Not a week goes by when we fail to hear or read news of yet another botched/successful suicide bombing at the hands of the Taliban or another one of the infamous terrorist organisations that are based in regions in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
But honestly, where do these suicide bombers get their motivation? How can something so volatile and violent really contribute to any conceivable measure of happiness? And also, do terrorists even use guns anymore?
As common knowledge dictates, the behaviour of the average suicide bomber is slightly different to that of the average terrorist. For instance, whereas a responsible suicide bomber would or at least should not flinch at the command to obliterate a marked target - anything seems up for detonation these days - your archetypal terrorist would have second thoughts.
These second thoughts can be defined as self-serving conscious decisions made in order to protect the subject from harm - self-defence I guess. The main concept acknowledged by the non-bomb terrorist is that of the subjective self.
And this is where the significance of the difference lies: terrorists think, suicide bombers don't. Or rather, they can't. The precise objective of a suicide bomber runs in line with the premeditated purpose of a terrorist organisation - to destroy a popular/instrumental figure or facility of the enemy (commonly the West), therefore achieving a crucial disruption of normal order and the outbreak of panic, leading to more destabilisation.
In effect, what an organisation says goes; the life of the suicide bomber is effectively null, while the role they play in functioning as the organisation's explosive means to the destructive end is valued above an individual's right to live. This is a barbaric concept alien to most democratic western cultures and one of the reasons why suicide bombers are so feared.
The indoctrination and desensitisation process that moulds the shape of a suicide bomber is the method applied by terrorist organisations to groups or protégés expecting a pivotal purpose in life.
However, saying that these organisational 'devices' are protégés is inaccurate, as a protégé is usually trained by someone with experience in or of a specific field or subject and, as is the case, senior figures in organisations like the Taliban are not too keen on exploding themselves. Plus, experience of blowing yourself up is a little hard to come by for reasons most obvious.
In relation to the goals set for a prospective suicide bomber, it is important to note that you can only become a suicide bomber once you've carried out the task and are no longer alive - result? Not really.
Contributing to further understanding on suicide bombers are studies that have proven the sketchy theory surrounding the coveted 72 virgins of Islam more reliable. Due to the cultural difficulties of acquiring a partner in countries espousing the Muslim religion , a social condition attributable to the polygamous habits of men, the desire in often desperate young men to receive 'bounties of women' in the afterlife is increasingly more appealing than securing one in reality.
No doubt the constraints in these Middle Eastern countries on the behaviour of women are also fault lines in the bedrock of cross-gender communication; men are perceived as superior to women, thus inequality causes a crude divide that frustrates young men who are naturally intent on coupling.
To spar with superficial views on Muslim theology and practice certain hypotheses and studies have assiduously revealed that the doctrines of Islam, as outlined by the prophet Muhammed, and featured in the Koran, do not condone suicide bombing as a key to the entrance to heaven. To make it even clearer, the Koran forbids any acts of violence against another entity that are not carried out for the purposes of fair justice, i.e. capital punishment for a serious crime.
And as if these angst-ridden young men (considered the easiest targets in these societies; also in ours - see Farouk link below) didn't have enough to worry about, the consequences of sometimes rigid abidance to sharia law in certain Muslim countries exacerbates their paranoia in places where chauvinistic hierarchies are rife.
For all intents and purposes, the system that sees vulnerable individuals turned into victims of conspiratorial vendettas does its job; the terrorists augment damaged psyches with overriding compulsions to defeat an enemy that is not that individual's enemy but the target of that particular organisation's national/international frustrations.
In the cases of many men like Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab there is little to explain their transformations into suicide bombers except the sheer domination by influential terrorists of their minds.
One theory I've got going at the moment appears to be supported more and more by ever-increasing examples of suicide bombing: terrorists are phasing-out guns, making vulnerable people their primary weapons in their struggle against democracy. These unfortunate humans-cum-weapons are no longer capable of thinking for themselves, which is as disconcerting as it is reassuring.
