“Whoever shall kill a man or a believer without right the punishment is hell forever.”
Iqbal Latif & Zachary Latif
(In Islam, Dr. Tantawi argues there is an equivalent of Moses's commandant against killing; "Whoever shall kill a man or a believer without right," according to the grand imam, "the punishment is hell forever. Allah will be angry with him and give him a great punishment." Particularly repulsive is a criminal who murders without honour, "from the back," because "it is against morality and good honor." )
We thought to venture and examine the phenomenon of suicide bombings a little further as promised in our first article and we have tried to boldly attempt to distinguish the primary motivation. We thought any exercise in the roots of martyrdom is futile if one does not look deeply into the minds of religious ‘zealots’ who are blowing themselves and others in fury with extreme venom.
The Grand Imam Dr. Tantawi, rector of the respected Al-Azhar University in Cairo, asserts that the Islamic doctrine is vigilant to distinguish jihad with the Koranic concept of irhab. In contrast to the defensive and obligatory nature of jihad, irhab is terrorism: unjust combined with aggressive violence against the innocent and defenceless and is expressly forbidden by Islamic law and principles.
Thus based solely on the theoretical definition, suicide bombing is nothing more but irhab; these rules forbid Muslims to kill innocent people -- and in particular, religious clerics of all faiths. In addition, this notion prohibits the killing a retreating enemy and those who surrender; they forbid harming captives; and they expressly forbid the destruction of buildings and civil centres.
In Islam, Dr. Tantawi argues there is an equivalent of Moses's commandant against killing; "Whoever shall kill a man or a believer without right," according to the grand imam, "the punishment is hell forever. Allah will be angry with him and give him a great punishment." Particularly repulsive is a criminal who murders without honour, "from the back," because "it is against morality and good honor."
The logical conclusion of this decree would be tantamount to a condemnation of suicide bombing because like the stabbing “in the back” it is essentially a concealed warfare directed against unaware individuals. Some authors justify it as an act under duress and utter desperation, however human life is too great a gift to be wasted on desperation. The art of living is to rise from the depths of darkness to illumine one’s environs.
The present spate of suicide bombings is nothing more than extreme rage as a result of squandered opportunities. In my opinion, this is hardly a definition of justified desperation. It is the continuation of the Machiavellian manoeuvring of gullible Palestinian masses by the government.
Suicide militancy is not solely a product of Islamic fervour and religious indoctrination. In fact, the largest suicide unit of a militant outfit was the LTTE, which is officially atheist. The group was founded in 1974 but suicide bombings were introduced as a tactic only in 1987 and has Rajiv Gandhi to claim as its most successful victim. It is believed that the LTTE’s Black Tigers suicide unit drew inspiration from the success of the Hizbullah suicide missions. An interesting fact is that suicide missions seem to have been a historically acceptable tactic of war among Tamils even before the recent wave of suicide attacks in Israel. The “recurring theme” in The Purananuru poetry of the period, between 500 BC and 200 AD, dealt with suicide missions. The psychological impetus driving the Black Tigers is similar to those that spurred Kamikaze pilots, of the Japanese air force in the Second World War, who crashed their explosive-laden planes into American warships.
The inspiration for suicide attacks derives from “en masse cult hysteria”. The atheistic LTTE consciously cultivates the psyche of sacrifice through rituals like Martyr’s Week building special cemeteries, and naming weapons after Black Tigers. The mythical promise of honour after death is a potent attraction for those who seek glory since it essentially appeals to the aspect of the human psyche that craves adulation and respect. With regards to the Palestinians, the honour conferred with the martyr bestows a sense of justification and a validation of suicide tactics. Thus, for Palestinian youth the latent religious attraction of dying as a martyr, and consequently gaining an entrance to paradise, is augmented by the prestige associated with martyrdom.
The notion of life after death does play a vital role in the motivation of suicide bombing. There is a significant correlation between belief in an afterlife and the propensity to martyrdom. One would be reluctant to sacrifice if he adheres to the belief that he would scatter into a gloomy oblivion after death.
