The Suicide Bomber as a Philosophical Subject

Mehmet Z. Demir

Fall - 2007

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To Beyza Gul / Umay Demir and Yohann Walter...

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The Suicide Bomber as a Philosophical Subject

'Philosophy is metaphysics.'

- Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being -

Introduction

The concept of terrorism is the one that ought to be dealt with conscientiously. Each actor

harbors a different definition of terrorism in the arena of international politics. It has always

already been a label of demonization. This demonizing becomes palpable, when for example

Osama Bin Laden ridicules the concept of terrorism after September 11th and defined 9/11 as

'a matter of self-defense' : ' If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and killing those who kill

our sons is terrorism, and then let history bear witness that we are terrorists. Just as they’re

killing us, we have to kill them so that there is a balance of terror'.1 Yet, the terror has never

had ' a balance' and does by no means seem as if it would evaporate like a drop of rain from

the earth on which human beings have been butchering each other since the time immemorial;

it seems rather that it will always exists as a ' will to terror’ in so far as one single human being

rambles on the earth.2 ‘The will to terror' is infinite.

1 Quoted in Muhammed M. Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World, Lynne Rienner, 2003 See also my ' Islamic Fundamentalism and Violence: Clash of Meanings?', CCG Project, January 2007.

2 It may be seen in the mouth of King Lear that how unbearable, revengeful and ironic ' the terror' would be:

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need! You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,

As full of grief as age; wretched in both;

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The term terrorism, on the other hand, is as old as the French Revolution. It was the same time

in which phenomena such as total war and totalitarianism appeared. It is no mere coincidence

that concepts like liberty, human rights, and democracy (in our modern conception) came into

existence at the same time.3 It is these concepts that suicide bombers are truculently in cahoots

with.

The suicide bomber, either Muslim Fundamentalists or pseudo-secular ones, never accepts the

term suicide for what he does. His dislike for the term suicide is immense. The suicide bomber

accepts no title but martyr. As a metaphysical concept martyrdom does emanate from '

witnessing'. What, then, does he witness? The suicide bomber does witness his own very

challenge to death by sacrificing his life for the sake of his God, his nation, his war, his

revenge.4 The suicide bomber perceives what he does from a metaphysical perspective.

The suicide bomber is a political agent as well as a fecund philosophical subject. It is an 'onto-

metaphysical tragedy.' It bobs up on the line between life and death – ultimately ending up

along with some others with the latter. This is its astonishing and lurid impact as well as, to

If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger. O! let not women's weapons, water-drops,

Stain me man's checks - No, you unnatural hags, That all the world shall _ I will do such things,- What they are yet I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth, You think, I'll weep.

William Shakespeare, Four Tragedies,King Lear, II.4, p.675, Penguin Books, 1994

3 Gerard Chailand and Arnaud Blin' The Invention of Modern Terror',, pp. 95 -111. In The History of Terrorism From Antiquity to Al Qaeda, Eds. Gerard Chailand and Arnaud Blin, Trans. E. Schneider, K. Pulver – J. Browner, University of California Press, 2007 (Hereafter, 'The invention of Modern Terror')

4 Mahmoud Siyam, a suicide bomber writes, in his last will and testament: ' Mother and father, I urge you to pray, fast, and rise the dawn prayers...I urge you to recite and chant (God's name), and entreat (God) to have mercy on me and forgiveness. I urge you to be pleased with me and mention me in your prayers. I know I will leave a void in your lives, but this is the calling of my God and my country' Quoted in Mohammed M. Hafez, ' Symbolic Dimension of Suicide Terrorism', In Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism The Globalization of Martyrdom, Ed. Ami Pedahzur, Routledge 2006.

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the point of this study, the onto-metaphysical streak of it. The so-called rational explanations

motivated by foreclosing it on the account of the states that encounter the suicide bomber fail

to understand this phenomenon.5 This should come as no surprise that if the researcher

compels himself to explain such a phenomenon for the sake of fending it off, then he will find

himself to be compelled, inevitably, to warp the phenomenon. It is this quandary that

discombobulates academics who study the suicide bomber. The more one subjects himself (for

your very existence in such an institution unequivocally requires this subjugation) to what the

institution you work for stands for, the more you ensure your salary and a comfortable life.

