Introduction

The initial and visceral response to an act of suicide terrorism is often one of utter disbelief. How can it be that someone felt this horrific action was the most logical step to take? Surely there were other options than blowing oneself up and killing numerous others in the process. This incredulity causes one to attribute some kind of psychological disorder to the terrorist – no sane, or mentally healthy, person could commit such acts. In an earlier work, I noted a similar underlying impulse in much Western writing aimed at discounting the validity of the suicide terrorist's agenda (Gauthier 2015). This propensity reveals a reluctance to accept that terrorists may act while in full control of their faculties or that they have been driven by motivations whose foundations bear similarity to one's own (revenge, renown, meaningfulness, altruism). In fact, many critics and theorists posit suicide terrorists as rational agents performing what they believe are positive actions for the good of their community. In other words, gestures typically conceived of as acts of aggression should also be reframed as evidence of the individual's generosity, selflessness and sacrifice for the welfare of their community. Robert Pape, for instance, observes, ‘the homicidal dimension of the act should not cause us to overlook an important cause leading to it – that many suicide terrorists are killing themselves to advance what they see as the common good’ (180). In this iteration, suicide terrorists are no longer simply intent on the slaughter of innocent civilians, but young people who, misguided or not, sacrifice their lives in the hopes of bringing some measure of relief to their oppressed communities.

But instead of recognising the altruistic motivations of the perpetrator, the observer feels the need to dissociate from, and condemn, the actions of the other. Few wish to risk being perceived as condoning, or worse supporting, murderous behaviour. In other words, not empathising with the terrorist becomes an act of (psychological) self-preservation. For these reasons, the ‘condemnation imperative’, as Ghassan Hage (2003) calls it, is present in much of the intellectual discourse pertaining to such actions.