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On the Role and Meaning of Death in Terrorism
(Unedited Version: Published Article May Differ Slightly)
Lee Garth Vigilant, Ph.D.Minnesota State University at Moorhead
Department of Sociology and Criminal JusticeLommen Hall
Moorhead, MN 56563
and
John B. Williamson, Ph.D.Boston College
Department of SociologyMcGuinn Hall
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3807
Death by Terrorism: An Introduction
1
“Murder,” wrote Karl Heinzen, “is the principle agent of historical
progress” (1978: 53). This rather macabre statement on the use of
murderous acts to initiate systemic change in the name of “progress”
speaks volumes to the power of violence and terror in political
discourse. Moreover, this lesson, which have been studied very well by
a host of terror groups the world over –on last count, over 600 (Long
1990)- seems to underscore the important role death plays in attempts
at initiating political change.
The last two decades saw an unprecedented increase in
terrorism as a mechanism of asymmetrical political communication
between powerful nation-states and less powerful fringe groups that
have been marginalized (Simon 2001). In using terrorism as a form of
low-intensity, asymmetrical warfare, these less powerful nation-states
or fringe groups have applied death in the form of political murders,
suicide bombings, and large-scale killings as their principle mechanism
for liberation and communication. Moreover, in the last two decades,
Americans have increasingly endured violence at the hands of state-
sponsored terror organizations or fringe groups in retaliation for
political policies deemed unfair and repressive, and, for these groups,
death by terrorism is employed as the principle tool of low intensity
warfare (McGuckin 1997). Whether we invoke the examples the 1993
and 2001 N.Y. Trade Center bombings, which killed over 3000
individuals and injured thousands more, or the 1995 bombing of the
2
Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, which took the lives
of 168 individuals, or the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in
Beirut which resulted in 241 deaths, or the bombing of Pan Am Flight
103 in route over Lockerbie, Scotland which killed 270 individuals, the
point is poignantly conveyed: what makes these events memorable
and profound is the mass-mediated use of images of death and
destruction by terror groups to communicate their political aims.
These events raise profound thanatological questions on the uses of
death as a political device, questions that seem to have grown in
significance since September 11, 2001.
So, what role does death play in terrorism, and what meaning
should we attach to the increasing lethality of acts of terrorism around
the globe? These questions are at the heart of this essay on the
thanatological implications of the role and meaning of death in acts of
terror –questions that have been largely ignored by a rather extensive
body of literature on terrorism (Crenshaw 1992; Miller 1988). Yet the
importance of these questions to contemporary discourses on
terrorism cannot be overstated, especially at a time when images of
terror and politically inspired deaths seem to be omnipresent and
increasing. To consider the role and meaning of death in acts of
terrorism is to study horror in extremis. Namely, to study the role of
death in terrorism is to derive the very reason why terrorism has been
one of the oldest mechanisms of state-sponsored oppression, and an
3
oft chosen pathway for the liberation of powerless groups of people.
Perhaps an examination of the role and meaning of death in terrorism
might ultimately lead to the very raison d’être of politically motivated
violence and other acts of terror.
This essay begins with an interpretation of the distinct role that
death plays -and the meaning it communicates- in terrorism. In
addition, the authors explore the various manifestations of death by
terrorism, from political violence to apocalyptic and religious terror, to
the emergence of technologies of mass death and the inevitability of
their application in new forms of terrorism such as germ and chemical
warfare. Last, this essay culminates in an examination of role and
meaning of death in the shadow of September 11, 2001.
The Role and Meaning of Death in Terrorism
Theresa Wirtz (1992), in an essay entitled The Role of Death in
War, noted that the real horror of war is revealed in the way it
rationally exploits human mortality for its political ends. Wirtz (1992:
12) believed that the engine of war is surplus death, or the “amount a
system can lose and still maintain tolerable levels of social stability and
biological maintenance.” The survival of the system would be
seriously impacted if further losses beyond the point of surplus death
were incurred. Thus, losses beyond the point of surplus would naturally
lead to a rational consensus to end the conflict. According to Wirtz
(1992: 12), the strategic aim of all warfare, then, is to exploit the
4
enemy to the state of assured limitation, the point where it would be
virtually useless or impossible to extract further deaths from the
enemy. The strategic goal of all warfare has led to the development of
precision guided weapons for mega-death and mass destruction such
as nuclear weaponry and chemical and biological agents to
supplement the usual arsenal of battleships, submarines, fighter jets
and armed soldiers. The underlying rationality of war is how military
technologies can now achieve massive deaths in a most efficient and
lethal manner. Yet, these military technologies, which are designed for
the expressed purpose of increasing body count, are usually not
available to less powerful and less developed nations, nor are they at
the disposal of non-state factions. So then, how are these groups to
engage in political conflicts and persuasion with more powerful nation-
states? The answer to this quandary is terrorism, or what many
terrorologists refer to as low intensity or asymmetrical warfare (see
Klare and Kornbluh 1988).
Although an all-encompassing definition of the concept terrorism
is impossible because of the presence of irreconcilable political
ideologies and interstate antagonisms (Chomsky 1991) or simple
conceptualization problems (Gibbs 1989), most attempts at a definition
have in common the central roles that fear and terror play in
conveying ideas. Accordingly, Cooper (2001: 883) defines terrorism as
“the intentional generation of massive fear by human beings for the
5
purpose of securing or maintaining control over other human beings.”
Central to this definition is the aim of control. A terrorist group controls
its target audience by generating widespread and crippling fear in the
public through violent acts of death and destruction (Gibbs 1989). The
same force at work in conventional warfare, namely the strategic
attempt to reduce an adversary’s surplus death, is likewise at work in
the deployment of terrorism, but with a major difference. In
conventional warfare, the generation of terror and mass death on the
part of a non-combatant public is no longer morally acceptable under
the auspices of the Geneva Convention. That is, in conventional
warfare, surplus death does not include non-combatant civilians such
as women, children, and the elderly. However, terrorist groups,
because of their inability to engage the military forces of major nation-
states for lack of comparable resources, number civilian non-
combatants among the surplus deaths of their target nations. Thus, by
redefining the notion of innocence and by narrowing the parameter of
victim (see Wilkins 1992), terrorists are able to justify the strategic
killing of civilians in their asymmetrical conflicts with more powerful
nation-states.
Of course, the ultimate hope of all terrorist groups is that the
more powerful adversary, because of the massive deaths and crippling
fear inflicted upon its population, will acknowledge its grievances and
acquiesce to its demands. Yet, to assume that all acts of terrorism seek
6
to kill and maim people would be a gross mistake, especially in
instances where terrorists make deliberate and extreme efforts not to
kill civilians and law enforcement personnel. For instance, in the early
years of the Front de Liberation du Quebec, the targets for bombing
were the symbols of Anglo-Canadian dominance, like the Royal
Canadian Legion building, the mailboxes of upper class Anglo-
Canadians, and television towers. Moreover, these targets were
usually bombed in the middle of the night to minimize the potential of
human casualties (see Fournier 1984). Nevertheless, the vast majority
of terror groups are in fact associated with the use of extreme violence
and death, and as such, it is crucial to understand the important role
that death plays in terrorism.
Death plays a crucial part in terrorism because the production of
death and the accompanying fear are viewed as the principal
mechanism for liberation. Consequently, death performs five (5) key
roles in terrorism: (1) as a communicative device in political discourse,
(2) as a control mechanism for the masses, (3) as a strategy for the
liberation of the oppressed, (4) as a generator of public sympathy, and
finally, (5) as a spectacle for mass (media) consumption.
Death as Political Communication
The first and most important role that death plays in terrorism is
its role as a communicative medium between less powerful nation-
states or non-state factions and more powerful, militarily superior
7
governments. Terrorist organizations typically resort to violence and
death when efforts at influencing political or social changes are ignored
or hampered by unresponsive nation-states.
Christopher Hewitt (2000), in his study of the political context of
terrorism in the United States, found that terrorists were more likely to
resort to violence under unresponsive presidential administrations
rather than sympathetic ones. In effect, terrorists see death and
violence as mechanisms of last resort only after other more legitimate
attempts at political communication and persuasion have been
exhausted. Death is at once the message and the medium to influence
the direction of political discourse, and, as such, death functions as a
communicative device (Schmid and de Graaf 1982).
Moreover, as a communicative devise, terrorist victimization in
the form of death serves three specific functions, this according to
Crelinsten (1992): (1) attention getting function, (2) symbolic function,
and (3) an instrumental function. Terrorist groups use public killings for
the expressed purpose of bring attention to their cause or concern, and
these actions are designed to capture the attention of an intended
audience, usually politicians or industrial leaders. Crelinsten (1992)
refers to the next communicative function of death and terrorist
victimization as symbolic. Crelinsten (1992: 213) states: “For those
who identify with the victim because of something the two hold in
common, the function of victimization is to warn them that they might
8
be next.” The killing of a politician, a diplomat, or a businessperson
might serve notice to other individuals with the same social status that
they are marked for victimization. Of course, the more prominent and
powerful the victim, the more symbolic his or her death by terrorism
becomes, and the more likely the terrorist group is to garner attention.
Thus, in the absence of a prominent or powerful victim, terrorist groups
seek attention by mass killings and victimization, and indeed, the
innocent bystander is now the chief target of terrorist groups around
the world (Weimann and Winn 1994). The final communicative function
of death and victimization for Crelinsten (1992) is instrumental. By
killing the right person or groups of people, as in the case of political
assassinations, terrorist groups might speed political changes and
influence official discourse, and these events are likely to introduce
systemic changes on both political and social levels.