The lust for increasing the living standards stultifies the intellectual honesty and dignity that

are necessary to understand such a phenomenon. Those who examine the phenomenon at the

service of the state or non-state institutions under the cloak of so-called academic criteria peter

out in a sort of balderdash. I shall handle the phenomenon as a philosophical subject and

analyze it through the arguments operated by Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph

Conrad and Terry Eagleton.

As I proceed this discussion, permit me to tell you about this murky, ephemeral spectacle we

are compelled to be in which the suicide bomber exists. The suicide bomber is an almost daily

phenomenon in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan and so on. The fear of to

be blown up by somebody beside you has gone quite a way towards crippling daily life. One

may easily claim that paranoia has never been such an epidemic -- against which no remedy is

conceivable, no escape is available. It is as if the entrance is destroyed while the backdoor is

lacking for bystanders – either they are victims of suicide bombers or potential suicide

bombers. There is nothing to do more than stare at the windows uneasily. On the other hand,

the suicide bomber is trapped in such unbearable, suffocating conditions that undo the required

5 For example, See, Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror, Colombia University Press, 2005, Paul J. Smith, The Terrorism Ahead Confronting Transnational Violence in the Twenty-First Century, M.E Sharp 2008. Of course, these books have immensely empirical data, which is valuable in any case, especially statistics.

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balance for the perception of existence and nothingness --i.e the very perception of life and

death. When life becomes an insurmountable burden to carry and when to exist loses its

meaning, the solution appears in the form of excess. Excessive conditions beget excessive

consequences. The suicide bomber exists and acts in excessive conditions and becomes an

excess. He is a product of excessive, contradictory states, i.e., shame and pride, maleficence

and innocence, vengeance and disgrace, abhorrence and disappointment, destitution and

mortification, honor and humiliation. The suicide bomber prefers death while simultaneously

bringing it unto others.

Discussion:

Let me first discuss Immanuel Kant's moral system with regard to the act of suicide. Although

Kant was probably aware of the earlier forms of the suicidal violence – i.e., the Jewish Zealots

in the first century of Palestine and the Muslim Assassins in the eleventh and twelfth centuries

of the whole Middle East, the suicide bomber did not exist at the time of Kant. Kant, however,

spoke of suicide in his 'moral system', one which can be summarized as the scrupulous taming

of human reason by means of rules and norms. Kant writes:

'A man, feels sick of life as the result of a series of misfortunes that has mounted to the point of despair,

but he is still so far in possession of his reason to ask himself whether taking his own life may not be

contrary to his duty to himself. He now applies the test 'Can the maxim of my action really become

universal law of nature?' His maxim is 'From self-love I make it my principle to shorten my life if its

continuance threatens more evil than it promises pleasure'. The only further question to ask is whether

this principle of self-love can become a universal law of nature. It is then seen at once that a system of

nature by whose law the very same feeling whose function (Bestimmung) is to stimulate the furtherance

of life should actually destroy life would contradict itself and consequently could not subsist as a system

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of nature. Hence this maxim cannot possibly hold as a universal law of nature and is therefore entirely

opposed to the supreme principle of all duty.'6

In Kantian morality, one ought to ask himself whether his action is in accord with 'universal

law of nature', if he still has his reason in the face of the conundrums of existence. He may not

have been so but the existence itself makes him sick. The underlying instinct of avoiding pain

and pursuing pleasure becomes his maxim, which Kant defines as a 'subjective principle of

action' and distinguishes from an 'objective principle'. As far as the Kantian moral system is

concerned, however, this maxim ought to be questioned – This ought is that by which all

imperatives are expressed. As soon as this questioning is done, the maxim held by the 'sick'

and 'desperate' moral agent will contradict itself and fail to be a 'universal law system of

nature' on whose absence 'the supreme principle of all duty', which is what the Kantian moral

system ultimately aims to be in harmony with, is infringed. If this argument is applied to the

case of the suicide bomber, then his maxim will be: ' From self-love I make it my principle to

shorten my life along with some others if its continuance threatens more evil than it promises

pleasure'. As has been expected, this maxim will also contradict itself and opposed to supreme

principle of all duty. Yet even if the questioning of moral agent's maxim could be able to be in

compatible with the supreme principle of all duty, Kantian moral system still requires an

absolute value on which imperatives are constructed. This value is derived from an end in

itself. Kant argues that one is supposed to assume something of which existence possess an

unquestionable value in itself so that one could obtain a ground with which one determines

laws. It is the same ground on which possible categorical imperatives might be constructed.

