On the Role and Meaning of Death in Terrorism

(Unedited Version: Published Article May Differ Slightly)

Lee Garth Vigilant, Ph.D.Minnesota State University at Moorhead

Department of Sociology and Criminal JusticeLommen Hall

Moorhead, MN 56563

and

John B. Williamson, Ph.D.Boston College

Department of SociologyMcGuinn Hall

Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3807

Death by Terrorism: An Introduction

1

“Murder,” wrote Karl Heinzen, “is the principle agent of historical

progress” (1978: 53). This rather macabre statement on the use of

murderous acts to initiate systemic change in the name of “progress”

speaks volumes to the power of violence and terror in political

discourse. Moreover, this lesson, which have been studied very well by

a host of terror groups the world over –on last count, over 600 (Long

1990)- seems to underscore the important role death plays in attempts

at initiating political change.

The last two decades saw an unprecedented increase in

terrorism as a mechanism of asymmetrical political communication

between powerful nation-states and less powerful fringe groups that

have been marginalized (Simon 2001). In using terrorism as a form of

low-intensity, asymmetrical warfare, these less powerful nation-states

or fringe groups have applied death in the form of political murders,

suicide bombings, and large-scale killings as their principle mechanism

for liberation and communication. Moreover, in the last two decades,

Americans have increasingly endured violence at the hands of state-

sponsored terror organizations or fringe groups in retaliation for

political policies deemed unfair and repressive, and, for these groups,

death by terrorism is employed as the principle tool of low intensity

warfare (McGuckin 1997). Whether we invoke the examples the 1993

and 2001 N.Y. Trade Center bombings, which killed over 3000

individuals and injured thousands more, or the 1995 bombing of the

2

Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, which took the lives

of 168 individuals, or the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in

Beirut which resulted in 241 deaths, or the bombing of Pan Am Flight

103 in route over Lockerbie, Scotland which killed 270 individuals, the

point is poignantly conveyed: what makes these events memorable

and profound is the mass-mediated use of images of death and

destruction by terror groups to communicate their political aims.

These events raise profound thanatological questions on the uses of

death as a political device, questions that seem to have grown in

significance since September 11, 2001.

So, what role does death play in terrorism, and what meaning

should we attach to the increasing lethality of acts of terrorism around

the globe? These questions are at the heart of this essay on the

thanatological implications of the role and meaning of death in acts of

terror –questions that have been largely ignored by a rather extensive

body of literature on terrorism (Crenshaw 1992; Miller 1988). Yet the

importance of these questions to contemporary discourses on

terrorism cannot be overstated, especially at a time when images of

terror and politically inspired deaths seem to be omnipresent and

increasing. To consider the role and meaning of death in acts of

terrorism is to study horror in extremis. Namely, to study the role of

death in terrorism is to derive the very reason why terrorism has been

one of the oldest mechanisms of state-sponsored oppression, and an

3

oft chosen pathway for the liberation of powerless groups of people.

Perhaps an examination of the role and meaning of death in terrorism

might ultimately lead to the very raison d’être of politically motivated

violence and other acts of terror.

This essay begins with an interpretation of the distinct role that

death plays -and the meaning it communicates- in terrorism. In

addition, the authors explore the various manifestations of death by

terrorism, from political violence to apocalyptic and religious terror, to

the emergence of technologies of mass death and the inevitability of

their application in new forms of terrorism such as germ and chemical

warfare. Last, this essay culminates in an examination of role and

meaning of death in the shadow of September 11, 2001.

The Role and Meaning of Death in Terrorism

Theresa Wirtz (1992), in an essay entitled The Role of Death in

War, noted that the real horror of war is revealed in the way it

rationally exploits human mortality for its political ends. Wirtz (1992:

12) believed that the engine of war is surplus death, or the “amount a

system can lose and still maintain tolerable levels of social stability and

biological maintenance.” The survival of the system would be

seriously impacted if further losses beyond the point of surplus death

were incurred. Thus, losses beyond the point of surplus would naturally

lead to a rational consensus to end the conflict. According to Wirtz

(1992: 12), the strategic aim of all warfare, then, is to exploit the

4

enemy to the state of assured limitation, the point where it would be

virtually useless or impossible to extract further deaths from the

enemy. The strategic goal of all warfare has led to the development of

precision guided weapons for mega-death and mass destruction such

as nuclear weaponry and chemical and biological agents to

supplement the usual arsenal of battleships, submarines, fighter jets

and armed soldiers. The underlying rationality of war is how military

technologies can now achieve massive deaths in a most efficient and

lethal manner. Yet, these military technologies, which are designed for

the expressed purpose of increasing body count, are usually not

available to less powerful and less developed nations, nor are they at

the disposal of non-state factions. So then, how are these groups to

engage in political conflicts and persuasion with more powerful nation-

states? The answer to this quandary is terrorism, or what many

terrorologists refer to as low intensity or asymmetrical warfare (see

Klare and Kornbluh 1988).

Although an all-encompassing definition of the concept terrorism

is impossible because of the presence of irreconcilable political

ideologies and interstate antagonisms (Chomsky 1991) or simple

conceptualization problems (Gibbs 1989), most attempts at a definition

have in common the central roles that fear and terror play in

conveying ideas. Accordingly, Cooper (2001: 883) defines terrorism as

“the intentional generation of massive fear by human beings for the

5

purpose of securing or maintaining control over other human beings.”

Central to this definition is the aim of control. A terrorist group controls

its target audience by generating widespread and crippling fear in the

public through violent acts of death and destruction (Gibbs 1989). The

same force at work in conventional warfare, namely the strategic

attempt to reduce an adversary’s surplus death, is likewise at work in

the deployment of terrorism, but with a major difference. In

conventional warfare, the generation of terror and mass death on the

part of a non-combatant public is no longer morally acceptable under

the auspices of the Geneva Convention. That is, in conventional

warfare, surplus death does not include non-combatant civilians such

as women, children, and the elderly. However, terrorist groups,

because of their inability to engage the military forces of major nation-

states for lack of comparable resources, number civilian non-

combatants among the surplus deaths of their target nations. Thus, by

redefining the notion of innocence and by narrowing the parameter of

victim (see Wilkins 1992), terrorists are able to justify the strategic

killing of civilians in their asymmetrical conflicts with more powerful

nation-states.

