Truth is the first casualty.
As the media gird their loins for days and weeks worth of satisfying bleeding, crying, heart-rending front pages, one question stands out ‘How could young men become so radicalised that they turn into suicide bombers’.
We seem to be forgetting that we in the West also have a society where young men are prepared to die for their beliefs – the only difference, and it is a marked difference, is that they have no wish to kill anybody else at the same time.
1217 young men in Britain in 2013. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for men between 20 and 34 in England and Wales.
Suicide is a complex subject, but we cannot avoid the realisation that as a society, we too have many, far too many, young men who believe that their life has no meaning, holds no joy for them, cannot be improved, and therefore they are prepared to end it rather than endure it.
It is too simplistic to state that it is merely religion, or more prosaically, the prospect of the mythical ’72 virgins’ as on-line commentators are prone to quote with monotonous regularity, that separates our young men that are prepared to take their own life, from those in the fundamentalist regions of the Islamic faith.
Mainly because in Australia, they have actually researched ‘suicide bombers’ at Finders University – and discovered that 90% of all suicide bombings between 1981 and 2006 were carried out because of a cocktail of motivations including politics, humiliation, revenge, retaliation and altruism. Religious beliefs barely got a look in. Between those years, 1981 – 2006, 1200 people decided to become suicide bombers, and killed 14,599 innocent people at the same time.
The facts, as opposed to the myths, appear to support a view that what separates our young men who take their own life from those who the media depict as ‘mad, pitiless suicide bombers’ may be their sense of community. Religious teaching may form a part of that sense of community. They are able to see, or be made to see by those who groom them, the taking of other lives in addition to their own as an altruistic act that may benefit the community as a whole by forcing political decisions that will benefit the community whilst simultaneously escaping from the intolerable everyday degradations of life, boredom, humiliation, anxiety and defiance.
Perhaps rather than ranting against a religion that we claim is solely responsible for producing suicide bombers, we should be looking at another community world wide.
The community of young men who are prepared to take their own life. For it is amongst that community of the disaffected, the unemployed, the humiliated, the politically disenfranchised, that ISIS and Al Qaeda are finding their deadly weapon – the human body.
The technological age has devalued young men – there are no longer worthwhile avenues for their strength, which was their main value in manual employment. Their virility, their other main distinguishing factor, is under attack from feminists the world over.
Both those factors apply to our own home grown male suicides.
We accept, with relative equanimity, that when those factors take on the additional burden of unalterable characteristics such as the colour of your skin, and where some long forgotten colonialist chose to draw your nations borders, that you may chose to commit suicide in a foreign market place, or outside an embassy somewhere you can’t quite pronounce, that it is just another paragraph in your daily paper – but when the same event occurs in Paris or London, we are all quite sure that the one and only reason we are mourning the innocent victims is one particular religion.
The facts simply don’t support that conclusion overall – though I will grant you that Islamic fundamentalism has learnt full well how to take advantage of the underlying conditions.
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November 20, 2015 at 9:20 am -
There is a vast gulf between those who simply choose to end their own lives to put an end to some real or imagined suffering and those who, in the objective of killing others, sacrifice their own lives. The first is a suicide, the second is a murder with a personal collateral loss of life.
The Japanese in WWII famously persuaded young men to sacrifice their own lives for the ‘greater good’ with their use of kamikaze pilots, the same principle as being applied by the motivators of the current wave of suicide bombers. With both the ‘greater good’ and ‘afterlife attractions’ being used as inducements, it seems that the motivators have little difficulty in drawing enough of their adherents into that desperate act.
Suicide in any form is a tragedy, but suicide as a by-product of murdering other people presents a different challenge to civilised society to address and reverse the messages used on malleable minds by its malevolent motivators.
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November 20, 2015 at 10:16 am -
To equate the military actions of some very brave young Japanese men of the mid 1940s with those of many of today’s urban terrorists might perhaps do them an injustice. Did you really mean what you wrote to come across quite like that?
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November 20, 2015 at 10:41 am -
Not equating their targets, but the process by which they were motivated by others was similar.
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November 20, 2015 at 10:47 am -
Their letters don’t necessarily reflect that
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November 20, 2015 at 9:26 am -
Last night, I listened to a special programme on Radio 4, called ‘Paris; Could it Happen Here?’. It was introduced by the excellent Edward Stourton, who talked to four journalists of Islamic faith, all of whom had extensive ‘insider’ professional knowledge of what is going on within what are sometimes called ‘Islamic communities’ in a British context. In answer to the question, “Could it happen here?” the answer was a definite, “Yes, it could”.
Perhaps the most pertinent point made was that one common factor between those ‘radicalised’ was ‘daddy issues’ (that’s the phrase that was used!). Those vulnerable to grooming by the small number of extremists tended to be those with poor relationships with their fathers, and in consequence drifting and seeking some meaning in life. That very much fits with Anna’s thoughts, I reckon.
