by Louisa Aronow
My dad was irate. He had watched a public TV special about the rise of madrassas in Pakistan, where suicide bombers were being trained by the thousands. "These people have to be stopped!" he insisted. "All they teach the kids at these schools is to memorize the Qur'an. Then they teach them how great it is to be a martyr. They're brainwashing the kids to be suicidal. And they won't stop until they destroy Israel!"
My dad's face grew redder, his voice sharper, and his fist hit the table as he told me about the program. I was concerned about my 92-year-old father's delicate heart, and tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. I was astounded that my dad, who had considered himself to be a thoughtful Jewish progressive for close to a century, was now expressing a perspective that could have come from the American Legion website.
I knew that my dad had actually read the Qur'an to try to understand the Muslim point of view, and had participated in many interfaith discussions on various political issues; he was expressing an educated anger. I didn't doubt that his rage represented a piece of the truth, but I wondered how that truth fit into the rest of the world's insane puzzle.
So I began to study every book my public library could offer on the subject of Islam. I learned Muslims are instructed to uphold and spread peace. The Qur'an states: "But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou (also) incline towards peace, and trust in Allah: for He is the One that Heareth and Knoweth (all things)" (Surah 8, Verse 61). I also found that violence has been an integral aspect of Islam for centuries and the Prophet Mohammed was no pacifist. Most surprising was my discovery that many Muslims consider "suicide bomber" to be a derogatory term created by the U.S. government and media, because Islam considers martyrdom and suicide to be totally dissimilar. The Qur'an states clear opposition to suicide: "Do not kill yourselves, for Allah is compassionate towards you. Whoever does so, in transgression and wrongfully, We shall roast in a fire, and that is an easy matter for Allah" (an-Nisaa 4:29-30).
Islam is not the only religion with a tradition of martyrdom, and its holy books contain as many contradictions as the Torah and Christian Bible. In the United States we stress the differences between Islamic culture and Judeo-Christian culture; however, their impact is equally suicidal for our planet. The difference is in consciousness. Muslim martyrs are consciously giving their life for what they believe will create a better world, but most Americans are not conscious of how their lifestyle choices are destroying life as we know it on this planet.
On January 27, 2002, a young Palestinian woman named Wafa Idris put on a backpack containing a homemade bomb, which exploded in a revolving door in Jerusalem. One Israeli was killed and more than 100 people were injured. She was heralded as Palestine's first female suicide bomber, although there are questions as to whether she intended to kill herself, or if she was delivering the explosives.
The world wondered why a woman would participate in these anti-life activities. As a Palestinian Red Crescent worker in a refugee camp, Wafa Idris had probably seen enough injuries inflicted by the Israeli army to desire drastic revenge.
Living conditions in Idris's city of Ramallah in 2002 were described by Ghada Elturk, a visiting librarian, as "painted with occupation, siege, curfews, checkpoints, arrests and random and planned killing. Poverty, unemployment, political uncertainty, lack of food, were obvious. You didn't need a second look to realize you were living in a war zone, no matter how close you are to ‘borders.' Curfews are lifted at random, announced only to the baker, who calls his customers, who call their friends and neighbors—thus word that a curfew has been lifted is spread. Curfews are re-instated without notice... Israeli checkpoints are posted between villages, in the middle of dying olive tree orchards, in the middle of dust and heat" (Progressive Librarian, 2003).
In the book Because They Hate, Brigitte Gabriel writes: "Her funeral was like a wedding celebration. The Palestinian authority undertook a very public campaign of indoctrination of its women to see themselves as potential suicide bombers." Many young women have said that Wafa Idris has been their inspiration to become suicide bombers also.
Gabriel explains that as a divorced, childless Palestinian woman, Wafa Idris faced a depressing life of humiliation. As a martyr, she has been exalted by her family and the community, and has earned herself a comfortable place in heaven. Several other female suicide bombers are people who faced a life of humiliation because they were accused of behavior deemed inappropriate in their Muslim culture. For these women, suicide is not only a strike at the enemy, but an increase in status for their families, a form of redemption, and security for their eternal future.
Perhaps at the same moment, Wendi Goldberg was driving her Chevy Tahoe SUV from her paramedic job in Riverside, California, to Desert Willow Golf Course in Palm Desert, about 80 miles away. As a divorced, childless young woman, Wendi felt isolated and unloved, without a rewarding future. She figured the best way to meet a decently employed man was to play golf. On the way she stopped to pick up a cheeseburger. Wendi was a logical woman who had calculated the best way to utilize her hard-earned dollars in pursuit of happiness.
Wendi Goldberg didn't think about the environmental consequences of her activity choices. Perhaps she didn't know that cars, meat consumption, and water use are killing our planet. She probably didn't realize that her roundtrip journey put 200 pounds of CO2 in the atmosphere. Nor did she think that her delicious quarter-pounder cheeseburger was an environmental disaster: its production added more than six pounds of CO2 to our atmosphere, according to Jamais Cascio, who has researched cheeseburgers extensively. The production of one cheeseburger also uses up more than 1,000 gallons of water and five square meters of rainforest, according the Environmental Education website. Of course Wendi was just one of hundreds of people enjoying Desert Willow Golf Course that day, but Audubon International figures that most golf courses in that area use one million gallons of water every day.
