Concluding Thoughts

            Each of these books has greatly aided my search for understanding the phenomenon of female suicide bombing. The first book, “The Path to Paradise” by Anat Berko answered some of my questions regarding personal motivation. Her in-depth interviews were very helpful in allowing me to understand the personal issues that women in Palestine face and how these, along with social and political factors, play a role in the choice to bomb. The interviewees discussed their personal lives and the motivation that drove them to commit the act—they mention issues ranging from marriage and university to honor and shame. Her book proves that each woman is individual, not all issues being the same, yet she highlights the fact that the social circumstances with regard to gender and sex are overarching problems that affect each of these women. She brings to light the issues that surround gender politics and the Islamically-centered Palestinian culture.

            Barbara Victor’s book, “Army of Roses,” highlights the political landscape. She questions Arafat’s statements of “equality” with regard to death and also challenges the notion of power and autonomy of female suicide bombers. Her book is definitively feminist—she claims ultimately that female suicide bombers are the most radical examples of exploitation of women in the Arab world. She challenges the ideology of political and religious equality through martyrdom and notes that even if women are seen as equal in death, this does not change the fact that they are still considered second-class citizens in life. She gives an intensely detailed background on politics and demonstrates that each of the powerful political groups in Palestine—al Fatah, Palestinian Jihad, Hamas, al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, etc.—have used women for political gain globally and on the streets of Palestine. She answers questions regarding the religious/Qur’anic legitimacy of women as martyrs for Allah, and illustrates the strategic movement from banning women as martyrs to accepting them in order to become more powerful via religious edicts and approval by terrorist-supported and funded sheiks.

            The next book, “Female Suicide Bombers,” by Rosemarie Skaine is a collection of research regarding female suicide bombing; it presents differing arguments from all sides. She cites (Durkheim) society as part of the general motivation for bombing. She notes that the culture of death within Palestine permeates the hearts and homes of those who live there and encourages both men and women to commit suicide in the name of nationalism, revenge, and Allah. She also presents arguments from different scholars who suggest that motivation does differ along gender lines. These arguments challenge the first two books that I read, arguing that because women are marginalized in certain ways, and therefore that would influence their reasoning. She also touches upon the fascination with supposed subversion of gender roles—women as martyrs. Her research challenges previous understandings of females within society.

            My final reading, “Women as Weapons of War,” by Kelly Oliver delved into the way in which Western society understands the phenomenon. She also discusses the role of the media in creating a veil of victimization. War is also a huge theme in this book, and she answers questions about “right” and “wrong” acts of war and why we think of them in this way. Her understanding of body versus technology is very interesting and addresses some of the reasons why Westerners are so horrified by this use of body within war, while we can employ deadly technology without blinking an eye. Her book urges us to understand suicide bombing not just as a tool of war, but also as an attempt to create a life that is more than just bare existence—life with meaning.

            The reading of these books strangely synched with my thought processes as I continued this project. I was first very interested in the personal motivation behind the bombings. I assumed that people who chose to bomb in general must have some sort of personal issues or could be easily persuaded by terrorist officials. Although there is some truth to this, when reading further, I found that the phenomenon and motivations are much more complex. Having some knowledge of Palestinian culture and Islamic ideology, I had expected overlap between gender politics, politics, social situations, etc., yet nothing to the extent of what my readings informed me of. The more I delved into this project, the more I began to understand the complex web of politics and society that informs decisions with regard to terrorist activity. Although many of my questions were answered, there is still one that I have yet to answer: Okay, now that we can understand part of the motivation, the why, what about the how? How can this phenomenon be stopped? Can it be stopped? Who could stop it and would they? I believe there must be a certain combination of changes that have to occur over a period of time in order for this form of violence to cease. But where to start? These questions both sadden and intrigue me. I guess this is what the project was all about—I have a greater understanding and still more questions, most of which might be left unanswered. 

    Oliver claims that our culture values basic life over quality of life—“mere survival over meaningful life.” (133) “Moreover, our conception of life is reduced to what Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls ‘bare life’ rather than quality of life. Life in and of itself is seen as value that exists outside of the realm of politics.” (133) Our assumption that value of bare life occurs outside the social construction has lead to much of the horror that we experience when faced with suicide bombers. We attempt to save (certain) lives at any cost, and the fact that “bare life” is trumped by quality of life is shocking within the Western imaginary. “Suicide bombers make explicit the connection between the body and politics that has been denied within Western politics.” (133) The vulnerability of the body makes the technologically progressive West fearful of the “other” who utilizes the body in the same way we utilize guns, bombs, etc. “Hatred and the urge for revenge can be seen as a manifestation of fear, fear of our own vulnerability.  Victimization of the others literally puts our own vulnerability onto others.” (138) She notes that other authors have claimed that our vulnerability and use of violence is the very essence of humanity. She claims instead that our true essence, that that defines us as different from all others species, is our ability to forgive. “But this translation requires time and energy, scarce commodities in today’s global economy…” (140)

