by arguing that innocents are killed without intention in war, or by arguing that one side cannot hold to such a norm when the other side does not. Regarding the former, one 24 year old responded: “This is not true. I do not intend to kill innocent women and children, but to kill Israeli soldiers and all that support them in … their mission to take our lands, kill us, and plant settlements… Therefore we don’t kill 19 20 21 Discussion with Dr. Merari, October 2003. See Anat Berko, “In his private life human, but not when it comes to Israelis,” Haaretz, 15 July 2003. Interview, June 2003. 6 innocents. But when a kid is being killed here or there, this is distressing. He is killed incidentally with no 22 intent. I do not intend to kill children.” Regarding asymmetric norms, one bomber replied simply: “But they kill innocent people.” Another, age 26, concurred: “Someone who says things like this is not a Palestinian, doesn’t know what is occupation. From our side, also innocent women and children are being killed. I don’t intend to kill innocents, and I take precautions. I left the vegetable market and didn’t detonate because of the presence of women and children.” 23 Holes can be poked in these rationales, and there is no doubt that targeting civilians is a crime against humanity, but the above evidence makes it difficult to conclude psychopathology or even a criminal inability to empathize with the victim. The bombers were not born monsters, irrational killers, or even emotionally driven by hate. Instead, they had ceased to see the “Israelis” they were to kill as human individuals. To some extent, until forced, they didn’t think about individual lives at all. Quality of Life: Poverty and Despair From the outside, the bomber seems to be a person who has nothing left to lose. Yet this doesn’t fit bomber profiles at all. Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova did long-term studies with Hezbollah and Hamas, showing that although 1/3 Palestinians (at the time) lived in poverty, only 13 per cent of 1990s Palestinian bombers did; also, 57 per cent of bombers have education beyond high school versus 15 per cent of the population of comparable age.24 These findings are shored up elsewhere, and with other groups. After reviewing the Defense Intelligence Agency profiles of the Yemenis and Saudis they were interviewing at Guantanamo Bay, Scott Atran wrote: “They found that the Saudis, their leaders especially, are from high-status families. A surprising number have graduate degrees. And they are willing to give up everything. They give up well-paying jobs, they give up their families, whom they really adore, to sacrifice themselves because they really believe that it’s the only way they’re going to change the world.” Interestingly, and as Eyad el-Sarraj, a doctor at the Gaza Community Mental Health Clinic in Gaza City argues, any link economics holds to motivation is probably more tied to hope, or frustrated expectations.25 Permanent Palestinian closures and curfews began almost in tandem with Oslo. Thus, higher purchasing power—which came almost solely from day labor in Israel, further atrophying the domestic Palestinian market rather than expanding it—came from the source of political dominion, and mostly attended the lives of low- to moderate-educated citizens.26 University graduates emerged from school with the promise of a future they couldn't 22 Interview, May 2003. July 2003. 24 See Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, “Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is there a Causal Connection?” Princeton, April 2002. See also, Krueger, “Poverty doesn’t create terrorists,” op-ed, NYT, May 20, 2003. 25 See Eyad el Sarraj, “Why We have Become Suicide Bombers: Understanding Palestinian Terror,” Middle East Realities, 2002. 26 See Sara Roy, “The Gaza Strip: Critical Effects of the Occupation,” Arab Studies quarterly, v.10, n.1, Winter 1998. 23 7 create domestically, and were unable to offer flooded Israeli markets. Relatively speaking, those with the most promise were stuck with the least opportunity, and few political channels for pursuing change. Rather than a story about poverty, this narrative is possibility, frustrated by lack of control. Unfortunately, labeling the phenomenon “suicide bombing” connotes an image of weak, despondent, manipulated bombers, which sets the West up to misinterpret motivations and focus on organizational manipulation. Furthermore, it is inaccurate.27 A clinicly depressed person simply could not carry out a mission. A PET scan for a patient with depression is blue with inactivity: neurons aren’t shooting, subjects are unable to maintain focus, and all aspects of life are motivationally and functionally slowed. In western culture, the willingness to die via suicide is viewed as a reflection of how much one values his/her life. But none of the interviewees in this study or others were willing to give up life given its bleakness. One man, 37, explained, “I’m married and I love my wife and kids. I want to leave them hope, and a good name.”28 This is congruent with what Scott Atran finds in a cross-case assessment of preempted bombers, “They don't vent fear of enemies or express hopelessness or a sense of "nothing to lose" because of lack of a career or social mobility, as would be consistent with economic theories of criminal behavior. Suicide attackers don't opt for paradise out of despair. If they did, say Muslim clerics who countenance martyrdom for Allah but not personal suicide, their actions would be criminal and blasphemous.”29 Coercion/Institutions “Like the best Madison Avenue advertisers, but to ghastlier effect, the charismatic leaders of terrorist groups turn ordinary desires for family and religion into cravings for what they're pitching.”30 We have all read similar statements. “Brainwashing” is a popular explanation for the why individuals would sacrifice