Death as a Control Mechanism for the Masses
Violent deaths are the principal mechanism of social control
employed by terrorist groups. According to Gibbs (1989), terrorist
groups employ death and extreme violence as deterrent social control
to manage the behavior of target populations through intimidation, and
to influence the direction of political policies. Through the use of
deaths and extreme acts of violence, terrorists hope to instill a sense
of crippling fear in the general population and force politicians to adopt
repressive measures in the name of “national security” in hopes that
9
the government will lose legitimacy and fall (Gibbs 1989). Moreover,
repeated episodes of violent deaths among innocent, non-combatant
victims leads to a situation where people lose confidence in their
government’s ability to perform its most basic function, that of the
protection of its citizenry. Thus, the presence of violent death, which is
connected to the quest for power and influence, is meant to control
people and to sway the course of political policies deemed repressive
and unfair by terrorist groups. And, according to Hoffman (1998: 182),
“All terrorism involves the quest for power: power to dominate and
coerce, to intimidate and control, and ultimately to effect fundamental
change.”
But why is the use of death and extreme violence so effective in
controlling populations? The answer is simple. Terrorist groups have
learned to manipulate well our thanatophobic sensibilities. Death is an
effective mechanism of social control and political persuasion because
of our omnipresent and omnipotent death anxieties (Zilboorg 1943;
Wahl 1965; Becker 1995). Death anxiety is in fact a natural part of our
human condition. We fear death, and we try our best to delay the
inevitability of our mortal demise. As Becker (1995: 35) puts it, “the
fear of death must be present behind all our normal functioning, in
order for the organism to be armed toward self-preservation.”
Terrorists are thus exploiting our natural inclination toward self-
10
preservation by mass-producing death and its accompanying
widespread terror and panic.
It is important to note that death by terrorism is not undertaken
to instill fear and panic in the immediate victims of terror but rather in
the hearts of the witnessing public. As such, it is the public’s reaction
to the horrors of death that makes the occurrence of terrorism
successful, namely the reactions of panic and fear on the part of
commoners (Freedman 1983; Oots and Wiegele 1985). In his succinct
essay on the role of terror in terrorism, Lawrence Freedman (1993:
399-400) noted:
The sudden transformation of the human target from free agent to vulnerable victim assaults the sense of autonomy of the spectator…In psychoanalytic terms, it is as though an irresistible impulse from the id assaults the personification of the social representative of the superego. These manifestations of unconscious psychic institutions arouse not only fear but also the sense of the uncanny: the terrorist is seemingly omnipotent.
Death by terrorism assaults our sense of ontological security
(Giddens 1991), those feelings of order, security, and stability that are
closely linked to the ritual of having a daily routine. The shock,
confusion, and sheer panic of the experience of violent death,
especially when random and apparently pointless, upset our routine
and shatter our sense of security and safety. Death by terrorism
reminds us that we are all potential victims in waiting, leading to
11
conditions of panic that deeply affect the routines of daily life. The
fear of a terrorist attack severely alters our mundane rituals and
behaviors, and this is precisely what makes death by terrorism so
potent: it brings to the fore our death anxieties, spreading the
contagion of fear and panic which upsets our sense of security.
Terrorists use widespread fear as a form of psychological control. By
forcing us to reassess our mundane rituals, our ways of thinking, or our
freedom of movement, terrorists, because of our natural fear of death,
posses and flex a certain level of control over us.
There is, thus, a symbiotic, mutually dependent relationship
between terrorism, death anxiety, and feelings of helplessness and
loss of control. In order for terrorism to terrorize us, it must activate
and play upon our death anxiety. But simply activating our death
anxiety is not enough. After all, tens of thousands of Americans are
injured and killed in automobile accidents yearly. Still, this fact does
not prevent the vast majority of motorists from getting behind the
wheel. Consequently, our sense of control over the possibility of
serious injury or death convinces us that we will not be the next
accident fatality. We are confident in our ability to drive safely and
thus avoid a serious traffic incidence. Perhaps it is a sense of personal
immortality that assuages any potential fear of dying in an accident
and keeps us on the road. Terrorism is fundamentally different!
Terrorism works because it destroys completely the façade of control
12
over our environment and our mortality: we do not yet know how to
avoid death by terrorism because our adversary is randomly and
thoughtfully exploiting our sense of ontological security through the
selection of new, more potent targets, namely human targets. And this
realization, that we are all potential targets for death by terrorism, is
one that is potentially crippling.