Terrorist organisations and guerrillas seek to immerse themselves in the history of their cause and portray their fight to be only a continuation of the great battles fought by the nation, and those that etched in the minds of its citizens. For instance the LTTE connects its ideology with a judicious use of symbols rooted in Tamil myth such as the tiger, the symbol of the Tamil god Murugan. The LTTE cadre is expected to conform to ideals of the past and continues to this day. The myth brands a failure as not of an individual letting down the organisation, rather a failure to live up to the ideals of a glorious past. The Palestinian cause seems superficially to be immersed in Islamic mores and has been presented to the Arab World as an unresolved aftermath of the Crusades. These radicals must garner support from the local populace by approaching them with a common reference rooted in the past. Without historical allusions, the citizenry will be unable to relate to the insurgents and there will be dearth of inspiration with which to rally common support.
Ultimately psychologists state the mindset of a suicide bomber is no different from those of Tibetan self-immolators or the Irish prisoners who were ready to die in a hunger strike. The ethos of sacrifice is firmly engrained in their mindsets and they derive their inspiration from their struggle against the oppressor.
The fundamental difference lay that the Buddhist monks, in Laos during the Vietnam War, burnt themselves to death consequently injuring none but their own persons. The self-immolation with petrol received far more political attention; the elements of sacrifice and passive martyrdom for the sake of peace did have a significant impact on a very watchful world.
To martyr oneself to promote peace is more explicable rather than to slay oneself to murder others. Selfless sacrifice irrefutably demonstrates strength and the will of character however to harness the essence of martyrdom as a weapon to mutilate and butcher others can confer no benefits and only demeans the value of the cause, that the perpetrators seek to advance.
The numerous youngsters in Palestine blowing themselves to slaughter others epitomises cowardice and utter disregard for human life. The dual sins committed; to take one’s own life for the sake of maiming, murdering and orphaning others, can receive no justification from Islamic doctrine, which promulgates harmony and tolerance. However because of the Islamic affiliations of the perpetrators, suicide bombing is now synonymous to martyrdom and a reprehensible act, through clerical sanction, has transmuted into an act of martyrdom. That is sick! It is akin to Ayathollah Khomeini sending hundreds of thousands of young men and boys to battle with the keys to Paradise around their necks. It is the act of cowards and must be disavowed by the freedom loving people of the world. Sending gullible kids to death is condemnable.
Palestinians and militant Arabs, consider the prosperity and advancement of Western civilisation as something that have made life and living a very dear experience. It is their conviction that material comfort has induced a zest for life, which in turn has made prosperous in to cowards. Joy killers that they are they want to rob the world from any pleasures since they can’t have it. Naturally this is flawed reasoning since when people love their life that in no way implies that they are cowards, in fact it will spur them to protect their way of life with even more dedication. To upset the present fine balance of ‘live and let others live’ achieved over the centuries and after the countless sacrifices is an extreme act of terror and cowardice. It’s purely callousness!
This is the pitiable mentality the appeasers of the world render when they call the suicide bombers acts as acts of desperation for freedom and democracy. When comedian Maher alleged that the 11th Sept guys were anything but not cowards. We thought how much off the mark this guy is, the possibility of carrying act of terror leading to heartless murder of thousands of innocents leads to flow of adrenaline that masks the extreme cowardice with false sense of accomplishing greater duty in name of God. This evil reincarnated as a result of software failure is in nutshell the state of a suicide bomber mind, a temprorary high, a false glory within family and friends, neither bravery nor love but just hatred and venom runs through his viens. All living is local and within suicide bomber local faulty environs he is a hero, it is all about taking life, denying pleasures to others at the expense of extreme pain to self.
Appeasement has never paid neither unreasonable tough position like that of Sharon. A middle way has always brought some semblance of order to chaos and that is the way out of this crisis. Human bombing will have to stop and I have no doubt that these ‘human bombings’ have made the future of Palestinians political discussions murky, any Israeli government would now think of ramifications of a state too close to their borders, the concessions will be difficult to be obtained, the external borders of any Palestinian state more carefully watched, the progress of last 10 years washed away to a continuous futile struggle.