their own life alongside taking others’. Mark Segeman profiles Al Qaeda members (middle class, educated, 1/3 from the University, 2/3 devout and 1/3 night-club goers, no psychopathologies), concluding that his sample were just “normal” people that “drifted into” the organization as a form of social activity. It seems logical, then, to view bomber organizations as responsible for manipulating cells into a sort of “fictive kin” by which to warp the moral and social norms of the average individual.31 Indeed, there is truth to such a mechanism: organizational processes build commitment between members—engendering a sort of “deindividuation” (where social identity subsumes individual self), and making it difficult for one to jump ship should s/he lose resolve. Performance acts such as videotaped wills are further 27 A more accurate and still benign terminology might be human bomb. Interview, May 2003. 29 See Atran, “Genesis,” p. . 30 From Scott Atran, “Genesis of Suicide Terror,” Science Magazine, March 2003. 31 Terror expert Ariel Merari highlights the coercive role of sponsoring organization, manifest in the brotherly bonds and honor norms engendered in the bomber’s “cell”. See the Harvard Int’l Rev.23 (2002), www.hir.harvard.edu/back/article.php3?art_id=merari2234. See also Merari, , Presentation to the ICT Conference on Counter Terrorism in Herzliya, November 2003. 28 8 seen as social contract. In Merari’s view, abrogating from such group commitment would be unspeakable shame.32 Yet while almost all cases of bombers exhibit a sense of loyalty to an intimate cohort of peers—the question is whether that intimate loyalty is bound to a terror organization, a local community, or a national idea. At one extreme, the 9/11 bombers were left with not even a second undictated by their field manual, which often urged them to remain in group presence (i.e. prayer, prayerful encouragement, accountability, etc.).33 Scott Atran writes: It’s the particular genius of the institutions like Al Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah that they are able to make otherwise well-adjusted people into human bombs. Intense indoctrination, often lasting 18 months or more, causes recruits to identify emotionally with their terrorist cell, viewing it as a family for whom they are as willing to die as a mother for her child or a soldier for his buddies. Consider the oath taken by members of Harkat al Ansar, a Pakistan-based ally of Al Qaeda: "Each martyr has a special place, among them are brothers, just as there are sons and those even more dear.”34 The idea that any of us could undergo a similar type of moral disengagement and out-of-thisworld altruism (self-sacrifice) when ensconced within an intimate, extremist cohort is worthy of reflection, but it does not accurately capture the current phenomenon in Palestine and may vary in its relevance to other cases. According to interviews in this study, one bomber attempted his operation completely unaided by a Palestinian organization; 2 attempted missions on their own and turned to organizations after incurring problems. 8/15 of the interviewees in this study volunteered for istash’had; 5/15 began to execute the mission within 10 days of committing to the operation, and over 90 per cent undertook their mission within 1 month. Throughout the course of the second intifada, then, the ability for bombers to deindividuate—that is, completely assume actions for a social identity—without ties to a “cell,” “training,” long- or even medium-term preparation, has become manifest. More and more bombers are self-selected, the role of facilitating organizations has declined, and the time between a decision to do a mission and the execution of that mission has vastly decreased. Moreover, neither does it seem that true allegiances accompany the bomber-organization alliances that build around a mission. For instance, 3 of the 8 bombers that volunteered for a mission with one organization ultimately switched to another given lack of materiel or logistical expertise. 2 of the 7 bombers that were recruited were recruited by family members; they had no prior organizational involvement, although they were linked in various ways to “community defense” when the IDF had “attacked” their village/camp. Consider these responses: 32 I ask this question directly in interviews and generally receive responses assuring the contrary. According to one subject, “I could have changed my mind at any moment. Nothing would have happened, I would not have lost respect.” Bombers say the decision is not entered into lightly, that one would not approach an organization unless they very much knew they could do it. Also, only 1-2 other people are aware of the commitment. In many cases they did not invest in persuasion, and would see the need to “persuade” as a cost and indicator that the bomber isn’t ready. 33 Hassan Mneimneh translates and examines the manual in “Raid on an Indefinite Path,” Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review (2000-2001), v. 6, pp. 1-25. 34 See Atran, “Genesis,” p. 1537. 9 Did you approach somebody to do this operation or did somebody recruit you? I went to al Aqsa, whose commander was in the camp…He is a friend of mine; he knows me. I asked him to allow me to make an operation, and I joined the organization at that time for this purpose. In the beginning, he refused—he didn’t want that I be an istash’had. He was a friend and knew me well. But in the end I convinced him (age 18) I remember very well the moment I decided to execute an operation. I was in the mosque reading the Qur’an and something inside of me pushed me to turn to one of the leaders—a prominent member of Islamic Jihad—and I told him that I gave my oath to God that he would help me in this decision (age 26).35 The first time I attempted istash’had I didn’t go to any organization, but did it on my own initiative. Second time, I went to Islamic Jihad—my brother was in charge of the organization. Myself, I belong to Fatah. The Fatah in that time would not do istash’had…My brother was the only one who knew about it. I didn’t join Islamic Jihad, but the mission was under its name (age 21). Walid Daka, a PFLP activist in Israeli prisons since the 1970s, has interviewed preempted bombers out of a dismayed fascination in what motivates the growing numbers of inmates. One subject, responding to the question of what induced him to carry out an operation, said: The truth is that beforehand I saw pictures of dead and wounded children on television…But to tell you that there was one reason or a few reasons…no. One day my cousin came and told me...“What do you say to us doing an istash’had operation?” I said, If only we could. I was sure he was joking... but the next day we went into town, to a restaurant, and we had hummus and beans with another guy, and then I went with him and I put on the explosive belt and he said it would be in the name of Fatah.36 None of these subjects went through an extended “training” period. When asked how the sponsoring organization aided in mission preparation, most of the subjects responded that they did not need preparation beyond materiel. The bombers who “chose” organizations did so based on kin and friendship networks, as well knowledge of local organizational capability (i.e. material availability, perceived success rates, etc.).37 In the case of Palestinian bombers, somehow the abstract “kin” of local and national community has supplanted the powerful “fictive kin” processes at work, say, in cellular preparation of the 9/11 bombers. Religiosity/Ideology At an organizational level, even when human bombs were first put to use by Hezbollah in the 1980s, they were not an exclusively religious phenomenon. Almost half of the next six year’s fifty suicide attacks in Lebanon were perpetrated by five non-religious, nationalist Lebanese organizations who wanted to achieve Hezbollah’s effectiveness against the Israelis.38 During that same time period, in 1987, Sri Lanka’s secular and nonideological Tamil Tigers began to use 35 This subject, who says he is “not very religious” had actually joined Fatah at the beginning of the al Aqsa intifada, but Fatah did not have military supplies to sponsor a mission at that time. 36 See Amira Hass, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” Haaretz Magazine, March 2003, p. 14. 37 For instance, “Most of my friends are in Islamic Jihad, also my brother.” (age 21). 38 See Yoram Schweitzer, “Suicide Terrorism: Development and Characteristics,” Strategic Bulletin, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 2000. 10 the tactic to push the government from Tamil Aelam, considered to be their homeland. The Tamil’s Black Tigers ultimately become the most professional bombing cadre in the world. At an individual level, results from this study show that religion and the nationalist struggle imbue all aspects of Palestinian bomber motivation, but not as something to be rigidly adhered to, and not as causal variables. Almost 90% of the bombers considered themselves mainstream religious, but none of them alluded to a next-world rationale such as “Allah wants us to kill the Jews.” There are two important points here: first, a desire to meet Allah or any of the Qur’anic promises was never stated as a motivating factor prior to a decision, and second, predecision references to Allah were contextualized by the needs of the community. All viewed the effects of their action as being justified in terms of this world: in the name of defense, and as nothing that the other side had not already done against the Palestinian people. What motivated you to become an istash’had [martyr]? I didn’t decide in one moment. I had been thinking about it from the beginning of the intifada, looking for an opportunity and an organization to help me do it. There were a few factors affecting the decision—the stress of the occupation, the humiliation of my cousin being searched by soldiers, the killing…against kids—and the action was in honor of the kids who were killed… (age 21) It was after istash’had of a friend, and of the shaheed [also a marytr, but killed by Israeli forces] of a baby, Iman Hagu. These two cases made me think that human life is threatened every moment without good cause. Just because I’m Palestinian, the missiles are falling everywhere without distinction between those who are soldiers, civilians, kids, adults… (age 24) I did this because of the suffering of the Palestinian people. The falling of the shahadin [those killed by Israeli forces]..and the destruction everywhere in Palestine…I did this for God and for the Palestinian people (age 19.5). The issue of self-respect comes up often in discussion with Palestinians about resistance. Along with it comes the word istash’had, which means both “marytr” and “witness” (as in witness to God). I was interested in how the bombers conceived of “witnessing,” a word that invokes responsibility. That relationship could take an earthly form, or a notion of afterlife. What does the term “istash’had” mean to you? 39 The istash’had will sacrifice his life for the community in order to please the will of God. (24) It is martyrdom: the holding of land, religion, respect (unknown). Thus, none of the bombers saw their act as a duty to meet Allah; the term invoked communal ties and needs. The second section of the interviews solicited details about the subject’s life, values, time-spent, friends and meeting locations both before and after a decision to istash’had was made. While activities stayed largely the same (to avoid conspicuous behavior), bomber focus transformed upon making a decision. Once a decision was made, one’s thoughts and actions tended to center on “the day after death.” 39 This word also means “witness” in Arabic, invoking the sacred. 