The programme’s worth a listen – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06rywqs
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November 20, 2015 at 9:28 am -
Interesting. I think there’s even more to it via Western government involvement, but I don’t have time to get into more arguments about that today!
Ironically, suicides in the West have increased as faith has diminished.
Or is it ironic? Could it be that these ‘fundamentalist’ Muslims aren’t at all concerned about their faith?
As I’ve said before, I was at a church meeting where a minister from Northern Ireland was preaching. He witnessed a march by loyalists and a young man was carrying a banner supporting the UDA (or some other fine upstanding members of the community*) which read “For God and Ulster”. The preacher asked him if he believed in God. He replied that he didn’t.
Maybe academia and the media (and the public) need to reappraise the whole shebang, but academia and the media have a prior commitment to atheistic materialism, as does the government. Religion has to be regulated, ridiculed and liberalised through infiltration so as to render it impotent for any government to have total control.
It’s the reason Christianity is perhaps enemy no. 1 in communist countries.
*To GCHQ: that was a joke.
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November 20, 2015 at 10:09 am -
Mudplugger is rather unfair when he writes of ” those who simply choose to end their own lives to put an end to some real or imagined suffering”, because mental illness (i.e. the ‘imagined’ bit) is illness as much as physical illness is. Moreover, jumping in front of a train is likely to traumatise the driver and any bystanders in a mental way that is sometimes as cruel as to inflict the physical injuries from a bomb. Even a ‘private’ suicide of a young person may traumatise their family and the people called to clear it up.
There is a big difference between terrorists who are determined to die, and those who want to escape alive. The latter tend to pop up years later as political leaders, or claimants for compensation for ‘unsafe convictions’ …
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November 20, 2015 at 10:48 am -
Maybe the shorthand was to blame – I was trying to separate the deliberateness of killing other people, the suicide bombers’ aim, from a personal act of suicide, which can indeed have many secondary victims, although only usually of an emotional or traumatised nature rather than being physically damaged by their act.
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November 20, 2015 at 1:18 pm -
Years ago, one of my neighbours was a supervisor on a train-cleaning crew at the local major rail depot. She was a great source of free magazines from the interior cleaning of carriages, but the crews were also responsible for the exterior of the train. On only one occasion the conversation turned to those who decide to end their life by stepping in front of one, and she mentioned that once the police had finished their investigation, someone obviously had to clean the mess and scraps of mortal remains from the front of train. It was, she said, something she always did herself, because, “I can’t order someone else to do that.” Even so, she said that no matter how horrible a task it was, it was nothing compared to what the drivers go through, and that many of them are so traumatised that cannot continue in the job.
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November 20, 2015 at 10:45 am -
Ironically, the suicide of a man in prison today is drawing progressive fire. They are outraged.
Which is surprising, as it usually goes without notice.
I wonder what the difference is?
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November 20, 2015 at 11:42 am -
“Thompson’s boyfriend, Robert Steele, said he had spoken to her a day before she died. “She didn’t like it in there because people were saying things to her because she was dressing as a female,” he told the BBC.”
Yup! Commits assault goes to male prison because still equipped with a willy, refuses to tone down the drag, then commits suicide because the other inmates are unappreciative. Sounds like a tantrum gone wrong.-
November 20, 2015 at 1:27 pm -
The possession of a penis was not a bar to being sent to a women’s prison, but not getting around to applying for a Gender Reassignment Certificate was. For someone determined to live as a woman one might have expected an effort to be made to obtain that certificate, the new birth certificate, possibly a passport, etc., so as to avoid day to day hassle, never mind extreme situations such as being banged up. Tim Farron – apparently the new leader of the LibDems, something which managed to pass me by! – thinks that ‘something must be done’, and “urgently”…
Maybe if the support-groups would stop flinging the blame at everyone else & advised their ‘community’ to do the only sensible & simple thing – apply for the bloody certificate – there would be less stories such as this one appearing in the press. Hmmm, but maybe they prefer being heard to actually being useful.
As JuliaM says, an event which normally passes by without a great deal of comment/interest, at least when it doesn’t involve a member of some minority group.
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November 20, 2015 at 1:43 pm -
Ye Gods, it’s Millie Tant made flesh in the video here, holding a fantastic homemade placard: “The cistem is broken”! Brilliant!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3326581/Transgender-woman-sent-male-prison-dead-cell.html
Interestingly, the previous media coat-hook – Tara – seems to be finding that her sisters are not necessarily as open-minded as she might have wished:“Despite her move, it has now emerged that Hudson is being kept away from the ‘main regime’ of female inmates to protect her from ‘risk of harm’ – but details of this ‘risk’ remain unclear.”
Time to send the entire prison population on a re-education course, perhaps.
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November 20, 2015 at 6:01 pm -
Hudson is being kept away from the ‘main regime’ of female inmates
as I said back when you, i think, first linked me to her story….no governor of a female prison is going to be overjoyed about having a penis-bearer in Gen.Pop.
