Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [416]
This mythological anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are being used in their classic scapegoating role towards the political aim of keeping the Arab “street” focused on mythical outside dangers rather than real, domestic injustices. So too is the United States targeted frequently, which is hardly responsible for the difficulties of Arab countries. With these grand, easy-to-understand, dualist simplifications, a great many, more complicated facts of life can be avoided. Anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are being used to avoid facing any domestic responsibility for the horrific state of human rights and human development in Arab countries. Even secular despots see an advantage to fostering Islamism, as long as it is focused on outside enemies.
The Religious Motivations of Failed Suicide Bombers
INTERVIEWS WITH failed suicide bombers against Israel show that notions of the heavenly rewards for the martyrs are important motivators to violence. But they are not the only ones. Indeed, there are others that are just as significant, so much so that some scholars can credibly claim that religion is not important in the motivation of suicide bombers.68 The agents of ḥamas and Hizballah subtly change personal feelings of inadequacy into political motivations that the youth equally associate with Muslim martyrdom. The young, imprisoned, failed mujahidin do mention the dark-eyed maidens (ḥur) as motivators (and they are mentioned in recruitment tapes too) but the potential martyrdom recruits noticeably warm to a modern addition to the tradition: The martyr’s ability to get a special heavenly dispensation for family and friends is a much greater motivator in today’s Palestine, though this is by no means a traditional reward to the martyrs, since Muḥammad explicitly ruled out intermediaries as affecting salvation. The potential martyr is attracted by the power he will gain in providing for his family in heaven, in contrast to the power-lessness to protect or earn for his family on earth.
Scott Atran has something important to add to this sketch. He denigrates educational or economic deprivation as explanations but stresses the fictive brotherhood created by the mostly unmarried men who become martyrs. While I think that many of the variables he discounts-deprivation, political organization of the sodalities, and religious faith-are critical for understanding the motivation of bombers, he still makes an important point about the way in which kinship responsibilities activate motivations for revenge in a society where notions of revenge play a dominant role in family pride.
Though it is not justified by the Quran, the shahid becomes a kind of intermediary between God and his family and friends. Lacking the ability to perform the traditional role of economic supporter, the young unemployed men substitute the notion of heavenly family provider for earthly self-sufficiency. The belief structure supplied by fundamentalist extremist Islam gives them the key ideology to equalize themselves in spiritual terms with their oppressors and even the economic score on a higher plane. Instead of losing their lives, they actually earn back their dignity in the heavenly sphere. There is a great relationship between this motivation and those we saw previously in ancient millennialist groups. But here the class of people who are affected by the motivation is much wider. Indeed, those who volunteer are apt to have achieved higher education than the norm, albeit in religiously sponsored schools. Their inability to find a position equal to their educational level is also a precipitating factor.
Thanks to the generosity of various foreign governments and charities, the martyrs do earn an earthly reward for their families. The actual monetary payment which the families of suicide bombers receive is also mentioned quite prominently in the interviews.69