11 Which was more present in your mind as prepared for the mission: this life or the afterlife? What were you thinking? In the moments of preparation…I would think more about the afterlife, not the earthly life. I imagined heaven with my friend, also the face of God, from whom I would ask forgiveness for all my family. (age 21) I thought more in the afterlife. If it will be, what it will be like. (age 26) I thought about the afterlife. Is there life after death? Who of the sages will I meet there? (age 19.5) Thinking about the next world is one way of cutting emotional ties to this one. But it is important to note that these quotes are representative—while the afterlife was not considered a sure thing to all bombers (“is there life after death?”), hours of imagining it were. The days after making a decision were more ritualized than before: some bombers prayed more, or read the Qur’an; others increased their watching of television; very few dawdled any longer on existential questions of ethics, the loss of what they were giving up, etc. Whereas the pre-decision phase was rife with emotional impeti, descriptions of the post-decision period resemble a deliberate, focused autopilot. This data supports Jon Elster’s assertion that religion seems to operate as a form of "consolation or a bonus rather than a motivation."40 Revenge The data to support revenge is ubiquitous and inconclusive. In this study, 87% of the bombers were never hurt by the IDF (40% had never participated in any prior violent activity against Israel); only 3 had lost close friends or family to the army; all of them knew of locals who were killed or injured by the army, and all could cite graphic television clips of children killed by the IDF.41 Very few had spent time in prison, although almost all have relatives and friends who had. 6 were from refugee camps. On the one hand, when asked for their motivation to become a martyr, each cited revenge, and usually for myriad factors. Yet the average Palestinian’s life is rife with humiliations and deaths—the bombers are not unique to the pain, nor have they necessarily experienced the brunt of it. The better question may be, what does it mean to exact revenge? Because a typical response to questions of motivation was “revenge,” I followed it with questions about the bomber’s purpose, intention and expectations for the mission. Answers revealed themes of 40 See Elster, “Suicide Missions,” 2004. Defining religiousness is tricky. Durkheim believed that religion was a form of worship for one’s own community; that God was a representation of the collective. As sociologist Roger Friedland points out, however, Durkheim also argued that symbolization of divinity or transcendental power was integral to the constitution of the social. The sacred and absolute tone that attends wills and testaments of both secular and religious bombers alike thus deserves a closer look, but through a sociological lense. See Roger Friedland, “Money, Sex and God: The Erotic Logic of Religious Nationalism,” Sociological Theory (Nov. 2002), v.20, n.3, p.389. 41 The study asked about the content of their videos (8 had made videos) and/or wills, but these are sometimes scripted by organizations, so I also asked them in three different ways about the personal experiences that had pushed their decision to become an istash’had. While videos often cite “revenge for” the killing of Palestinians in recent counter-terror operations, the subjects, bar none, would cite the death of children in their villages or onscreen, as critical mobilizing moments. 12 equalizing pain (between them and the Israelis), deterrence, proving strength after a military attack, and raising the morale of the Palestinian people: I wanted the Jews to feel how we feel. If I wasn’t convinced that it would benefit us, I wouldn’t do it (age 21). I believed that it would improve the situation of the Palestinian people in the future because the action would deter the Israelis from [continuing to] commit crimes against us (age 24). I didn’t think about the consequences of the operation—if it would make things better or not. I don’t understand politics…that we are able to react against their bombing and their killing of inhabitants of the camp is important. My mission made them (the camp) happy, even though they were punished a lot [for it] in Jenin. The land and trees and houses were punished; nothing remains that they did not punish (age 26). I know the bombing will hurt the Israelis and prove to them that we are still ready to fight. [So much] happened to our camp because of the destruction—someone told me the operation would be a benefit to the camp,42 to create pressure on the Israelis in order that they retreat from the territory…The most important thing was that we should make an operation in the heart of Israel after the [military] penetration in order to prove that we were not influence by the military attack (age 18). I believe the operation would hurt the enemy…Also, [a] successful mission greatly influences society. It raises the morale of the people; they are happy, they feel strong (age 19.5). While a popular conception of retaliatory revenge is reflected above, it doesn’t fully encompass these testimonies. Psychologist Nico Frijda writes on revenge from another point of view: a type of expressive deterrence, a power equalizer that at once reclaims a tarnished dignity and says to the perpetrator, “you cannot do that again.” 