Thirsty

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Suicide bombers - part II

I recently came across this essay by Juan Cole, who is professor of History at the University of Michigan. The essay is on Al-Qaeda’s Doomsday Document and Psychological Manipulation of the 9/11 suicide terrorists.

A number of interesting quotes:

* On the self

- Admonishing the self is the way to contain it and remain true to the death vow.

- The base self is depicted almost as a brute animal that can be trained to do as it is told with sufficient effort, evoking the techniques and terminology of the Islamic tradition of piety.

- The mass murderer is encouraged to see his action as selfless. He is to “purify” his “heart” and cleanse it of “stains.” He is to forget that there is even such a thing as “this world.”

* On guilt

- Inwardly they (ie. the hijackers) were committed to piety and asceticism and self-sacrifice. Outwardly they frequented bars and strip clubs, both to throw the intelligence agencies off the scent and to get a foretaste of the rewards of martyrdom. If it was Bin Laden who put them up to this double life, he may well have done so with personal knowledge of the kind of guilt it would induce, and the kind of self-hatred and openness to manipulation to which the guilt could lead.

The self and its guilt? Hmmm, maybe I should start reading Sartre again...An application and/or comparison with existentialist thought could prove to be quite interesting.

Oh well, let's just play Unreal Tournament...

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