COMMENTARY Living, and dying, for one's
country By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - In an ironic
twist, among victims of the suicide attacks at three
hotels in Jordan last week were an
acclaimed Syrian movie producer, Mustapha al-Akkad,
and his daughter, Rima.
In 1976, Akkad produced
and directed a Hollywood film about the beginnings
of Islam, starring Anthony Quinn. The
Message was the first serious attempt to show
the true side of moderate Islam. Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who
claimed responsibility for the Amman attacks,
presents a very different image of Islam.
Similarly, Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi,
whose bomb failed to
detonate and who subsequently
appeared on Jordanian television, represents a
stark face of Islamic extremism. Wearing a white
hijab (scarf) and
black dress, she appeared calm as she described
the suicide attack that she undertook with her husband, who
died.
In her confession, Rishawi
identified herself as an Iraqi from Ramadi, who
had gone to Jordan on November 5 with her husband,
using fake passports. Their mission was to kill
and be killed in the process.
Although the
Zarqawis and the Rishawis of the Muslim world
might be in the minority, their beliefs are the
ones that significantly define the Western world's
perception of Islam.
Among many in the
Muslim world, though, they are martyrs
shaheed, just as Palestinians see their
actions as resistance, not terrorism. To them, a
bomber has not committed suicide, an act usually
associated with cowardliness or despair, but
rather done a brave deed of self-sacrifice that
qualifies him or her for entrance into heaven in
the afterlife.
At some point, when too
much blood is spilled in the Middle East, the
differences between bombings becomes very blurred.
All the world sees is blood and anguish, raising
the eternal question, "Is it better to live or die
for one's country?"
In Iran, a short
10-minute cartoon film was produced on Iranian
state television to commemorate "Jerusalem Day" in
October. Targeting children, it glorified martyr
bombing as a religious obligation for all Muslim
kids. In the film, a child who kills himself is
told by his aunt, "Go and show the Zionists how
brave and heroic are the children of Palestine."
Children watching such a film can almost be
forgiven for coming to the conclusion that dying,
rather than living, is better for their country.
In many parts of the Arab world, suicide
attacks are condoned, but generally only when they
apply against the Israelis in the Arab-Israeli
conflict, or the Americans in Iraq. Very few
people in the Arab world adhere to the broader
view that innocent Arabs and Muslims should be
targeted in their countries just because their
regimes are supportive of the US.
Death
by suicide Many in the West, influenced by
the media, have tried to draw a parallel between
the Iraqi woman who appeared on Jordan television
and the numerous Palestinian women who have blown
themselves up against Israel since 2000.
This shows that the West still has a great
misconception about how the Arab world operates or
thinks. Wafa Idris, for example, was the first
woman to blow herself up in an attack against the
Israelis in Jerusalem on January 28, 2002.
She was 28 years old, divorced and working
with the Red Crescent. She justified her attack as
one against her declared enemy, the Israelis. She
did not detonate a bomb against fellow
Palestinians. She became a symbol for many others,
most notably Ayat al-Akhras, an 18-year old girl
who on March 29, 2002 detonated explosives at a
supermarket in Jerusalem, killing two Israelis,
one a 17-year-old Israeli girl.
Her age,
gender and the fact that one of the victims was
her age caused a loud outcry in the international
community, with people asking why is it that these
two innocent teenagers had to suffer, and die, for
such a bloody conflict that they had inherited
from their fathers and grandfathers?
Akhras had been an A-student who wanted to
go to college and study journalism. She was
engaged to be married in July 2002. US President
George W Bush talked about the affair, saying:
"When an 18-year-old Palestinian girl is induced
to blow herself up and in the process kills a
17-year-old Israeli girl, the future itself is
dying, the future of the Palestinian people and
the future of the Israeli people."
In
April-May, more than 400 deaths were caused by
suicide bombers in Iraq. According to US
estimates, the number of foreign fighters in the
Iraqi insurgency is just a few thousand. The rest
are Iraqi nationals.
Not one bomber has
been identified as Syrian. In March, an Israeli
expert on terrorism, named Reuven Paz, conducted
research on jihadi operations in Iraq and
concluded that of the 154 Arabs killed in
operations in Iraq over a six-month period, 61%
were from Saudi Arabia. He said that of the
jihadis named on Islamic web sites, more than 70%
were from Saudi Arabia.
He said unlike the
common belief, defended by Bush and the Dalai
Lama, that these suicide bombers were young,
neglected, poor, desperate and deprived souls, the
bombers were married, educated, living in decent
houses and working in decent jobs.
This
was the same with the hijackers of September 11.
Many, Paz said, were from wealthy or middle-class
families. This idea was backed by the
anthropologist, Scott Atran, and Alberto Abadie, a
professor of public policy at Harvard University.
