Word: martyrizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...What are the main reasons that people choose to self-destruct, killing others in the process? The key motivator for a violent actor who seeks to die like a martyr is a strong attachment to a community, usually a religious community. There are dozens of reasons for killing, but violent martyrdom is first and foremost about belonging. Strong emotional ties and strong feelings of mutual obligation often hold religious societies together...
...motivations of suicide bombers? We tend to assume that they act out of personal despair, rage, hatred, belief in paradise or having been brainwashed. We also assume that their actions are completely irrational and destructive. What we need to look at, in order to correct these misconceptions, is the martyr's discourse and the rituals that surround religiously sanctioned suicide terror...
...Jesus Christ is probably the most famous martyr in history. Why has this trend not resonated as strongly among Christians as it has among Muslims? Early Christian communities were very happy to self-destruct but after the Enlightenment there was an increasing separation between religious spheres of action and political spheres of action, whereas in Islam, religious dynamics are still very much intertwined with political agendas. In Christianity, you don't really see what you see in Islam where the [political] martyr is a Christ-like figure. In Christian communities, if you act like a Christ-like figure to solve...
...nuclear ambitions to a characteristic suicide mission. Why this analogy? Normally one does not compare a whole nation to an individual, but Iran, as a Shi'ite theocracy, gives the appearance of acting out of similar motives. Iran celebrates the Shi'ite community that clusters around the great martyr Hussein, son of Ali. It used this ideology as it sent tens of thousands of undertrained young volunteers to their senseless death in the war against Iraq. Would this ideology play any role if Iran felt both cornered and it also possessed nuclear weapons...
...invest in organizations that do performances or comedy then sensibility changes. It will take a generation but suddenly, the martyr will become a Don Quixote. Don Quixote thinks he is a great character but everyone else thinks of him as a fool. It would turn the martyr into somebody who presumes way too much about himself. It wouldn't eliminate terrorists but it would undermine the culture that promotes suicide terror...