Book
Review: The Myth of Martyrdom by Adam Lankford
The
Myth of Martyrdom: What really drives suicide bombers, rampage
shooters and other self-destructive killers
by
Adam Lankford
Link
to buy the book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Myth-Martyrdom-Shooters-Self-Destructive/dp/0230342132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367019700&sr=8-1&keywords=the+myth+of+martyrdom+what+really+drives+suicide+bombers
Inside
cover excerpt:
“A
startling look at the deepest, darkest secrets that terrorists pray
you'll never know
For
decades, experts from the most powerful governments and prestigious
Universities around the world, have told us that suicide bombers are
psychologically normal men and women driven by a single-minded
purpose: self-sacrifice. As it turns out, this claim originated with
the terrorist leaders themselves, who insisted that they would never
recruit mentally unstable people to carry out suicide attacks. As
these strikes have become both increasing common and increasingly
deadly, no one has challenged this conventional wisdom. These are
fearless ideological warriors, we're told, who have the same resolve
and commitment to their beliefs as our own Navy SEALS, because
they're willing to die for the sake of their cause.
In
The Myth of Martyrdom, Adam Lankford argues that these
so-called experts have it all wrong. The truth is that suicide
terrorists are like most other suicidal people – longing to escape
from unbearable pain, be it depression, anxiety, marital strife,
or professional failure. Their “martyrdom” is essentially a
cover for an underlying death wish. Drawing on an array of primary
sources, including suicide notes, love letters, diary entries, and
martyrdom videos, Lankford reveals the important parallels that exist
between suicide bombers, airplane hijackers, cult members, and
rampage shooters. The result is an astonishing account of rage and
shame that will transform the way we think about terrorism forever.
We can't hope to stop these deadly attacks, Lankford argues, until we
understand what's really behind them. This timely and provocative
book flips a decades-old argument on its head – and has huge
implications for our future.”
The
Author: Adam Lankford is a criminal justice professor at the
University of Alabama in the US.
Well
I have just finished reading this book and can say it was
tremendously well-written and thought-provoking. The scope of the
mistakes and myths that the author exposes are truly breathtaking
and it is actually quite worrying that so many supposed experts have
gotten it so wrong, for so long.
The
book starts off by looking at cases of suicide terrorism in the world
and the expert psychologists' rationalisations of the suicide
terrorists' state of mind . The consensus view was that
radicalisation gave them extreme views, but they were
psychologically normal and stable, and just believed very strongly
that what they were doing was the right thing. Lankford argues that
this diagnosis only applies to conventional terrorists, and NOT
suicide terrorists.
The
conventional view makes the mistake of normalising suicide
terrorists. Years of data and research has shown that psychologically
normal people will generally do anything they can to stay alive.
Interviews with regular (non-suicide) terrorists show their revulsion
at the idea of suicide terrorism. A common comment was “that's not
for me”. This flies in the face of terrorist rhetoric that says,
“all of us are ready to die for the cause”. Maybe ultimately, but
not in that way they're not. And if terrorists are lying about their
intentions, what else are they deceiving us about?
It
doesn't take a lot of analysis to come to the conclusion that a
person can achieve a lot more for their cause if they avoid death and
simply live to fight another day. There are very few cases when a
suicide bombing couldn't have been carried out by just dropping off a
bag containing a bomb in a crowded place, and detonating it on a
timer, or remotely, allowing the terrorist to survive, make another
bomb, rinse and repeat. The cases that involve the necessary “death
of the actor” as it were (such as flying a plane into a building to
demolish it) are the cases where terrorist leaders have taken
advantage of suicidal people to get them to carry out their insane
plans.
The
argument is made that terrorist leaders can trust disturbed
individuals to carry out bombings for them. They are not given any
official duties or much training, just given a bomb and a target and
promised many rewards in the “afterlife”. Suicide attackers may
sympathise with the terrorists general cause, but often did not fit
the terrorist profile, were they not suicidal and desperate for a way
out. This is a blatant example of exploitation of vulnerable
individuals by the cruel terrorist leaders and we should have seen
through it,
A
common “citizen on the street” reaction to the 9/11 attack in New
York on the World Trade Center Twin Towers was “who would possibly
do such a thing, they must be mad”. Lankford makes much of the
argument that this is actually much closer to the truth than expert
psychologists had diagnosed in saying suicide terrorists were
psychologically normal.. This is why he makes such a acerbic attack
on those who he believes got it wrong, in this book. I think he's
very probably right.
Lankford
criticises Professor Robert Pape strongly. Pape is a well-known
proponent of the traditional view. He published a 2005 study of 462
suicide attackers and claimed to find no mental illness, depression,
psychosis or previous suicide attempts amongst the participants.
Lankford argues that the chances of this actually being true are
infinitesimally small (1 in 19 billion), as any group of 462 people
would certainly by the law of averages contain some depressed people.
