SUICIDE MILITANCY-II

Martyrdom, the prize for taking one’s life

It’s not just religious ‘zealots’ who are blowing themselves and their targets up; even the aetheist LTTE has chosen the suicide militancy route.

Muzamil Jaleel

Although Islam categorically forbids suicide, there is a debate across the Islamic world as to whether the these attacks are simple suicides or related to jihad against oppression and a tactic of war. The clergy is split wide open on the issue.

The Quran categorically forbids suicide in Surah an-Nisaa (verse 29). However, in verse 75 of the same chapter, it enjoins that fighting oppression is commendable. Thus those who favour suicidal attacks prefer to call it a mission of martyrdom and an effective tactic employed to fight oppression.

In April last year, the grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, declared that ‘‘any act of self killing or suicide is strictly forbidden in Islam’’; consequently ‘‘the one who blows himself up in the midst of the enemies is also performing an act contrary to Islamic teachings’’. In fact, the grand Mufti even said suicide attackers ‘‘should not be buried with Islamic rituals and should not be buried alongside other Muslims’’.

But the Grand Imam of Islam’s top seat of learning at Egypt’s Al Azhar University, Mohammad Sayed Tantawi, issued another opinion, saying suicide bombings were legitimate, but only if directed against Israeli soldiers, not women and children.

Another reputed Egyptian clergyman Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi said such attacks were ‘‘among the greatest forms of holy struggle against oppression’’. He was even quoted as saying the ruling against suicide bombings were issued by ‘‘people who are alien to Sharia (Islamic law) and religion.

Even Jerusalem’s top cleric and the Imam of Al-Aqsa mosque, Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, said in an interview, ‘‘Muslims believe in the Day of Judgement and that dying as a martyr has its reward going to heaven — and that a martyr is alive in the eyes of God’’.

Religious leaders and Islamic scholars in Kashmir prefer silence and do not comment on the issue.

Suicide militancy, however, is not merely a product of religious fervour, especially that of Islam. Martha Crenshaw, a leading scholar on terrorism at the Wesleyan University, argues that the mindset of a suicide bomber is no different from those of Tibetan self-immolators or Irish political prisoners ready to die in a hunger strike.

In fact, the largest suicide unit of a militant outfit is with the LTTE, which is officially atheist. The group was founded in 1974 but suicide bombings were introduced as a tactic only in 1987. Observers believe the LTTE’s Black Tigers suicide unit drew inspiration from the success of Hizbullah suicide missions.

Sabil Francis, a research scholar at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, argues that the motivation for suicide attacks seems to be a kind of en masse cult hysteria that the LTTE consciously cultivates through rituals like Martyr’s Week, promoting a cult of martyrdom, building special cemeteries, naming weapons after Black Tigers. In short, the promise of honour after death.

Another powerful motivation for the Black Tigers suicide cadre, Francis says, is that the LTTE connects its ideology with a judicious use of symbols rooted in Tamil myth such as the tiger, the symbol of the Tamil god Murugan.

In fact, suicide missions seem to have been an acceptable tactic of war among Tamils historically. Francis refers of Purananuru poetry of the period between 500 BC and 200 AD, saying it was its ‘‘recurring theme’’. The LTTE cadre is expected to conform to ideals of the past. ‘‘A failure is not that of an individual letting down the organisation, it is the failure to live upto the ideals of a glorious past,’’ he said.

The motivation of the Black Tigers is similar to that of Kamikaze pilots of the Japanese air force in the Second World War, who crashed their explosive-laden planes into American warships.

Ehud Sprinzak, the dean of Lauder School of Government, Policy and Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, Israel, refers to a study conducted by Tel Aviv University psychologist Ariel Merari on the suicide attackers. It says the acts of martyrdom vary not only by culture but also by specific circumstances.

After profiling more than 50 Muslim suicide bombers serving in Hizbullah, Amal and secular pro-Syrian outfits in Lebanon as well as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Israel, Merari concluded that there is no single psychological or demographic profile for a suicide bomber, and that intense struggles produce several types of people with the potential willingness to sacrifice themselves for a cause.

‘‘Recruiters will often exploit religious beliefs when indoctrinating would-be bombers, using their subjects’ faith in a reward in paradise to strengthen and solidify pre-existing sacrificial motives. But other powerful motives reinforce tendencies towards martyrdom, including patriotism, hatred of enemy and a profound sense of victimisation’’.

Even Mouin Rabbani, director of the Palestinian American Research Centre in Ramallah, claims it is not just religion which plays the key role. ‘‘Religious or ideological fervour appears to offer only a partial explanation,’’ he said in Middle East News Online. He cites day-to-day experiences as a major reason.

In Kashmir, however, it is purely a jihadi phenomenon. No Kashmiri secular group has ever tried it. The local Kashmiri militants who were part of suicide missions were all members of pan-Islamic outfits. The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) which launched the armed revolt in the Valley in 1989 never tried a suicide attack. Even the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen never attempted suicide militancy.

Why is suicide militancy becoming so popular tool with insurgencies across the world? Can militants belonging to suicide squads be dismissed as irrational zealots? Sprinzak echoes the appraisal of terrorism experts, who say suicide operations have inherent tactical advantages over ‘‘conventional’’ tactics.

‘‘It is a simple and low cost operation requiring no escape routes or complicated rescue operations. It guarantees mass casualties and extensive damage since the suicide bomber can choose the exact time, location and circumstances of the attack,’’ he argues, adding that there is no fear that the bombers will be caught and interrogated (because their deaths are certain).

Dr Ramadhan Shalah, secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has the last word: ‘‘Our enemy possesses the most sophisticated weapons in the world. We have nothing except the weapon of martyrdom. It is easy and costs us only our lives. Human bombs cannot be defeated, not even by nuclear bombs’’.

SUICIDE MILITANCY-I