Destructive instinct is inherent to humans, but thanks to our intelligence, values, spiritual philosophy and formula of coexisence, we progressed toward civilization. But, thanks to Islamic teachings, some Muslims fail to follow that path, making them terrorists...
The destructive instinct is in every human being. It is true, nevertheless, courageous application of our intelligence, values, spiritual philosophy and formula for co-existence led to the logical progression toward civilization. We were able to face disease, destruction, war, accidents, and natural calamities. In the face of these overwhelming calamities, men were able to create poetry, philosophy, literature, music, art and science. As a result a brotherhood of humanity flourished. Men were able to prolong their life and diminish their sufferings. Many great men developed spiritual guidelines and practical formula to ward of our death instinct and destructive tendencies.
Mohammed, who claimed to be a prophet successfully exploited destructive tendencies of man and established a rigid, dogmatic, reductionist and non-compromising dogma called Islam. Islamic followers marched ahead with their vengeful hands with the abhorrent Islamic faith. Time after time in the past, Islamic dogmatic believers with the strength of their flesh proved bloodshed was honorable. Millions of innocent people were hacked to death, and several civilizations perished.
Islamic terrorism is nothing new. It is as old as Islam. After the death of Mohammed, his followers had dispatched Jihadi warriors to conquer non-Islamic world through a wave of Islamic terror. Mohammedans placed their sacred duty to conquer the world for Islam at the front of their policy. Mohammedans had crushed Persia, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Hungary, Part of India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and every part in North Africa. Mohammedans were exuberant. They were inspired by Allah. They were inspired as one without pity or restraint. They had the blessing of Allah and Jihad war was the manifestation of the divine will of Allah. Jihad War unfettered and pure was fought to its smoking conclusion through every conceivable extreme cruelty and horror. Mohammedans claimed those who have not known war has not known Allah. Jihadi warriors considered the power of Allah flow through them.
Islam has been responsible for more death and destruction on the face of this planet than just about anything else. Islam was started by predators and spread by predators. It has lived off the decaying corpses of the civilizations it has destroyed.
Even today, Jihad Muslims are busy planting explosive bombs on schools, hotels, office buildings, museums, temples, churches, trains and airplanes. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for injuring and killing others. Why do Islamic homicide bombers spend their time, energy and life in shortening life of others? Why do Islamic homicide bombers allow themselves to be dominated by their death instinct? If at heart, they want to die for Allah, why do they want to kill innocent people? Why Islamic homicide bomber's "wish to kill" triumph over the wish to live? Why they love hate, death and destruction? Instead of loving life, why do they nurture destructive tendencies? Does Islamic religious indoctrination maintains their homicide instinct to kill others?
THE ISLAMIC MINDSET
Over the course of the last three decades, a number of large-scale prospective studies have convincingly demonstrated that, Islamic Jihadis commit a disproportionately large percentage of all serious and violent offenses. Since 1973, there have been 179 armed conflict around the world 169 were involved with Muslims. Worldwide Islamic Jihadist offenders accounted 95 percent of homicide bombing, 89 percent of aggravated assault and hundred percent of honorable (dishonorable) killing.
Clearly Jews and Hindus are primary targets of Islamic terrorists. Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah have murdered more than 1,600 and injured over 6,000 in the past two years. In Kashmir, India, Islamic terrorists have either killed or forced out all Hindus. These worldwide Islamic terrorist acts are meant to overthrowing democracy and replacing it with Islamic sharia. Killing innocent civilians is a high priority and legitimate way to achieve their goals. Jihadists justify heartless, cold blooded killing of infidels, women and children on behalf of Allah. Jihad murderers want to become martyrs and expect rewards from Allah. Since 9/11, Islamic terrorists have carried out more than 13,944 attacks. Islamic Taliban leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan wander around the country, pursuing their vision of Islam with fanatical zeal while the poor villagers struggle with cold, hunger, wretched poverty and disease. They have no pity for the citizens. The history of Islamic martyrs clearly indicates insensitiveness to the suffering of poor citizens. They are happy to desert their families for the sake of Jihad war and happy to imperil their own lives by their flaming devotion to Allah.