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November 20, 2015 at 7:56 pm -
But would the guv’nor even dare raise the matter if the prisoner had that magical GRC? They’d be opening themselves to charges of discrimination… and law-suits, probably. You can’t argue with a birth-certificate, even if it’s been recently (re)issued. If we’re going to accept that gender is nothing more than a state of mind – a personal choice – then decisions based on physical attributes must fall by the wayside (even when they remain resolutely attached).
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November 21, 2015 at 7:49 am -
It is possible that the spelling of System as Cisystem was deliberate as Cisgender is now frequently used instead of Transgender. From Wikipedia
“Cisgender has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis-, meaning “on this side of”, which is an antonym for the Latin-derived prefix trans-, meaning “across from” or “on the other side of”. This usage can be seen in the cis–trans distinction in chemistry, the cis–trans or complementation test in genetics, in Ciscaucasia (from the Russian perspective) and in the ancient Roman term Cisalpine Gaul (i.e., “Gaul on this side of the Alps”). In the case of gender, cis- is used to refer to the alignment of gender identity with assigned sex.”
Obscure usage but becoming more frequent.
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November 21, 2015 at 1:11 pm -
Undoubtedly deliberate, David, which is what made me smile – it was quite clever, I thought.
I only came across the term recently after reading-up on the topic which was being discussed here, and discovered that there are “cis-gendered overlords” keeping the snowflakes in icy chains or summat. Toying with the idea of having a t-shirt printed: “I ‘heart’ cissies”, which would confuse the hell out of some people – they’d be wondering if they ought to embrace me or batter me with their handbags!Since bumping into the subject it seems to be everywhere – the equivalent of BBC 2 here, La 2, just finished up a week-long series of films related to all things LGBT-etc., looking at how the Spanish cinema had treated such people, from Franco’s time to the present; it was amazing how much they managed to get past the censors, to be honest, although one of the chosen films had to have its release-date repeatedly pushed-back while they waited for him to die.
The series finished with a chinwag between experts which was amusing, as the ‘actress & transgender activist’ seemed keen on stealing the limelight back away from the ‘ordinary gays’: it had been HER tribe, the transgenderists, who had REALLY had the hardest time under the dictator’s rule, she reckoned, not the regular gays. They didn’t bother fighting back.
The presenter slipped-up a couple of times, and had to check that her terminology was correct – wouldn’t want to inadvertently cause ABSOLUTE OUTRAGE or anything – and wrapped the show up with a bombshell-question: “Where were the lezzers in all this?”
Indeed! The activists & university professors were stumped, and had a hard time even thinking of a film in which their rainbow-allies had appeared; it seems that the L of the LGBT need to face up to yet more discrimination, coming not only from the cis-gendered overlords & the patriarchy but from the Gs & the Ts as well. (I was driven to a G&T myself!)
http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/historia-de-nuestro-cine/historia-nuestro-cine-coloquio-sexualidad-transexualidad/3372618/
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November 21, 2015 at 2:03 pm -
A GRC is quite hard and expensive to obtain, it is often refused pre-op. (Remember many transgender people cannot get employment outside the sex industry, particularly pre-op and without extensive and expensive facial reconstructions. Also remember money does not grow on trees) You can have a passport and driver’s licence as a woman without a GRC.
Like most transgender people Vicky Thompson probably went through hell in a her journey to recognise her need to be a woman, in the light of that, now she is dead because of that issue, @JuliaM, it seems unkind and unnecessary to refer to her as a man…
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November 21, 2015 at 2:24 pm -
Gaye, I was reading up on it a while back here:
https://annaraccoon.com/2015/10/28/when-is-a-woman-not-a-woman/#comment-138372
It’s not expensive (and is subsidised for those on a low-income) and the ‘op’ in ‘pre-op’ is not even necessary; you can hold on to your bits if you so wish. Yes, really.
There is no excuse for not obtaining one in my opinion, as the following is just plain lunacy:
“I refuse to prostrate myself in front of a panel of cisgender overlords and beg for my human rights.”Sorry, but I really don’t see what the problem is; both of the two recent headline cases would have been avoided, and a life quite possibly spared. As I said, if the campaigners would do the decent & sensible thing – help those in need obtain the GRC – instead of complaining about actions which never would have occured if they HAD done, then the world would be a slightly simpler place.
P.S. I understand what you mean re JuliaM’s comment – Greer said as a ‘courtesy’ she would use “she” in such a case – but being unkind is not the same as being untruthful: this was a person born a man, who had not had surgery, and who had not bothered to obtain the GRC which would have re-classified ‘he as a she’ (for which having surgery was NOT a requirement). In other words, legally & physically a male.
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November 21, 2015 at 8:51 pm -
What a very cruel and unnecessary attitude to Vicky Thompson it cost nothing to refer to her as the woman she needed to be.