43 These interviews also reflect an emotional motivation of wanting the Other to feel one’s pain, even if the operation will not strategically change the situation. For instance, despite invoking “deterrence,” none of the interviewees expected anything other than reprisal. Interestingly, this conception of revenge is altruistic: ‘that I have enough self- and groupdignity to demand the Other’s recognition of our pain,’ ‘that our pain is worthy of his pain,’ and ‘that with this act s/he should not hurt me again’ (in essence, an act of control). Mark Juergensmeyer relates this principle to performance ritual,44 and it underpins the logic of Petersen’s law of small battles, which says a series of victories carry a much larger impact than their actual value. People say, ‘how can we be losing with all these successes?’45 42 This subject volunteered for the mission, he was not recruited. This interpretation of revenge belongs to Nico Frijda in The Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987). 44 Literally, manifesting the conviction through violent liturgy. See Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God (Berkely: California UP, 2000). 45 This social-psych principle is not limited to the weaker party in asymmetric struggles. Similar notions imbue statements by U.S. and Israeli military officials after counter-insurgency attacks: a news report from Samarra, Iraq, Dec 2003, cited the following military officials: “American commanders vowed Monday that the killing of as many as 54 insurgents in this central Iraqi town would serve as a lesson to those fighting the United States.” “They attacked, and they were killed…So I think it will be instructive to them.” -Gen. Pace, Vice chair J/C “They got whacked, and won’t try that again.” --senior mil official at the Pentagon. See U.S. sees Lesson for Insurgents in an Iraq Battle,” NYT, Dec 2, 2003. While on the one hand military victories may not mean success (as in resolution of the struggle), according to this mechanism, they certainly can continue to mean the psychological success of one party in the mind of that party. The question is, how to break this cycle on both sides? 43 13 An equality and sense of dignity is upheld simply by being able to hurt the other. In this light, the act of martyrdom can be seen as expressive far beyond the convictions of the bomber; it is a form of communication asserting worth—socially empowering even to those pockets of a population that disapprove of terror’s tactics. No matter what their position on suicide bombing, they will still raise their fists for the victory it represents.46 In terms of a mechanism, the necessary assumption is that individual esteem is linked to group status/grievance; if so, expressive purpose could serve to explain popular support for bombings that ultimately hurt the popular cause, as well as an individual’s sacrifice for its group in an act that s/he akcnowledges will not change the status quo. IV. Towards A Palestinian Martyrdom Complex A brief summation of findings above: ¾ Contrary to popular assumptions, almost half of these bombers “new” to organized resistance. 60% were not part of a terrorist organization, and 40% did not do anything against Israel before the bombing. Neither can a period of post-decision inculcation explain their conviction to carry out a mission: 1/3 conducted the mission within 10 days of deciding to do it; over 80% did the mission within one month. None of the interviewees described any organizational “prep” in terms of moral support, religious education, etc. [And this wasn’t just because they were sworn to secrecy? At some point in the paper it might be interesting and useful to include a note about why you felt confident that they were being forthright with you.] For none of the subjects was organizational loyalty a necessary or sufficient factor in recruitment or attempted action. ¾ Discussions of revenge were convoluted by notions (on behalf of the collective) of equalizing pain, deterring the Israelis, and proving that the Palestinian nation remained ‘undefeated’. Subjects didn’t expect successful deterrence in the short-term—it was more symbolic. ¾ The public and nationalistic background seemed to be the most powerful motivator, although terror orgs were essential as facilitators. ¾ Subjects’ participation in and/or approach to local organizations was always through local social networks (clan, friendship, etc.). This link appears to exist in the overall Palestinian bombing sample as well. For instance, at least 8 out of the current 124+ successful human bombs in Israel came from a soccer team in Hebron.47 At least ¼ were affiliated with university associations (these were not necessarily political; also, 1/3rd of the 250 attempted and successful bombers were university students). 46 A PFLP interviewee in Gaza explained the resistance he gets to his calls to condemn suicide bombing. His primary argument against it is that it has not and will not help the Palestinian struggle. But the prevailing response among those who disagree is, ‘Maybe not, but at least they know we can hurt them. It is the only way we can hurt them. They will feel pain too.’ 47 Regular, Arnon. "Hebron's Playing, and Plotting, Field." Haaretz, May 2003. 14 ¾ While some subjects made the martyrdom decision over a period of months, all were clear about events—focal points—that compelled them along the way. Policies, and dayto-day events, mattered. ¾ Operationally, bombers express very different pre- and post-decision experiences. While Phase I, the motivational period, is consumed by deliberation and exploration of convictions/ethics, the bomber assumes an almost auto-piloted focus in Phase II. Focus is channeled through ritual, attention to performance details, relationships, and visualization of the afterlife. To some extent, the process ceases to be about will, it is autopilot—for instance, existential doubts rarely appear, or if they do, they are refused face-time. Interviewees talk about the blissful state of peace they felt in the hours or days before execution; even less-religious individuals claim the days prior to the mission are heavily routined with prayer.48 Discussion What does this mean? Often the goals and motivations of bombers are assumed to be similar to those of organizations. In an early chapter on suicide bombing, Elster writes, "the main aims of suicide