Today is tough for many non-Muslims living in Islamic countries. What makes matters worse is Islamic religious police (Mutaween) freely exercise their power in intimidating, harassing, abusing and punishing non-Muslims. All Islamic countries strictly enforce Islamic blasmephy laws to satisfy Allah and the virtues of Islam. To their support, they use Koran and Sahi Hadiths. In Islamic countries, non-believers have no value over the Islamic virtue. Fanatical Jihadists can kill non-believers, so easily in the name of Allah. Jihadists believe they are following the dictums of Allah. Jihadists have no fear, guilt, or shame whatsoever in committing terrorism, homicide bombing, public beheading, limb amputation, stoning women to death, practicing polygamy or child marriage.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JIHADIST HOMICIDE BOMBERS
It is important that we need to understand the psychology behind Islamic homicide bombers. How can it be that Islamic homicide bombers kill others and kill themselves? It is not impossible to dissect and investigate the process and elucidate its details. It enables us to recognize how the "killer instinct: is activated by Jihadists. The purposeless self-destructive acts are projected upon infidels. It arrests our attention, and demands that we scrutinize analytically various ways in which Jihadists commit homicide/suicide. What underlying motives determine Jihadists to commit voluntary homicide/suicide? If their death instinct is dominant why not commit suicide? Are they afraid of life, can't they endure life and tolerate non-believers?
The question of homicide bombing and destructive acts by Islamic terrorists is one which has received no competent scientific investigation. In the popular mind the homicidal tendency is a social reaction against American-Israeli- and Indian interference in Islamic affairs. There is no convincing scientific evidence that the Islamic homicidal impulse is external.
It is a known fact that death wish is inherent in Islam. Islam approves martyrdom in the name of Allah and the Islamic community is gratified when kefirs (infidels) are murdered. Muslims are seen rejoicing when a kafir is beheaded, hanged, killed in some other way, or stoned to death. Such heinous behavior is unintelligible to the uninitiated partly because it is clearly reveals the content of the Islamic mind. The preoccupation with homicide, terrorism, beheading, limb amputation, and stoning always seems shocking and incredible to those not familiar with Jihadist terrorist methods. Their deviant methods leave little doubt as to their general significance and reinforce as to the motives of Jihadist acts. The curious element is the formation of Islamic self-concept.
THE ISLAMIC SELF-CONCEPT
We should not overlook Islamic justification for martyrdom. What seem to us to have been unnecessary and foolhardy hazards may be interpreted to mean that their attitudes were determined by strong individual tendencies toward self-destruction. But at the same time, these impulses were undoubtedly stimulated by popular Islamic influences. Islamic culture contains certain elements which tend to encourage and facilitate the individual self-destructive trends.
Islamic history gives abundant testimony to the existence of martyrdoms and assassins. Devouring Islamic enemies (kafirs) is justified by Mullahs. They encourage Jihadists to seek positive satisfaction in martyrdom. Islamic homicide bombers behavior denotes the destructive elements in their self. The Jihadist may have wished to destroy them and others because of the Islamic social values are predominant in them. They clearly demonstrate their deliberate goal of destruction by subordinating their interest in life. They glorify Islamic martyrdom and its social usefulness. The paradox of joy out of pain, suffering and death is one of the strange phenomenons in Islam. Homicide bombing, public beheading of infidels, arson, limb amputation, stoning women to death, assassination of opponents, and unrealistic interpretation and justification of such heinous crimes in the name of Allah is a kind of socially acceptable psychosis in Islamic society.
Islamic religious education indoctrinates Muslims not to accept non-believers. Jihadists use martyrdom as an aggression, a weapon of offense and an expression of their buried feelings of revenge, anger, hostility, and distorted reaction. These are developed at Islamic religious schools and remain dormant in a latent form until their full flower later in life. The underlying psychological faults in Jihadist terrorism have been observed through Islamic rationalization. The elements of joy in death, of love gratified by inflicting suffering to non-believers and of violence against infidels are clear in Jihadists.
The cost to the individual Jihadi, his family and the victims is enormous. Why Mullahs could force Jihadists to commit homicide/suicide? There is nothing in Islam to neutralize or soften the hostile drives. The Islamic education results in the rigidity of the personality and they suffer from intermittent explosive disorder, defiant personality disorder and cognitive disorder. The iron control which the Mullahs impose upon certain forms of critical thinking, kindness, and tolerance, encourages destructive truths. There is nothing in Islamic education sufficient to hold in check the aggression, hostility and anger which are extraordinarily powerful in Muslim youths.
