Desicritics Comments on Satire: Suicide Bomber Falls Down Stairs

Comment by commonsense

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 15:59:23 EST

Anamika, To have empathy for others is human, is it not?! Despite my occasional wayward ways and language, that I conveniently blame on the brew...yup, peer pressure for sure kicks in after a while, even though none of us will ever meet! Kela is a bit immune to it, but please don't spill your coffee, I do enjoy his refreshing irreverance!

Comment by Gill

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 07:58:21 EST

Commonsense wrote >>>>This is the logic of "virtual communities"! Folks think that just because there is anonymity, there is no peer pressure, but of course there is!!<<<< CS We know just like the Mullahs it is not your fault it is your faith in your ideology. you are so predictable similar to Mullahs ooops as you claimed "virtual communities" Allah = Marx Mohammed = Lenin Caliph = Stalin, Mao etc Jihad = Revolution Islamic terrorists = Comrades Religion of Peace = ""Religion of Equality"" Yup virtually the same!!!!!!!

Comment by Anamika

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:56:23 EST

And you - with all the common sense - bow to peer pressure? Lol...

Comment by commonsense

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:00:15 EST

Anamika, This is the logic of "virtual communities"! Folks think that just because there is anonymity, there is no peer pressure, but of course there is!!

Comment by Anamika

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:01:16 EST

Hey CS - dont tone down your langauge for me. :-)

Comment by commonsense

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:44:53 EST

Thanks Anamika! I meant, if you notice, I have toned down my language quite a bit!

Comment by Anamika

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:16:15 EST

CS: Chastening? No way...I just noted the intensity and coherence of your engagement with the debate. :-)

Comment by Anamika

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:14:07 EST

bd - I agree that lack of education does not correlate as cleanly with suicide bombings as many (left of centre) analysts would like. And that issues are complex with more than just one "pressure cooker" situations - economic, personal, political, military and religious. In the asence of political language these are often articulated in religious terms (I am not discarding religious fanaticism as a cause, just not the MAIN or ONLY cause). Interestingly, the first suicide "bombing" in Lebanon was carried out by a Christian woman. I have read various western analyses about her and they all insist that she was deluded, radicalised, didn't "need" to go into battle and so forth. Not one of them is willing to accept that an Arab woman may have had the agency to make up her own mind based on her immediate circumstances. By the Marine barracks bombing - am assuming you're referring to the truck bomb attack? Surely civil war and occupation qualifies as a "pressure cooker"? Btw - Fisk's tome may be long but it has more minutae and details than I have found elsewhere. I find him to be more of an obsessively old-style information junkie rather than a breast-beater. But lets agree to disagree on this one. SS: Zahid Hussein, the Pakistan correspondent for the Times? His analysis is alright but he doesn't really say anything new. But then if we are talking of the same man, he does live in a dictatorship so its expected.

Comment by commonsense

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:53:02 EST

SS, Not sure about zahid husein. do you mean the author? haven't read him...!

Comment by bd

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:07:23 EST

lol, I wasnt looking for agreement or disagreement, T, i was looking for research as you had mentioned. The paper I quoted researched many pakistani militants and their families, determined their socio-economic basis, their educational levels, etc. I quote: Only 17 (12 percent) respondents attended a madrassah among whom only 7 percent obtained a certificate (sanad) from the religious school. Generally, attaining such a certificate requires full-time attendance for at least two years. (The highest certificate requires at least 8 years of madrassah study.) This suggests that overall only about 4 percent of the respondents attended a madrassah full-time. While 27 percent had no formal education, 22 percent had less than a matriculation (a.k.a. ''matric'' or 10th grade), 22 percent had a matriculation but less than intermediate degree (12th grade), 16 percent had an intermediate degree but less than a degree (14 years, the equivalent of a BA), and 13 percent had some sort of post-secondary education. This suggests that overall, more than half of the respondents were matriculates. In contrast, among Pakistani males generally, only 32 percent are matric graduates.Compared to these national standards, the respondents in the sample are considerably more educated than the average Pakistani male. This finding undermines the common aphorism that militants come out of environments of ignorance.

Comment by temporal

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:33:57 EST

in that case let's agree to disagree ;)

Comment by bd

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:27:31 EST

T I was also talking about Pakistani terrorists, mate, most of them seem to be coming from educated backgrounds, not from madari's! Secondly, our man clauswitz or even bismark would not care about suicide bombers. Individuals did not exist at that time, it was purely force. So the fact that somebody could have grabbed a satchel of explosives and rolled under a howitzer would not have occurred nor would they have cared at all. Life was much less precious at that time otherwise it would not have ended with the horrors of regimental killing in WW1.

Comment by bd

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:25:02 EST

robert fisk's magnum opus would have done with a bit less of magnumising, god, that man can go on and on. I mean, there is a limit to the amount of breast beating a man can take! :) lol But on the other hand, Nasrallah's explanation notwithstanding, is not complete. For example, I would find that explanation very difficult to fit into the 9/11 chappies, or the chap who drove into the Marine Barracks, or the frequent fellows in Kashmir or in Tamil Nadu/Sri Lanka. Giving a carrot is far too simplistic (and yes, this 72 virgins is a joke). To ask a person to give up their lives, you need to get much more than just that so yes, i do agree that it is much more complicated.