140 pounds (the cost of GRC) is two week’s JSA…plus the cost of chasing and obtaining documentation which could be double that, or more. I realise people of the Tory persuasion genuinely believe poor people can live on fresh air, but that actually doesn’t happen to be true…and it doesn’t matter how many miles you walk to find one there is little chance of anyone giving you a job if you are transitioning.
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November 21, 2015 at 11:18 pm -
I’m not sure if the “cruel and unnecessary” is directed at myself or at JuliaM, but I would stand-up for the ‘right’ to say something that is factually correct even if I personally wouldn’t say it (or say it so boldly). It’s not true that it would cost nothing, though – it would demand that definitions & meanings of words with which people have grown up are thrown away, diminished, reduced to meaningless sounds.
(If Oliver Sacks is looking down on us he’s probably breathing a deep sigh of relief: would he get away with NOT accepting that his patient’s wife really WAS a hat these days? How could he be so cruel?)The cost of the GRC may indeed be roughly the same as two-weeks JSA, but anyone in receipt of JSA would not be paying that cost; it would be subsidised/paid by the state. If we imagine someone on the cusp of ‘poverty’ who fails to qualify for that state-aid then we would be talking about having to set-aside £1.35 each week during the necessary 2-years of living in the chosen gender prior to applying for the certificate; if the desire is so strong & the need so great, I can’t believe that this could not be managed.
The cost of chasing and obtaining documentation? Oh, come on! Really, obtaining a letter from the G.P. who will have been involved with the patient during the whole process is hardly asking someone to climb a mountain. It’s a simple, cheap/free process that they could be helped with, if necessary, by the ‘campaigners’, if only they’d put down their bloody placards and do something more practical.
P.S. The only person – in my life – who has suggested I might be a Tory was sometime-commentator here, dear old David (with his tales of fictional detectives & murder-rings). His slur that I might like hanging-around in men’s toilets was only VERY slightly more ridiculous!
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November 20, 2015 at 11:27 am -
Happened to be at West Dulwich station this morning. There are two strategically placed advertisements for the Samaritans on the London-bound platform. Clearly there has been a problem of train-jumping in this somewhat prosperous suburb.
I don’t think you can compare the suicide bomber’s act of suicide with “normal” suicide.
Normal suicide is an act of despair, often ironically done as someone starts to come out of depression and regains their sense of will.
On the other hand in Durkheim’s model the suicide bomber is altruistic – sacrificing him/herself for the good of their social ideals.Surely the issue with Moslem extremism s the same as for any cult – except that by virtue of their close ties to the theatre of war in the Middle East, and the simmering Palestine question these guys come armed to the teeth.
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November 20, 2015 at 1:24 pm -
I might be wrong, but I think the posters are part of a general campaign by the Samaritans.
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November 20, 2015 at 2:08 pm -
Suicide by train a problem?
Here’s how Japan, the country which has the world’s busiest mass subway transit system and should therefore know a thing or two, goes about it.
http://kotaku.com/inside-tokyos-infamous-suicide-train-station-1705985393
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November 20, 2015 at 2:08 pm -
And it was ever thus.
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November 20, 2015 at 11:42 am -
It seems to me that the depiction of suicide as a desperate, tragic act reflects Western, and probably Christian, values and perceptions. In other cultural settings it might be seen as a positive choice; a courageous, even noble, act. Even within a western cultural setting the act is sometimes assessed more positively… a large proportion of VC’s, for example, have earned that honour through actions that they must surely have known that they wouldn’t survive. The point being that we cannot make assumptions about the mental state of someone that kills themself, particularly at a group level.
I also think you are also placing way too much trust in a piece of social science research. I haven’t read this piece of work but I find that most of the time social science research simply finds whatever the researcher set out to find. That is what happens when experiments are designed to prove a theory (remember the Satanic Abuse research ?). Better results are obtained when a theory is derived from experimental work, as in actual science.
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November 20, 2015 at 4:04 pm -
“It seems to me that the depiction of suicide as a desperate, tragic act reflects Western, and probably Christian, values and perceptions. In other cultural settings it might be seen as a positive choice; a courageous, even noble, act.”
What about Lawrence Oates who walked out of the tent saying “I may be some time”. His selfless suicide increased his companion’s chance of survival. A positive choice, yet both Western and Christian.-
November 20, 2015 at 11:44 pm -
I think you are missing my point. The depiction of suicide comes not from the one committing suicide but from an observer, in this case our host, so the Western and Christian nature of Oates is irrelevant. Furthermore, I wrote later in my comment, “Even within a western cultural setting the act is sometimes assessed more positively”. That is, if an act of suicide is seen, by an observer in a western cultural setting, to have created a good for others then it can be judged and depicted as heroic and noble. This, quite clearly, can be applied to Oates.
