Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs

265 Pages·2005·0.73 MB·English

by  Farhad Khosrokhavar

Suicide Bombers
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0000 pprree ii 55//11//0055 66::4466::0022 ppmm
This book is supported by the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
as part of the Burgess programme headed for the French Embassy in
London by the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0000 pprree iiii 55//11//0055 66::4466::0033 ppmm
Suicide Bombers
Allah’s New Martyrs
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Translated by David Macey
P
Pluto Press
LONDON (cid:127) ANN ARBOR, MI
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0000 pprree iiiiii 55//11//0055 66::4466::0033 ppmm
First published 2002 as Les Nouveaux Martyrs d’Allah by Flammarion.
English-language edition published 2005 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Farhad Khosrokhavar 2005. Translation © David Macey 2005
The right of Farhad Khosrokhavar to be identifi ed as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7453 2284 0 hardback
ISBN 0 7453 2283 2 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in Canada by Transcontinental Printing
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0000 pprree iivv 55//11//0055 66::4466::0033 ppmm
Contents
A Note on Terminology vi
Introduction 1
Two Forms of Martyrdom 4
1 Islam 11
Jihad: Holy War 13
Martyrdom in Islam 20
The Diffi cult Secularisation of Religion 25
Reinterpretations of Martyrdom and Jihad 28
The Paradoxical Individualisation of Religious Discourse 52
Martyropathy 58
Death and Fear of Dying 62
2 The Impossible National Community 70
Martyrdom in Iran 70
Martyrdom in Palestine 109
Lebanon: Between Martyrdom and Absurdity 141
3 The Transnational Neo-umma: al-Qaeda’s Martyrs 149
Diasporic Ummas 149
Forms of Humiliation 152
A New Self-consciousness 153
The World Metropolis 158
Organisational Forms 161
Different Types of Actor 174
The New Middle-class Diaspora 175
The Case of Britain 195
The Case of America 200
Jihadist Families 204
Converts 206
The Exclusion of Women 217
The New Globalised Imaginary 219
Conclusion 225
Afterword to the English Edition 230
Index 255
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0000 pprree vv 55//11//0055 66::4466::0033 ppmm
A Note on Terminology
The terms ‘terrorism’ and ‘jihadism’, ‘terrorist activity’ and ‘jihadist
activity’ are used here as though they were interchangeable. They
are used, that is, in the sense in which they are used in the West
and in the press, and have no predetermined value. What one side
sees as terrorism or jihadism can be experienced or perceived by the
other side as a war of national liberation or an attempt to fi ght the
global hegemony of the West. It can always be argued that only tiny
minorities are involved in so-called terrorist activities and that they
are not recognised by the moral majority they claim to represent. Al-
Qaeda claims to represent a global Muslim community which is not,
in many countries, prepared to follow it, even though bin Laden may
be celebrated as a hero. Similarly, Italy’s Red Brigades and Germany’s
Rote Armee Faktion claimed to represent a working class that did
not support them, even though a few working-class individuals may
have hero-worshipped them. In general, we will describe as ‘terrorist’
activities that take a totality or group as an ideal reference or principle
of legitimacy, even though that group or totality does not actually
support its members’ actions. In some Muslim societies, bin Laden
is glorifi ed as the man who took symbolic revenge on an arrogant
America and, more generally, an impertinent West. Such societies
may well hero-worship him, but they do not want him as their leader.
His role is rather like that played by Che Guevara in Western countries
and in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.
vi
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0000 pprree vvii 55//11//0055 66::4466::0033 ppmm
Introduction
Throughout the twentieth century, the modern world strove to
relegate religion to the realm of the private affairs of the individual.
Over the last decades, however, we have seen the return in force of
ostentatious forms of religiosity that defy the public space they invest.
They reject society, and may even declare war on it.
Far from representing relics of an archaism faced with extinction,
these violent religiosities are part of the modern world. The dynamic
that produces them is the same dynamic that defi nes our cultural
and political conditions of existence. Often characterised by the
preponderant role played by death in their worldviews, they affect
almost all religions, even though we will be looking exclusively at
Islam here simply because the author of these lines is not competent
to speak about other religions.
In the West, the problem of Islam and its activist forms arises for
many different reasons. On the one hand, old barriers are breaking
down as globalisation makes it diffi cult for the discrete and watertight
civilisations of the past to go on existing. A hundred years ago, the
population of the West was overwhelmingly Christian. That is no
longer the case. In less than half a century, the upheavals of the
modern world and the intermingling of peoples of different origins
within it have resulted in the establishment of sizeable Muslim
minorities in almost all countries. Muslims are now part of the
cultural and religious landscape, be it in France (some four million),
England (one and a half million), Germany (over three million),
elsewhere in Europe or in the United States (some four million). The
globalised world also generates a number of interrelated symbolic and
cultural phenomena, thanks to the modern media and new forms of
communication, mass population movements from one corner of the
globe to another, and the formation of ever more varied diasporas.
Events like the war in Bosnia or the struggles in the Palestinian
territories are watched in real time by television viewers all over the