Death as a Strategy of Liberation for the Oppressed
Inflicting death and extreme forms of violence upon a perceived
enemy offers oppressed people a route to retribution and a sense of
power. Death by terrorism is a leveling mechanism for the oppressed
and the oppressor. Death by terrorism gives to the privileged a taste
of what life is like for the oppressed masses. What appears as
vindictive and senseless deaths to commoners is actually a calculated
strategy for liberation, revenge, and retaliation on the part of the
oppressed. Terrorism for liberation purposes, or what Kastenbaum
(2001) refers to as upward directed terrorism, is the principle weapon
of the disenfranchised and powerless. Frantz Fanon (1968: 94), in his
psychiatry of colonial oppression, understood this lesson well when he
asserted that “violence is a cleansing force” for the oppressed, a
mechanism that frees the subjugated from the mire of despair,
hopelessness, and powerlessness. In the terrorist’s mind, death by
terrorism is the ultimate reprisal for -and expression of- the
hopelessness and despair of their existential condition. It conveys only
13
too clearly to the oppressor a people’s longing for liberation in the
midst of dashed hopes, unfulfilled expectations, and an entrenched
deprivation -the very roots of rebellion, violent terror, and death (Gurr
1970).
As a strategy for liberation, death by terrorism, as well as other
forms of extreme violence, are appealing for another reason. Death, as
a tool for liberation, offers oppressed people a new identity and
selfhood by transforming their collective self-image from one of vassal
to freeman, and this new collective consciousness is one grounded in
resistance (Camus 1956). But there are problems with this strategy.
For one, oppressed groups, if they employ death by terrorism and
other forms of extreme violence, run the risk of losing the moral high
ground (King 1958). But equally as important, Kelman (1973) suggests
that violence, as a mechanism to liberation, might actually be a self-
defeating strategy in the long run.
Violence can offer a person the illusion that he is in control, that he is able to act on his environment, that he has found a means of self-expression. It may be the only way left for him to regain some semblance of identity, to convince him that he really exists. The sad irony is that violence is a response to dehumanization that only deepens the loss that it seeks to undo; it is an attempt to regain one’s sense of identity by further destroying one’s sense of community. (Kelman 1973: 58)
14
Though psychologically and emotionally appealing for oppressed
people, the use of death through terrorism results in a sad
perpetuation of oppression because violence often begets violence,
and death often begets death, on both sides: a lesson that many
asymmetrical conflicts, like the Israeli/Palestinian discord, have
historically validated. Moreover, as a strategy for liberation, this form
of violence often leads to discord and carnage among terror groups
themselves (Kastenbaum 2001: 231).
Death as a generator of Public Sympathy
Death by terrorism can serve as a generator of public sympathy,
or terrorism as persuasion (McClenon 1988), and this is the forth role
of death in terrorism.
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.,
Newsweek (September 2001) magazine showcased photographs of
fringe groups among Palestinian refugees who were celebrating the
success of the Al Qaeda operatives. As shocking as the photographs
appear, the symbolism conveyed was unmistakable. Terrorist groups
use death as a seductive instrument of persuasion to galvanize support
among their oppressed constituencies. The Hindustan Socialist
Republican Army of the 1930s expressed this seduction well in their
manifesto aptly entitled The Philosophy of the Bomb:
Terrorism instills fear in the heart of the oppressors; it brings the hope of revenge and redemption to the oppressed masses. It gives courage and self-confidence to the wavering; it shatters
15
the spell of the subject race in the eyes of the world, because it is the most convincing proof of a nation’s hunger for freedom. (Bhagwat Charon 1930)
Historically, death by terrorism was the chosen instrument of
political interlocutions between less powerful fringe groups and
controlling nation states. Death conveyed to the oppressor the
experience of subjugation. But more than mere political
communication between the oppressed and oppressor, death by
terrorism served to build a collective solidarity among the
downtrodden and demoralized. The examples of the African National
Congress (ANC), the Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Irish Republican
Army (IRA), and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) are
particularly noteworthy here. The broad public support that these
organizations enjoy from their respective constituencies, in spite of
their historical use of suicide bombings and political assignations, are
powerful and unanimous representations of the seductive and
persuasive influence of death. For instance, opinion surveys among
Palestinians in the late 1980s found that between 86-95% held a
positive image of terrorists, and 61% approved of the use of violence
as a route to liberation (Hewitt 1992). Similarly, among Basques, 66%
held a positive image of ETA even though the vast majority disagreed
with its use of violence (Hewitt 1992). In fact, the use of violence and
death as a form of political communication does not, by itself, discredit
16
a terrorist group among its primary constituency, not even when non-
combatant civilians are the direct targets of violence as in the case of
Palestinian terrorists. The violence that marks the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict, where civilians are deliberately targeted for death, is
especially instructive of this. Still, as Hewitt (1992: 187) notes, “such
atrocities do not discredit the cause for which they fight; neither do
they tarnish their patriotic image.” As the popular aphorism one man’s
terrorist, is another man’s freedom fighter suggests, terrorist groups,
by championing the cause of oppressed people through death and
extreme violence, become revolutionary patriots to many. Moreover,
the experiences of the Irish Republican Army, the African National
Congress, and the Palestinian Liberation Army suggest that yesterday’s
terrorists often become today’s peacemakers, and tomorrow’s prime
ministers (Goertzel 1988). The transformation of major terrorist
groups, from murderous organizations into internationally recognized
political parties and governments, is proof of the sometimes-successful
use of violence to build sympathy and win support for political ends.
Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress, Yassir Arafat of the
Palestinian Liberation Organization, Jerry Adams of the Irish Republican
Army, and Yitzhak Shamir of the Pre-Israel Zionist movement share
one thing in common: at one point in their political lives, they were all
considered terrorists, anathema of nations like the United Kingdom and
the United States, who championed the liberation of their
17
constituencies through terrorist organizations that employed the use of
extreme violence and death. And this point underscores the difficulty
of arriving at an agreeable consensus on who exactly is a “terrorist.”
Our definitions of terrorism are socially constructed, politically
mediated, and perpetually shifting. Descriptions of terrorism are
themselves framed by the media, by politics, and by culture. Here, the
concepts of frame and frame reflection (Goffman 1974; Gamson 1992;
Schon and Rein 1994) are most applicable. When sociologists employ
the concept frame, they are referring to the conscious manipulation of
images, stories, statements, and ideas to shape and sway public
opinion on an issue, or to interpret some event for public consumption.
While the media is today the principle site for framing battles (Ryan
1991; Gamson 1992), all of social life, from politics to sports to
entertainment, is concerned with creating and proliferating selected
impressions and premises. Thus, a person might simultaneously be
perceived as a “terrorist” in one frame, and a “freedom fighter” under
another, while the former frame interprets his actions as callous,
irrational, and murderous, and the latter, as a sacrificial, calculated act
of martyrdom. A case in point is the competing frames concerned to
describe those who use self-immolation as method of asymmetrical
warfare and the generation of public sympathy. Is this person a
“suicide martyr” or a “homicide bomber”? Both of these descriptors
18
are skillful attempts at framing this use of violence to sway public
opinion and generate sympathy.
The suicide bombing is perhaps the most potent symbolic
communiqué among the many forms of death by terrorism used to
galvanize public support and sympathy for political ends. Modern
suicide bombings, as a fear and sympathy generator, began in
Lebanon with the Shi’ite terror group Hizballah. Hizballah’s primary
targets, beginning in 1983, were Western military and diplomatic
personnel, targets that offered an effective route to public sympathy
and media exposure (Dobson and Payne 1987; Simon 2001; Long
1990). For Hizballah, the suicide bombing was a most appealing death
generator because it was cost efficient and an effective mode of
achieving the greatest number of causalities on the adversary’s side,
with minimal cost and risk to its organization. According to Ganor
(2000), six (6) factors made suicide bombings the new modus operandi
of terrorist organizations like Hizballah: (1) Suicide bombings added to
casualties and damage; (2) attracted wide media attention; (3) were
easy to undertake; (4) difficult to counteract once personnel were in
place; (5) required no escape planning; and finally, (6) since the
perpetrator was killed, ensured that there were no interrogation on
organizational secrets. But more than the benefits accrued to the
terrorist organization itself were the potential for strengthening
collective solidarity around political aims and generating sympathy for
19
those who sacrificed their lives for the cause. It is here that death as a
generator of public sympathy is most strongly felt.
To die committing an act of terrorism is the highest form of
death for extreme Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah
(Hoffman 1995). Death by terrorism gives to the perpetrator
immediate access to paradise, increased social status for his family,
and the assurance that he will be remembered as a “shahid”, or a Jihad
(“Holy War”) martyr (Ganor 2000). Moreover, the family of the suicide
bomber, according to Ganor (2000: 2), “is showered with honor and
praise, and receives financial reward for the attack (usually some
thousands of dollars).” Still, we ought not to forget that the suicide
bomber himself will enter paradise to the welcome of 72 virgins, his
personal servants for eternity, according to some interpretations of the
Koran. Furthermore, the sympathy that his actions elicit from others is
manifest in the social and economic support his family receives after
his death, and the martyrdom status conferred upon his memory.
It is important to note that although suicide bombings are most
often associated with extreme Islamic groups like Hamas and
Hizballah, who were in fact its modern progenitors, other groups have
adapted and mastered the use of death by suicide as a generator of
public sympathy and fear, and before September 11, 2001, the most
effective of terrorist groups to employ suicide bombing was by far the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), or the Tamil Tigers.
20
The Tamil Tigers have successfully carried out more that 200
suicide bombings which have killed and injured thousands of military
personnel and innocent civilians since the onset of its terror campaign
(Schweitzer 2000). The LTTE’s drive for an independent state within
Sri-Lanka has lead to the assassination of heads of state like former
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Furthermore, like Hamas and
Hizballah, the LTTE has effectively galvanized popular support from
among the Tamil minority by creating a sympathetic mythos around its
suicide bombers as martyrs, each wearing a capsule of cyanide around
his neck just in case his mission fails (Roberts 1996). The LTTE
continue to receive broad public support from its Tamil constituency
despite the use of suicide bombings that have injured and killed
thousands of innocent bystanders of the Sinhalese majority.
