[lbo-talk] Motives of the London bombers

[ravi]

Sujeet Bhatt wrote:
> On 8/5/05, ravi <lbo at kreise.org> wrote:
> 
>>i am afraid this is at best a hypothesis. i am always wary of
>>psychoanalytical explanations, especially when more
>>parsimonious/mechanistic ones are available.
> 
> Here is another hypothesis (by Prem Shankar Jha in the Hindustan Times):
> 
> But one does not have to be psychotic, or brainwashed, to choose this
> form of protest. <...>
> 
> Suicide is also an expression of helplessness. A Chinese writer, Si Si
> Lu, summed up the motive for suicide as follows: "People who have the
> power and resources to make choices and changes in their lives are
> usually also able to express their views in a variety of moderate and
> socially acceptable ways. For those who lack the power or resources to
> address the sources of their discontent, however, suicide may provide
> a last resort."

 >

so far so good.


> Had revenge for the invasion of Iraq been the sole
> motive, the bombers would have planned to set off the bombs without
> killing themselves.

and here it ends. nobody has said "sole motive". it is a significant 
leap of logic without which the argument fails to hold.


> Suicide was an escape from a conflict that was
> tearing them apart but which they could not resolve. This was the
> conflict between their inherited Muslim identity and their acquired
> British one.

second leap of logic, methinks. so the author thinks that the suicide 
attacks were a response to a conflict that was tearing these fellows 
apart. let us accept that. the force of the second claim comes purely 
from its positioning, since it does not at all follow from the first. 
the conflict tearing these fellows apart could simply have been their 
impotency to act in the face of the horror of the us-british actions, 
no? all the additional reasoning about the differences between first and 
second generation immigrants is consistent with the conclusion but do 
not establish it.

additionally, there have been claims, especially by the british govt, 
that the bombers were not suicide bombers at all, but were rather fooled 
into the act. this does not help me in any way, since i do not at all 
buy into this thesis about suicide and revenge (not only is it poorly 
substantiated it, once again, rests on assumptions in the use of the 
word 'revenge'. without any intention of drawing a direct analogy 
between the persons and the movements, i can point to the fact that many 
willingly lost their lives in various independence movements. they were 
not seeking "revenge"). but if the claim of the authorities is true, 
then it blows another big hole into the argument above.

	--ravi