The underlying point that I was making is that the cultural setting of the observer seems to me to be the basis for a judgement of whether the circumstances of suicidal behaviour indicate ‘desperate and tragic’ or ‘noble and heroic’. If that is true then the already unreliable practice of evaluating the mental state of someone that you don’t personally know must become ever more unreliable when that someone comes from a cultural setting that you couldn’t even begin to imagine, much less understand.
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November 20, 2015 at 9:07 pm -
Probably the best comment here: “I also think you are also placing way too much trust in a piece of social science research.”
Obviously, the subject cannot be interviewed, others are projecting their preferred likely causes, possibly in an attempt to give the bomber some “humanity”
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November 20, 2015 at 11:52 am -
Interesting observations
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November 20, 2015 at 12:52 pm -
An interesting view; having lost a brother to suicide certainly the loss of so many young men is a matter for concern.
We’re still left, though, with the organisations, the people who cynically exploit the potential suicides for their own ends, and without risk to themselves. I suspect it matters little how or why some young men are vulnerable or predisposed to engage with organisations set on killing & mutilating so many others. The supply isn’t going to dry up any more than the supply of arms & explosives; even if it did some other means of low cost violence would be exploited.
Even so, I believe we’ll get through this, it’ll just take a long time.
Rather liked Andrew Neil’s rant. -
November 20, 2015 at 1:51 pm -
I was stuck on the A21 this morning for two hours due to a suicide. We moved perhaps only 500m in that time, so there was much chatting between drivers stretching their legs. We knew the jam was due to a suicide, thanks to info from mobiles. But no-one was very cross – there were sympathetic and caring thoughts expressed for the dead woman’s relatives, and also for the police and ambulance crews, who had the traumatic task of dealing with the remains.
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November 20, 2015 at 3:31 pm -
My limited experience of Middle Eastern culture is that it is one that romanticises dying young rather than the mating calls of western culture. “Haziranda olmek zor” ie it’s hard to die in June is a repeated motif in many Turkish songs which invariably end with a heyho it’s off to death I go for various reasons family honour, war, misunderstanding, destiny. Kurdish music and oral poetry ditto. Does anyone know about Persian or Arab pop culture? If one grows up where death is glamourised and praised, surely suicide bombing is something a youth might believe brings “respect”?
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November 20, 2015 at 8:26 pm -
Also often brings the promise of financial support to the family of the bomber.
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November 20, 2015 at 6:10 pm -
Not all suicide bombers are young men. There have been a number of women and children.
It is possible that the children are detonated by remote control. -
November 20, 2015 at 6:28 pm -
As the landlady knows, I think a lot of ‘normal’ suicides may be due to the side effects of certain common, otherwise harmless, medications and I would think that young men, emasculated into perma-touch with their feelings are being ‘blindsided’ into topping themselves.
One evening after drinking my, then 18 year old , crippled son wheeled himself down the slope to the beach, and then crawled over the flint stones, single and sand to the sea to drown himself. Fortunately he had taken so long to traverse the beach that the town bobby could prevent him entering the sea.
Now an 18 year spastic young man drinking English beer in a Norfolk coastal town probably has enough good reason to want to end it all just by dint of the thought of yet another Norfolk winter but in my kid’s case , as far as we and the Sec.3 doctors could tell, the compulsion was due to the mix of beta blockers and alcohol.
And it’s not just medication, most artificial sweeteners make me depressed. My GP assures me they can’t and that it “is all in the mind”- yeah no shit Sherlock, thanks for that Captain f*cking Obvious….where else would a depression be?!?
Young men drinking their body weight daily in diet cokes and energy drinks.
Young men taking pills for ADHD, asthma, autism, itchy scrot….pills which , if one were to read the Book Of Words that comes with them, no doubt cause depressive illnesses.
Young men smoking damn dope. I’ve said before that the stuff you crazy kids smoke makes me psychotic and paranoid and I have seen how it has caused depressions in others.Young people speaking their mind -getting so much resistance..-
November 20, 2015 at 7:06 pm -
You could add;
Young men being told they’re worthless sexist, racist drones by talking heads on daytime TV.
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November 20, 2015 at 7:45 pm -
And not to forget young men taking ‘anti-depressants’ to battle that depression possibly caused/aggravated by the above (or anything else, for that matter):
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/16/seroxat-study-harmful-effects-young-people -
November 20, 2015 at 11:44 pm -
I discovered through an infection my mother had, that there are unlikely and sometimes not immediately obvious side-effects to some infections, and also most modern drugs. She could easily have been diagnosed with Alz when she had a bacterial infection, as her mind was severely affected, which was an unexpected cause & effect; even the medics were not completely sure what was going on until it cleared up. But as the anti-Bs kicked in all the Alz symptoms disappeared.
I’d like to see Aspartame re-assessed. It’s FDA approval was allegedly rushed and inconclusive. Coupled with Coke it becomes a powerful behavioural modifier, and by making itself available – pushing itself – to its adherents wherever they socialise, it encourages excessive consumption, which can lead to some psychotic behaviour. Suicide is quite a high risk in this group.