These, then, possible categorical imperatives might function as a 'practical law' so as to judge

moral actions and act as to a moral system. If, Kant maintains, every rational being is taken as

an end itself, then it is this criterion which might protect rational being against to be arbitrarily

6 Immanuel Kant,The Moral Law Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Trans. H.J. Paten, Routledge 2005, p.98

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used by this or that will. By having this criterion becomes a practical imperative like this: 'Act

in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your person or in the person of any

other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end'. Kant, then, illustrates

the practical imperative that one acquires through viewing him as an end in this manner:

'First, as regards the concept of necessary duty to oneself the man who contemplates suicide will ask

'Can my action to be compatible with the idea of humanity as an end itself?' If he does away with

himself in order to escape from a painful situation, he is making use of a person merely as a means to

maintain a tolerable state of affairs till the end of his life. But man is not a thing – not something to be

used merely as a means: he must always in all his actions be regarded as an end in himself. Hence I

cannot dispose of man in my person by maiming, spoiling, or killing.'7

The very act of suicide becomes an amoral act due to the fact that his action is unable to be in

accordance with the criterion of judging the acts as an end itself. Doing so will be treating

yourself as a means but not an end. Yet, the suicide bomber is somehow a thing and is used as

a means in the political game, a thing which spreads fear among those to whom the suicide

bomber has directed his absolutely double-lethal violence. In this sense, the suicide bomber is

unified with the bomb he straps on his body and is transformed into a thing.

The act of suicide finds no justification in Kantian moral system. On the other hand, the

suicide bomber is able to find the justification on the very act of killing as to his own moral

reasoning. The suicide bomber kills himself along with some others because he regards this

action just. They have killed, tortured and spoiled his most loved ones. But it is hard to kill

those who killed the suicide bomber's people. This problem is easily solved by claiming that if

those who kill the suicide bomber's people are not available to kill, then it is just to kill

whenever and whoever you find on the side of enemy. For Chechen suicide bombers, for

example, all Russian citizens can be killed so long as they pay tax to the Russian state. The

same reasoning is at work and play for 9/11 too. No matter the victims and commodities of the

7 Ibid. p. 107.

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World Trade Center were civilian; they were at the service of the 'evil' capitalist system, which

occupies and exploits the Muslim soil. The suicide bomber has a pragmatic moral system. As

soon as his act is required, the moral system to which he applies is modified. The moral system

of Islamic fundamentalist suicide bomber, for example, does not allow suicide or killing

woman and children. Human life is sacred in Koranic texts. It is given and taken by God. But

as soon as necessity requires, the very killing of yourself along with some others is not only

justified but also glorified as martyrdom and promised to be rewarded with heaven. Nietzsche

comments on the Assassins who were the first example of suicide operations perpetrated by

Muslims in this manner:

When the Christian crusaders in the Orient came across that unconquered Order of Assassins, that free-

spirited order par excellence, whose lowest ranks lived a life of obedience of the sort no order of monks

attained, the they received by some means or other a hint about that symbol and motto, which only the

highest ranks kept as their secret, 'Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.' . . . Well now that was

spiritual freedom. With that the very belief in truth was cancelled. . . Has a European, a Christian free

spirit ever wandered by mistake into this proposition and its labyrinthine consequences?8

The suicide bomber seems to have inherited this 'spiritual freedom'. For suicide bombers

everything is permitted. This spiritual freedom becomes a lethal freedom which ends up with

killing yourself along with some others. This is why freedom is a Janus-faced concept. One

can never be able to pose and experience an 'accomplished freedom'. The very difference

between freedom and tyranny, or whatever its opposite is -- if there is one -- is excessively

fragile. The 'will to terror' functions mainly in the name freedom. 'Limits', Eagleton

hermeneutically maintains, 'makes us what we are, the idea of absolute freedom is bound to be

terroristic'.9

8 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, 3, 24, Trans. Ian Johnston http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogytofc.htm

9 Terry Eagleton, Holly Terror, Oxford University Press, 2005, p.71(Hereafter, Eagleton, Holly Terror)

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Surely, the suicide bomber perceives and experiences death in an altogether different way than

others. The death is a beginning and an end as a transitory phase, a political action, a means

for propaganda, a tool for fear on the account of enemy to frighten and discourage them, an

idol for the very struggle for which he embraces and challenges death to bolster his cronies.