But that was 2002, before Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth came out. Wendi hadn't yet seen Al elevated on a hydraulic ladder to add a piece onto the giant global warming graph because the CO2 concentration and global temperatures have increased so dramatically in the last 25 years. When she saw the movie a few years later, she changed her light bulbs to super-efficient compact fluorescent.
Perhaps Wafa Idris had no intention of killing herself or other civilians on that January day. But in the hopelessness of her life, her complicity in violence empowered her to see a better future for herself and her community. There was definitely cultural support for her action—posters of this heroine are still seen in Palestine.
Wendi Goldberg didn't intend to contribute to the global warming that exacerbated Hurricane Katrina's devastation. Nor did she intend to destroy Mexican and American communities that depend on the Colorado River for their water and livelihood. She was just trying to have some fun and be proactive for her future. There was widespread cultural support for her actions—billboards promoting SUVs, cheeseburgers, and golf abound in Southern California.
What about the guys? Why would a man consciously or unconsciously become a suicidal killer? Throughout human history, men have put their lives on the line to protect their families and countries. Sociologists argue about whether the protective instinct is innate or acculturated, and at what point suicide missions are evidence of sociopathy. But whether the belief system is modern science, nationalism, Islam, Judaism, or Shintoism, men continue to place their bodies in harm's way.
There are some demographic similarities in two devastated urban areas that produce suicidal warriors—Flint, Michigan and the Gaza Strip. Neither environment seems conducive to hope. Unemployment in Gaza was 45 percent in 2008, according to a UN survey. The unemployment rate in Flint was 23.9 percent in May of 2009, according to the Flint Journal. Also, 23 percent of families were living below the poverty level—twice the U.S. average—and in Gaza, 63 percent of families are living below the UN poverty level (less than two dollars per day per capita). The major demographical difference between Gaza and Flint is that Gaza's population density may be the highest in the world—10,600 people per square mile. Flint has actually lost about a third of its population since the 2000 census, and is now famous among squatters for its abandoned buildings. Gaza is controlled by the modern democracy of Israel; Flint has been abandoned by the modern democracy of the United States.
An ambitious 2007 graduate of Central High in Flint with his eyes on college might choose military enlistment for financial reasons. Perhaps that's why a hypothetical Michael X endured the clearance checks and drug tests to become a Motor Transport Operator in the U.S. Army. During his training, he balked at the thought of driving over a woman and a baby, but his instructors insisted that things are not always what they seem in Iraq. A burqa-covered person pushing a baby carriage might be toting explosives, and stopping for a civilian to cross the street might be suicidal. Michael X was not consciously suicidal. He knew his cargo was potentially dangerous, but he wasn't told that the depleted uranium on the weapons he was transporting could cause a variety of cancers, including leukemia for numerous children in the vicinity.
It's called heroism and protecting your country. It's called "be all you can be." But there is always a suicidal element to purposely placing yourself in a location where your uniform represents despised, destructive invaders. Perhaps Michael X succumbed to lung cancer at Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland while recovering from the amputation of both legs, injured by a homemade bomb.
On April 19, 2008, at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, three vehicles painted to look like Israeli army vehicles drove into the checkpoint, detonating explosives in two of them. According to the New York Times, "Three bombers were killed in the blasts and 13 Israeli soldiers were wounded..." Hamas leaders took responsibility for the "purely military" suicidal mission, saying they were "trying to open Gaza by all available means."
Psychiatrists, philosophers, and political scientists have developed many reasons why people might become suicidal killers. In Andrew Oldenquist's 1986 book, The Non-Suicidal Society, he explores the insidious degradation of society in the United States. He writes: "A suicidal society is one whose social ethics, family and community structure, procedures for rearing children, physical layout, educational and juvenile justice systems, are so counterproductive or ineffective as to produce unacceptable numbers of hostile, wretched, useless, and dangerous citizens." More global is Robert Pope's viewpoint as explained thoroughly in the August 2003 American Political Science Review: "Most suicide terrorism is undertaken as a strategic effort directed toward achieving particular political goals; it is not simply the product of irrational individuals or an expression of fanatical hatred."
I cannot dictate what would constitute a non-suicidal life for people in other lands. However, as a citizen of the earth's wealthiest and most destructive nation, I can make choices that support a more sustainable future for everyone. I can usually choose locally-produced food over food that has traveled three thousand miles. I can choose transportation that emits less CO2 and carcinogenic particulates. I can share my home with a homeless person, even though that requires many emotional and spatial adjustments. I can forget to include a check when I file income taxes, thus refusing to support worldwide suicidal terrorism (although the IRS will find me, eventually). I can use water from my shower and kitchen sink to flush the toilet. The list of choices continues. For me, a non-suicidal life is not a collection of theories—it is continually evolving, specific lifestyle changes that are consistent with life on earth.