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November 21, 2015 at 1:37 pm -
There are also the bizarre effects of medications at times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradoxical_reaction
I experienced one of these once, when a ‘sleep-aid’ had the (very) opposite effect – more like taking a kilo of uncut amphetamine. Frightening & horrible. Incredible how little we really know about the functioning of the body & mind, and how shy the medical profession are in admitting this. -
November 21, 2015 at 8:10 pm -
GD Searle was bought by Monsanto. What more needs to be said?
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November 20, 2015 at 6:49 pm -
The landlady makes a cogent argument, however I believe she has omitted one factor from the discussion, perhaps out of a sense of politeness.
It would seem that most suicides have at their root cause some insanity (even if temporary). The domestic (for want of a better word) suicide is usually a troubled individual who feels his/her life is worthless for whatever reasons that are important to him/her and acts usually on impulse after some critical incident.
I would suspect that the rise of the Islamic suicider can be somewhat attributed to people with similar difficulties that DAESH operatives take advantage of. Veering away into the very impolite (but factual) there are a large cohort of easily-led mentally-deficient islamists available who could quite easily be co-erced to kill themselves for some perceived reward in the hereafter. Inbreeding particularly amongst Anglo-Pakistanis is well documented, the same cohort seem to overwhelmingly support jihad and sharia, many are volunteering in Syria. The developers of this particular weapon the palestinians are documented to recruit mentally-deficient jihadists. Todays news that the female suicide-bomber was a troubled individual who may not have detonated the bomb she was (forced to?) wear, fits the mould.
In short I am saying that evil operatives probably are exploiting mentally-ill people.
As to the major thrust of the landlady’s argument, I submit that the mentally deficient can be easily led by those who themselves have chosen a literalist interpretation of the koran, and therefore the problem is indeed with the writing and teaching of Islam.
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November 20, 2015 at 9:25 pm -
@Cascadian…suicide only involves insanity until it would involve greater insanity to go on living…that happens too.
Most suicide bombers are probably quite sane…they are just fully immersed in a culture of nihilism…like the Hells Angels in the late 60s and early 70s “the biggest kick of all is death”.
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November 21, 2015 at 12:22 am -
Just because it feels nihilistic to us doesn’t mean that the motivation of the suicide bomber is nihilistic. In the case of Islamic suicide bombers, I would suggest, nihilism is extremely unlikely.
Many of the comments on this post remind me of the public reaction of many Americans to 9/11. The general feeling seemed to be that the bombers were jealous of the US and were motivated by ‘pure evil’. The comments were universally self-centered; if I were to do this then my motivation would have to be x & y, therefore that must have been the motivation of those terrorists. Not one reaction that I read reflected even an attempt to put themself into the likely actual mindset of the terrorists, with all the religious, historical and cultural baggage that would entail. Well, folks, neither the 9/11 terrorists nor the ISIS suicide bombers thought like you think, so you won’t find an understanding of their motivation by looking inside your own head.
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November 21, 2015 at 11:03 am -
ISIS is a nihilistic culture…have you seen any of their recruiting videos? They glorify death and draw strength from a group dynamic that perceives death to be a great big nothing…and there is no greater high than to override the fear of death…the core of what they are trying to achieve is a hideous distortion of Pan Arabism (the idea of using the oil wealth of the Arab states as a third, non-nuclear super power based on liberal Islamic Socialism popular in 70s and early 80s) that was one of the least nilhilistic ideologies I ever heard of, and even in a distorted form would be a very easy sell to the young and idealistic (as has been shown in many cases where Isis members have been identified). Pan Arabism was based on the assumption that the Arab world would progress to the liberalism of Algeria and Iraq at the time…when of course the reverse has happened…so it is effectively impossible for at least a generation in any civilised form…and as the nuclear superpowers have shifted it would also be somewhat redundant.
They are not motivated by evil…but the dynamic that has gripped them is evil…and like most very evil dynamics it has often gripped them by their decency and idealism. To do the things they do I would have to believe I was saving the world, and that is probably what they do believe.
There is also the elephant in the room…the fact that when it comes to terrorism, the harder you hit, the more lives you save in the long run. I am sure most suicide bombers are fully aware of this.
The only thing I don’t know is what in the name of feck they think they are fighting to achieve.
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November 21, 2015 at 1:30 am -
Gaye,…….”Most suicide bombers are probably quite sane,” I think the word probably is apt, and opens the conversation to some (maybe even a majority) being not quite sane. For the moment I believe my scenario holds up as well as any.
Nihilism may enter into it, factually we just do not know as JonD pointed out, the study is quite probably very flawed.
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November 20, 2015 at 6:52 pm -
One my reading of your piece today Anna (which incidentally as crisp, incisive and contentious as it is,is indicative to me of your return to better health) appears to pose the question that there might be some common point worth considering between those who commit suicide for the only purpose of ending their own lives and those who commit suicide for that purpose but also to further some other claimed purpose that provides justification for the death of others.