In 1967 Palestinians introduced ‘evil art of hijacking’ as a tool of political statement. It has added discomfort and huge cost of hundred of billions in lost revenues and lost time for millions of air travellers since. If we can’t have it, we will deny it to the whole world is the tall slogan of these extremists. Since than, the phenomenon of human sacrifice and hijacked planes have been further cunningly entangled and what we saw on Sept. 2001 was mix of that extreme wickedness that got new thrust as evil was perpetrated at a higher scale by combining a hijacked plane with humans who were suicide bombers. Is it not high time that these guys should not be appeased any further in name of ‘desperate survival?’ Has the desperate and evil art of hijacking made their aspirations of independent Palestinian state come true? The fact is that now hijacking has been hijacked by bigger criminals and combined with the zeal of ‘holy suicide bombers’, has made our world far more instable!
Introduction of new art of terror and disasters in no way can be condoned, sophistication of art of terror is a crime that Palestinians cannot wash their hands from, first as theorists and than as perpetrators. Millions of young man are watching and learning this dreadful art of carnage and world, as a whole is a loser. These new techniques of suicide bombing will not see the end in Palestinian, like plane hijacks gained momentum this will spill out of the borders of the region, may be we will have to go through same kind of through checks as we to go through for planes even for small journeys in buses. The world is being made of smaller and closed place. Free movement is the strength of global interaction we are being robbed of that systematically.
A nation who sends her youngsters to strap bombs on themselves with the intent of killing innocent civilians has no self-esteem, the lesson being taught “if we cannot live peacefully then we will not let others live peacefully.” That is not a prescription for a healthy society and anyone who is determined to take one’s own life to murder others cannot be reasoned with! Killing one self is a reprehensible act of cowardice because it’s primary intent is destruction. I don’t take one single act as brave or cowardly it is the sum total of Palestinian strategy to underestimate its adversaries that have failed them so far and will fail them further too. Underestimating their foes and their ability is the basis of this collective policy of targeted destruction that has yielded diminishing political returns. Playing one’s cards right has to be the core objective and working within limitations and switching the Achilles' heel to muscle the art of survival of nations.
Anyone who is of the belief that making of a human bomb was due to an act of desperation and last resort overlooks the fact that none of the 19 people who rammed the jets into the World Trade Centre and other places had any direct quarrel or dispute with the United States. It was purely an act of vengeance, using a Shakespearean analogy it was akin to Shylock exacting his pound of flesh without caring for the consequences. The thinking is embedded in the evil thought that they can cow nations by dastardly acts of reckless aggression.
A study carried out that involved profiling more than 50 suicide bombers serving in Amal, Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and secular pro-Syrian outfits in Lebanon finally concluded that there is no single demographic or psychological profile for a suicide bomber. There is no single characteristic that defines a suicide bomber and it is the incessant amalgamation of the factors discussed above interacting in an individual’s mind that will induce a suicidal cum sacrificial mindset. Suicidal bombers are one heck of sick mind!! World needs to join hands in condemning them and should not acquiesce to appease these deranged individuals. No one can be browbeaten and terrified, after a certain time a ‘coward’ who loves life can turn to protect his privilege with all his might and can exact the right blow. World rarely ends when weaker hands try to play bigger than life size role that what awaits for Chairman Arafat and his people if they continue to be the spoilers.
I believe that life is a gift of God and that progress and prosperity is a result of continuous hard word. Naturally prosperity, well-being, enhanced standards of living does make people comfortable and that makes love their near ones and surroundings they live in. To destroy this social structure established in the society on basis of ‘ if I can’t have I will deny it to you too’ is unadulterated barbarism. Present prosperity is a result of a virtuous cycle, a success of a model of cooperation between human beings and their ability to play their hand right.
To destroy this social structure established in the society on basis of ‘ if I can’t have I will deny it to you too’ is unadulterated barbarism. Present prosperity is a result of a virtuous cycle, a success of a model of cooperation between human beings and their ability to play their hand right. I wish someone told Chairman Arafat the virtues of ‘non-violence.’ The biggest independent movement of this century that freed hundreds of million from British Empire Raj was led by Mahatma Gandhi who won India through non-violent struggle. His movement recorded increasing returns unlike Arafat’s diminishing returns so far. |
