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Suicide Attacks in Islam

The fundamentalism debate often makes the incorrect assumption that violent, religious fundamentalists want a return to a premodern era. Journalists, who so eagerly want to link everything and everyone to fundamentalism, take little notice of what is scientifically demonstrable or not. However, theories on fundamentalism are often established in the ivory tower before any sort of concrete movements has been investigated in detail. Actually, fundamentalist movements are often very modern, in that they develop completely new theological concepts and put them into action. The hope that in time they would become ‘more modern,‘ and for that reason more peaceful, is illusory.

The justification of suicide attacks in Islamism is a modern development that continues. Indeed there used to be the concept of martyrs as warriors who died in Jihad, which is a concept that has never existed in Christianity (though it has been found in the nationalistic garb of European states or, for instance, in Japan in world wars). But it has always been a war called for by a leader – for instance a caliph or a sultan. One died in battle against unbelievers, and one naturally tried to live as long as possible. This is to say that the individual did not commit suicide. (Exceptions were assassins between the 11th and 13th centuries, for which no line leads to the present.)

Terror attacks during the time of Yassir Arafat were hardly able to be justified religiously and did not consist of an actual suicide attack. The concept of the suicide attack is something that has progressively developed in modern Islamism in increasingly intensive phases, which anyone who has followed the last 25 years of reports in the media can understand.

Phases in the Development of the Theology and Practice of Suicide Attacks in the last 25 Years

1. Jihad no longer has to be called for. Rather, military Jihad is a permanent condition against unbelievers. An individuals can designate himself, or a small group can designate themselves. Whoever dies in the process goes to paradise as a martyr.
2. An individual is allowed to kill himself, if in the process unbelievers are also killed.
3. Male children are also able to be suicide attackers (initially in the Intifada)
4. An individual is allowed to do the same if in the process, as collateral damage, Muslims also die (this occurred initially in Israel, then on September 11, 2001).
5. An individual is allowed to do the same if in the process almost exclusively or exclusively Muslims die but unbelievers are disquieted (initially in Iraq).
6. Women can also be suicide attackers who up till now have only appeared as proud mothers of suicide attackers (a very recent phenomenon).
7. In the most immediate past girls have emerged as suicide attackers. In short: a girl who with an explosive kills other Muslims and, for that reason, is lauded as a martyr used to be unthinkable in Islam. It is, rather, a completely new theological and practical development that has little in common with premodern Islam.

Truths that bind Democracy

The Catholic systematic theologian William J. Hoye, who teaches at the State University in Muenster (Westfalia), has rightly emphasized that candid rational discourse between all parties involved in democracies is based upon inviolable ‘truths’ [William J. Hoye. Demokratie und Christentum: Die christliche Verantwortung für demokratische Prinzipien (Democracy and Christianity: The Christian Responsibility for democratic Principles]. Aschendorff: Muenster, 1999. pp. 29-33, 47-49).

The German constitution “commits itself” to human rights, and the preamble of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 speaks of “recognition” and even of “faith” when it says: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” and “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women.” Similar formulations, which presuppose the recognition of a prescribed, manifest and incontrovertible truth, are found in many human rights and constitutional texts, according to Hoye. German state constitutions speak of “esteeming” the “truth” and of an “attitude.” In the Constitution of Bremen (Article 26.3) mention is made of “education towards esteeming truth” and in the Constitution of the Rhineland Palatinate of “a freely democratic attitude” (Article 33).

The thought that all people should share truth (Hoye, ibid., p. 39) is inherent to democracy. This is due to the fact that “unlike all other political systems, democracy is, in its essence, not reliant upon philosophical thought” (ibid., p. 53).  Even if the least democratic systems seek to impose their structure upon other countries, democracy is a strongly missionary model that by no means is based on randomly gained votes but rather on final truths. And if a person scrutinizes these final truths, that individual is ‘undemocratic.’ One can see with what sort of final commitment the superiority of democracies is presented by politicians, how the word ‘democratic’ is treated as the ultimate mark of quality, or for instance how radically Muslims are called upon to subordinate to the constitution.