Crucially you pose the question in respect of the young male.
I mention this because if I am right it is a relatively narrow point (you quote the suicide rate of young men not overall suicide rates or young people of both genders) and some comment has been about how if there is some common point it manifests itself in two seperate ways that appear to be so paradoxical that it is unlikely there can be any such common starting point
For the little it is worth I think the point I see you trying to make as having substance. I think the point might be capable of being extrapolated further in that many young deaths might be attributed not to deliberate self destruction but to a recklessness which is a near neighbour of deliberate action (not caring the outcome rather than not giving adequate thought to possible action leading to a poor outcome). It was of course always such with the young although implicit in your writing is that it is becoming increasingly prevalent
Almost total attention has been focused on manifestion (understandably but not necessarily wisely) and possibly inadequate attention has been given to genuine causation.
I personally don’t buy into the notion that the profile of the ‘average’ suicide bomber indicates some common profound moment of religious epiphany (or something of a similar nature) experienced by them that inspires them to selflessly lay down their lives for others. In considering their profiles such as I may properly have been informed of them by the media I cannot escape certain facts such as earlier criminality for non altuistic motives, their relative lack of academic achievent (sorry but intellectual snob or not a training from a plate glass university doesn’t indicate great intellectual prowess), their inability to integrate or to find any value in Society (whether broad or less broad by which I mean the general Muslim Community) or their failure to consider or question the radical/violent interpretation of religious ‘faith’ against more traditional or orthodox interpretation of that faith before deciding on violence.
In short I am sceptical of ‘faith’ being cause and more inclined to see it as justification for other causes more in keeping with their profile (absent of course my belief in their claim to some epiphany). I mentioned the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda some days ago and few I think would give much credence to the notion that the cause for their violence is some sudden revelation in respect of the ten commandments (though they wish you to believe as much).
The narrowness of your point and its gravamen as I see it is in relation to age and not in respect of the breadth of reasons for suicide. Suicide whether limited to self destruction or destruction of self and others is violence that much is clear and safe to conclude ……less safe to conclude but a reasonable provisional analysis is that it is a violent reaction by the subjective self to the objective world that the subjective self cannot contend or deal with satisfactorily and therfore escape is decided upon and justification is sought.
And therein perhaps may lie some start to an answer not a million miles away from the one you posit Anna …..we are all aware the objective world is less than perfect (Raccoonistas perhaps more than most). With age (pace Raccoonistas but I don’t think those interested in this blog can lay claim to youth ….some thankfully I suspect) there is some reconcliation of the subjective self and the objective world or at least a reconcilation that does not manifest itself in violence to others (well apart from Fat Steve inviting the odd drinker to the Raccoon Arms Car Park for a brawl).
To the young any possible reconciliation lies in the future and some don’t ever see the possibility of such reconciliation.
Pure Selfishness and Narcisism? and a subjective valuation of the value of the life of others and violently enforced on them? In large part and at the wire the answer must be yes but no doubt recent generations have ignored the Hobbsian social contract between the generations, had the political clout to so do and the politicians to indulge them.Retro Chris is one of the more astute minds that critiques the hand that has been dealt to the young and how they are expected to play it……. and that seemingly the trumps have already been nominated for them.
Perhaps the Young Male and Society might both benefit by some fair hearing being given to their concerns rather than their voice being drowned out by the incessent noise of what is caried in the main stream media as the orthodoxy they are expected to adopt and swallow …..perhaps even an acceptance that the game they should be expected to play with the hand they have been dealt should be one of no trumps …..not of feminism, nor globalisation, nor glorification of celebrity, and not of terrorism.cause
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November 21, 2015 at 1:00 am -
With age (pace Raccoonistas but I don’t think those interested in this blog can lay claim to youth ….some thankfully I suspect) there is some reconcliation of the subjective self and the objective world or at least a reconcilation that does not manifest itself in violence to others
Yes. You are right. There was a time when I came very close to actively defending children from being ‘murdered’ (as I, we, saw it and in my case still do) in the womb. I sometimes wonder what prevented me from taking that step across that line. Wasn’t any religious edict nor moral injunction, not the whole ‘Thou shalt not kill’ thing because the Teachers of yore taught that any sin is ‘permissible’ if it be to save life. Wasn’t fear of imprisonment or death. Wasn’t, I am ashamed to say, because of love for my wife and kids.
I hope it was something Rabbi Lionel Blue once said about judging others but truth be told it was probably a feeling of ‘too old for this shit’ ,’what difference will it really make?’ and ‘I’m only 25 and already I can’t listen to Radio 1 without getting a migraine’.
