[extropy-chat] Poverty of Dignity

[Damien Sullivan]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 10:53:30AM -0700, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Specifically, the Tamil Tigers are claimed to have pioneered the
> explosive belt that is now in use by al Qaeda, the PLO, Hamas, Islamic
> Jihad, and other groups. However, this itself is in doubt, as such
> belts were in use as far back as the Vietnam War, when the Viet Cong
> engaged in suicide attacks in downtown Saigon.

Well, the Viet Cong are even less Muslim than the Tamil Tigers.

And Pape seems to exclude the kamikaze bombers because they were backed by a
government, but I think he doesn't need to.  His basic claim is that suicide
attacks aren't abnormal or dependent on weird religious ideas, but on group
support, typically motivated by perceived military logic.  WW II Japan would
fit in nicely.

> The originators of the technology are irrelevant. The important
> questioin is who is the primary user of the technology today. 

Muslims, at least while things in Sri Lanks are peaceful.  But is that because
they're Muslim, or because the people who right now feel most aggrieved and
without other means of attack happen to be Muslim?

> Pape's opinions are under serious attack because he seems to dismiss
> the religious motives of the attackers as irrelevant, yet at the same

   Religion may be the prime motivation for some individual suicide
   bombers, Pape admits, and some groups may be religiously based,
   including al Qaeda.

> time claims that the preception of the attackers that their homeland is
> being 'invaded' is based on the religion of the invaders, i.e.
> christian, atheist, etc... He is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

I don't think so.  The religion is a social label, a group ID.  It can be
invoked as such without depending on the beliefs behind it, so that the
bombers aren't bombing because they really believe there'll be 72 virgins
waiting for them, but simply because they feel their group is under attack and
this is how they can defend it.  

And "Crusader" isn't just "Christian", but "Christians invading our lands".

> If religion were irrelevant, then there shouldn't be such a striking
> monoculture of religious leanings or heritage of suicide bombers.

This "monoculture" *after* you added Viet Cong to the list of suicide
bombers...

I see mention of Tamil suicide bombings in mid-2000.  Since then there's been
a ceasefire.  This "monoculture" seems contingent and recent, not essentialist
to me: the tactic was pioneered by one or two groups (Viet Cong, Tigers), then
has spread to a particularly aggrieved population (Arabs).  It hasn't spread
to Christians; how many Christians have need of such tactcs?  Most are at
peace, or else have other means of combat.  Africa is full of people at more
or less equal levels, with the people who could really use such tactics --
such as in Zimbabwe -- perhaps too poor to afford the bombs, or lacking the
social cohesion to encourage suicide bombers.

   What has Pape most worried at the moment is Iraq. That nation will
   soon overtake Sri Lanka as the site of the highest number of suicide
   terrorist attacks.

So a plurality of suicide attacks have in fact not been Muslim or Arab at all.
When that changes, it will be after a few years of intense attacks in Iraq,
during which time the Tamil Tigers have had a ceasefire.

> spent time in Pakistan undergoing 'religious' study, and at least three
> of the four became associated through soccer matches. It isn't
> impossible to imagine that one can infect another with religous memes
> outside a madrassa, and it appears they all travelled significant

It also isn't impossible to imagine that the relevant memes spread aren't ones
of supernatural belief but of group identification and grievance.

-xx- Damien X-)