bombers are to kill enemy civilians and soldiers, cause material damage, and create fear. What sustains them are feelings of indignation and humiliation..."49 But the desire to create death and destruction was described as more of a means to an end (deterrence, equalizing pain, proof of resilience) rather than an end in itself. Indeed, once bombers are forced to think of “Israeli” as a person—Shmuel, the guard, or the waiter they worked with in Tel Aviv during Oslo, their ease with the operation seems to cloud. Second, once a decision to marytr one’s self is made, focus rather than emotion seems to play the most significant role in sustaining the conviction. It seems that a major motivation—of public support for suicide bombing as well as individuals’ sacrifices—is expressive. It is a psychological statement to the other: “You cannot…(hurt us without being hurt)”. It levels the playing field by asserting dignity/equality (our pain is worthy of your pain) and as a form of psychological deterrence. Mostly, it symbolically asserts that the status quo is unacceptable when no more effective means of assertion are possible. The point is, normal individuals are sacrificing their lives to make a statement with no immediate strategic benefit. When and why do they do this? Scott Atran writes that “social, psychological and cultural relationships [are] luring and binding thousands, possibly millions, of mostly ordinary people into the[ir] martyr-making webs...” 50 He is certainly on to something— but it doesn’t appear to be coercive. 48 Findings from social psychology, ritual studies and neurology help to explain the activities and mind-states these bombers describe about the days leading to their missions. See D’Aquili , Eugene G. and Charles D. Laughlin Jr. "The Neurobiology of Myth and Ritual," in Readings in Ritual Studies, ed. Ronald I. Grimes, pp. 132-45 (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996). 49 See Elster, p. 13. 50 See Scott Atran, “The Genesis of Suicide Terrorism,” Science Magazine v.299, March (2003). 15 The beginning of this paper called for an understanding of the concentric circles around the terrorist and the thresholds at which individuals pass between circles. Answering this question entails answering a few others: How and when do identities essentialize, that is, when does the social self eclipse the individual? Why do “normal” individuals sacrifice self for the group, and why would they do so even when they admit their action will not change the status quo? Lastly, if there is a graduation of commitment in this process, at what point(s) can we effectively arrest it? Recent work in the political science literature of ethnic mobilization and insurgencies might offer answers. The former looks at the first two questions above—when individuals sacrifice for the group; the latter approaches the social transformations that attend this phenomenon, specifically setting out conditions for when weak-against-strong movements will manifest, and when they can be sustained. The central component of this paper was to flesh out problems in the taxony and interpretation of martyr motivations to date, but with the pages that follow, I will briefly outline preliminary thoughts towards a martyrdom complex. Perhaps the conditions for and stages of a martyrdom complex are possible in any given society. The idea is premised on findings that individual esteem is bound to group status; it recognizes a role for emotion (i.e. resentment) in attitude formation and impetus to some form of resistance, but it does not view that role as pathological. It adapts the mechanism for sustained weak-against-strong resistance movements to the context of terrorism. It expounds upon how a culture within an asymmetric “state of war” transforms individual risk and loss into group status and benefit. Figure 2. Phase I: Motivation51 Making loss meaningful 51 The martyrdom complex would address transformations within the personal and social circles. This diagram was adapted from Assaf Moghadam’s two-phase model of suicide bombings in “Palestinian Suicide Terrorism in the Second Intifada: Motivations and Organizational Aspects,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (March 2003) v.26, p. 68. 16 Establishing a Framework Based on the interviews, I argue that individuals (not first-actors, which may have their own mechanisms, but the masses of bombers who have acted in the second intifada) make the decision to become an istash’had within the rational/emotional parameters of the communal/relational world. To that extent, I will argue that a society-wide martyrdom complex requires at least three components: 1. martyrdom must have socially understood symbolic significance (the public piece) 2. events in a conflict must produce martyr roles (asymmetric war—conventional opportunities ineffective) and the opportunity to play them (facilitating organizations) 3. an internalized social identity (often through participation in national loss…rallies, a camp attack, etc.) The evolution of resistance is conditioned by: 1) culture—the culture of violence, loss and sacrifice that develops in a perceived struggle and is attended by observable social rituals;52 and, 2) community structure.53 Community Structure: Thresholds, Tipping Mechanisms, Norms of Reciprocity Within all communities, people may be willing to participate at different thresholds, i.e. hotheads and heroes may be likely to sacrifice all, while others will need to see that significant numbers of their fellows have already acted. MIT’s Roger Petersen argues that the distribution of thresholds is linked to observable social structure. Second, thresholds are not treated as static; they transform alongside normative changes in the community. Low-threshold social structures include university groups, families and neighbors and social groups in general. Why? The crucial considerations affecting sacrifice within social groups are normative—specifically, norms of reciprocity (the first to take the sacrifice greatly lowers the threshold for others who feel, “if he did it, I should”) and norms of honor (similar to reciprocity, but not as extreme). High-threshold structures include political, economic and some professional groups. Why? These groups are generally less-linked to local community. They run off of norms of conformity (people feel they should do their fair share, but no more than that). 