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November 21, 2015 at 11:03 am -
Actually Blocked Dwarf I think with age one realises that evil (for want of a less charged word) contains the seeds of its own destruction and that in reacting to it in certain ways it gives it sustenance to endure longer. There is some interesting early Jewish religious thought that evil cannot survive without good to feed upon and that individual disengagement from evil is the most effective solution to the problem. Support for others so minded might be a further step.
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November 20, 2015 at 7:35 pm -
Great article. The more we learn about bombers who are caught/blow themselves up, the more many of them seem to conform to the stereotype of troubled young people. Obviously not those who control them and stay under cover. The young men seem pretty much as Anna describes: the writings of some of the young women who go seem to show a sexualised, romanticised vision of life as a jihadi bride: in tone not so different from those harmless girls obsessed by Robert Pattinson and making out with vampires.. I’ll try to catch Engineer’s programme at the weekend.
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November 20, 2015 at 9:20 pm -
There is another factor that crops up in mercy killing, crimes of passion and honour killing, the sense of a licence to take life if you are willing to pay with your own.
I wonder how many of these terrorists would be capable of carrying out the atrocities they do if they had not, also, resolved to end their own lives?
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November 21, 2015 at 2:50 am -
Yes. The resolution to end themselves might occur long before their actual death, though, if they do end up dying “for the cause” whatever they perceive that to be.
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November 21, 2015 at 10:46 am -
I didn’t so much mean it that way, as in the sense of believing an atrocity was necessary and being willing to die to commit it, justifying to themselves it by not forcing anyone to suffer more than than they would suffer.
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November 21, 2015 at 8:29 pm -
Ok. I understood you to be referring to either of two mental states;
– a state in which the suicidal person imagines a kind of cosmic bargain. They intend to sacrifice their own life and therefore feel morally justified in taking the lives of others. They “pay” for the deaths of others with their own life. Or…
– a state in which the suicidal person has resolved to die “for the cause” at some point in time, and is therefore in a sense “already dead”. Similar to the state of suicidal persons who, having resolved to take their own life, suddenly appear “more alive” to others in their life than they have in a long time. They seem more cheerful, more attentive, more engaged, more active. People close to them perceive that their “perspective” has improved when really it has gone right off the cliff – but feeling that they are already dead they no longer care about whatever was troubling them in the past. All they care about is accomplishing whatever “final task” they have assigned themselves – making cryptic goodbyes to those they care about and “getting their affairs in order”. A suicidal terrorist in such a state of mind might imagine themselves to be almost ghost-like, with magical powers to avoid detection before their mission is accomplished, which could powerfully reinforce their sense of being “on a mission from God” or whatever. That “sense of licence” could go on for as long as this state is maintained – months, perhaps years?-
November 21, 2015 at 9:00 pm -
Those are both relevant states, and must apply in some cases…but I was thinking more of the state in which someone with no intention of suicide is persuaded that an atrocity is the only right course, and is able to commit that atrocity only by atoning with their own life.
It’s the nightmare end of indoctrination that overcomes every human aversion to committing atrocity.
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November 21, 2015 at 1:39 am -
The University of Chicago has an online searchable database here. It claims to be up to date to June 2015.
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November 21, 2015 at 1:51 am -
And now for something completely different…
It seems odd to me, that in all the discussions about people being recruited to one or the other of the many so-called Islamist groups in Syria – including Daesh – no one ever suggests that the recruits might have a deep-seated desire to dominate others by force and/or to inflict pain & suffering on some weaker persons in a consequence-free setting. I think it is implicitly ‘verbotten’ for any media in our society to suggest this, especially with reference to female recruits or family group recruits.But I’m certain that it is a fact, in many cases.
And not all suicide bombers are enthusiastic about their suicide mission. Some are blatantly involuntary. I strongly suspect that one of the suicide bombers in Paris was trying to remove his device when it went off (the one who detonated “prematurely”).
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November 21, 2015 at 11:11 am -
Like the office of public hangman, all terrorist groups (and armies) also attract the sadistic and psychopathic. Terrorists tend to prefer to keep them in the inside pissing out rather than have them on the outside pissing in.
They tend to be very, very adverse to situations involving suicide – let me cite the appalling Jihad Johnny as an example – and are deployed where that sadism can be put to best use.
Remember, this is not a force of goatherds…they have been to film schools, have degrees in psychology…however medieval their atrocities ISIS is a slick, sophisticated modern fighting force fully equipped to take their place in the propaganda age.
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November 21, 2015 at 9:09 am -
My local authority built a skateboarding facility so that kids could injure themselves without affecting innocent passersby. Perhaps we need a central facility where suicides could do it quietly and privately. Sure, we’d need separate facilities for the RoP, with male and female segregated silos and definitely no ‘preserved meats’.
Jihadi Jills clearly want to be allowed the unprotected sex with multiple partners that they are denied at home and without the necessity of going clubbing and listening to appalling music and needing to get bombed on drink and drugs – they get bombed afterwards!
Wouldn’t anyone go nuts with all that rocking back and fro learning chunks of a madman’s voices in his head?
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