Of course, the ultimate hope of all terrorist groups is that the

more powerful adversary, because of the massive deaths and crippling

fear inflicted upon its population, will acknowledge its grievances and

acquiesce to its demands. Yet, to assume that all acts of terrorism seek

6

to kill and maim people would be a gross mistake, especially in

instances where terrorists make deliberate and extreme efforts not to

kill civilians and law enforcement personnel. For instance, in the early

years of the Front de Liberation du Quebec, the targets for bombing

were the symbols of Anglo-Canadian dominance, like the Royal

Canadian Legion building, the mailboxes of upper class Anglo-

Canadians, and television towers. Moreover, these targets were

usually bombed in the middle of the night to minimize the potential of

human casualties (see Fournier 1984). Nevertheless, the vast majority

of terror groups are in fact associated with the use of extreme violence

and death, and as such, it is crucial to understand the important role

that death plays in terrorism.

Death plays a crucial part in terrorism because the production of

death and the accompanying fear are viewed as the principal

mechanism for liberation. Consequently, death performs five (5) key

roles in terrorism: (1) as a communicative device in political discourse,

(2) as a control mechanism for the masses, (3) as a strategy for the

liberation of the oppressed, (4) as a generator of public sympathy, and

finally, (5) as a spectacle for mass (media) consumption.

Death as Political Communication

The first and most important role that death plays in terrorism is

its role as a communicative medium between less powerful nation-

states or non-state factions and more powerful, militarily superior

7

governments. Terrorist organizations typically resort to violence and

death when efforts at influencing political or social changes are ignored

or hampered by unresponsive nation-states.

Christopher Hewitt (2000), in his study of the political context of

terrorism in the United States, found that terrorists were more likely to

resort to violence under unresponsive presidential administrations

rather than sympathetic ones. In effect, terrorists see death and

violence as mechanisms of last resort only after other more legitimate

attempts at political communication and persuasion have been

exhausted. Death is at once the message and the medium to influence

the direction of political discourse, and, as such, death functions as a

communicative device (Schmid and de Graaf 1982).

Moreover, as a communicative devise, terrorist victimization in

the form of death serves three specific functions, this according to

Crelinsten (1992): (1) attention getting function, (2) symbolic function,

and (3) an instrumental function. Terrorist groups use public killings for

the expressed purpose of bring attention to their cause or concern, and

these actions are designed to capture the attention of an intended

audience, usually politicians or industrial leaders. Crelinsten (1992)

refers to the next communicative function of death and terrorist

victimization as symbolic. Crelinsten (1992: 213) states: “For those

who identify with the victim because of something the two hold in

common, the function of victimization is to warn them that they might

8

be next.” The killing of a politician, a diplomat, or a businessperson

might serve notice to other individuals with the same social status that

they are marked for victimization. Of course, the more prominent and

powerful the victim, the more symbolic his or her death by terrorism

becomes, and the more likely the terrorist group is to garner attention.

Thus, in the absence of a prominent or powerful victim, terrorist groups

seek attention by mass killings and victimization, and indeed, the

innocent bystander is now the chief target of terrorist groups around

the world (Weimann and Winn 1994). The final communicative function

of death and victimization for Crelinsten (1992) is instrumental. By

killing the right person or groups of people, as in the case of political

assassinations, terrorist groups might speed political changes and

influence official discourse, and these events are likely to introduce

systemic changes on both political and social levels.

Death as a Control Mechanism for the Masses

Violent deaths are the principal mechanism of social control

employed by terrorist groups. According to Gibbs (1989), terrorist

groups employ death and extreme violence as deterrent social control

to manage the behavior of target populations through intimidation, and

to influence the direction of political policies. Through the use of

deaths and extreme acts of violence, terrorists hope to instill a sense

of crippling fear in the general population and force politicians to adopt

repressive measures in the name of “national security” in hopes that

9

the government will lose legitimacy and fall (Gibbs 1989). Moreover,

repeated episodes of violent deaths among innocent, non-combatant

victims leads to a situation where people lose confidence in their

government’s ability to perform its most basic function, that of the

protection of its citizenry. Thus, the presence of violent death, which is

connected to the quest for power and influence, is meant to control

people and to sway the course of political policies deemed repressive

and unfair by terrorist groups. And, according to Hoffman (1998: 182),

“All terrorism involves the quest for power: power to dominate and

coerce, to intimidate and control, and ultimately to effect fundamental

change.”

But why is the use of death and extreme violence so effective in

controlling populations? The answer is simple. Terrorist groups have

learned to manipulate well our thanatophobic sensibilities. Death is an

effective mechanism of social control and political persuasion because

of our omnipresent and omnipotent death anxieties (Zilboorg 1943;

Wahl 1965; Becker 1995). Death anxiety is in fact a natural part of our

human condition. We fear death, and we try our best to delay the

inevitability of our mortal demise. As Becker (1995: 35) puts it, “the

fear of death must be present behind all our normal functioning, in

order for the organism to be armed toward self-preservation.”

Terrorists are thus exploiting our natural inclination toward self-

10

preservation by mass-producing death and its accompanying

widespread terror and panic.

It is important to note that death by terrorism is not undertaken

to instill fear and panic in the immediate victims of terror but rather in

the hearts of the witnessing public. As such, it is the public’s reaction

to the horrors of death that makes the occurrence of terrorism

successful, namely the reactions of panic and fear on the part of

commoners (Freedman 1983; Oots and Wiegele 1985). In his succinct

essay on the role of terror in terrorism, Lawrence Freedman (1993:

399-400) noted:

The sudden transformation of the human target from free agent to vulnerable victim assaults the sense of autonomy of the spectator…In psychoanalytic terms, it is as though an irresistible impulse from the id assaults the personification of the social representative of the superego. These manifestations of unconscious psychic institutions arouse not only fear but also the sense of the uncanny: the terrorist is seemingly omnipotent.

