I saw this article in the Current Events News board and wanted to share it with you because it's interesting:
From Newscientist.com:
Most suicide bombers anywhere in the world appear to be normal. Study after study has shown that suicide terrorists are better off than average for their community and better educated. They are also rarely suicidal in the pathological sense. Ariel Merari, a psychologist at Tel Aviv University who has traced the background of every suicide bomber in the Middle East since 1983, has found symptoms of mental illness or drug and alcohol abuse in very few.
They don't have to be Islamic extremists either, or even radicalised by faith. True, the London bombers were all Muslims, as are the vast majority of suicide attackers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel. Yet many of the suicide bombers in Lebanon in the 1980s were from secular Christian backgrounds. And one of the modern pioneers of suicide terrorism, the Tamil Tigers, are secular Marxist-Leninists.
So Suicide bombers are not necessarily Islamic fundamentalists, and the fact that the majority of suicide bombings are carried out by muslims is only as a result of the co-incidence that so many muslims are involved in one sided battles against large and well resourced armies (Iraq, Chechnia, Palestine)
Virtually every suicide attack in modern times has been conceived and managed by militant groups, and they all employ the same methods. First, find people, usually young and male, who are sympathetic to the group's cause and organise them into small units. Second, exploit their motivation to fight for the cause using religious or political indoctrination, emphasising the heroic nature of their mission and the nobility of self-sacrifice. Third, have all members of the unit make a pact declaring their commitment to what they are about to do. Beyond this point, it becomes psychologically very hard for them to back out.
Merari and others who have studied suicide attacks across the world have found this pattern in just about every one, from kamikaze pilots to the 9/11 hijackers. The sense of duty to a small group of peers that the process creates can, they say, turn just about anyone into a potential suicide bomber: the crucial factor is not the psychology of the individual, but that of the group. Many researchers have shown that it is not difficult to persuade normal, rational people to do evil things if you apply the right conditioning. Persuading someone to die in the doing is not as fantastical as it seems.
The method of getting individuals to committ suicide attacks is not so different from the psychological methods used to pursuade regular armed forces to fight and die in conventional war. Soldiers first duty is to their fellow soldiers in their unit. they are motivated by honour and the desire to not let their unit down. Soldiers who die protecting their unit are decorated in the most honourable way. Soldiers who run away or who don't fight with the required level of valour are shamed.
Many young British Muslims feel ideologically closer to their family's land of origin or to the worldwide Muslim community than to the country they grew up in. Marc Sageman, an American psychiatrist who has studied Al-Qaida supporters in Europe, suggests that radicalisation in the Muslim diaspora starts with a feeling of estrangement from the general population that surrounds them. Young Muslim men especially can come to empathise strongly with Muslims abroad who they think are suffering injustices at the hands of the west. It is not hard to see how, through contact with militant radicals or through the plethora of inflammatory websites, they might see an alleged enemy of Muslim communities in Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan as their own enemy - even when that enemy is their own country.
The immediate reaction to suicide bombers is to label them as animals, or inherently evil. But this will not do. Blowing themselves up in a crowd is often the first evil thing these people have done. And they are not animals. The most difficult thing of all is to recognise that suicide bombers are, alas, all too human.
From Newscientist.com:
Most suicide bombers anywhere in the world appear to be normal. Study after study has shown that suicide terrorists are better off than average for their community and better educated. They are also rarely suicidal in the pathological sense. Ariel Merari, a psychologist at Tel Aviv University who has traced the background of every suicide bomber in the Middle East since 1983, has found symptoms of mental illness or drug and alcohol abuse in very few.
They don't have to be Islamic extremists either, or even radicalised by faith. True, the London bombers were all Muslims, as are the vast majority of suicide attackers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel. Yet many of the suicide bombers in Lebanon in the 1980s were from secular Christian backgrounds. And one of the modern pioneers of suicide terrorism, the Tamil Tigers, are secular Marxist-Leninists.
So Suicide bombers are not necessarily Islamic fundamentalists, and the fact that the majority of suicide bombings are carried out by muslims is only as a result of the co-incidence that so many muslims are involved in one sided battles against large and well resourced armies (Iraq, Chechnia, Palestine)
Virtually every suicide attack in modern times has been conceived and managed by militant groups, and they all employ the same methods. First, find people, usually young and male, who are sympathetic to the group's cause and organise them into small units. Second, exploit their motivation to fight for the cause using religious or political indoctrination, emphasising the heroic nature of their mission and the nobility of self-sacrifice. Third, have all members of the unit make a pact declaring their commitment to what they are about to do. Beyond this point, it becomes psychologically very hard for them to back out.
Merari and others who have studied suicide attacks across the world have found this pattern in just about every one, from kamikaze pilots to the 9/11 hijackers. The sense of duty to a small group of peers that the process creates can, they say, turn just about anyone into a potential suicide bomber: the crucial factor is not the psychology of the individual, but that of the group. Many researchers have shown that it is not difficult to persuade normal, rational people to do evil things if you apply the right conditioning. Persuading someone to die in the doing is not as fantastical as it seems.
The method of getting individuals to committ suicide attacks is not so different from the psychological methods used to pursuade regular armed forces to fight and die in conventional war. Soldiers first duty is to their fellow soldiers in their unit. they are motivated by honour and the desire to not let their unit down. Soldiers who die protecting their unit are decorated in the most honourable way. Soldiers who run away or who don't fight with the required level of valour are shamed.
Many young British Muslims feel ideologically closer to their family's land of origin or to the worldwide Muslim community than to the country they grew up in. Marc Sageman, an American psychiatrist who has studied Al-Qaida supporters in Europe, suggests that radicalisation in the Muslim diaspora starts with a feeling of estrangement from the general population that surrounds them. Young Muslim men especially can come to empathise strongly with Muslims abroad who they think are suffering injustices at the hands of the west. It is not hard to see how, through contact with militant radicals or through the plethora of inflammatory websites, they might see an alleged enemy of Muslim communities in Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan as their own enemy - even when that enemy is their own country.
The immediate reaction to suicide bombers is to label them as animals, or inherently evil. But this will not do. Blowing themselves up in a crowd is often the first evil thing these people have done. And they are not animals. The most difficult thing of all is to recognise that suicide bombers are, alas, all too human.
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sorry things have been so difficult lately. if i could be of help, i would. no worries though, things will work out sooner or later. they have a funny way of doing that.
hope you had a better day today. if not, try to smile anyway.