    Suicide bombers force us to realize that others outside of our Western imaginary do want more than “bare life,” and that some will even sacrifice their bare lives in order to give others the chance for meaningful lives. Also, their lives become meaningful by their actions, which demand quality of life over mere existence. “Ghassan Hage too maintains that suicide bombing is a last resort in a fight against colonialization; but, he argues, it becomes part of a culture of martyrdom because both material and symbolic resources are so limited by the colonial situation. In other words, martyrdom becomes a way of gaining symbolic cultural capital when one’s culture is perceived as being under siege.” (143) Not only just the East, but even within Palestinian culture itself, women have also been relegated to the realm of “bare lives” and their physical bodies—as vessels of reproduction. They lack access to particularly meaningful lives, and thus the bomber gains a sense of meaning by using the (patriarchally constituted) body outside of its prescribed role. Julia Kristeva suggests “that the shahidas represent the triumph of a culture of death that values women’s biology over biography, reproductive life over meaningful life.” (144) Female suicide bombers not only break the rules of the West and challenge our notions of body politics, they also confront Palestinian notions of women as strictly reproductive “bare life” bodies. 

Nature vs Culture

Oliver suggests that our fear and fascination with suicide bombers is their use of the body as weapon. She asserts that the use of the body directly correlates to our conceptualization of imperialism and colonialization—we believe that the use of the technological weapons are of a good and civilized variety, as opposed to the emotionally driven/irrational/primitive weapon of the body. Oliver discusses the use of the word “terrorist” to denote the “bad guys with technology” as opposed to the liberated Western fighters, who are known as “heroes.” In regards to attitude of good people having technology and bad ones using their body, “It also suggests that we feel somehow threatened by bodies themselves; that bodies used as weapons are especially uncanny because they conjure a deeper ambivalence we feel about our own bodies as well as the bodies of others. …Within the history of Western thought bodies are figured as finite, inconsistent, even irrational, and so they have been conceived of as opposed to civilization and culture.” (128) Bodies are conceived of as lesser than technology, being the epitome of civilization:“…bodies are imagined as part of nature and therefore never completely assimilated into culture, while politics is imagined as the most organized form of culture, which removes us from the realm of nature altogether.” (130)

         The dominance of culture over nature is at play here. Not only do women’s bodies reflect the “natural,” but the “other”—Palestine in this case—also reflects the “natural” and “other”: “…real flesh and blood bodies have been associated with women and excluded from the realm of the properly political while properly political bodies are seen as male bodies.” (131) The issue of the body as a weapon crosses these standardized boundaries of bare bodies versus technology. “Yet what is most remarkable about these bare bodies is that they are not bare; they are not natural; they are not innocent. Rather, they are armed and dangerous…they are more than the return of the repressed natural body within Western politics. What is more dangerous than a natural body is a body that won’t stay put, a body that moves between nature and culture, a body become a political statement.” (130-1) This ambiguity surrounding the body of female suicide bombers is intriguing. They have successfully employed their body as a weapon by combining nature and culture. They are willing to kill their own bodies in order to kill others. This is a huge threat to Western countries where “saving one’s own ass” may be the goal, while simultaneously killing as many others as possible, pushing a button from afar. “Indeed, what these women suicide bombers make manifest that unsettles Western politics is the way in which the body is always political; there is no bare body, no natural body.” (131) 

Women As Weapons of War

      Kelly Oliver believes that our cultural associations between women, birth, death, sex, and violence contribute to our use of women as weapons of war. Our stereotypes of sex and gender simultaneously allow for shameful use of violence by women and also direct our understanding of women’s “natural” state of motherhood and nurturing. “Indeed, the association between sex and violence trades on stereotypical images and myths of dangerous or threatening women upon which our culture was, and continues to be, built.” (3) Oliver notes that women are seen as both life-giving and life-taking; they are givers of life as mothers, but are dangerous and have the propensity to kill the life she can also give. “Women are serving and dying, but, in the words of retired Navy captain Lory Manning, ‘A lot of social conservatives have powerful feelings about training mothers to kill.’” (1) She notes that even though it may appear that women are gaining equality or feminist-driven power by joining the ranks, “the rhetoric surrounding their involvement betrays the lingering association between women, sexuality, and death.” (19)

     Oliver explicitly discusses the fact that women’s sexuality is seen as dangerous, something that must be kept under wraps, so to speak. “Akin to a natural toxin or intoxicant, women’s sex makes a powerful weapon because, within our cultural imaginary, it is by nature dangerous. Yet becomes more threatening because we imagine that it can be wielded by women to manipulate men; it can become the art of seduction through which women beguile and intoxicate to control and even destroy men…” (31-2) She discusses the fact that female suicide bombers are especially dangerous because their dangerous sexuality appears to be cloaked and covered (socially and physically) within the patriarchal society, yet at the same time, they can be seen as the femme fatale, allowing for them to move across security checkpoints as “innocent” women, while simultaneously hiding their dangerous bombs. 

