Oct 27 2006
Secularizing Suicide Bombing
I attended a seminar at Kane Hall last night. The speaker, Robert Pape, gave a presentation of his research on suicide bombings. Some interesting findings: if all suicide bombings in the world from 1983-2003 are taken into consideration, the champion of “dying to win” (his lecture title) is the Tamil Tigers!
The whole lecture is about decoupling suicide bombing and religion. I still have doubts, e.g. when we talk about suicide bombing, we actually are talking about those that are targeting Americans. But his data does not stratify/segment out that portion of events. Therefore, we actually cannot say by numbers alone that suicide bombing against Americans are not religiously motivated.
However, if he can establish only HAFL of the suicide bombings are religion-related, he’s already changed my perception. I really enjoyed his presentation: very data-driven and fairly conservative interpretations.
More than anything else, I am convinced by his argument that there is something fundamentally wrong with the notion that War Against Terror=War Against Islamic Fundamentalists. His conclusion is that suicide bombing is more closely related to secular aggrievances, such as occupation and subjucation. In other words, the Iraqi terrorists are more like the VietCon ones than Bin Ladin.
What a powerful statement!