Why be a "suicide bomber ?"

Iffat Idris The Dawn Asia News Network Karachi

"This particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber, is truly born out of desperation. Many many people criticize, many many people say it is just another form of terrorism, but I can understand and I am a fairly emotional person and I am a mother and a grandmother. I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming one myself. And that is a terrible thing to say."

Read through the above lines and it is clear that the speaker does not condone suicide bombing. Jenny Tonge, Liberal Democrat MP and -- until her dismissal last week -- the party's spokesperson on children's issues, put suicide bombers firmly in the category of "terrorism". Her opening words "this particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber" allow no other interpretation but condemnation.

It is not difficult to see why. Suicide bombing is the ultimate act of destruction: Killing oneself in order to kill others, in order supposedly to further one's cause. Suicide bombers -- striking often on buses, in restaurants, in shopping malls, in the middle of ordinary, everyday routines -- take a massive, indiscriminate, split-second toll of human life. As an act of destruction -- of self-murder and murder of others -- it can never be condoned.

Islam, in whose name such acts are often carried out, emphatically does not legitimize suicide bombing. (Those who interpret Islamic injunctions otherwise should study their Scripture again.) Suicide bombing is evil: Full stop.

Or rather, suicide bombing is evil: Question mark. After all, taking one's own life is no trifling matter. Suicide means the end of everything that life has to offer: Relationships, family, hopes, dreams, the future. Suicide bombing is the ultimate self- sacrifice. In view of this, the criticism and condemnation voiced after any suicide bombing should be followed by the question: "Why? -- Why give up everything to become a suicide bomber?"

That was the question Jenny Tonge sought to answer: "What drives people like Reem Rayishi, the female bomber who killed herself despite having two young children?" Dr Tonge discovered the answers in the Occupied Territories. They could be summed up in just two words: "Israeli occupation".

But those two words are not enough to convey the full extent of suffering, desperation and hopelessness that defines the lives of so many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Only when you unravel precisely what "Israeli occupation" means, do you get an idea of where Palestinian suicide bombing comes from.

Occupation is loss of one's ancestral homes and land; occupation is their permanent replacement by Jewish neighborhoods; occupation is living as a refugee in over-crowded camps; occupation is the loss of more land to ever expanding Jewish settlements; occupation is the denial of rights and sovereignty; occupation is having to live under curfews and restrictions, having to endure searches and carry passes.

Occupation is not being able to travel -- and hence often not being able to earn a wage; occupation is unemployment and economic hardship; occupation is the denial of water; occupation is malnutrition and disease; occupation is injustice and the bulldozing of homes; occupation is the murder of innocents, many children; occupation is funerals, grief and still more deaths; occupation is despair and hopelessness, a bleak present and a bleaker future; most of all, occupation is anger.

Jenny Tonge saw what occupation means first-hand. She saw the frustrations that make hundreds of Palestinians so ready to lay down their lives. And in the process of understanding Palestinian suicide bombers, Jenny Tonge found herself sympathizing with them and, ultimately, admitting that in the same circumstances she might do the same thing.

Jenny Tonge should be praised. Not only did she manage to move beyond conventional criticism of suicide bombing to the deeper issue of motive; she also made the important distinction between symptoms and disease. Tonge condemned the symptoms (suicide bombings) but grasped that they are the result of underlying disease (Israeli occupation). That disease, not the symptoms, is where the real focus should be. For only when you understand and tackle the disease, can you hope to relieve its symptoms.

Thus Tonge's remarks should have prompted debate about "that situation": What Israel is doing in the Palestinian territories. But that subject was not touched. (The Israeli ambassador even joined the fray in calling for Tonge's dismissal.) And instead of being praised, Jenny Tonge was sacked. Charles Kennedy, leader of the opposition Liberal Democratic party, declared: "There can be no justification under any circumstances for taking innocent lives through terrorism. Her recent remarks about suicide bombers are completely unacceptable."

Kennedy clearly failed to hear what she said. His decision to sack Dr Tonge was endorsed by other leading politicians as well as the usual pro-Israel lobby. They, too, failed to hear what she was really saying.

Or rather, they are not prepared to hear. Both the dismissal and its endorsement point to a worrying absence of debate -- indeed, of freedom of expression -- in post-Sept. 11 Britain. Terrorism is a particularly taboo topic: You can condemn terrorism, you can pursue and detain those who engage in it, but you cannot discuss what lies behind terrorism -- what causes it? Such is the hysteria that surrounds suicide bombing and other terrorist acts, that to even raise questions about why those acts take place is forbidden -- beyond the pale.

The same absence of debate marked the initial response to Sept. 11 (the attack on Afghanistan) and even (though to a lesser extent) to the war on Iraq. Debate on the latter is now in full flow -- so much so that, with the Hutton Inquiry report due this week, the prime minister could find himself in an indefensible position. But no such debate has started about the causes of terrorism.

The point made above has to be reiterated: Only when the causes of suicide bombings are addressed, can you hope to halt such attacks. Until Israeli occupation (and all that it entails) is openly discussed and remedied, suicide bombing in the Palestinian territories will never abate.

The same lesson applies to the wider "war on terror" being waged by the US: By all means ignore the causes of Sept. 11, of Al Qaeda and of the current Iraqi resistance, but then be prepared for the consequences. Trying to understand what motivates Palestinian suicide bombers is not immoral. Real immorality lies in ignoring the actions of Israel.