The Suicide Bomber

By Zara Maqbool | July 2020

As a practicing therapist, I have often come across people who are at suicide risk and have a history of self-harming or a strong desire to end their lives. Contrary to the popular belief that a person commits suicide because of a current precipitating factor like loss of job, a breakup or some trauma, the suicide tendency comes from predisposing factors that lead to a powerful trigger that becomes all encompassing. It muddies the person’s perceptual lens and, in that space of darkness, ending life is the ray of light at the end of the tunnel.

It would be a bit different for a suicide bomber because here his choice to end his life is an illusion as this person is trained for years on end for that moment when he decides to end his life along with the lives of many others.

Questions that many people have asked are: what goes on in the mind of a suicide bomber when he enters a space and sees innocent people around with whom he has no personal vendetta? What makes him end his own life and the lives of others? In the wake of global terrorism that hit the world in recent years, the term ‘suicide bomber’ was added to our vocabularies. The first Islamists suicide bombings were carried out in the UK, which some say were under the influence of drugs while some think the bombers were conditioned to believe that it was ‘Jihad’ and was a moment for glory for Muslims as it was a fight against the enemies of Islam. This belief is not conclusive because evidence has proved that many of these suicide bombers were not Muslims though it can be said that any religion can be a factor.

I am not informed enough to comment on the global games that are being played but would like to share my understanding as a therapist of what goes into the making of a suicide bomber.

The most important thing to understand here is that under the suicide bomber’s jacket is a human being like any other; comprehending the psyche will require a multidisciplinary approach that includes his family history, economic background, history of any childhood abuse/trauma, etc., that makes him an ideal candidate to be chosen by the bigger players for this dark and deathly game.

Adler, a well-known psychotherapist, has said that every human being is born with an inferiority complex and spends his life striving towards superiority and visibility by others. External factors like poverty and toxic family systems can add to that inferiority and his drive and ambition for superiority becomes more powerful. This might be a strong factor in a bomber’s psyche.

Most suicide bombers are known to have been picked up from very poor backgrounds, with very toxic wounds like physical and sexual abuse. A victim of abuse is more likely to have a depression than a person who has not been subject to such abuse. The abused individual continues to live life driven by unprocessed anger and depression and this can be a predisposing factor too in his becoming a suicide bomber later.

A valid question that needs to be explored is that why would these individuals sacrifice their personal goals for a collective goal via a violent act? Also, there are many people out there who have never showed violent tendencies and yet are picked up to become suicide bombers? What is the common link? One would imagine that such people must have developed some pathological traits before they became terrorists. For those traits to develop, I would again say that the nuclear family could be a common link. For example, the most neglected child could be a prime candidate in validating Adler’s theory about the struggle for superiority.

The early years in a person’s life play a big role in personality development and some significant traits like low self-esteem, aggression, etc. could be the criteria for a person to be chosen to become a suicide bomber. The individual would probably be a shy under-confident person, a loner, an outsider, a follower and an underdog who always wants to be included and would probably have some history of failure in early or later years of his life and would grab any opportunity to prove himself.

The public attention, I would imagine, would draw such a person towards an act that would give them a better self-image. Here aggression can be a cause too as it would need any outlet, especially if injustice and political oppression has occurred. Imagine a Kashmiri who has lost his entire family, has never had a moment of glory in his life and is conditioned for years to perform this glorified act. What are the odds he would not blow himself up in the middle of a group of Indian soldiers?

There is a myth that such people have serious mental disorders in order to perform violent, immoral and senseless acts. This is probably not true as people with serious mental disorders cannot follow instructions or follow a system the way the terrorists do. The entire event must be planned for months ahead and a mentally challenged person cannot follow that. Also, these people are not socially isolated but are one of those normal individuals whom one may have crossed on the road. They are amongst us all the time.

Age, education, status in society, indication of any previous violence, drug use, or a significant traumatic life event - all play a role here.

For example, revenge can be one factor and any human being who has suffered a loss can use revenge as a way of coping with the grief. Such loss is exploited by terrorist organizations. It can then lead to irrational behaviour as violent as suicide bombing. Religious motivation that has always been considered a most common reason also stems from perhaps a loss in significant human relationships and then this act is seen as resigning to the ultimate higher power. In a way, the suicide might be perceived as an acceptance of the world being a place of pain and the belief that peace can be achieved in the hereafter.

Emotional pain is far more intolerable than physical pain and, as a therapist, I would believe that it is the emotional pain that is exploited and any avenue that promises the release of such pain is blindly followed.

No one is born a suicide bomber. There are internal predisposing psychological factors such as psyche traits and external social traits like poverty and political oppression that are all intertwined. Nothing can be conclusively said for such a dynamic and complex act in which the bomber is the one blowing himself up but many elements have played a role in creating him and pushing him towards the heinous act.

Psychology

The Suicide Bomber

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