Death by terrorism assaults our sense of ontological security

(Giddens 1991), those feelings of order, security, and stability that are

closely linked to the ritual of having a daily routine. The shock,

confusion, and sheer panic of the experience of violent death,

especially when random and apparently pointless, upset our routine

and shatter our sense of security and safety. Death by terrorism

reminds us that we are all potential victims in waiting, leading to

11

conditions of panic that deeply affect the routines of daily life. The

fear of a terrorist attack severely alters our mundane rituals and

behaviors, and this is precisely what makes death by terrorism so

potent: it brings to the fore our death anxieties, spreading the

contagion of fear and panic which upsets our sense of security.

Terrorists use widespread fear as a form of psychological control. By

forcing us to reassess our mundane rituals, our ways of thinking, or our

freedom of movement, terrorists, because of our natural fear of death,

posses and flex a certain level of control over us.

There is, thus, a symbiotic, mutually dependent relationship

between terrorism, death anxiety, and feelings of helplessness and

loss of control. In order for terrorism to terrorize us, it must activate

and play upon our death anxiety. But simply activating our death

anxiety is not enough. After all, tens of thousands of Americans are

injured and killed in automobile accidents yearly. Still, this fact does

not prevent the vast majority of motorists from getting behind the

wheel. Consequently, our sense of control over the possibility of

serious injury or death convinces us that we will not be the next

accident fatality. We are confident in our ability to drive safely and

thus avoid a serious traffic incidence. Perhaps it is a sense of personal

immortality that assuages any potential fear of dying in an accident

and keeps us on the road. Terrorism is fundamentally different!

Terrorism works because it destroys completely the façade of control

12

over our environment and our mortality: we do not yet know how to

avoid death by terrorism because our adversary is randomly and

thoughtfully exploiting our sense of ontological security through the

selection of new, more potent targets, namely human targets. And this

realization, that we are all potential targets for death by terrorism, is

one that is potentially crippling.

Death as a Strategy of Liberation for the Oppressed

Inflicting death and extreme forms of violence upon a perceived

enemy offers oppressed people a route to retribution and a sense of

power. Death by terrorism is a leveling mechanism for the oppressed

and the oppressor. Death by terrorism gives to the privileged a taste

of what life is like for the oppressed masses. What appears as

vindictive and senseless deaths to commoners is actually a calculated

strategy for liberation, revenge, and retaliation on the part of the

oppressed. Terrorism for liberation purposes, or what Kastenbaum

(2001) refers to as upward directed terrorism, is the principle weapon

of the disenfranchised and powerless. Frantz Fanon (1968: 94), in his

psychiatry of colonial oppression, understood this lesson well when he

asserted that “violence is a cleansing force” for the oppressed, a

mechanism that frees the subjugated from the mire of despair,

hopelessness, and powerlessness. In the terrorist’s mind, death by

terrorism is the ultimate reprisal for -and expression of- the

hopelessness and despair of their existential condition. It conveys only

13

too clearly to the oppressor a people’s longing for liberation in the

midst of dashed hopes, unfulfilled expectations, and an entrenched

deprivation -the very roots of rebellion, violent terror, and death (Gurr

1970).

As a strategy for liberation, death by terrorism, as well as other

forms of extreme violence, are appealing for another reason. Death, as

a tool for liberation, offers oppressed people a new identity and

selfhood by transforming their collective self-image from one of vassal

to freeman, and this new collective consciousness is one grounded in

resistance (Camus 1956). But there are problems with this strategy.

For one, oppressed groups, if they employ death by terrorism and

other forms of extreme violence, run the risk of losing the moral high

ground (King 1958). But equally as important, Kelman (1973) suggests

that violence, as a mechanism to liberation, might actually be a self-

defeating strategy in the long run.

Violence can offer a person the illusion that he is in control, that he is able to act on his environment, that he has found a means of self-expression. It may be the only way left for him to regain some semblance of identity, to convince him that he really exists. The sad irony is that violence is a response to dehumanization that only deepens the loss that it seeks to undo; it is an attempt to regain one’s sense of identity by further destroying one’s sense of community. (Kelman 1973: 58)

14

Though psychologically and emotionally appealing for oppressed

people, the use of death through terrorism results in a sad

perpetuation of oppression because violence often begets violence,

and death often begets death, on both sides: a lesson that many

asymmetrical conflicts, like the Israeli/Palestinian discord, have

historically validated. Moreover, as a strategy for liberation, this form

of violence often leads to discord and carnage among terror groups

themselves (Kastenbaum 2001: 231).

Death as a generator of Public Sympathy

Death by terrorism can serve as a generator of public sympathy,

or terrorism as persuasion (McClenon 1988), and this is the forth role

of death in terrorism.

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.,

Newsweek (September 2001) magazine showcased photographs of

fringe groups among Palestinian refugees who were celebrating the

success of the Al Qaeda operatives. As shocking as the photographs

appear, the symbolism conveyed was unmistakable. Terrorist groups

use death as a seductive instrument of persuasion to galvanize support

among their oppressed constituencies. The Hindustan Socialist

Republican Army of the 1930s expressed this seduction well in their

manifesto aptly entitled The Philosophy of the Bomb:

Terrorism instills fear in the heart of the oppressors; it brings the hope of revenge and redemption to the oppressed masses. It gives courage and self-confidence to the wavering; it shatters

15

the spell of the subject race in the eyes of the world, because it is the most convincing proof of a nation’s hunger for freedom. (Bhagwat Charon 1930)

Historically, death by terrorism was the chosen instrument of

political interlocutions between less powerful fringe groups and

controlling nation states. Death conveyed to the oppressor the

experience of subjugation. But more than mere political

communication between the oppressed and oppressor, death by

terrorism served to build a collective solidarity among the

downtrodden and demoralized. The examples of the African National

Congress (ANC), the Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Irish Republican