Abadie published a paper on the subject,
saying that very seldom are the suicide bombers
from poor families. Rather, he said violence and
terrorism is a direct result of political
instability and lack of freedoms in the bomber's
country. He said, "... during times of political
transitions, when governments are weak, political
instability is elevated, so conditions are
favorable for the appearance of terrorism."
This case of transition and instability is
exactly what is happening in Palestine and Iraq,
probably explaining why the rate of suicide
bombing, or martyr operations, is so high. In
looking at the profiles of suicide bombers since
the outbreak of the intifada in Palestine since
2000 and the September 11 attacks, it can be seen
that very rarely have the bombers been motivated
by despair. In fact, it is hope that motivates
them - hope that they can destroy the enemy.
History of suicide
bombing Suicide bombing, as a phenomenon,
was first used by the Japanese during World War II
when kamikaze pilots crashed their explosive
aircraft into US military targets in the Pacific.
The first time the term "suicide bombing" was used
was in The New York Times on August 10, 1940 in
reference to German tactics in World War II.
It started applying to the Japanese by
1942. The Japanese Navy also had two-man propelled
torpedoes called kaitens for suicide
missions. This was considered honorable suicide in
Japan. It was formalized and justified warfare in
imperial Japan. It disappeared from the 1940s
until the early 1980s, reemerging in the Lebanese
Civil War.
In December 1981, a suicide
bombing targeted the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut,
killing more than 50 and injuring at least 100
people, including Balqis al-Rawi, the famous Iraqi
wife of the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani.
The
Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), Amal, and
Hezbollah all carried out similar attacks against
Israeli targets during the 1980s and 1990s. Among
the most famous is the attack where a young woman
called Sanaa Muhaydali blew herself up against
Israel on April 9, 1985.
The SSNP later
carried out more than50 attacks against Israel in
similar fashion. Detonating bombs strapped to
human bodies reemerged in the Palestinian
territories after Palestine's late leader Yasser
Arafat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1993.
Palestinian resistance groups, such as
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, use it because it
inflicts heavy casualties on the enemy, and is
less expensive than any other kind of warfare.
Seeing its effectiveness in the Palestinian
territories, al-Qaeda began using it in its war
against the United States.
The most famous
"homicide bombing" in history is the September 11
attacks in 2001. Osama bin Laden's right-hand-man,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, explained al-Qaeda's reliance
on "homicide" attacks, saying, "The method of
martyrdom operations is the most successful way of
inflicting damage against the opponent and the
least costly to the mujahideen in terms of
casualties."
Al-Qaeda
favors civilian targets, which are easy to attack because
they are not well guarded. In the Holy Koran,
there are verses calling on Muslims to take up
arms against aggressors, but not a single verse
says that Muslims should kill fellow Muslims in
order to destabilize governments. There is even
a clear verse that, if read correctly,
would prevent Muslims from blowing themselves
up against civilian and fellow Muslim targets. In
the Holy Koran (verse 6:151) it reads, "And take
not life, which Allah has made sacred, except by
way of justice." The problem with Muslims is that
they have no universal authority to adhere to,
such as the Pope, except the Holy Koran, and the
Koran can be interpreted in different ways
according to one's own wishes.
The fact
the suicide bombers in Amman were all Iraqi
citizens proves that Iraq is no longer an importer
of terrorism, as Bush accused it of being under
Saddam Hussein. It has now become a leading
manufacturer and exporter of terrorism. As with
Afghanistan under the Taliban, it is a base from
which al-Qaeda can train troops, launch operations
and destabilize both Iraq and its Arab neighbors.
In April 2004, a group of terrorists who
had been to Iraq crossed the border into Syria and
launched a terror attack at a UN building in
Damascus. In June this year, Kuwait caught
militants trying to smuggle explosives into the
country from Iraq. After meeting with Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak this month, Iraqi National
Security Advisor Mouwafaq al-Rabii accused
Damascus of facilitating the influx of foreign
fighters through its borders to fight the
Americans in Iraq. He said, "We don't have the
slightest doubt that nine out of 10 suicide
bombers are Arabs that cross the border from
Syria."
Yet Iraq is in a shambles because
some Iraqis, Saddam's leftovers and Zarqawi's
terrorists, do not want Iraq to become a
pro-Western democracy. Syria happens to be located
at the crossroads, and happens to share very long
borders with Iraq (605 kilometers). The number of
eloquent Syrians who can convincingly defend its
stance and plead innocence is very limited, and
given that Damascus is still ruled by the Ba'ath
Party, it's even easier to accuse Syria of working
with ex-Iraqi Ba'athist officials.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst
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