Dr. Sanity has kindly (coincidentally, but who am I to quibble with fortuitous timing) continued developing the themes I touched on yesterday. Her starting point is an indispensable article in the Times of London on-line, Are you ready? Tomorrow you will be in Paradise . . ., in which an aid worker, Nasra Hassan, writes about her research on suicide bombers in Palestine. She has interviewed ~250 people who had been trained as suicide bombers and failed in their missions. Her work is chilling. Her subjects describe an entire industry devoted to creating suicide bombers. A key part of the preparation of the "martyrs" is their psychological preparation. S describes what happens:
“It’s as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell,” he said. “Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise — it is the shortest path to Heaven.”
The idea of ecstatic union is developed in Dr. Sanity's post, Union With An Evil God. The wish for fantasied union (more accurately, the derivative of an unconscious fantasy of re-union) motivates many people to search for mystical experiences as well as certain types of drug induced experiences, (especially hallucinogens).
People who experience religious ecstasy often find it to be a transformative experience. Dr. Sanity draws a contrast between the religious fusion with a loving, all powerful Deity and the experience of the suicide bomber.
But this is not the case when one unites with a brutal, bloodthirsty, compassionless god like Allah the Merciful (what a misnomer!). The Allah of the gentleman quoted in the article above is hardly benign and demands not only your death, but that you commit murder in his name. The perfect union is still perceived ecstatically, even if the Self undergoes medieval torture; for it is still the desired Oneness that the developing Self lost early on in life. Allah the omnipotent object remains omnipotent--just evil-- and the result is a profound loss of humanity and a rejection of the good.
It is possible,though, that Allah may be getting a bum rap. In the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", Jessica Rabbit--who is always responded to as a wanton sex kitten--exclaims in frustration at this depiction of her, "I'm not bad! I'm just drawn that way!"
Allah may not be so bad. Perhaps he's just drawn that way...?
The suicide bombers have made it perfectly clear that they deny the humanity of all non-believers. This is a signal distinction from every other religion. Evangelicals may believe you cannot be saved if you do not agree with their beliefs. They may work hard to "save you", though typically are respectful of those of us who do not desire saving at the moment. The Islamist agrees that you are bereft of Allah's love and offers "submission" to Allah via conversion, or "submission" via dhimmitude, at the point of a sword.
Inadvertently, Tom Friedman, of all people, agrees with my thesis as well (though somehow, I doubt he has read ShrinkWrapped). In A Poverty of Dignity and a Wealth of Rage, he comments on the humiliating feelings of failure evoked in the young, Arab man when the contrast between the success of the infidel West and the Arab world. becomes unmistakable. He suspects that the conflict between the young Muslim's religious learning and the external society is unbearable and for some can only be resolved by a turn toward fundamentalist religious belief.
Part of what seems to be going on with these young Muslim males is that they are, on the one hand, tempted by Western society, and ashamed of being tempted. On the other hand, they are humiliated by Western society because while Sunni Islamic civilization is supposed to be superior, its decision to ban the reform and reinterpretation of Islam since the 12th century has choked the spirit of innovation out of Muslim lands, and left the Islamic world less powerful, less economically developed, less technically advanced than (Christian, Judish, & Hindu societies).
"Some of these young Muslim men are tempted by a civilization they consider morally inferior, and they are humiliated by the fact that, while having been taught their faith is supreme, other civilizations seem to be doing much better," said Raymond Stock, the Cairo-based biographer and translator of Naguib Mahfouz. "When the inner conflict becomes too great, some are turned by recruiters to seek the sick prestige of 'martyrdom' by fighting the allegedly unjust occupation of Muslim lands and the 'decadence' in our own."
Friedman concludes that the key question remains to illuminate by what processes the individual undergoes the conversion from a typical middle class British citizen, to a citizen of fundamentalist Islam.
The secret of this story is in that conversion - and so is the crisis in Islam. The people and ideas that brought about that sudden conversion of Hasib Hussain and his pals - if not stopped by other Muslims - will end up converting every Muslim into a suspect and one of the world's great religions into a cult of death.
The connection between the ecstatic union sought by the suicide bomber and the loss of dignity, rage, and temptation suffered by the young Muslim man (I do not agree with Friedman that this is confined to the Sunni Arab) is well worth a longer look.
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