Psychology of suicide violence

CONVENTIONAL military theory continues to take the backseat to suicide-attack-driven urban insurgencies as the negative fallout of the war against terrorism expands, growing violence now establishing its presence as routine in increasing parts of the world. Muscle obviously does not suffice to subdue a charged enemy whose thesis revolves around taking his own life in order to inflict damage upon the opponent, sometimes more psychological than physical. The other option of diplomatic engagement, though not yet tried in the right spirit, is also unlikely to yield desired results, since the extremists’ demand-list comprises total power and unquestioned implementation of their extreme reading of religion, ‘or else’! Yet that is not reason enough to abandon the search for alternatives to head-on collision, especially since the elusive extremists seem much better at it. Clearly they won’t stop ramming explosive-loaded cars into sensitive buildings and pulling suicide belt triggers in busy markets till all manner of opposition to their designs is either finished or submits, implying that this is definitely a fight to the end in which only one side will be left standing. That is all the more reason for a serious look into the psychology of this new, seemingly irresistible wave of suicide warfare. It has been some time since a suicide bomber drew any sort of muted sympathy from pockets of lesser extremist circles, highlighting frustration and depravation in the fight for an apparently just but unachievable cause.
Though the phenomenon is not new, its post 9/11 implementation has seen increasing numbers of civilians included as targets, innocent men, women, children and the elderly. It does not matter to the attackers whatever the collateral damage amounts to as long as their antics keep blood flowing, send financial markets tumbling and the fear factor always high. That, along with brutal suppression of almost all forms of social and political rights in areas under their control, is an apt indicator of the barbaric and brutish nature of their mindset that is forever locked in an ancient, no longer applicable era. A closer look leaves one aghast at how carefully implemented indoctrination has produced hordes of such fanatics ready to blow up themselves and everything in sight when directed. Equally concerning, though, are geo-political factors they leverage for their twisted cause — unspeakable but real violation of human rights on part of those whose hunt is now getting the innocent common man trampled upon in the process. The brainwashing factor shows that the solution must also begin with an ideological and intellectual push. Along with that, the international system needs to evolve into a more egalitarian environment, where excesses of superpower interests and client states stop squeezing the life out of the lesser unfortunate just as inhumanly as the bombers, if not more cunningly. Just as military manuals need rewriting, so does the social order, or we will be dogged by fanatics dancing to the orgy of death and destruction that is underway with force till all manner of civility is lost, and only killers of children and women remain to enact their absurd laws.




Dangerous move

TURKEY’Su chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, is asking his country’s Constitutional Court to ban the ruling AK Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan because, by lifting a ban on female students wearing head scarves at university, the party is guilty of anti-secular activities proscribed in Turkey’s constitution. This is a dangerous and ill-considered move, which has taken by surprise even opposition politicians. What effectively Yalcinkaya is asking the country’s highest court to do is overturn the democratically expressed will of almost half of the Turkish electorate which only last July re-elected the Erdogan government with an increased majority. Were the court to accept the chief prosecutor’s petition and rule in his favor, Turkey would be diverted on to a dark and slippery path. Yalcinkaya’s intervention is the more unexpected because the Constitutional Court is already considering an appeal by the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party, over the head scarf issue. We wonder why the chief prosecutor has not awaited the decision in that case. There are many who will suspect the hand of Turkey’s powerful military establishment behind Yalcinkaya’s action. The armed forces see themselves as the guardians of Kemal Ataturk’s political legacy and have three times intervened when the country’s querulous politics have allegedly threatened chaos or the constitution was deemed to be threatened. The first coup, which overthrew the maverick Adnan Menderes in 1960, resulted in the premier’s execution for violating the constitution.
Article 4 of the present constitution, drawn up during the last military coup in 1980, states that in the first three Articles that Turkey is a republic, that it is democratic, secular and social and that its territory is indivisible and its language Turkish. It is under the secular provision of Article 1 that Yalcinkaya is seeking to have the AK party government thrown out of politics. This aim in itself may, however, be in contravention of the “democratic” provision of the same initial article. What the chief prosecutor is effectively doing is taking on the Turkish electorate. Nor is this his first attempted political intervention. Last November he asked the Constitutional Court to ban the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party as tension rose along the Turkish-Iraq border following increased Kurdish separatist PKK terror attacks. He has to recognize that he is propelling his country toward dissension, which only 30 years ago brought it to the brink of civil war. The Erdogan government won an increased mandate last year because it had proven itself a moderate and competent administration. It has avoided most of the corruption, scandal and infighting that have stained the record of its predecessors since - and including - the radical reforming government of Turgut ?zal Turkey has prospered under the AK Party’s leadership. Were the party to be banned, it is hard to imagine the political instability that would follow.

—Arab News