He says “either Pape has unintentionally discovered that suicide
bombing is the most remarkable cure for mental illness...or there is
something seriously wrong with his... approach.”
Lankford
tells us that we need to look very closely at specific areas of a
terrorist's life to find clues that reveal their mental disturbances.
He goes on to carry out “psychological autopsies” of some famous
cases such as Mohamed Atta, who was the ring leader of the 9/11
attacks and who piloted one of the planes into the World Trade
Center. Lankford takes us through much of his life story and
background showing how he was brought up and shunned by almost
everyone he knew. The evidence that Atta was a severely
dysfunctional, depressed and disturbed individual is extremely
compelling. The story that he was just a puppet of Osama Bin Laden
and just followed his instructions seems very flimsy – there are
documented example of Atta disobeying Bin Laden's instructions. The
timescale for 9/11 was very much on his terms rather than Bin
Laden's.
Lankford
successfully compares suicide terrorists to other suicide killers such
as rampage shooters and school shooters. There are many psychological
similarities between the people who committed these atrocities. They
are largely disturbed and depressed individuals who were socially
marginalized and struggled with love, finances or with their work or
profession. His study is backed up with data and statistical
analysis. If the traditional wisdom were correct, we would have
expected to see much less commonality here. A powerful anecdotal
example is also given, linking the mental states of George Sodini (a
rampage-suicide shooter who killed three and wounded nine women in
2009) with Nidal Hasan (another suicide-shooter who killed 13 and
wounded 31 soldiers in the same year). Their motivations are shown
as actually being very similar whereas convention would have that
Sodini was a madman and Hasan a terrorist. In fact they were both
very disturbed, suicidal individuals.
Interestingly,
the religious argument is not really brought up in this book. I was
expecting Lankford to argue against Martyrdom by saying that Heaven
doesn't exist. But instead he underscores the difference between
sacrifice and suicide and shows how those who believe martyrdom is
distinct from suicide, are deceiving themselves. In his analysis of
Anders Behring Breivik, the Norweigan mass-killer who bombed a
government building in Oslo, then went to Utoya island to kill 69
young people he considered to be “multi-culturalists”, Lankford
shows that Breivik was in fact indirectly suicidal in that he was
expecting “suicide by cop” i.e. to be gunned down by security
forces. The distorted definition of martyrdom is shown by the fact
that Breivik actually believed that he could kill himself to avoid
capture or arrest, and this would still be martyrdom and not suicide.
Such are the twists of logic that some go to, to make their deaths
seem more meaningful.
The
section on the identity and worth of true heroes was one of my
favourites. Lankford shows us the difference between, for example, a
suicide bomber blowing herself up in a cafe and a soldier diving on
top of a live grenade thrown by enemy fighters. Terrorists would have
us believe that these two scenarios are comparable as they hold
martyrs up as heroes. But if we look at the amount of decision time,
intention of dying, self-orchestration, and whether the action
directly saves or harms others, we can see that these scenarios are
very different. The bomber is a terrorist committing suicide. The
soldier is a brave hero trying to save his squad-mates while still
hoping to survive himself. This is one of the defining distinctions
between killers and heroes. Both may have to kill, but the hero also
tries to save people, and survive if possible. Lankford says: “True
heroes walk among us. They face each challenge that comes their way
and try to do the best they can. And then in fleeting moments of
grace, they risk their lives to save people from a tragic fate. It
may require the ultimate sacrifice. Or it may not. But live or die,
it represents the highest possible caliber of human action. And it
defines them forever.” Distorting the facts and trying to make
suicide terrorists out to be heroic martyrs is a truly despicable
act.
A
wonderful part of the book describes with self-deprecating detail how
even if the concept of Martyrdom is real, and even if the facts and
studies contained within the pages were all false, the book still
needed to be written and is still extremely useful in
counterbalancing the terrorist narrative. So in conclusion we
shouldn't play into the hands of terrorists and their “martyrdom”
rhetoric. There are many forms of suicide, and killing others at the
same time, irrespective of the cause, is just bringing others into
your misery because you can't find a way out on your own. A strong
take-home message from the book is how we should be on the lookout
for those around us who we think may have mental health issues, and
get them help.
I've
seen another review of this book that claimed it was "undermined
by polemic", however, when you grasp how silly the "traditional"
opposing view really is (and it's hard not to with the strength of
the arguments Lankford puts across), there was never really any other
way this could go. Lankford often sounds angry at some of the
so-called "experts", but if he's right, and I think he is,
so he should be. Because dude, were they wrong.
The
book is quite short, only 175 pages of narrative, but there are about
another 80 pages of appendices, tables and references as well. But
the book sticks to the point and remains clear and concise
throughout. I think it is good value, contains important
counter-terrorism and vigilance messages that need to be read by
everyone, and I would thoroughly recommend this book.