The death is simultaneously his capital or surplus-value and exploitation. In The Secret Agent,

as the professor, 'the perfect nihilist' character of Joseph Conrad’s fiction, who prepares to

commit a suicide attack, says:

"Possibly. But it is a matter of degree obviously, since, for instance, I am not impressed by them.

Therefore they are inferior. They cannot be otherwise. Their character is built upon conventional

morality. It leans on the social order. Mine stands free from everything artificial. They are bound in all

sorts of conventions. They depend on life, which, in this connection, is a historical fact surrounded by

all sorts of restraints and considerations, a complex organized fact open to attack at every point;

whereas I depend on death, which knows no restraint and cannot be attacked. My superiority is

evident."10

The superiority of the suicide bomber lies in his act's originality. (Death only happens once)

They, the suicide bomber and the enemy to whom he directs his double-lethal violence, do

belong to altogether different ‘worlds’. The power of the violence of the suicide bomber

comes from its disorderly characteristic. To be alive means to be susceptible to worldly

tentacles. It is this susceptibility of their order that is its weakness. Nobody and nothing can

harm the death. It becomes supreme, insurmountable and triumphant. As Jacques Lacan says, '

Suicide is the only successful act'. 11

10 Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, p.36 http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=223218&pageno=1

11 Quoted in Eagleton, Holy Terror, p.97

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The suicide bomber perceives the tragedy in which he acts dichotomously i.e., good and evil.

As might be expected, he is on the 'good' side of the very duality. He does not see what he

does as a 'bad' thing. Hi is simply self-defense.12 Self-defense with self-immolation; the suicide

bomber is a contradictory figure. On the other hand, the evil side, for the suicide bomber, does

also perceive the very tragedy in the same duality. Of course, the very location of good and

evil is permuted. In the eyes of those to whom the suicide bomber directs his double-lethal

violence, the suicide bomber is an insane barbarous monster. They use their battle axes under

the banner of ‘war on terror'. So, what the suicide bomber does is in a sense terror on war on

terror.

As the young boy Stevie who dies due to the explosion of the bomb in his hands in the end of

the novel cries out, when he witnesses the whipping of a horse:

"Poor! Poor!" he ejaculated appreciatively. "Cabman poor too. He told me himself." The

contemplation of the infirm and lonely steed overcame him. Jostled, but obstinate, he would remain

there, trying to express the view newly opened to his sympathies of the human and equine misery in

close association. But it was very difficult. "Poor brute, poor people!" was all he could repeat. It did

not seem forcible enough, and he came to a stop with an angry splutter: "Shame!" Stevie was no master

of phrases, and perhaps for that very reason his thoughts lacked clearness and precision. But he felt

with greater completeness and some profundity. That little word contained all his sense of indignation

and horror at one sort of wretchedness having to feed upon the anguish of the other--at the poor cabman

12 In the history of mankind, the suicidal violence almost always was implemented against an 'imperialist', I use this very term at the expense of being anachronistic, power. i.e., the Zealots against Roman imperialism, The Assassins against Seljuk Imperialism and Crusader Imperialism, The Muslim Philippines against American Imperialism, the Vietnamese against American Imperialism. Furthermore, The Palestinian, Afghans and Iraqis see their countries as 'occupied'. Tamils ( Sri Lanka) and PKK (Turkey) see their suicide attacks for the sake of a 'national liberation' against an oppressive state. And needless to say that the transnational Al- Qaeda terror label their attacks as self-defence as Laden pointed out.(See, p.1)