52 Nose-bleed abstract: The cultural tranformation is preceded by what I call the “banality of the sacred,” when events perceived as random and unwarranted loss force us to shift the meaning we derive from life to the meanings that can explain the losses—ultimately, the Cause. Thus, Death becomes death. cause becomes Cause. Death can no longer santify the group (it happens all the time, like the turn of a light switch), but Cause can. 53 There are two important points to be made with this assertion. First, that culture ceases to be a static independent variable in the way that some employ it, e.g. Islam = violence. Most ethnic and religious cultures have paradigms of violence as well as peace, and here the community dynamics of struggle (prerequisite) are seen as prerequisite to production of a culture that inspires and condones suicide bombing. Second, it is possible that a culture developed in one struggle might later conflate its aggressors. Thus the humiliations and grievances suffered on a daily basis for much of the Arab and Muslim world may have more to do with national context than anything else, but antipathy for all states propping that context—knowingly or not—might be legitimate in the eyes of the Arab world. 17 How to measure “strong communties” that give way to norms of reciprocity? A few characteristics include: 1. 2. 3. 4. small overall size (strong community); intermediate density of ties. The presence of social groups, preferably small and heterogeneous. economic homogeneity. What Petersen portends, and what my own research the past 6 months intuits, is a participatory mechanism. This mechanism occurs when events create a paradigmatic role that transforms risk into benefit. The most obvious and effective role a person can play is clearly outlined…to not perform it can become an emotional burden, and in a dense social community where the example continually surfaces, a recurring one. This martyrdom complex holds relevance for the universe of cases whereby terrorism emanates from a protracted intergroup struggle, where there is some organic popular support for the terrorists’ cause, if not their means. The case of Palestinian bombers, which I explore below, is interesting in that it would seem the phenomenon operated via different mechanisms prior to the second intifada (i.e. bombers were “first-actors”—heroes or hotheads, or individuals ensconced within the identity folds of a terror organization—with much lower risk/sacrifice thresholds than the general population). Thus, social manifestations of “first-actor” logics can take hold. Filling Gaps Within the Field Several aspects of this approach are unique to past academic assessments of suicide bombing of which I am aware. First, the level of analysis is that of the community as well as the individual—until today, most academic studies of suicide bombers have used the individual as the unit of analysis, dealing solely with demographic and psychological data. Approaches to terrorism in general have similarly held “terrorists” apart from the communities that generate them: organizational analysis prioritizes institutional imperatives, incentive structures and operational capabilities. Perhaps due to political sensitivities in an overwhelmingly policyoriented field and/or to the difficulties in obtaining robust interview data, terror experts have been wary of in-depth inquiries into motivation. Approaching terrorism as a variation of inter-group or ethnic conflict rather than an operational threat posed by deranged enemies seems self-evident today, though not necessarily in terms of current popular discussion. Terrorist leaders often tell journalists that they began their operations “in defense” of the social, that their worlds had already been at war; more importantly, polls from their constituent communities mirror this strong sense of antagonism, a feeling, for example, that nonwestern peoples are under an attack of sorts by the West.54 Firsttime field journalists or researchers often describe shock when they later attest to how the communities surrounding terrorism are able to cite legitimate, day-to-day grievances to justify 54 See Borton, “In War’s Wake,” 2003. 18 their support for militant causes, even when these communities are often ambivalent about the means of violence used by the “militants” in their midst.55 This is where attention to symbolic capital—that is, social rewards derived from the emotions and politics of status—might be helpful. The approach can be found in the writing of respected conflict scholars from various fields,56 but it has only recently been consolidated and applied to resistance movements.57 It clearly offers valuable insights to understanding terrorism with strong roots of social support, tracing thresholds for when resentment becomes activism, and activism becomes violent. Moreover, it offers a means for understanding how, when physical economies erode, along with the life-meaning they bestow, symbolic “economies of honor” can rise in their place. Motivation is materiel, hence recognizing and monitoring the attitudes of communities generating bombers is extremely important. As Alan Krueger notes in his statistical analysis of Islamic suicide terrorists, resentment and activism itself can be benign, but in those places where suicide bombing emerges, political expressions for it are usually not available.58 Herein, perhaps, lies the convoluted link to religion that has fixated public and policymaker alike. In much of the Arab world, the most trustworthy, politically safe and socially networked organizations that can offer solidarity are religious. This approach eschews the idea of a static culture, and thereby the idea that any religion is inherently violent. But if religious networks offer a sole, efficient outlet for solidarity and mobilization, the misused statistics invoking Islam remain frightening: “If only 1 percent of the world’s Muslims accept uncompromising theology, and 10 percent of that 1 percent decide to commit themselves to a radical agenda, the recruitment pool for al Qaeda comes to 1 million.”59 V. Policy Implications 55 See Filkins, Dexter. "Kenya’s Muslims: Resentments Both Local and International." New York Times, December 1 2002. 