Ego development is not a function of simple brainwashing. For ego development one needs to go through different stages. Islamic education at the religious school allows only the values of the Islamic community to be internalized. Right and wrong, good and bad are defined by compliance with Islamic rules rather by universally accepted moral standards. Islam never allows Muslims to transition from conformist to conscious stage. As a result Muslims are not permitted to deviate from Islamic norms. Multiple possibilities, self-awareness and eclectic thinking are not allowed. Nor do Muslims see moral rules as primarily creating better conditions for non-Muslims. They do not see non-Muslims as having a rich internal life. They fail to develop more accurate empathy and mutuality in interpersonal relations. They fail to comprehend individual differences and the complexity of circumstances. They lack the ability to tolerate paradox and contradictions, and understanding of psychological causality. Muslims in general see non-Islamic world as hostile, nauseating and impure. They cannot hold of broad, abstract, social ideals, such as justice, tolerance and pluralism and they miserably fail to achieve peace or higher understanding.
Islamic history is overflowing with evidence of brutal behavior, assassination, homicide, beheading, kidnapping, and sexual aggression due to the selective effect of Islamic self-concept and deviant beliefs. Even today, Islam tends to maintain and reinforce dangerous Islamic self-concept. This circular characteristic of the self-concept may often be observed in the violent behavior of Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Lasker-E-Taibia. To make matters worse, Jihadists are frequently surrounded by a veritable conspiracy in which their murderous behavior is corroborated. The self-perpetuating effect of the Islamic self-concept is no means limited to Jihadist terrorist groups. The same dangerous dynamics may be seen at work in every Islamic community. The circular effect of this Islamic self-concept operates in negative directions.
Muslims cite Islamic taboos and Koranic injections as more important than freedom of thinking. Freedom of expression is and always has been subject to Islamic taboos. Islamic taboos exist to keep Muslims from thinking independently and these taboos are enforced by Mullahs and Islamic rulers. Those who oppose are silenced or beheaded. Public expression against Mohammed or Allah will be labeled as apostate and those dissenters will be severely punished. Strict censorship is imposed on TV, film, magazines and newspapers by religious bodies and by the government.
Islamic Madrassa education does not allow Muslim youths to develop greater consciousness and more autonomy or freedom for critical thinking which is necessary condition for personality change. Mohammed, the Islamic leader is the only model they are expected to emulate. They are not expected to higher level models for "pacer-situations" which are clearly necessary condition for healthy personality development. Islamic culture that values conformity prevents Muslim youths from seeking greater freedom and autonomy and higher consciousness. Jihadi terrorists are schooled to love death. The lust for death may overwhelm the Jihadists that go beyond any bounds of social norms. The custom of humiliating non believers and publically demeaning them is widespread in Islamic communities. Mullahs recognize and approve deviant behaviors of Islamic homicide maniacs. It is Allah's will that they present themselves -compelling them to be more cruel against Kafirs. They seem to be in a state of unhealthy exaltation before they detonate the bombs to kill infidels.
The necessity to hate is so fundamental in Islam and the frequent breakdown of relationship with infidels bears witness to their underlying hate. When they speak of Jews, Hindus and Americans the hate impulses gain an overwhelming strength. They have no pity for Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and kafirs. The Islamic martyrs show unconscious pride and satisfaction in killing Jews and Hindus. The paradox of pleasure from inflicting pain influence Islamic martyrs. They are also motivated by the special privileges supposed to be secured through martyrdom. This impelling thirst for sexual privileges is an important factor in determining the homicidal intend. The flagrant display of murderous tendencies is universally disapproved. But in Islamic society, such cruel acts against non-believers is socially accepted and supported.
All behavior is a function of the perception that exist for an individual at the moment of behaving, especially those perceptions about self and the world. As a consequence of Islamic indoctrination, Muslim' perceptual field becomes narrow. The self-concept Jihadist accumulates at the Islamic religious schools is a unique and the distorted self-concept is extremely difficult to change. Islamic self-concept is a gestalt, a peculiar pattern they use as identification which enable Muslims to exclude non-Muslims. They seldom expand their self-concept to include non-Muslims or abstract ideas of justice, coexistence, pluralism, liberty and secularism.