What we need to do is teach them how to avoid the dangerous grasp of the terrorists' rhetoric and turn their backs on a fate which IS exactly death.
But honestly, where do these suicide bombers get their motivation? How can something so volatile and violent really contribute to any conceivable measure of happiness? And also, do terrorists even use guns anymore?
As common knowledge dictates, the behaviour of the average suicide bomber is slightly different to that of the average terrorist. For instance, whereas a responsible suicide bomber would or at least should not flinch at the command to obliterate a marked target - anything seems up for detonation these days - your archetypal terrorist would have second thoughts.
These second thoughts can be defined as self-serving conscious decisions made in order to protect the subject from harm - self-defence I guess. The main concept acknowledged by the non-bomb terrorist is that of the subjective self.
And this is where the significance of the difference lies: terrorists think, suicide bombers don't. Or rather, they can't. The precise objective of a suicide bomber runs in line with the premeditated purpose of a terrorist organisation - to destroy a popular/instrumental figure or facility of the enemy (commonly the West), therefore achieving a crucial disruption of normal order and the outbreak of panic, leading to more destabilisation.
In effect, what an organisation says goes; the life of the suicide bomber is effectively null, while the role they play in functioning as the organisation's explosive means to the destructive end is valued above an individual's right to live. This is a barbaric concept alien to most democratic western cultures and one of the reasons why suicide bombers are so feared.
The indoctrination and desensitisation process that moulds the shape of a suicide bomber is the method applied by terrorist organisations to groups or protégés expecting a pivotal purpose in life.
However, saying that these organisational 'devices' are protégés is inaccurate, as a protégé is usually trained by someone with experience in or of a specific field or subject and, as is the case, senior figures in organisations like the Taliban are not too keen on exploding themselves. Plus, experience of blowing yourself up is a little hard to come by for reasons most obvious.
In relation to the goals set for a prospective suicide bomber, it is important to note that you can only become a suicide bomber once you've carried out the task and are no longer alive - result? Not really.
Contributing to further understanding on suicide bombers are studies that have proven the sketchy theory surrounding the coveted 72 virgins of Islam more reliable. Due to the cultural difficulties of acquiring a partner in countries espousing the Muslim religion , a social condition attributable to the polygamous habits of men, the desire in often desperate young men to receive 'bounties of women' in the afterlife is increasingly more appealing than securing one in reality.
No doubt the constraints in these Middle Eastern countries on the behaviour of women are also fault lines in the bedrock of cross-gender communication; men are perceived as superior to women, thus inequality causes a crude divide that frustrates young men who are naturally intent on coupling.
To spar with superficial views on Muslim theology and practice certain hypotheses and studies have assiduously revealed that the doctrines of Islam, as outlined by the prophet Muhammed, and featured in the Koran, do not condone suicide bombing as a key to the entrance to heaven. To make it even clearer, the Koran forbids any acts of violence against another entity that are not carried out for the purposes of fair justice, i.e. capital punishment for a serious crime.
And as if these angst-ridden young men (considered the easiest targets in these societies; also in ours - see Farouk link below) didn't have enough to worry about, the consequences of sometimes rigid abidance to sharia law in certain Muslim countries exacerbates their paranoia in places where chauvinistic hierarchies are rife.
For all intents and purposes, the system that sees vulnerable individuals turned into victims of conspiratorial vendettas does its job; the terrorists augment damaged psyches with overriding compulsions to defeat an enemy that is not that individual's enemy but the target of that particular organisation's national/international frustrations.
In the cases of many men like Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab there is little to explain their transformations into suicide bombers except the sheer domination by influential terrorists of their minds.
One theory I've got going at the moment appears to be supported more and more by ever-increasing examples of suicide bombing: terrorists are phasing-out guns, making vulnerable people their primary weapons in their struggle against democracy. These unfortunate humans-cum-weapons are no longer capable of thinking for themselves, which is as disconcerting as it is reassuring.
What we need to do is teach them how to avoid the dangerous grasp of the terrorists' rhetoric and turn their backs on a fate which IS exactly death.
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