Tag: Islam

Jihad Jane: Woman as terrorist

Posted on by kathiemm
Map of terrorist incidents, 2008
Terrorist incidents, 2008. Image by Ichwan Palongengi, used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Learning about the causes of terrorism is challenging, in part because of the co-option of the term to serve political agendas. Learning about female terrorism, particularly the U.S. homegrown variety, is an even greater challenge–but Colleen LaRose provides us with an instructive case.

Born in Michigan in 1963, LaRose grew up in Texas, dropped out of school after junior high, was married briefly at age 16 to a man twice her age, married again at age 24 and divorced after 10 years, moved to Philadelphia in 2004 to live with a boyfriend and help care for his aging father, became depressed and attempted suicide after her brother and father died suddenly, developed sympathy for the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, and converted to Islam.

In 2008, using the screen name JihadJane, LaRose first posted messages on YouTube that she was desperate to help suffering Muslims and wanted to become a martyr in service to Allah.

In 2009, LaRose was arrested and charged with trying to recruit Islamist terrorists and plotting to kill the Swedish artist known for his demeaning cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. She ultimately pleaded guilty to the charges.

Karen Jacques and Paul J. Taylor [opens in pdf] studied female terrorists and learned that:

  • the majority of them had finished high school and college
  • they were mostly employed or completing their education when they became involved with terrorism
  • they were as likely to be married as not
  • a religious conversion did not seem to play a major role in the development of their terrorist beliefs

What do you think? Does “Jihad Jane” fit this pattern? Is she a typical female terrorist? Did she become a terrorist because she joined Islam or did she join Islam because she was angry at her government’s treatment of Muslims? What factors might have influenced her to choose violence rather than nonviolence to make her point?

Finally, what is gained by calling her a terrorist? What is lost?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Humiliation: Terry Jones and the deadliest of emotions

Posted on by kathiemm
Poster of Terry Jones: Intolerance breeds hatred
Poster by Eric Gulliver, 2011

If you have ever been deeply humiliated—by a schoolyard bully, members of a gang, even a loved one—you know what feelings of powerlessness and rage can beset you. Humiliation is exactly what was done by Pastor Terry Jones when he followed through on his threat to burn the Qu’ran last week.

Sadly, Jones has achieved many of his probable goals: he has proven himself able to defy that bugaboo, the government; he has gained notoriety as a crusader for the supremacy of his hate-filled form of Christianity; he has incited the violence he knew he would incite, thereby making a few small groups of Muslims look like vicious animals.

The dangers of humiliation are many:

  • Amnesty International has designated humiliation as psychological torture, along with sleep deprivation, isolation, and mock executions.
  • Efforts at humiliating the enemy in times of armed conflict can also take a markedly physical form, as when the armed forces of one side rape the women of the other side.

Humiliation has been widely recognized as an experience that can lead to many forms of violent confrontation, including war and terrorism.  For example:

  • Many historians believe that humiliation of the German people at the end of World War I  led to the rise of Hitler and World War II. Allied powers were sufficiently convinced by this argument to prevent a similar humiliation of the defeated powers after World War II.
  • Perceptions of historical injustice and humiliation have been identified as factors leading to suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism. When individuals and groups believe that they have been repeatedly and unjustifiably humiliated, they may decide they have nothing to lose by committing violent and punitive acts of revenge.

Let us all work to be sure that Pastor Terry Jones does not achieve what is likely his ultimate goal–a genocidal attack on Muslims.  Let us hope that he is jailed for the rest of his life for violating international law and the dignity of adherents to Islam.

Let us also consider alternative ways to cope with people who frighten and anger us. I will have some suggestions on that topic in Thursday’s post.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Book review: Stones into Schools

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie MM:  For Valentine’s Day, we would like to share a wonderful love story—a story of a love for a people and a place, for peace, and for education, especially for girls. This guest book review by Jillian Zingarelli provides a glimpse at this love story.]

Review by Jillian ZingarelliStones into Schools (image of book cover)

Anyone who read number one bestseller, Three Cups of Tea – the collaborative effort by journalist David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson – will be excited to see Mortenson take over the narrative wheel in his new book Stones into Schools.

In Three Cups of Tea we learn about the start of Mortenson’s passion for educating children, especially girls, and how it sparked the creation of the Central Asia Institute (CAI). Since 1995 the CAI has helped to build 131 schools throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, the majority of which are located in some of the most rural and remote areas in Central Asia.

In Stones into Schools the CAI ventures into post-9/11 Afghanistan where it encounters an unrelenting desire by the Afghan people for more schools for their children, even as poverty and bombs threaten their personal security.

How with all of these obstacles do Mortenson and his team (whom he endearingly terms “the Dirty Dozen”) continue to yield successful results? And why of all forms of relief to poverty, starvation, war, etc. do they offer educating girls as a principal means for engaging peace?

In Stones into Schools, Mortenson cites an African proverb he heard growing up in rural Tanzania: “If you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.”  Education enables both men and women to recognize the ignorance of turning suicide bombers into martyrs, and Islam–a religion that is both inherently peaceful and complex–into a simplistic doctrine of violence and suppression.

If you would like to learn more about the CAI and become involved in their mission in Pakistan and Afghanistan, visit them at www.ikat.org.

What do you think about the idea that educating girls helps to promote peace?

Remembering September 11, 2001

Posted on by kathiemm
World Trade Center towers collapsing on 9/11/01
World Trade Center on 9/11 shortly after the second tower had collapsed. (Photo by Wally Gobetz. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. From WikiMedia Commons)

September 11 is a day that needs to be remembered and reflected on for many reasons:

  • The tragic loss of life to several thousand innocent people.
  • The reminder that violent assault on any one individual reverberates through a family, a community, and a nation.
  • The recognition that for the first time in over 100 years, Americans were attacked on their own soil, challenging their assumption that security can be achieved through armed strength alone.
  • The killing of innocent people can lead to rage, a desire to retaliate, and calls for revenge.
  • Validation of the maxim that every time an invader takes one innocent life, 10 new people join the opposition.

The intent of Terry Jones, pastor of a small evangelical church in Florida, to burn more than 200 Qur’ans on the anniversary of 9/11 can be seen as a powerful example of rage, the desire to retaliate, and an act of revenge—the kinds of behaviors that perpetuate cycles of violence, hatred, and misunderstanding.

The loss of innocent American lives on 9/11/2001 was a travesty, as is Jones’s plan to burn the holy book of millions of peace-loving Muslims around the world.

Perhaps burning the holy book of millions is not as deadly as killing an innocent person, but as General Petraeus has pointed out, it certainly provides fuel for the small militant element within Islam aiming to harm American forces in the Middle East and elsewhere.

What does Mr. Jones know of the Qur’an? Has he considered Chapter 5, Verse 32: “[I]f anyone slew a person—unless it be for murder or spreading mischief in the land—it would be as if he slew the whole people. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”

Does he understand that the message of the Qur’an, which overlaps significantly with the Bible, emphasizes peace and brotherhood?

Is he also aware that, like the Bible, the Qur’an contains passages that can be distorted by seekers of power within each religion to advance their own agenda?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology