Nancy Kobrin, PhD, Joan Lachkar, PhD
As mental health professionals and authors of many publications written on terrorism and counterterrorism (including Kobrin's latest publication The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About Islamic Suicide Bombing) and Lachkar's last chapter in How to Talk to A Borderline on Cross-Cultural Borderlines, we have accumulated enough psychological "evidence" to interpret a prevalent factor motivating female suicide bombers In a recent article, it was stated clearly by Meena Gul, a female suicide bomber, who said unequivocally that the reason she had been programmed and had made herself into a human bomb was so that she could find a place for herself in Heaven:
"Gul said that women suicide bombers were trained for their deadly task in small cells on both sides of the porous border and were dispatched to their missions with a sermon, 'God will reward you with a place in heaven.' ”
(Al Qaeda, Taliban create female suicide cells in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Bill Roggio, December 31, 2010, accessed 1 January 2011)
The covert message is clear. Aside from the obvious brainwashing, she has learned since early childhood that her life on earth is Hell and it doesn't take much for a child, let alone a little girl to recognize domestic violence as both physical and emotional are omnipresent. All children have basic fundamental needs as we know from our research studies observing infant and child development as opposed to studies done in Muslim countries, which amount to about practically zero research in this area. Besides most psychologists in Muslim countries do not enforce self -development, as its intent is to focus primarily on conformity e.g., one must not dare to do anything to shame one’s family or society. The prohibition to separate means that the family remains highly enmeshed and fused, and with this fusion comes a backlash of unspoken paranoia, i.e. the honor killing and that there are no boundaries between individuals hence rampant sexual abuse. So what is the connection between paranoia and sexual abuse and honor killings? Because of shame and fear which arises out of persecutory anxiety the only way a man can rid himself of such feelings is to destroy and humiliate a young girl or a woman.
In psychological terms this is known as projective identification – “Now you – women are the deprived and the shameful ones not us!” Yet this is not spoken about out right since it is an unconscious maneuver and it is denied. The paranoia arises from the sense of the males feeling themselves to be under attack all the time yet they attack the female.
Because a little twelve-year old girl like Meena has incorporated male rage, and has identified with the devaluation of her, she internalized this with self-hatred. Therefore, she grows up not knowing that she has value in her own right. Her warped sense of freedom has been equated with pleasing and compliance. Her life is shaped and molded to fit with that of her male recruiter master's pleasure and demands. Having never found her own identify, she has to find an escape to become a female suicide bomber, a perfect fit with her perverse sense of herself as a woman and as victim.
Another form of this perversion validated by society, is the familiar Muslim melody, “Here comes the child bride” which amounts to little more than the startling practice of child sacrifice by handing a fragile young girl over to an older or elderly Muslim male who will abuse her under the sham of Sharia marriage. It is not so much about sex but rather power and control at the expense of the little girl as the adult male has his own rage from having been emasculated early on by being tied into his mother. The message is females are scary so beat them up and destroy them.
Even the bachi bazi, the dancing boy-toys of Afghanistan who are preyed upon by older males also fits this pattern of skewed sexuality and power. Yet political leaders, experts and others persist in denial, again refusing to look at what is right under their nose because of denial, fear or in some cases to get their own "jollies" from this jihadi pornography.
Another example is the recent conviction of former Israeli President Moshe Katsav and his blatant rape, sexual harassment and abuse of women working under him. While Israel and the Jewish community so far have not produced suicide bombers, we are not any more immune from other communities and ideologies that have. While Judaism’s ideologies are less inclined toward such radicalization, nonetheless it could occur in pockets of extremism. We contend though that the underlying motor driving this kind of aberrant social behavior – suicide and mass murder – hinges on a preceding history of severe child abuse. Well adjusted children do not become suicide bombers.
People might say, why do you even mention Katsav in this context? At least the Israelis admit to their wrongdoings and face up to shameful leaders who commit crimes against humanity or young innocent children. We are no better nor different from other peoples even if we are “chosen.” The health of our children and all children world-wide is grounded in the justice of our nations, which must always seek to protect, nurture and encourage a life free of a child being used as a sex toy. There is a peculiar aspect of the predator/offender of child sexual abuse and rape - that is the persistent and massive wall encountered of denial. The perpetrators will never admit what they have done. Katsav is a prime example.
Israel has withstood the test with regard to the case of Katsav who preyed upon innocent women. Let us hope that other Middle Eastern countries and the "Stans" come to have a legal system like Israel where the predator who smells its prey will not find sanctuary under its laws. Saudi Arabia and Iran would be wise to take heed from the superb example of Israel where the predator -- he or she -- will be prosecuted and incarcerated – not the abused female victim – stoned to death.
Returning to the Pakistani girl suicide bomber, Meena Gul, whose last name by the way means rose, exemplifies our interpretation that her life on earth is nothing more than a living hell and in her own mind's eye, her next life in death will lead to a pathway of pleasing in an alleged Muslim paradise to at least put her out of her pain.
There is an amazing parallel of these dynamics that exists in our clinical practices, adults who have been sexually abused harbor unconscious and even conscious suicidal ideation, that is, thoughts of killing themselves. We refer to these thoughts as unconscious death wishes. Rarely does this issue come up in counter terrorism discussions as an important link to suicide bombings. Considering the fact that intihar, suicide, is prohibited in Islam, shahada, or martyrdom offers the perfect cover to act out the plan of suicide with actions that coerce one to commit suicide including mass murder. Freud more than anyone in his early papers referred to this as death wishes, the drive toward Thanatos. This could account for women who harbor suicidal tendencies to avoid the shame of suicide per se they hide under the mask of honor and the glory of paradise. In reality it is paradise lost, for it does not surprise us as to how depressed and forlorn these women feel. The unconscious fantasy then is one that embodies the sense that the shame is so deep that they can not even face their own suicidal ideation.
One could ask – why is suicide so prevalent within the Muslim collective psyche? It is basically a culture of deprivation which denies all laws of human development, whereby no matter which way they turn they cannot get their needs met. Instead they are met with an environment riddled with blood, paranoia, shame and vengeance.
Yet we hazard the guess that if world leaders, mainly male, really had the emotional and intellectual fortitude, they would demand from their own counter terrorist experts to stop this nonsensical nomenclature of political violence for suicide bombing and re-label it as child sexual abuse. By doing so, attention and funding could be drawn to the creation of a special subfield in counter terrorism for child development and gender relations. This would be one step in the right direction of solving and diminishing such wanton slaughter of the innocent.
So we ask you, our readers, what can we do to stop such child abuse? How can we make our international leaders wake up from their slumber of deep denial? We welcome your advice and comments.
In conclusion, it is one thing for Meena Gul's clan, tribe, Ummah and nation-state to tolerate such rampant child abuse but it is quite another, that we in the West and especially our politicians, leaders and regular citizens turn a blind eye on this crucial obvious link between girl and boy – child suicide bombing arising out of the domestic violence of child abuse. It is right under our nose. It is the elephant in the room yet we persist in denial because it is too terrorizing.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Dr. Nancy Kobrin, a psychoanalyst with a Ph.D. in romance and semitic languages, specializes in Aljamía and Old Spanish in Arabic script. She is an expert on the Minnesota Somali diaspora and a graduate of the Human Terrain System program at Leavenworth Kansas. Her new book is The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Dr. Joanie Jutta Lachkar is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist in private practice in Brentwood and Tarzana, California, who teaches psychoanalysis and is the author of The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Marital Treatment (1992, The Many Faces of Abuse: Treating the Emotional Abuse of High -Functioning Women (1998), The V-Spot, How to Talk to a Narcissist, How to Talk to a Borderline and a recent paper, “The Psychopathology of Terrorism” presented at the Rand Corporation and the International Psychohistorical Association. She is also an affiliate member for the New Center for Psychoanalysis.
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