HOW TO NEUTRALIZE ISLAMIC TERRORISTS
Why some of the biggest problems we face from Islamic terrorists never seem to be fixed? The reason is simple. The solutions just are not convenient for the politicians and phony liberals. For several years, appeasement policies and special interests and outright irrational tolerance have gotten us far away from the effective solutions we need.
Our response so far is based on a criminal justice model using the criminal justice system to arrest, prosecute and sentence Jihadist terrorists. Such justice system is politically motivated, slow and Jihadist groups exert pressure on the system and it is ineffective.
Failure to neutralize Jihadist extremism would result in Islamic terrorists to grow in strength. Our failure will strengthen Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Mullah al-Sadr's Islamic army in Iraq, Al-Qaeda in the Middle East, and Lasker-e-Taiba in Pakistan.
The self-perpetuating characteristics of the Islamic self-concept make it of special concern in dealing with Islamic terrorism, homicide bombing, beheading, oppression of women and honor killing. Having defined themselves as Allah's warriors, they remain forever victims of their own self-perception.
Islamic education must be changed to discovering more effective relationships between Muslims and the world. To accomplish this objective, non-Muslims need to confront Islamic system. Non-Muslims must engage in subtle and active process in changing Islamic education. Passive approaches are ineffective.
Appeasement, unconditional positive regard, non-directive policies and passive diplomatic initiatives are unable to turn the tide completely. Non-Muslims must not fall into the trap of thinking that "All Religions are the same". To do so may only contribute further to the inadequacies of Jihadists. Such an unfortunate attitude overlooks the fact that Islam is hostile to co-existence, pluralism, and liberty.
We need to wage a psychological warfare effectively and efficiently for cognitive and behavior restructuring Of Muslims. The methods required for cognitive restructuring of Muslims must be powerful ones. The world cannot ignore or reward perverse philosophy of the Jihadists.
Phony secularists and leftist liberals must be confronted and forced to change their bogus theories. Their mindless theories are totally inadequate, ambiguous and it rests on a tragic illusion. Their misguided moral idealism is not in itself a guarantee of moral goodness, peace and freedom. It is a pathway to Islamic terrorism, death, destruction and wholesale anarchy. Their goal is not to free the world from the roots of Islamic terrorism or destroy destructive urges of Islamic terrorists. They are interested only in slippery slope arguments. We have to defeat leftist liberals in order to protect and preserve freedom and peace for us and for the children yet to be born.
Liberal media with their conspiracy of silence, attempt to cover up the root cause of Islamic terrorism. The media is determined not to rock the boat and pretending that they did not know. Such callous indifference to the life and limb of innocent civilians is shocking. It is of course utterly inconsistent with the sanctity of life and the obligations to defend citizens from Jihadist murderers. There must be public awareness against liberal politicians and the media. They should be condemned and exposed for continuing to stand by passively as our innocent civilians are killed and maimed by Jihadists.
The media are potent in shaping and defining attitudes and actions. Media should be coerced, if need be, to have some effect on the desired outcome. In this era of globalization, media including TV can reach every continent. We need to use the Internet, satellite Communications, digital Photography and all available communications technology for a broad range of operations against Islamic ideology of hatred and terror. Information warfare is the "Battle of Will" for shaping the will and attitude of Islamic fascists.
Our Schools, Colleges and Universities must teach Islamic dogma as it is without distortion. We also need to change the cultural perception of public affairs dealing with Islamic nations. In addition to formal education to expose brutal Islamic history, public officials and military leaders might be exposed to a series of programs on Jihadist terrorist operations. Islamic leaders should be kept abreast of our concerns and warn them the need for revision for Islamic education.
Continuing Islamic terrorism require special and unorthodox means. Such means include defensive preemptive measures that can range from targeted assassinations of known Jihadist leaders. In this respect we must take special attention to the principle:
Ubi Cessat Remedium ordinarium Ibi decurritur ad Extraordinaritur (i.e. Where the remedy fails, recourse must be had to an extraordinary one).
Islamic terrorists are enemies of the human race. We are justified in uniting together with whatever means necessary to punish and even exterminate such brutal lunatics.
Dr. Babu Suseelan (Ph.D.) is the Director of Addiction Research Institute, Pennsylvania, and also of Indian American Intellectuals Forum, New York. He is free speaker in both national and international conferences on Jihadi Terrorism, Criminal Justice and Substance Abuse.