The Business of Martyrdom by Jeffrey William Lewis

Author:Jeffrey William Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612510972
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

MANAGING MARTYRDOM

Technology Practice and Suicide Bombing

Ariel Merari’s empirical research on suicide bombing, spanning more than two decades, reveals the phenomenon to be an extremely complex process that cannot easily be reduced to a single-variable explanation. Instead, he argues that a full explanation of suicide bombing must address three interactive components: the community, the organization, and the psychology of the individual.53 In 2006 Max Taylor and John Horgan proposed a similar model for understanding terrorism more generally that was based on the understanding that terrorism is an ongoing process, rather than a fixed state, that emerges from interactions between at least three groups of variables—what they call “setting events,” personal psychological factors, and the social/organizational context.54 In both models seemingly fixed qualities matter less than do interactions, because interactions are what change behavior and ultimately decide whether terrorism (or suicide bombing) becomes established as a response to a perceived grievance. Both of these models bear a striking resemblance to the model of technology practice originally presented in the introduction and then modified to incorporate suicide bombing (see Figure I.4, on page 17). This model is reprinted here as Figure 6.2.

As noted in the introduction, it is typical in technologically advanced societies for people to understand technology in a restricted sense, focusing purely on the technical element—the knowledge, tools, skills, and so on that affect the world and solve problems found in their societies. In a similar vein, many analyses of suicide bombing have focused on a restricted understanding of the phenomenon—the psychology of the individual bomber—as opposed to the organizational and cultural phenomenon of suicide bombing. Now that a great deal of empirical detail is available on suicide bombing by Palestinians, theirs makes an ideal case for illustrating suicide bombing as a form of technology. Such an understanding must begin at the organizational level.

FIGURE 6.2Suicide Bombing as Technology Practice

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