ANN ARBOR, Mich.
One given in the war against terrorism seems to be that suicide attackers
are evil, deluded or homicidal misfits who thrive in poverty, ignorance
and anarchy.
President Bush, at last year's United Nations conference on poor nations
in Monterrey, Mexico, said that "we fight against poverty because hope
is an answer to terror." Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican,
argued that a new security doctrine including wars of preemption was necessary
because "those who would commit suicide in their assaults on the free world
are not rational." A State Department report issued on the first anniversary
of the 9/11 attacks said that development aid should be based "on the belief
that poverty provides a breeding ground for terrorism."
As logical as the poverty-breeds-terrorism argument may seem, study
after study shows that suicide attackers and their supporters are rarely
ignorant or impoverished. Nor are they crazed, cowardly, apathetic or asocial.
If terrorist groups relied on such maladjusted people, "they couldn't produce
effective and reliable killers," according to Todd Stewart, a retired Air
Force general who directs the Ohio State University program in international
and domestic security.
In the suicide bombing of a cafe in Tel Aviv last week that killed
three bystanders, for instance, the bomber and the man accused of being
his accomplice grew up in Britain, in relatively prosperous circumstances,
and attended college.
The Princeton economist Alan Krueger and others released a study in
2002 comparing Lebanese Hezbollah militants who died in violent action
to other Lebanese of the same age group. He found that the Hezbollah members
were less likely to come from poor homes and more likely to have a secondary
school education.
Nasra Hassan, a Pakistani relief worker, interviewed nearly 250 aspiring
Palestinian suicide bombers and their recruiters. "None were uneducated,
desperately poor, simple-minded or depressed," she reported in 2001. "They
all seemed to be entirely normal members of their families."
A 2001 poll by the nonprofit Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey
Research indicated that Palestinian adults with 12 years or more of education
are far more likely to support bomb attacks than those who cannot read.
Officials with the Army Defense Intelligence Agency who have interrogated
Saudi-born members of Al Qaeda being detained at Guantбnamo Bay, Cuba,
have told me that these fundamentalists, especially those in leadership
positions, are often educated above reasonable employment level; a surprising
number have graduate degrees and come from high-status families. Their
motivation and commitment are evident in their willingness to sacrifice
material and emotional comforts (families, jobs, physical security), to
travel long distances and to pay their own way.
The body of research shows that over all, suicide terrorists tend not
to have the attributes of the socially dysfunctional (fatherless, friendless,
jobless). 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.
A study of world attitudes toward America by the Pew Research Center
in December 2002 and many other polls of Muslims from Algeria to Indonesia
show ever-rising support for "martyrs." A United Nations report indicated
that as soon as the United States began building up for the Iraq invasion,
Qaeda recruitment has picked up in 30 to 40 countries. Recruiters for groups
sponsoring terrorist acts tell researchers that volunteers are beating
down the doors to join.
This allows terrorist agents to choose recruits who are intelligent,
psychologically balanced and socially poised. Candidates who mostly want
virgins in paradise or money for their families are weeded out. Those selected
show patience and the ability to plan and execute in subtle, quiet ways
that don't draw attention. Al Qaeda, especially, is rarely in a hurry.
It can wait years and then strike when least expected.
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."
Brian Barber, a psychologist at the University of Tennessee, has interviewed
some 900 young adults from Gaza and a comparison group of Bosnian Muslims
who had also suffered through violence but had not become a source of suicide
bombers. The Bosnians had markedly weaker expressions of self-esteem and
less hope for the future. Faith was the largest difference: the Palestinians
routinely invoked religion to invest personal trauma with social meaning,
whereas the Bosnians did not consider religion significant to their life.
This overall pattern was also captured in a white paper by the Parliament
of Singapore concerning captured operatives from Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant
group allied with Al Qaeda: "These men were not ignorant, destitute or
disenfranchised. Like many of their counterparts in militant Islamic organizations
in the region, they held normal, respectable jobs. As a group, most of
the detainees regarded religion as their most important personal value."
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.
How do we combat these masters of manipulation? President Bush and
many American politicans maintain that these groups and the people supporting
them hate our democracy and freedoms. But poll after poll of the Muslim
world shows opinion strongly favoring America's forms of government, personal
liberty and education. A University of Michigan political scientist, Mark
Tessler, finds Arab attitudes to American culture most favorable among
young adults (regardless of their religious feeling) — the same population
that recruiters single out.
It is our actions that they don't like: as long ago as 1997, a Defense
Department report (in response to the 1996 suicide bombing of Air Force
housing at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia) noted that "historical data
show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations
and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States."
Shows of military strength don't seem to dissuade terrorists: witness
the failure of Israel's coercive efforts to end the string of Palestinian
suicide bombings. Rather, we need to show the Muslim world the side of
our culture that they most respect. Our engagement needs to involve interfaith
initiatives, not ethnic profiling. America must address grievances, such
as the conflict in the Palestinian territories, whose daily images of violence
engender global Muslim resentment.
Of course, this does not mean negotiating with terrorist groups over
goals like Al Qaeda's quest to replace the Western-inspired system of nation-states
with a global caliphate. Osama bin Laden seeks no compromise. But most
of the people who sympathize with him just might.
Scott Atran, a research scientist at the National Center for Scientific
Research in Paris and at the University of Michigan, is author of ``In
Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.''
NYT, May 5, 2003
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