Agency?

            Scholar Karla J. Cunningham brings to the book a perspective that denies differences across gender lines. She notes that women are viewed differently than men in many places (especially where the bombings take place), but that their motivation and significance are the same. She states, “Importantly, the ‘invisibility’ of women both within terrorist organizations, and particularly their assumed invisibility within many of the societies that experience terrorism, makes woman an attractive actor for these organizations, an advantage that female members also acknowledge. This invisibility also makes scholarly inquiry of the phenomenon more difficult and may lull observers into the false assumption that women are insignificant actors within terrorist organizations.” (62) She makes a good point—obviously there is a strategy behind using women as bombers due to their “invisibility,” but just because they are used as human smart bombs does not necessarily mean that they are significant actors in terrorist organizations. Where are the female dispatchers? Where are the female heads of political organizations? Ironically, their invisibility might just make them invisible even within power structures such as in terrorist organizations where their importance seems to lie in the fact that they are the bombs—strategically necessary, but dispensable.

“Women join politically violent organizations for reasons similar to men’s, such as political change, Cunningham concludes. The argument that women join for personal reasons suggests women do not choose their participation.” (132) Of course women and men join for a variety of reasons, political change being among them. But personal motivation does not necessarily exclude agency. Even women (and men) driven my personal loss, grief, whatever, typically decide themselves to become bombers and seek out dispatchers. At the same time, there are a good number of women who actually do not choose to participate, but are instead forced. This should be taken into account, as well. Force includes physical, social, and religious (psychological).

V.G. Julie Rajan says, “Recent interest in suicide bombers is rooted in the seemingly unlimited and unknown power they possess.” (167-8) She states that their influence comes from the fact that “as women continue to participate in suicide bombing they symbolically assume the power to disrupt traditional patriarchal female gender notions and thereby destabilize current social and political, economic and ethic and religious identities worldwide.” (168) This is a perspective that can most definitely be justified. At the same time, these types of arguments beg the question of whether manipulating or employing one’s patriarchally designated gender is equally as subversive or disruptive as challenging it. Are these women promoting their own agency as individuals by committing these acts or are they simply women who are instead being used by men as political tools? Maybe it’s both. I propose that many of these women most likely see themselves as liberators of women and believe that their actions are aiding not only Palestine and their personal path to Paradise, but also bettering the lives of living women by demonstrating individual freedom, while they are simultaneously (maybe even unknowingly) being used as political pawns in the hands of the patriarchy who cloak political goals in religious and individual ideology.

Suicide Bombing in Russia

Click here to read about it.

More

            Moving on in “Female Suicide Bombers,” one scholar notes that we should not assume that motivations differ along gender lines. Lisa Kruger states, “In my opinion, it is dangerous to categorize motivations of women as different from men. Doing so would cause analysts to look for ‘female-type’ motivations and ignore that women can rationalize the use of violence in the same manner as men. We will be caught off guard if we only allow ourselves to think that women will use violence only if they are pushed far enough on a personal or emotional level.” (34) She makes a legitimate point—not all women have the same motivation and some may be more likely to have motivations in common more so with men than other women. At the same time, because Palestinian society is so divided along the lines of gender, it is important to note that there are certain restraints placed upon women and not on men, thus challenging the notion that both men and women are on an even playing field and may have the same reasoning behind committing a bombing. Even if men and women are motivated for different reasons, it does mean that we have to assume that women are only motivated because of personal issues. But, it is true that many scholars have analyzed the choices that men and women make along gender lines (Berko, Victor) and this may not be the best way of viewing the situation. Both men and women who commit suicide bombings involve other people, kill people, and die. The simple story is basically the same.

There are many aspects of subversion and victimization that seem to be more apparent when a woman commits a bombing. V.G. Julie Rajan “writes that the reason women are successful…is that they are still associated with traditional female gender norms in domestic life while at the same time they are associated with masculine gender norms of aggression and violence.” (38) I think this is an interesting analysis. I believe that groups such as Hamas and Fatah all understand that the subversion of social norms brings a lot of attention to the cause. It is also one of the reasons why this phenomenon can be considered at attempt at liberation of women—breaking out of traditional gender roles. Men who bomb are obviously a big deal, they still wreak havoc. But during wartime, it seems as though society accepts men dying and killing others as more “natural” than women doing it. Even this perspective is placed upon the situation from the outside, individuals, along with the nation, take this into account when setting up a bombing. Political groups understand the way that their cause is viewed from the outside, Palestine especially. It may appear that women are victims, so victimized to the point of killing themselves, and this can also be viewed as an appeal to a global audience, or audiences of other Middle Eastern countries.