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beating the poor horse in the name, as it were, of his poor kids at home. And Stevie knew what it was to

be beaten. He knew it from experience. It was a bad world. Bad! Bad!'13

It is a 'bad' world for the suicide bomber who is the child of poor people14 - The ones who

implemented 9/11 are exceptions. The poverty and misery he lives in are devastating. If he

tried to implement the very action alone, he might have failed. The explosions are

expensive. This is one of the reasons why the suicide bomber does need the

organizations that support him (and the family members he left behind) economically,

logistically and technically. It is not enough to decide to be a suicide bomber. The very

action needs time, knowledge, and money. The suicide bomber, as much as Stevie, is

not the master of phrases. The discourses are produced and spread by the

organizations. This is another reason of the need of organizations. His function is to

sacrifice his life to kill some others for getting rid of the wretchedness from which the

suicide bombers suffer until the moment of action. The very moment of the

consummation of sacrifice and murder. 'To die at a time of your choosing is', Eagleton

writes, 'is to dispose of your life in the manner of an absolute monarch. Yet if you are

your own master, it follows that you are also your own slave. The consequence of this

act of freedom is the end of freedom. Just as the act of sacrifice brings together an all

powerful priest and a powerless victim, so the suicide bomber, who presides ritually

over his own dismemberment, is both together. As a sacrificial scapegoat, he hopes to

pass by this ritual self-immolation from weakness to power. What this means in

13 Conrad, The Secret Agent, p.93

14 See, Nietzshe quotation p.8

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practice, however, is that the only power he has left is the capacity to take charge of his

own victimization'15

The suicide bomber is a figure whose contradictory character allows or compels him to be at

opposite extremes simultaneously. It is the death before which all human beings are equal –

Perhaps the only thing for which one would be use the concept of 'equality' and 'human beings'

at the same sentence positively. ‘The thought of suicide', Nietzsche says, 'is a strong means of

comfort: it helps get us through many an evil night'16. From this it might follow that the action

of suicide with murder is a powerful weapon by means of it the death itself becomes a weapon

by which life vanishes for the suicide bomber somehow victoriously while for some others

absolutely suddenly and unexpectedly.

The terrorist, Eagleton says, 'is not the pharmakos; but he is created by it and can only be

defeated when justice is done to it'.17 Yet Pharmakos is a scapegoat that would be either a

criminal or a slave whose value only lies on his/her death. And the death is something which

has nothing to do with justice. As Nietzsche says, 'There is a justice according to which we

take a man's life, but no justice according to which we take his death: that is nothing but

cruelty'.18

Conclusions:

1. The term terrorism is abundantly politicized and thus is useless.

2. The will to terror is infinite.

15 Eagleton, Holly Terror, p.96

16 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil Prelude to a Philosophy of Future, Trans. Judith Norman, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 157.

17 Ibid., p.140. Italics are in the original text.

18 Friedrich Nietzsche, Human all too Human A Book for Free Spirits, 88, Trans. Helen Zimmern

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3. Only can one understand this phenomenon as an onto-metaphysical namely as a philosophical

subject.

4. Excessive conditions beget excessive consequences. The suicide bomber exists and acts in

excessive conditions and becomes an excess itself.

5. The suicide bomber has a pragmatic moral system. All his reasoning works for justification

and motivation of his action till his death along with others.

6. The suicide bomber is a product of contradictions. It is these contradictions that beget, and

motivate this excessive act.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bloom, Mia Dying to Kill The Allure Of Suicide Terror, Colombia University Press, 2005

Chailand Gerard and Blin Arnaud' The Invention of Modern Terror', In The History of Terrorism From

Antiquity to Al Qaeda, Eds. Gerard Chailand and Arnaud Blin, Trans. E. Schneider, K. Pulver – J.

Browner, University of California Press, 2007

Conrad Joseph, The Secret Agenthttp://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=223218&pageno=1

Eagleton Terry, Holly Terror, Oxford University Press, 2005

Hafez Mohammed M, ' Symbolic Dimension of Suicide Terrorism', In Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism

The Globalization of Martyrdom, Ed. Ami Pedahzur, Routledge 2006.

Hafez, M. Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World, Lynne Rienner, 2003

Nietzsche Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil Prelude to a Philosophy of Future, Trans. Judith Norman,

Cambridge University Press, 2002

Nietzsche Friedrich, Human all too Human A Book for Free Spirits, Trans. Helen Zimmernhttp://users.compaqnet.be/cn127103/Nietzsche_human_all_too_human/index.htm

Nietzsche,Friedrich On the Genealogy of Morals, 3, 24, Trans. Ian Johnston

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogytofc.htm

Kant Immanuel, The Moral Law Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Trans. H.J. Paten, Routledge 2005

Smith Paul J., The Terrorism Ahead Confronting Transnational Violence in the Twenty-First Century, M.E

Sharp 2008

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