Death as Macabre Spectacle For Mass (Media) Consumption
There is an undeniable symbiotic relationship, a mutually
beneficial one, between terrorist actions and media coverage
(Weimann 1990; Paletz and Schmid 1992; Brown and Merrill 1993;
Hoffman 1998), and death plays a significant role in ensuring its
continuation. Terrorists, as we have argued elsewhere in this essay,
use death and violent acts to attract attention to their political and
ideological causes, and, here, death functions as political
communication. But the use of death as a vehicle for political
communication would not be possible without our natural curiosity for
21
the macabre, and the media’s exploitation of those inclinations; and
the popular media aphorism If it bleeds, it leads expresses this
situation well. Commenting on the use of death as a public spectacle
for mass consumption, May (1974: 297) writes:
In the case of terrorism, of course, we are talking about a festival of death,
a celebration that has its own priest and victims and that carries with it the likely risk that the priest himself will be a victim. The rest of us become celebrants in this liturgical action through the medium of the media. Thus, the media respond to the human thirst for celebration, the need for ecstasy, the desire to be lifted out of the daily round. Through violent death, their horror before it and their need to draw near it, men are momentarily relieved of that other death which is boredom. The extreme acts of violence and death that terrorists perform
become spectacles for the consuming masses. But, our consumption of
this spectacle, and by extension, our understanding of the messages
conveyed, are made possible by the media. Terrorism is media
spectacle par excellence, or as Jenkins (1975:4) notes, “terrorism is a
theatre.” It is a theatrical performance for Jenkins (1975) because it is
aimed at an attentive and rapt audience, and not at the immediate
victims of terror; their dead bodies are but message conduits for a
larger target audience. Thus, the use of death and other extreme
forms of violence by terrorist organizations frequently assumes
theatrical and dramaturgical postures, or what Sloan (1981: 23) refers
to as “theatre of the obscene”, where the attributes of improvisational
22
performances are on display, and “the ultimate plot and the conclusion
of the drama are determined by how the performers interact in their
environment where they have been placed.” And like all performances,
according to Karber (1971), the terrorist theater involves an actor
(terrorist), an audience (victims and target public), a skit or message
(e.g., suicide bombing and hostage taking), and feedback (a response
from those targeted). Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to presume
that terrorism would end if media coverage ceased. In fact, the vast
majority of terrorist acts are carried out without any thought about
media coverage; moreover, state-sponsored terrorists try to avoid the
media altogether (Simon 2001). Notwithstanding this, the media
facilitates the effectiveness of the terror message by aiding in the
symbolic communication between terrorist and public, and death,
especially in graphic pictures and televised scenes, increases our
likelihood of visually partaking in this orgy of the macabre.
Death by Terrorism: A Growing Global Problem
By all reasoned assessments, death by terrorism seems to be an
expanding global problem (Hoffman 1998; Cooper 2001; Johnson 2001;
Simon 2001), and one that most Americans saw as a very serious
threat to national security long before September 11, 2001 (Kuzma
2000). A recent report on the future of terrorism from the National
Intelligence Council (2000: 50) noted that “between now and 2015
terrorist tactics will become increasingly sophisticated and designed to
23
achieve mass casualties.” The report ended with a solemn warning
that the trend in terrorism is toward “greater lethality.” But why is the
trend toward greater lethality, and what forms of lethal deaths should
we expect?
The trend toward greater lethality is of particular interest here
because it implicates each of the five functions of death in terrorism.
We can point to three reasons for this solemn prognosis: (1) the
prevalence of widespread psychic numbing; (2) the use of weapons of
mass destruction; and, (3) the increasing influence of religiously
justified violence.
With regard to psychic numbing, the media plays a significant
role in fueling the movement toward more spectacular, more lethal,
and more destructive violence and death. Death by terrorism is
becoming more lethal partly due to the “psychic numbing” (Lifton
1974) that emanates from our extreme tolerance for media images of
death, destruction, and suffering -images that have long been part of
our normal entertainment repertoire.
It is interesting how often spectators invoked the word surreal to
describe the events of September 11, 2001; it was as if to suggest that
a distinction couldn’t be made between televised news images of the
real event and a Holly Wood portrayal that is make-believe. We have
become so desensitized to simulated violence, destruction, and death
on imaginary levels, that it is now difficult for us to distinguish the real
24
from the unreal, and this may be having a profound affect on our
ability to empathize with people who are suffering. Charles B. Strozier
(1995), in his essay The New Violence, expressed this situation well
when he observed that a new disturbing trend in violence is having a
particular impact on the American psyche. Strozier (1995:192-193)
notes that our media is saturated with stories and description of violent
behavior and extreme brutality, and that we are living with more
violence in our immediate context, whether that violence is simulated
as in movies and video games, or real, as in the homicide rate or the
nightly news. This situation naturally results in a form of numbing, or
immunity against the trauma of witnessing graphic scenes of death
and destruction. The bar has been raised to an altitudinous level such
that the amount of violence and destruction necessary for us to act is
now obscene. We need to look no further than Rwanda’s state
sponsored genocide of 1994 for evidence of the “new” form of psychic
numbing that fuels the increasing lethality of terrorism. In one of the
most horrific examples of state sponsored terrorism, Hutu extremists
butchered over 800,000 Tutsi civilians in the span of 100 days while
the United States and the rest of the free world –with full knowledge of
the genocide- idly observed the events on television (Klinghoffer 1998;
Uvin 1998). But, the implication of this psychic numbing for terrorist
acts is just as profound.