Army (IRA), and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) are

particularly noteworthy here. The broad public support that these

organizations enjoy from their respective constituencies, in spite of

their historical use of suicide bombings and political assignations, are

powerful and unanimous representations of the seductive and

persuasive influence of death. For instance, opinion surveys among

Palestinians in the late 1980s found that between 86-95% held a

positive image of terrorists, and 61% approved of the use of violence

as a route to liberation (Hewitt 1992). Similarly, among Basques, 66%

held a positive image of ETA even though the vast majority disagreed

with its use of violence (Hewitt 1992). In fact, the use of violence and

death as a form of political communication does not, by itself, discredit

16

a terrorist group among its primary constituency, not even when non-

combatant civilians are the direct targets of violence as in the case of

Palestinian terrorists. The violence that marks the Israeli/Palestinian

conflict, where civilians are deliberately targeted for death, is

especially instructive of this. Still, as Hewitt (1992: 187) notes, “such

atrocities do not discredit the cause for which they fight; neither do

they tarnish their patriotic image.” As the popular aphorism one man’s

terrorist, is another man’s freedom fighter suggests, terrorist groups,

by championing the cause of oppressed people through death and

extreme violence, become revolutionary patriots to many. Moreover,

the experiences of the Irish Republican Army, the African National

Congress, and the Palestinian Liberation Army suggest that yesterday’s

terrorists often become today’s peacemakers, and tomorrow’s prime

ministers (Goertzel 1988). The transformation of major terrorist

groups, from murderous organizations into internationally recognized

political parties and governments, is proof of the sometimes-successful

use of violence to build sympathy and win support for political ends.

Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress, Yassir Arafat of the

Palestinian Liberation Organization, Jerry Adams of the Irish Republican

Army, and Yitzhak Shamir of the Pre-Israel Zionist movement share

one thing in common: at one point in their political lives, they were all

considered terrorists, anathema of nations like the United Kingdom and

the United States, who championed the liberation of their

17

constituencies through terrorist organizations that employed the use of

extreme violence and death. And this point underscores the difficulty

of arriving at an agreeable consensus on who exactly is a “terrorist.”

Our definitions of terrorism are socially constructed, politically

mediated, and perpetually shifting. Descriptions of terrorism are

themselves framed by the media, by politics, and by culture. Here, the

concepts of frame and frame reflection (Goffman 1974; Gamson 1992;

Schon and Rein 1994) are most applicable. When sociologists employ

the concept frame, they are referring to the conscious manipulation of

images, stories, statements, and ideas to shape and sway public

opinion on an issue, or to interpret some event for public consumption.

While the media is today the principle site for framing battles (Ryan

1991; Gamson 1992), all of social life, from politics to sports to

entertainment, is concerned with creating and proliferating selected

impressions and premises. Thus, a person might simultaneously be

perceived as a “terrorist” in one frame, and a “freedom fighter” under

another, while the former frame interprets his actions as callous,

irrational, and murderous, and the latter, as a sacrificial, calculated act

of martyrdom. A case in point is the competing frames concerned to

describe those who use self-immolation as method of asymmetrical

warfare and the generation of public sympathy. Is this person a

“suicide martyr” or a “homicide bomber”? Both of these descriptors

18

are skillful attempts at framing this use of violence to sway public

opinion and generate sympathy.

The suicide bombing is perhaps the most potent symbolic

communiqué among the many forms of death by terrorism used to

galvanize public support and sympathy for political ends. Modern

suicide bombings, as a fear and sympathy generator, began in

Lebanon with the Shi’ite terror group Hizballah. Hizballah’s primary

targets, beginning in 1983, were Western military and diplomatic

personnel, targets that offered an effective route to public sympathy

and media exposure (Dobson and Payne 1987; Simon 2001; Long

1990). For Hizballah, the suicide bombing was a most appealing death

generator because it was cost efficient and an effective mode of

achieving the greatest number of causalities on the adversary’s side,

with minimal cost and risk to its organization. According to Ganor

(2000), six (6) factors made suicide bombings the new modus operandi

of terrorist organizations like Hizballah: (1) Suicide bombings added to

casualties and damage; (2) attracted wide media attention; (3) were

easy to undertake; (4) difficult to counteract once personnel were in

place; (5) required no escape planning; and finally, (6) since the

perpetrator was killed, ensured that there were no interrogation on

organizational secrets. But more than the benefits accrued to the

terrorist organization itself were the potential for strengthening

collective solidarity around political aims and generating sympathy for

19

those who sacrificed their lives for the cause. It is here that death as a

generator of public sympathy is most strongly felt.

To die committing an act of terrorism is the highest form of

death for extreme Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah

(Hoffman 1995). Death by terrorism gives to the perpetrator

immediate access to paradise, increased social status for his family,

and the assurance that he will be remembered as a “shahid”, or a Jihad

(“Holy War”) martyr (Ganor 2000). Moreover, the family of the suicide

bomber, according to Ganor (2000: 2), “is showered with honor and

praise, and receives financial reward for the attack (usually some

thousands of dollars).” Still, we ought not to forget that the suicide

bomber himself will enter paradise to the welcome of 72 virgins, his

personal servants for eternity, according to some interpretations of the

Koran. Furthermore, the sympathy that his actions elicit from others is

manifest in the social and economic support his family receives after

his death, and the martyrdom status conferred upon his memory.

It is important to note that although suicide bombings are most

often associated with extreme Islamic groups like Hamas and

Hizballah, who were in fact its modern progenitors, other groups have

adapted and mastered the use of death by suicide as a generator of

public sympathy and fear, and before September 11, 2001, the most

effective of terrorist groups to employ suicide bombing was by far the

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), or the Tamil Tigers.

20

The Tamil Tigers have successfully carried out more that 200

suicide bombings which have killed and injured thousands of military

personnel and innocent civilians since the onset of its terror campaign

(Schweitzer 2000). The LTTE’s drive for an independent state within

Sri-Lanka has lead to the assassination of heads of state like former

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Furthermore, like Hamas and

Hizballah, the LTTE has effectively galvanized popular support from

among the Tamil minority by creating a sympathetic mythos around its

suicide bombers as martyrs, each wearing a capsule of cyanide around

his neck just in case his mission fails (Roberts 1996). The LTTE

continue to receive broad public support from its Tamil constituency

despite the use of suicide bombings that have injured and killed

thousands of innocent bystanders of the Sinhalese majority.