Does not the erection of an international court for genocide, before which heads of state have to answer, amount to a situation where there is an ethic that transcends all countries and all positive law? Is there not too little discussion about whether from a secular point of view there is just as much a presupposed comprehensive and universal ethos as there is from religious standpoints? Is not the secular point of view similar to what Christianity has known with the Torah from Judaism or what was once known as prevailing natural law? Or what Islam has known with the Sharia in a much more concrete model and with a completely different meaning? And wouldn’t such a global ethic need to be as much subject to an intensive discussion about its final justification as Christianity has been subject to in its history? Do not many hide their lack of a final justification behind the pretext that they alone want to avoid arguing religiously or even fundamentally?

People often behave as if religions, with their truth claims, are per se not capable of being democratic and are subordinate the state to their own truths. However, is it really any different with secular humanism – if one were to contrast these opposite poles rather boldly and simply? Is not the dispute all too often one of the respective final truths held by both sides, that is, which ones should bind the state with respect to human rights?

Does not German and European law correctly place religious and non-religious world views on one plane when it comes to religious freedom and freedom of expression. Does that not also mean at the same time that non-religious world views are just as lacking in neutrality as religions and should be so honestly described, as far as what they have as final, non-scrutinized foundations? In everyday life as well as in the academic world it has been observed for a long time that non-religious people – on account of their non-religiosity – are automatically viewed as more neutral, more committed to truth, and more rational, and who do not even have to disclose their foundations of thinking, while religious people have the buck passed to them for being narrow-minded and biased. How fair, rational, and capable of dialog someone is, and how much he or she is committed to true research, is not to be found in whether the individual is religious or not.

Let us take the example of the admissibility of abortion. Both sides argue with rights that transcend the state, if for the moment we overlook the large spectrum that seeks a compromise. The magisterium of the Catholic Church and the large majority of the Evangelical movement view unborn children as individuals with full human dignity and do not grant the state the right to infringe upon this human life (the classical presentation is found in Defending Life. A moral and legal Case against Abortion Choice, Cambridge 2007 by the Evangelical who converted to Catholicism, Francis J. Beckwith). The state is actually measured by religious truth which, however, according to the understanding of its proponents, should actually be understandable to every reasonable individual.

However, its opponents do not only refer to positive law which rests upon the parliamentary majority decision in favor of the freedom to abort. Otherwise, they would have to accept that in Ireland, Poland, or in many non-western countries it is just as legal on the basis of laws based on decisions made according to parliamentary procedure or by referendums that abortion is not permissible. Here they argue with rights for all individuals that transcend the state, such as the right of the woman to choose, or directly with a human right to abortion. To a degree, both sides measure the state in a fundamentalist manner on rights they will not give up or that bind democracies with ‘eternal’ values. They assume furthermore that there are some who do not want to understood these values in spite of all reason.

Alternatively, let us take the cultural war raging in California around the introduction of marriage for homosexuals and the current vote under the catchword  “Proposition 8.” Surely there is a coalition of people unwilling to compromise – both religious (primarily Catholics, Latinos, Mormons, and a portion of Evangelicals) and non-religious (otherwise there would not be such majorities!) – who are against the introduction of such a measure, but their opponents are just as unwilling to compromise and are fighting at the level of final truths. It does not matter to the one that a vote in November 2008 showed that 52% were against the introduction of homosexual marriage: Nor does it matter what the state legislature or judges decided. Rather, democratic mechanisms are for both sides the tools used to implement their own truth, which in a certain sense lie ‘fundamentalistically’ above the state. Democracy can often produce a balance between ‘truth’ and interests, but sometimes the verdict comes only through the decision of the majority or even only arises on the basis of randomly available mechanisms (the mode of voting, referendum, validity of court decisions).

In the final event, democracy does not, however, get along without binding itself to such higher values. Democracy is not an end in itself. It can conspicuously use its own mechanisms to vote itself out of office. Only if and when democracy is able to better ensure higher values such as the dignity of man, the constitutional state, minority protection, justice, or social state procedure is it in a position to be superior to all other states forms. For instance, how would a democracy practice the protection of minorities if the opinion of the majority and of the voting majority were holy and incontrovertible?

It would be better if all proponents of democracy would lay out in the open which values and truths are highest and which ones democracy should defend. This is preferable to a situation where some individuals act as if they were neutral while really only wanting to impose their truths of democracy.