James Hamilton on the psychology of suicide terrorism

British psychotherapist James Hamilton has a pair of posts on the psychology of suicide terrorism that I think are so good that I wanted to bring them to your attention. They’re a few weeks old so I may be the last to have seen them (hat tip: Step At a Time). If so, forgive me. If, on the other hand, you haven’t seen them, I commend them to your attention.

In the first post Hamilton examines the factors that cause one to adopt suicide terrorism. He rejects the hypotheses of anger and desperation outright and quite to the contrary believes that suicide terrorism is a rational response to factors in both in originating and victim societies:

Suicide bombing has advantages over more conventional forms of attack in that:

  1. It reinforces the inferior moral status and degrades the humanity of the victims, in the eyes of the community from whom the suicide bomber issues. One glorious death, many inglorious unplanned/unprepared ones.
  2. It reinforces the political strength and influence within the originating community of the men (I expect) sending out the suicide bombers. They build an image of themselves as the leaders in the fight, and as men who can command that incredible degree of obedience and enthusiasm in their followers.
  3. At the same time, because by its nature suicide bombing creates martyrs and not veterans, it is harder for rivals to emerge with respect to the leaders in the originating community.
  4. Suicide bombing demonstrates to the originating community that their leaders are strong and ruthless in the fight – and that the fight is indeed going to continue.
  5. Suicide bombing keeps battle losses within the originating community to a minimum. A conventional attack on a target might fail and yet lead to the deaths of some or all of the attackers. With suicide bombing, you know your losses in advance.
  6. Suicide bombing involves sacrifice, of civilians, not soldiers; and that sacrifice makes the originating community unwilling to compromise or give up. It sanctifies the cause.

He continues with an analysis of who is willing to kill and gives a few suggestions for what can be done to eliminate the tactic of suicide terrorism.

In the second post Hamilton focusses on the political and psychological factors in the target society that contribute to the adoption of suicide terrorism as a tactic concentrating particularly on the British intellectual class of which he is a perhaps atypical part. He writes:

If we are at all interested in politics, the chances are that we are also interested in seeing ourselves as intelligent, nuanced, concerned, involved. Of course we are – who really, at the bottom of their hearts, wants everyone to see them as an ignorant thug? (There will be those who’ll affect not to care..) And we’d like other people to see us as smart and caring too, if at all possible. But you can’t just go up to someone and say “I’m nuanced, I’m intelligent”: they’ll immediately assume the opposite, and that’s not all they’ll assume. No, these things have to be got across by osmosis. How? by declaring support for sets of views which we think are adopted by people who have those desirable attributes of intelligence, nuance etc.

There’s actually a number of these sets of views – pro-War, South Park Conservative, anti-Poverty, etc. – and there are points where they merge or serve the same constituency. But by far the most effective and universal set of views at the moment is the anti-Bush, anti-Capitalist, Kyoto, anti-Globalisation, anti-War one. Given the advantages adopting this set of views gives you, it is no surprise that they have taken off in quite the way they have.

Although I don’t hold any of those views myself (I think I may be the only British psychotherapist who doesn’t) I don’t blame anyone who does. In fact, in a real way I envy them. Holding these views does so much for a person, gives them so much extra, provides so much value, that it’s only sensible to take them on if you can.

There are so many advantages that I don’t even know where to start. I’ll attempt a list:
People assume that you’re a nice person
People assume that you are intelligent
People assume that you keep yourself informed
People think that you have cleverly not been fooled by liars.
People think that you are willing to sacrifice for the benefit of others
You can do all the adopting of these views from home. No equipment or additional purchase needed
You line up with Geldof, Tutu, Mandela, Castro, Galloway, Moore, Benn – charisma is on your side, and it rubs off on you
You have a context for passion, anger, commitment – which other people accept
You are no longer to blame for global warming – you’re on the side of the angels
You are no longer responsible for poverty – you’re on the side of the angels
You have access to the youth-giving properties of these views
You are assumed to be tolerant, anti-racist, in favour of human rights
You are assumed to be easy-going and to have a sense of humour
You are assumed to be capable of a fulfilling sex life
You are assumed to be free of neuroses, tics, hang-ups.
You are assumed to be in the right on the issues of the day without your having to demonstrate this
You are seen as being essentially classless – neither a toff, nor a chav.
You get to feel you’re in the majority and in the vanguard at the same time

These are must-read posts. They are insightful and well-written and whether you agree or disagree with his ideas I think they are a valuable contribution to the dialogue.

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