Death as Macabre Spectacle For Mass (Media) Consumption

There is an undeniable symbiotic relationship, a mutually

beneficial one, between terrorist actions and media coverage

(Weimann 1990; Paletz and Schmid 1992; Brown and Merrill 1993;

Hoffman 1998), and death plays a significant role in ensuring its

continuation. Terrorists, as we have argued elsewhere in this essay,

use death and violent acts to attract attention to their political and

ideological causes, and, here, death functions as political

communication. But the use of death as a vehicle for political

communication would not be possible without our natural curiosity for

21

the macabre, and the media’s exploitation of those inclinations; and

the popular media aphorism If it bleeds, it leads expresses this

situation well. Commenting on the use of death as a public spectacle

for mass consumption, May (1974: 297) writes:

In the case of terrorism, of course, we are talking about a festival of death,

a celebration that has its own priest and victims and that carries with it the likely risk that the priest himself will be a victim. The rest of us become celebrants in this liturgical action through the medium of the media. Thus, the media respond to the human thirst for celebration, the need for ecstasy, the desire to be lifted out of the daily round. Through violent death, their horror before it and their need to draw near it, men are momentarily relieved of that other death which is boredom. The extreme acts of violence and death that terrorists perform

become spectacles for the consuming masses. But, our consumption of

this spectacle, and by extension, our understanding of the messages

conveyed, are made possible by the media. Terrorism is media

spectacle par excellence, or as Jenkins (1975:4) notes, “terrorism is a

theatre.” It is a theatrical performance for Jenkins (1975) because it is

aimed at an attentive and rapt audience, and not at the immediate

victims of terror; their dead bodies are but message conduits for a

larger target audience. Thus, the use of death and other extreme

forms of violence by terrorist organizations frequently assumes

theatrical and dramaturgical postures, or what Sloan (1981: 23) refers

to as “theatre of the obscene”, where the attributes of improvisational

22

performances are on display, and “the ultimate plot and the conclusion

of the drama are determined by how the performers interact in their

environment where they have been placed.” And like all performances,

according to Karber (1971), the terrorist theater involves an actor

(terrorist), an audience (victims and target public), a skit or message

(e.g., suicide bombing and hostage taking), and feedback (a response

from those targeted). Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to presume

that terrorism would end if media coverage ceased. In fact, the vast

majority of terrorist acts are carried out without any thought about

media coverage; moreover, state-sponsored terrorists try to avoid the

media altogether (Simon 2001). Notwithstanding this, the media

facilitates the effectiveness of the terror message by aiding in the

symbolic communication between terrorist and public, and death,

especially in graphic pictures and televised scenes, increases our

likelihood of visually partaking in this orgy of the macabre.

Death by Terrorism: A Growing Global Problem

By all reasoned assessments, death by terrorism seems to be an

expanding global problem (Hoffman 1998; Cooper 2001; Johnson 2001;

Simon 2001), and one that most Americans saw as a very serious

threat to national security long before September 11, 2001 (Kuzma

2000). A recent report on the future of terrorism from the National

Intelligence Council (2000: 50) noted that “between now and 2015

terrorist tactics will become increasingly sophisticated and designed to

23

achieve mass casualties.” The report ended with a solemn warning

that the trend in terrorism is toward “greater lethality.” But why is the

trend toward greater lethality, and what forms of lethal deaths should

we expect?

The trend toward greater lethality is of particular interest here

because it implicates each of the five functions of death in terrorism.

We can point to three reasons for this solemn prognosis: (1) the

prevalence of widespread psychic numbing; (2) the use of weapons of

mass destruction; and, (3) the increasing influence of religiously

justified violence.

With regard to psychic numbing, the media plays a significant

role in fueling the movement toward more spectacular, more lethal,

and more destructive violence and death. Death by terrorism is

becoming more lethal partly due to the “psychic numbing” (Lifton

1974) that emanates from our extreme tolerance for media images of

death, destruction, and suffering -images that have long been part of

our normal entertainment repertoire.

It is interesting how often spectators invoked the word surreal to

describe the events of September 11, 2001; it was as if to suggest that

a distinction couldn’t be made between televised news images of the

real event and a Holly Wood portrayal that is make-believe. We have

become so desensitized to simulated violence, destruction, and death

on imaginary levels, that it is now difficult for us to distinguish the real

24

from the unreal, and this may be having a profound affect on our

ability to empathize with people who are suffering. Charles B. Strozier

(1995), in his essay The New Violence, expressed this situation well

when he observed that a new disturbing trend in violence is having a

particular impact on the American psyche. Strozier (1995:192-193)

notes that our media is saturated with stories and description of violent

behavior and extreme brutality, and that we are living with more

violence in our immediate context, whether that violence is simulated

as in movies and video games, or real, as in the homicide rate or the

nightly news. This situation naturally results in a form of numbing, or

immunity against the trauma of witnessing graphic scenes of death

and destruction. The bar has been raised to an altitudinous level such

that the amount of violence and destruction necessary for us to act is

now obscene. We need to look no further than Rwanda’s state

sponsored genocide of 1994 for evidence of the “new” form of psychic

numbing that fuels the increasing lethality of terrorism. In one of the

most horrific examples of state sponsored terrorism, Hutu extremists

butchered over 800,000 Tutsi civilians in the span of 100 days while

the United States and the rest of the free world –with full knowledge of

the genocide- idly observed the events on television (Klinghoffer 1998;

Uvin 1998). But, the implication of this psychic numbing for terrorist

acts is just as profound.

25

Today’s terrorists must increase the lethality of their attacks in

order to elicit attention for their political concerns, and in order to

create fear and panic on the part of a desensitized public. Killing and

maiming a few individuals is not enough because it might not draw

sustained and protracted media attention to one’s cause; and besides,

terrorists must now compete with a litany of other “normal” violence

such as murders and robberies for media attention. Terrorists now

have to engage in spectacular feats of intimidation just to get normal

attention from a media that is saturated with the noise and clutter of

both simulated and real violence. Thus, to reach a desensitized

audience like the American public, the terror event has to be

increasingly memorable and shocking, akin to what Schweitzer (1998)

calls superterrorism, in terms of the number of deaths generated and

the level of damage inflicted to property. Terrorism, by all reasonable

assessments, is now largely a game of numbers, and this is precisely

why the use of weapons of mass destructions (“dirty bombs” or

biological and chemical attacks) is inevitable.