world and inspire an almost simultaneous feeling of compassion,
indignation, solidarity and revulsion. This too is breaking down the
barriers between the various parts of the world.
The overwhelming majority of Muslims living in the West adapt to
their host countries and are eventually integrated into them. A tiny
1
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0011 iinnttrroo 11 55//11//0055 44::5500::2277 ppmm
2 Suicide Bombers
minority become radicalised for the specifi c reasons examined in the
following analyses. There are various reasons for this. There are, to
begin with, problems relating to the independence of former colonies
after the Second World War (the Muslim territory of Kashmir, where
the Indian-controlled area has given rise to confl ict between Pakistan
and India), but there are also problems relating to the creation of
Israel and the Six Days War, and to the collapse of the Soviet Empire
(Bosnia, Chechnya or even Afghanistan). Those Islamic forms of
struggle that result in jihad or martyrdom relate to the establishment
of new nations that fi nd obstacles in their way or, as in the case of
Iran, to the formation of nations that fi nd themselves at war with
other countries. Despite the differences between the cases of Iran,
Palestine, Chechnya, Algeria or Afghanistan, the one thing that they
do have in common is that they are inspired by Islamic movements
that have a clearly identifi ed goal. The enemy they are fi ghting is
also clearly defi ned. In Iran, the goal of the war against Iraq was, on
the one hand, to preserve national independence and the gains of
the Islamic Revolution on the one hand and, on the other, to fi ght
the Iraqi enemy. Anti-Western rhetoric made the anti-imperialist
struggle one of the issues at stake in the Islamic Revolution, but that
goal was quickly marginalised.
A fundamentally different form of martyrdom came into being
as a direct result of the collapse of the bipolar world and the Soviet
Empire. This is al-Qaeda’s form of martyrdom. Although it does have
many things in common with national forms of martyrdom, the
subjectivity that inspires its actors and the form taken by its hatred
of the world are fundamentally different.
The interpretation offered here is based upon the analysis of texts,
my fi eld experience as a sociologist and anthropologist working in
the Islamic world and in France, but also upon interviews carried out
over a period of 18 months in French prisons with Muslims. Some
were jailed for associating with wrongdoers in order to plan acts of
terror, whilst others were radical Islamists or accused of belonging
to Islamist networks. These interviews reveal the specifi city of their
commitment and of the way they live their subjectivity.
One myth dies hard. Martyrs are described as ‘Allah’s madmen’.
They are described as being motivated by something approaching
dementia, or as being out of step with the Western life way of life.
They have personality problems, or quite simply have not succeeded
in integrating into our societies. They are, in other words, not modern
and are simply incapable of behaving as responsible and autonomous
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0011 iinnttrroo 22 55//11//0055 44::5500::2288 ppmm
Introduction 3
individuals. They have also been marginalised and excluded, and
they react to their social and economic exclusion by rebelling against
society. This is to some extent true of the young people in the suburbs
in French cities, and in poor neighbourhoods in England. A minority of
al-Qaeda-style martyrs would recognise themselves in this description.
But the vast majority of the network’s members cannot be categorised
in this way. Their subjectivity is not that of marginalised or wretched
individuals who have been excluded or rejected by society. They
are often from the middle classes and have no major problems in
integrating. In most cases, they are in fact much more integrated than
the average citizen. The Islamist activists who become al-Qaeda-style
transnational terrorists are much more complex than most people
imagine. They are usually described as representatives of something
archaic or simply naive creatures who are not strong enough to come
to terms with the complexity of contemporary society, and who are
being manipulated by a few masterminds. Even if these descriptions
are in part accurate, they miss the essential point. On the contrary,
such terrorists are, in a way, products of our world. Their ideal is to
create a transnational neo-umma, but its myths and fantasies are as
vague as those of our modernity, at least amongst those who have
been brought up in Europe, converts and many second-generation
immigrants from North Africa, Pakistan or other Muslim countries.
They construct their individuality on the basis of a new relationship
with the contemporary world. The logic at work in their groups is to
some extent similar to that at work in modern cults.
Whilst we have to note that contemporary Islamic martyrdom
can take different forms, we must also avoid two pitfalls. If we regard
each case as though it were unique or, on the contrary, identify
radicalisation with mere fundamentalism or Islamism, there is a
danger that our analysis will be fl awed. We will try, insofar as it
is possible to do so, to penetrate the subjectivity of these actors
and to describe in phenomenological terms their motivations, their
intentionality, their mental construction of the world, and their way
of inserting themselves into the world whilst protesting against it at
the same time. This by no means implies an apologetic conception
of their actions or their representation of the world. Understanding
is not legitimisation. A sociology or anthropology that makes no
attempt to understand and condemns their subjectivity out of hand
or gives a traditional or premodern vision will get us nowhere because
it makes it impossible to think seriously about the ills of our modern
KKhhoossrrookkhhaavvaarr 0011 iinnttrroo 33 55//11//0055 44::5500::2288 ppmm