56 David Horowitz, a political scientist, emphasizes the ubiquity of the word “dominance” in descriptions of ethnic relations from all over the world. See Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot (Berkeley: California UP, 2001). Social psychologists Arie Nadler, Nico Frijda and Lee Ross employ the idea of equality or humiliation in their examinations of apology, revenge and negotiation, respectively. See Arie Nadler, Personal interview, 2002; and, Nico Frijda, The Emotions, 1977. Stuart Kaufman and Roger Petersen employ status perception and symbolic politics to explain popular and leader-led ethnic conflict. See Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 2002; Petersen, Explaining Ethnic Violence, 2003. Jessica Stern’s new book, Terror in the Name of God, cites humiliation as a leading precursor to religious terror. Sociologist Roger Friedland argues that religious nationalism appeals via a logic in which religion bestows status according to human and not material criteria in “Money, Sex and God: The Erotic Logic of Religious Nationalism,” Sociological Theory, 2002. Philosopher Pierre Bourdieu looks at the meanings bestowed upon life via the social world, and it alone, writing: “there is no worse dispossession, no worse privation, perhaps, than that of the losers in the symbolic struggle for recognition, for access to a socially recognized social being, in a word, to humanity.” See Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations (Cambridge: Polity, 2000) p.241. 57 They are: Understanding Ethnic Conflict, 2002, and Resistance and Rebellion, 2001. 58 See Krueger, Alan B. and Jitka Maleckova. "Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" Princeton: Princeton University, 2002. 59 See Haqqani, Husain. "The American Mongols: To Win the War against Terrorism, the United States Must Overcome the Burden of History." Foreign Policy, no. May - June (2003): 70-71. 19 If indeed suicide bombing holds expressive purpose, then there are useful analogues to be found in the politics of recognition. This preliminary research points to support for counter-terror campaigns that stress soft power—political, economic and social strategies—as much as, or in accompaniment to, military might. As the United States Institute of Peace writes: “Struggles won by states against terrorism may not so much involve military victories as the winning of psychological contests in which terrorists lose the support of the people in whose name they are acting.” This preliminary analysis points to a few general take-aways that can direct thinking about counter-terror policy. ¾ First, the “culture of violence” giving rise to suicide bombing is in constant evolution— the social value of “sacrifice” changes in response to the needs of the resistance movement and the turn of events60… Policy decisions matter. ¾ Second, if motivations are grounded in communal norms and relationships (i.e. norms of reciprocity), then breaking the will of the adversary will require constructive political engagement with the adversary’s constituents. How this is done would depend upon the validity and intensity of grievances felt by that population. ¾ This study serves as strong backing for work coming out of the Pentagon’s Force Transformation Unit—Network Centric Behaviors and Relational Decision-making. ¾ Defusing capabilities AND motivation means that military operations will need to integrate hard AND soft power. o Operational means will be as important as ends. Military actions will be best received (construed as defensive as well as offensive) by the public alongside political alternatives; o Political legitimacy is paramount to policy decisions. ¾ Applications: o Rethinking the frequency, means and targets acceptable to any policy of targeted killings; 60 The case of the Sikhs in India are interesting here. The movement began as uncoordinated response to attacks by the army. Young men, on their own, blew themselves up against army positions. From the forests, the surviving males recognized they would be stronger unified—organizations developed. Suicide bombings gained added value via local scripts of sacrificial martyrdom (invoked via the event, but not active prior to the attack). After a while, fighter losses became more costly. The organizations emphasized the higher value of the warrior who lives...who chooses to live if at all possible. The idea of what served communal purpose most effectively reined in the social status accorded to “martyrs”. The parties celebrating martyrs began to accrue less status than those celebrating the living warrior…See Pettigrew, Joyce. "Martyrdom and Guerrilla Organisation in Punjab." The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 30, no. 3 (1992): 387-406. 20 o The further development and use of non-lethals; o Employing, as much as possible, civilian-friendly intelligence gathering procedures (a la the strategy of Special Forces vs. Marines) o Need to seriously reassess the deterrent value of strategies based on collective punishment (statistics, interviews, etc.). 21