Psychic numbing and its implication for the drive to greater

lethality in terrorist acts, makes the use of weapons of mass

destruction (WMD) particularly alluring. The lethality of these weapons,

in both their potential to increase body count and the fear and panic

they elicit from the public, makes their future use inevitable. Historical

evidence has already borne out the effectiveness of the use of

26

biological agents in meting out mega-deaths, such as the deliberate

infection of Native American Indians by British forces during the French

and Indian War (1754-1767) through the unlikely fomites of smallpox-

tainted blankets and handkerchiefs (Christopher et al 1997).

Bioterrorism, by design, produces large numbers of death, and any a

single act rightfully carried through could potentially result in millions

of casualties (OTA 1993). Moreover, these colorless, odorless, and

tasteless agents can freely and easily pass through any number of

security measures (metal or x-ray detectors) without detection,

increasing their likelihood of reaching the target audience (Simon

1997). But most frightening perhaps is the enormous amounts of death

that a small quantity of these biological agents can cause. A kilogram

of anthrax, dispersed under the right wind conditions, can wipe out an

entire metropolitan area (Danzig and Berkowsky 1997). And certainly,

the anthrax letters of the post September 11th months show the

lethality of bacillus anthracis as a weapon of mass destruction. But the

dangers of this form of bioterrorism were demonstrated decades

before.

The official Soviet death count of the Sverdlovsk anthrax

outbreak of 1979 was sixty-four, although U.S. intelligence puts the

number closer to a thousand (Meselson et al. 1994; Guillemin 1999).

The Sverdlovsk anthrax incident was initially linked to the eating of

contaminated meat products. However, later epidemiological

27

investigations by Meselson (1994) and Guillemin (1999) showed that

the outbreak was in fact the result of an accidental release of an

aerosol form of the anthrax pathogen from a military facility.

Bioterrorism, in the form of virulent pathogens, is a most efficient

killing mechanism, and the threat of such an attack is one that is likely

to persist into the future.

The final reason for the increasing lethality of terrorism is

religion. The last decade saw several paradigmatic illustrations of the

intensifying lethality of terrorism, beginning with the first attempt to

bring down the World Trade Towers in 1993, and culminating in the

horrific events of September 11th. Between these two terror acts were

the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City that took the

lives of 168 people, the Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack that resulted in

12 deaths and over 4000 injuries, and the 1998 bombings of U.S.

embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which resulted in over two hundred

death and more than 5000 injuries. We remember these events more

than any other terror incidents because of the lethality involved. Very

few, however, have made the salient connection between these

terrorist events and the religious beliefs that are catalyzing and

justifying those actions. Yet, religion, more than political ideology, is

now the principal justification for terrorism; moreover, the most

terrifying and lethal terrorist acts of the last decade have been, not

surprisingly, religiously motivated and driven (Hoffman 1995, 1998).

28

Religion provides the justification for using the most horrific and

lethal forms of terror such as bioterrorism and chemoterrorism to inflict

death and suffering on a population, and Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack

on the Tokyo subway system is a prime example of this (Schweitzer

1998). But why is there a link between religion and death by terrorism,

or between religion and the increasing lethality of terrorism? Hoffman

(1998: 94-95) posits three reasons why religious terrorism is more

lethal than conventional ones, and why religion provides the perfect

justification for the use of violence and extreme form of death. First,

the use of violence is interpreted as a “sacramental act” when used for

religious purposes (Hoffman 1998: 4). Thus, “holy terror” is just

because it punishes the enemies of Allah, or Jesus, or any other divine

being. Religious terrorists are not constrained by a conventional moral

calculus, nor do they abide by secular rules of appropriate conflict

engagement. Fundamentalist antiabortion terrorism in the United

States where Christian terrorists, acting without conventional moral

restraints, bomb abortion clinics and assassinate abortion providers at

will, stand as a perfect example (Nice 1988; Wilson and Lynxwiler

1988; Jenkins 1999). Here, as elsewhere, the religious imperative in

terrorism removes all psychological barriers to murder and mass killing

because the targets for violence are not innocent victims but rather

infidels, sinners, and evildoers (Hoffman 1995). Second, unlike

conventional terrorist groups who might appeal to the public for

29

sympathy or support, religious terrorists “seek to appeal to no other

constituency than themselves” (Hoffman 1998: 95). If you are not with

them, then you are against them, and thus a likely target for violence

and death. Finally, religious terrorists see themselves as outsiders and

bearers of the truth who must employ violence to preserve the moral

order. For Hoffman (1998:95), this peculiar mixture of a sense of

alienation, on the one hand, and the belief, on the other, that it is their

duty to fight to preserve a disintegrating moral order, makes the use of

violence and death all the more likely and appealing, and Al Qaeda’s

September 11th attack stands as resounding evidence of the lethality of

religious terrorism.

September 11, 2001: The Launch of Superterrorism

The events of September 11, 2001 stand as a portent of deaths

to come, while concomitantly representing the first act of

superterrorism. Americans will remember September 11, 2001 as the

most successful demonstration of public terror in the history of

upward-directed terrorism. The actions on that fateful day, where Al

Qaeda operatives killed over 3000 innocent civilians, will define a

generation much like the other tragedies in American history. But

unlike the other tragedies, September 11, 2001 marked a change in

warfare, both symmetrical and asymmetrical versions, because it was

the first time that a foreign army (Al Qaeda) deliberately and

successfully targeted ordinary American civilians for mass death on

30

their home turf. To find a somewhat comparable example in the last

century, one would have to return to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor

by Japan’s Imperialist Army. Yet, the 2,388 deaths that resulted from

the Pearl Harbor attack were overwhelmingly military personnel.

September 11, 2001, however, was the first time that a foreign regime

successfully planned and implemented an act of superterrorism that

was directed at innocent, noncombatant American civilians. Al Qaeda

struck at the very lifeblood of American commerce, The Twin Towers of

the World Trade Center in New York City, and at the very heart of the

American security apparatus, the Pentagon. They transformed

passenger airplanes, 757s and 767s, into flying bombs, each carrying

about 24,000 gallons of kerosene that fueled the fires in the Twin

Towers to well over 1,500 degrees F (Ashley 2001). But for the

structural integrity of the buildings, which remained standing long

enough for a massive evacuation effort, the death toll would most

certainly be higher.