25
Today’s terrorists must increase the lethality of their attacks in
order to elicit attention for their political concerns, and in order to
create fear and panic on the part of a desensitized public. Killing and
maiming a few individuals is not enough because it might not draw
sustained and protracted media attention to one’s cause; and besides,
terrorists must now compete with a litany of other “normal” violence
such as murders and robberies for media attention. Terrorists now
have to engage in spectacular feats of intimidation just to get normal
attention from a media that is saturated with the noise and clutter of
both simulated and real violence. Thus, to reach a desensitized
audience like the American public, the terror event has to be
increasingly memorable and shocking, akin to what Schweitzer (1998)
calls superterrorism, in terms of the number of deaths generated and
the level of damage inflicted to property. Terrorism, by all reasonable
assessments, is now largely a game of numbers, and this is precisely
why the use of weapons of mass destructions (“dirty bombs” or
biological and chemical attacks) is inevitable.
Psychic numbing and its implication for the drive to greater
lethality in terrorist acts, makes the use of weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) particularly alluring. The lethality of these weapons,
in both their potential to increase body count and the fear and panic
they elicit from the public, makes their future use inevitable. Historical
evidence has already borne out the effectiveness of the use of
26
biological agents in meting out mega-deaths, such as the deliberate
infection of Native American Indians by British forces during the French
and Indian War (1754-1767) through the unlikely fomites of smallpox-
tainted blankets and handkerchiefs (Christopher et al 1997).
Bioterrorism, by design, produces large numbers of death, and any a
single act rightfully carried through could potentially result in millions
of casualties (OTA 1993). Moreover, these colorless, odorless, and
tasteless agents can freely and easily pass through any number of
security measures (metal or x-ray detectors) without detection,
increasing their likelihood of reaching the target audience (Simon
1997). But most frightening perhaps is the enormous amounts of death
that a small quantity of these biological agents can cause. A kilogram
of anthrax, dispersed under the right wind conditions, can wipe out an
entire metropolitan area (Danzig and Berkowsky 1997). And certainly,
the anthrax letters of the post September 11th months show the
lethality of bacillus anthracis as a weapon of mass destruction. But the
dangers of this form of bioterrorism were demonstrated decades
before.
The official Soviet death count of the Sverdlovsk anthrax
outbreak of 1979 was sixty-four, although U.S. intelligence puts the
number closer to a thousand (Meselson et al. 1994; Guillemin 1999).
The Sverdlovsk anthrax incident was initially linked to the eating of
contaminated meat products. However, later epidemiological
27
investigations by Meselson (1994) and Guillemin (1999) showed that
the outbreak was in fact the result of an accidental release of an
aerosol form of the anthrax pathogen from a military facility.
Bioterrorism, in the form of virulent pathogens, is a most efficient
killing mechanism, and the threat of such an attack is one that is likely
to persist into the future.
The final reason for the increasing lethality of terrorism is
religion. The last decade saw several paradigmatic illustrations of the
intensifying lethality of terrorism, beginning with the first attempt to
bring down the World Trade Towers in 1993, and culminating in the
horrific events of September 11th. Between these two terror acts were
the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City that took the
lives of 168 people, the Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack that resulted in
12 deaths and over 4000 injuries, and the 1998 bombings of U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which resulted in over two hundred
death and more than 5000 injuries. We remember these events more
than any other terror incidents because of the lethality involved. Very
few, however, have made the salient connection between these
terrorist events and the religious beliefs that are catalyzing and
justifying those actions. Yet, religion, more than political ideology, is
now the principal justification for terrorism; moreover, the most
terrifying and lethal terrorist acts of the last decade have been, not
surprisingly, religiously motivated and driven (Hoffman 1995, 1998).