Comment by temporal

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:27:47 EST

beady i endorse ana in #49...and i did say #40 was 'confined' to the pakistani edition... ana: ...it doesn't help us stop or prevent the attacks... yehi tou ... (delivered with the same emphasis and accent as the lady in office office) :) wonder what strategy baron clausewitz or bismarck would have adopted to counter a lunatic willing to gamble away his/her life

Comment by smallsquirrel

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:58:05 EST

CS/anamika... how reliable is zahid hussain?

Comment by commonsense

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:18:30 EST

Anamika, Me in full form?? Much chastened though! Should have followed your advice about not moo-lagooing with some people...would have saved me some time and energy... Robert Fisk's work is really good! Agree about Pape...but Fisk is unimpeachable I think!

Comment by Anamika

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:30:03 EST

Temp: i think the point is that there is no one motivation for even the allegedly Islamic suicide bombers. So a Palestinian attacking Israel has different motivations from a Saudi attacking the US or a Jordanian in Iraq or a Pakistani in London. To qualify it as Islamic may be convenient - it gives people a concrete entity to hate. I mean just look at this site and stuff that gets posted here. On the other hand, it doesn't help us stop or prevent the attacks so its obviously not a very useful qualification.

Comment by Anamika

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:23:28 EST

bd: Thanks. Have read those but find them a bit limited and limiting. I agree on Pape - a fair bit of bilge. Same goes for Mia Bloom and most of the American/Israeli stuff on the topic. Part of the problem is the "othering" so its seen somehow exotic or foreign and therefore intrinsically inferior/irrational/delusional etc. (there is a value judgement implicit in the work). Actually the best - albeit localised (which I think is the only logica way) analysis came from a quote from Hassan Nasrallah who was explaining what motivated suicide bombing. I am paraphrasing here but this is more or less the explanation he gave: He said to imagine being in an extremely uncomfortable sauna where the temperature is rising and making you uncomfortable. And someone walks up and points to a door. They tell you that behind the door is a cool comfortable room with chamber music and an icy cocktail. And then he asks, would you go through the door? Btw that interview is in Robert Fisk's Great War for Civilization. CS: in full form I see. :-)

Comment by commonsense

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:59:33 EST

Thanks BD! Look forward to _The Mind of a Terrorist_ when it comes out...and of course, look forward to your review... meanwhile, I'm "dying" for more photo-essays from you!

Comment by bd

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:20:43 EST

Common sense Just a word of warning about Pape's book, that has major methodological issues, frankly useless book actually. There was a very good academic book review on it some time ago, can dig it out if you want (mind you, i am a bit jaundiced against him anyway, imagine coming up with an equation for how you can use air power to win a war? - this was in the immediate aftermath of Gulf War 1) I havent read the second one but it has now gone into my amazon wish list! :) and waiting for this book to appear :) The Mind of a Terrorist, Jerrold M. Post, will be reviewing it soon.

Comment by commonsense

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:38:56 EST

BD, True! I also used to think the same, until I saw the profile of most of them...A really good account of this henious phenomenon is to be found here: Robert A. Pape, _Dying to Win_ (Random House, 2005) Christoph Reuter, _My Life as a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing_ (Princeton University Press, 2004)

Comment by bd

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:08:04 EST

T, just a small point about the background of the pakistani militants, check this out, mate :) You might be surprised, I was too. I also used to think it was the madrassah's which were producing these chaps, but no. http://dailysalty.blogspot.com/2008/01/who-are-pakistans-militants-and-their.html

Comment by kerty

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:22:34 EST

CS..#38 Good points. That state is a necessary evil in absence of any viable alternatives. One can also make a similar case that religion and 'community' are also necessary evils in absence of viable alternatives. In that case, key issue boils down to - how do we separate things that do not make statism to be benign and in similar vain, how do we separate things from religion and 'community' that do not make them to be 'benign' and beneficial. Can we define religion and 'community' that is benign and beneficial - and limit their expression to those levels? Can we define statism that is benign and beneficial - and limit its power to those levels? Can we generate consensus among people, among ideologists, among religionists, among 'community' activists as to what is desirable level of statism, religious freedom/expression, community role? Are they all willing to accept checks and balances against each other so none of them go beyond their benign mandate. Is that enshrined in the constitution? Do we have political process in place to evolve to such stage? Is this one of those unrealistic sounds-good-on-paper utopias? Because it is. We have major fundamentalist religions that will never accept limit on their expressions/freedoms - in fact they deem themselves inseparable from 'community' and statism that they demand separate status for themselves. We have castes in place that will not yield their group autonomy and freedoms. We have leftist ideologies(socialism, communism, feminism, individualism) that are so wedded to statism, they can not be separated from statism. And Hindus, not to be outdone or left behind, have joined the fray with their claim to statism - Hindu Rastra. So where do we go from here? Is there a political force in India that can bring all sides togather and force them to give up their cherished visions and come to some compromise in the interest of our ideal utopia? So we flog the blogs with our pet issues but none of it matters or make any difference.

Comment by commonsense

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:25:10 EST

unless you meant them randy billy goats...ouch for the madaris then!

Comment by commonsense

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:21:49 EST

Temporal: ""the promised maidens appear better than self-service or goats (ouch!)..."" Ouch indeed!! (for the luckless goat :)