September 11, 2001 was superterrorism par excellence, and this

fact that can never be overstated. The bombings brought the entire

country to a halt by disrupting major transportation and commerce

networks. Fear and panic were ubiquitous and omnipresent in the

weeks following the attacks, completely shattering the sense of

security on both national and ontological levels. Images of death,

destruction, and despair emanated from every media outlet, a media

31

spectacle that surpassed all previous media spectacles, with none-stop

coverage and non-stop speculations. In essence, the first act of

superterrorism implicated only too well the various roles of death,

destruction, and extreme violence in asymmetrical warfare.

Now, the question is what next? What will the next act of

superterrorism be like? If the history terrorism and the role of death in

it are any guides, the answer to this question is a most solemn one:

September 11, 2001 stands as a disquieting augury of yet more

destructive superterrorisms and mega-deaths to come.

Conclusion

This essay outlined the five functions of death in acts of terrorism

by positing the following: death is a communicative device in political

discourse; a control mechanism for the masses; a route to liberation

for oppressed people; a generator of public sympathy; and, finally, a

media spectacle for mass consumption and drawing attention to a

particular cause. It also discussed the growing threat of asymmetrical

warfare and the trend toward greater lethality and mass destruction.

Moreover, it connected the trend of greater lethality and the various

functions of death in terrorism to the fateful events of September 11,

2001.

To study the role and meaning of death in terrorism is to

understand, if only slightly, why asymmetrical warfare is so seductive

to people who perceive their existential condition as one marked by

32

alienation, entrenched deprivation, and hopeless misery. To study the

role and meaning of death in terrorism is to understand both the

catalyzing suffering that forces groups of people to assume a morally

repugnant form of warfare, on the one hand, and to come to terms

with our own fears of being a victim on the other, the very fears that

make terrorism so effective in the first place. Perhaps further

discourses on the role and meaning of death in terrorism, for both

perpetrator and victim, might lead to a better understanding of the

very social conditions that give rise to asymmetrical warfare, situations

that make the strategic use of death so appealing to many.

ReferencesAshley, Steven. “When the Twin Tower Fell.” Scientific American:

Explore!

October 9, 2001. Resource Location:

http://www.sciam.com/explorations/2001/10090wtc/

Becker, Ernest. “The Terror of Death.” In Death: Current Perspectives,

forth

edition. Edited by John B. Williamson and Edwin S. Shneidman.

CA: Mayfield, 1995.

Brown, David J. and Robert Merrill. The Politics and Imagery of

Terrorism. Seattle:

Bay Press, 1993.

33

Charan, Bhagwat. “The Philosophy of the Bomb.” In The Terrorist

Reader: From

Aristotle to IRA and the PLO (A Historical Reader), edited by

Walter Laqueur. NY: Meridian, 1978.

Camus, Albert. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. NY: Vintage,

1956.

Chomsky, Noam. “International Terrorism: Image and Reality.” In

Western State

Terrorism, edited by Alexander George. NY: Routledge, 1991.

Christopher, George W., Cieslak, Theodore J., Pavlin, Julie A., and

Edward M. Eitzen. “Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective.”

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 278, No. 5

(August 6): 412-417, 1997

Cooper, H.H.A. “Terrorism: The Problem of Definition Revisited.”

American

Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 44, No. 6 (February 2001): 881-893.

Crelinsten, Ronald D. “Victim’s Perspective.” In Terrorism and the

Media: How

Researchers, Terrorists, Government, Press, Public, and Victims

View and Use the Media. CA: Sage, 1992.

34

Crenshaw, Martha, “Current Research on Terrorism: The Academic

Perspective.”

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 15, No. 1 (January): 1-11,

1992.

Danzig, Richard and Pamela B. Berkowsky. “Why Should We Be

Concerned

About Biological Warfare?” Journal of the American Medical

Association, Vol. 278, No. 5 (August 6): 431-432, 1997

Dobson, Christopher and Ronald Payne. The Never-Ending War:

Terrorism in the

80’. NY: Facts On File Publications, 1987.

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. NY: Grove Press, 1968.

Fournier, Louis. F.L.Q.: The Anatomy of an Underground Movement.

Toronto: NC

Press Limited, 1984.

Freedman, Lawrence Z. “Why Does Terrorism Terrorize?” Terrorism: An

International Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1983): 389-401

Gamson, William A. “Media Images and the Social Construction of

Reality.”

Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 18 (1992): 373-393.

Gibbs, Jack P. “Conceptualization of Terrorism.” American Sociological

Review,

Vol. 54 (June 1989): 329-340.

35

Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the

Late

Modern Age. CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Goertzel, Ted. “The Ethics of Terrorism and Revolution.” Terrorism, Vol.

11, No.

1: 1-12, 1988.

Gonar, Boaz. “Suicide Terrorism: An Overview.” An association paper of

the

International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism,

Interdisciplinary Center Herzlia Israel, P.O. Box 167, Herzlia

46150, Israel. Resource Location:

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=128,

(February) 2000.

Guillemin, Jeanne. Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak.

CA: University

of California Press, 1999.

Gurr, Ted R. Why Men Rebel. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Heinzen, Karl. “Murder”, Die Evolution (Biel, Feb.-March, 1849). In The

Terrorism Reader: From Aristotle to the IRA and The PLO, A

Historical Anthology, Edited by Walter Laqueur, 1978. NY:

Meridian.

36

Hewitt, Christopher. “The Political Context of Terrorism in America:

Ignoring

Extremists or Pandering to Them?” Terrorism and Political

Violence, Vol. 12, No. 3-4: 325-344, 2000.

Hewitt, Christopher. “Public’s Perspective.” In Terrorism and the Media:

How

Researchers, Terrorists, Government, Press, Public, and Victims

View and Use the Media. Edited by David L. Perez and Alex P.

Schmid. CA: Sage, 1992.

Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. NY: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Hoffman, Bruce. “’Holy Terror’: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated

by a

Religious Imperative.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 18,

No. 4 (October): 271-284, 1995.

Kastenbaum, Robert J. Death, Society, and Human Experience. Boston:

Allyn and

Bacon, 2001.

Jenkins, Brian M. International Terrorism. LA: Crescent Publications,

1975.

Jenkins, Phillip. “Fighting Terrorism as if Women Mattered: Anti-

Abortion

37

Violence as Unconstructed Terrorism.” In Making Trouble:

Cultural Constructions of Crime, Deviance, and Control. Ferrell,

Jeff and Websdale, Neil [eds], NY: Aldine De Gruyter, 1999.

Johnson, Larry C. “The Future of Terrorism.” American Behavioral

Scientist, Vol.

44, No. 6 (February): 894-913, 2001.

Karber, Phillip. “Urban Terrorism: Baseline Data and a Conceptual

Framework.”

Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 3: 521-533, 1971.

Kelman, Herbert C. “Violence without Moral Restraint: Reflections on

the

Dehumanization of Victims and Victimizers.” Journal of Social

Issues, Vol. 29, No. 4: 25-61, 1973.

King, Martin Luther Jr. Stride Toward Freedom. NY: Harper and

Brothers, 1958.

Klare, Michael and Peter Kornbluh. Low Intensity Warfare. NY:

Pantheon, 1988.

Klinghoffer, Arthur J. The International Dimension of Genocide in

Rwanda. NY: NYU

Press, 1998.

Kuzma, Lynn M. “The Polls-Trends: Terrorism in the United States.”

Public

Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 64: 90-105, 2000.

38

Lifton, Robert J. “On Death and the Continuity of Life: A “New”

Paradigm.”

History of Childhood Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Spring): 681-696,

1974.

Long, David E. The Anatomy of Terrorism. NY: Free Press, 1990.

Matthew, Meselson, Guillemin, Jeanne, Hugh-Jones, Martin, Alexander,

Langmuir, Papova, Ilona, Shelokov, Alexis, and Olga

Yampolskaya. “The

Sverdlovsk Anthrax Outbreak of 1979.” Science, Vol. 266, No.

5188 (18 November), 1994.

May, William F. “Terrorism as Strategy and Ecstasy.” Social Research,

Vol. 41,

No.2, 1974.

McClenon, James. “Terrorism As Persuasion: Possibilities and Trends.”

Sociological Focus, Vol. 21, No. 1 (January 1988): 53-66.

McGuckin, Frank. Terrorism in the United States. NY: H. W. Wilson,

1997.

Miller, Rueben. “The Literature of Terrorism.” Terrorism, Vol. 11, No. 1:

63-87,

1988.

National Intelligence Council. “Global Trends 2015: A Dialog About the

Future

39

With Nongovernment Experts.” (December 2000). Resource

Location: http://www.cia.gov/terrorism/global_trends_2015.html.

Newsweek. “America Under Attack.” Special Edition (September),

2001.

Nice, David. “Abortion Clinic Bombings as Political Violence.” American

Journal

of Political Science, Vol. 32, No.1: 178-195, 1988.

Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), U.S. Congress. Proliferation of

Weapons of

Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks. Washington, DC: Office of

Technology Assessment, Document OTA ISC 559; August, 1993.

Oots, Kent and Thomas Weigele. “Terrorist and Victim: Psychiatric and

Physiological Approaches from a Social Science Perspective.”

Terrorism: An International Journal, Vol. 8, No. (1985). 1: 1- 32.

Paletz, David L. and Alex P. Schmid. Terrorism and the Media: How

Researchers,

Terrorists, Government, Press, Public, and Victims View and Use

the Media. CA: Sage, 1992.

Roberts, Michael. “Filial Devotion in Tamil Culture and the Tiger Cult of

Martyrdom.” Contributions to Indian Sociology, New Series, Vol.

30, No. 2 (July-Dec.): 245-272, 1997.

Ryan, Charlotte. Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grassroots

Organizing.

40

Boston: South End Press.

Schon, Donald A. and Martin Rein. Frame Reflection: Toward the

Resolution of

Intractable Policy Controversies. NY: Basic Books, 1994.

Schmid, Alex and J. de Graaf. Violence and Communication: Insurgent

Terrorism

and the Western News Media. CA: Sage, 1982.

Schweitzer, Glen E. (with Carole C. Dorch). Superterrorism: Assassins,

Mobsters,

and Weapons of Mass Destruction. NY: Plenum, 1998.

Schweitzer, Yoram. “Suicide Terrorism: Development &

Characteristics.” An

Association paper of the International Policy Institute for Counter

Terrorism, Interdisciplinary Center Herzlia Israel, P.O. Box 167,

Herzlia 46150, Israel. Resource Location:

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=112, (April)

2000.

Simon, Jeffrey D. “Biological Terrorism: Preparing to Meet the Threat.”

Journal of

the American Medical Association, Vol. 278, No. 5 (August 6):

428-430, 1997

Sloan, Stephen, Simulating Terrorism. University of Oklahoma Press,

1981.

41

Strozier, Charles B. “The New Violence.” Journal of Psychohistory, Vol.

23, No. 2

(Fall): 191-201, 1995.

Uvin, Peter. Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda.

Connecticut:

Kumarian Press.

Wahl, Charles W. “The Fear of Death.” In Death and Identity, Edited by

Robert

Fulton. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1965.

Weimann, Gabriel and C. Winn. The Theater of Terror. New York:

Longman.

Weimann, Gabriel. “Redefinition of Image: The Impact of Mass-

Mediated

Terrorism.” International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol.

2, No. 1 (1990).

Wilkins, Burleigh T. Terrorism and Collective Responsibility. NY:

Routledge,

1992.

Wilson, Michele and John Lynxwiler. “Abortion Clinic Violence as

Terrorism.”

Terrorism, Vol. 11, No. 4: 263-273, 1988.

42

Wirtz, Theresa. “The Role of Death in War.” Peace Review, Vol. 4. No. 3

(1992):

10-13.

Zilboorg, Gregory. “Fear of Death.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Vol. 12

(1943): 465-

475.

43