28
Religion provides the justification for using the most horrific and
lethal forms of terror such as bioterrorism and chemoterrorism to inflict
death and suffering on a population, and Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack
on the Tokyo subway system is a prime example of this (Schweitzer
1998). But why is there a link between religion and death by terrorism,
or between religion and the increasing lethality of terrorism? Hoffman
(1998: 94-95) posits three reasons why religious terrorism is more
lethal than conventional ones, and why religion provides the perfect
justification for the use of violence and extreme form of death. First,
the use of violence is interpreted as a “sacramental act” when used for
religious purposes (Hoffman 1998: 4). Thus, “holy terror” is just
because it punishes the enemies of Allah, or Jesus, or any other divine
being. Religious terrorists are not constrained by a conventional moral
calculus, nor do they abide by secular rules of appropriate conflict
engagement. Fundamentalist antiabortion terrorism in the United
States where Christian terrorists, acting without conventional moral
restraints, bomb abortion clinics and assassinate abortion providers at
will, stand as a perfect example (Nice 1988; Wilson and Lynxwiler
1988; Jenkins 1999). Here, as elsewhere, the religious imperative in
terrorism removes all psychological barriers to murder and mass killing
because the targets for violence are not innocent victims but rather
infidels, sinners, and evildoers (Hoffman 1995). Second, unlike
conventional terrorist groups who might appeal to the public for
29
sympathy or support, religious terrorists “seek to appeal to no other
constituency than themselves” (Hoffman 1998: 95). If you are not with
them, then you are against them, and thus a likely target for violence
and death. Finally, religious terrorists see themselves as outsiders and
bearers of the truth who must employ violence to preserve the moral
order. For Hoffman (1998:95), this peculiar mixture of a sense of
alienation, on the one hand, and the belief, on the other, that it is their
duty to fight to preserve a disintegrating moral order, makes the use of
violence and death all the more likely and appealing, and Al Qaeda’s
September 11th attack stands as resounding evidence of the lethality of
religious terrorism.
September 11, 2001: The Launch of Superterrorism
The events of September 11, 2001 stand as a portent of deaths
to come, while concomitantly representing the first act of
superterrorism. Americans will remember September 11, 2001 as the
most successful demonstration of public terror in the history of
upward-directed terrorism. The actions on that fateful day, where Al
Qaeda operatives killed over 3000 innocent civilians, will define a
generation much like the other tragedies in American history. But
unlike the other tragedies, September 11, 2001 marked a change in
warfare, both symmetrical and asymmetrical versions, because it was
the first time that a foreign army (Al Qaeda) deliberately and
successfully targeted ordinary American civilians for mass death on
30
their home turf. To find a somewhat comparable example in the last
century, one would have to return to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor
by Japan’s Imperialist Army. Yet, the 2,388 deaths that resulted from
the Pearl Harbor attack were overwhelmingly military personnel.
September 11, 2001, however, was the first time that a foreign regime
successfully planned and implemented an act of superterrorism that
was directed at innocent, noncombatant American civilians. Al Qaeda
struck at the very lifeblood of American commerce, The Twin Towers of
the World Trade Center in New York City, and at the very heart of the
American security apparatus, the Pentagon. They transformed
passenger airplanes, 757s and 767s, into flying bombs, each carrying
about 24,000 gallons of kerosene that fueled the fires in the Twin
Towers to well over 1,500 degrees F (Ashley 2001). But for the
structural integrity of the buildings, which remained standing long
enough for a massive evacuation effort, the death toll would most
certainly be higher.
September 11, 2001 was superterrorism par excellence, and this
fact that can never be overstated. The bombings brought the entire
country to a halt by disrupting major transportation and commerce
networks. Fear and panic were ubiquitous and omnipresent in the
weeks following the attacks, completely shattering the sense of
security on both national and ontological levels. Images of death,
destruction, and despair emanated from every media outlet, a media
31
spectacle that surpassed all previous media spectacles, with none-stop
coverage and non-stop speculations. In essence, the first act of
superterrorism implicated only too well the various roles of death,
destruction, and extreme violence in asymmetrical warfare.
Now, the question is what next? What will the next act of
superterrorism be like? If the history terrorism and the role of death in
it are any guides, the answer to this question is a most solemn one:
September 11, 2001 stands as a disquieting augury of yet more
destructive superterrorisms and mega-deaths to come.
Conclusion
This essay outlined the five functions of death in acts of terrorism
by positing the following: death is a communicative device in political
discourse; a control mechanism for the masses; a route to liberation
for oppressed people; a generator of public sympathy; and, finally, a
media spectacle for mass consumption and drawing attention to a
particular cause. It also discussed the growing threat of asymmetrical
warfare and the trend toward greater lethality and mass destruction.
Moreover, it connected the trend of greater lethality and the various
functions of death in terrorism to the fateful events of September 11,
2001.
To study the role and meaning of death in terrorism is to
understand, if only slightly, why asymmetrical warfare is so seductive
to people who perceive their existential condition as one marked by
32
alienation, entrenched deprivation, and hopeless misery. To study the
role and meaning of death in terrorism is to understand both the
catalyzing suffering that forces groups of people to assume a morally
repugnant form of warfare, on the one hand, and to come to terms
with our own fears of being a victim on the other, the very fears that
make terrorism so effective in the first place. Perhaps further
discourses on the role and meaning of death in terrorism, for both
perpetrator and victim, might lead to a better understanding of the
very social conditions that give rise to asymmetrical warfare, situations
that make the strategic use of death so appealing to many.
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