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War and terrorism: Implementing political Objectives 347

Down-to-Earth Sociology

Who Are the Suicide Terrorists? Testing Your Stereotypes

e carry a lot of untested ideas around in our heads, • Let’s try another one. Terrorists are uneducated, igno-
and we use those ideas to make sense out of our rant people, so those cunning leaders can manipulate
Wexperiences. When something happens, we place them easily.
the event into a mental file of “similar events,” which gives us We have to drop this one, too. Sageman found that 63
a way of interpreting it. This is a normal process. We all do it all percent of the terrorists had gone to college. Three-quarters
the time. Without stereotypes—ideas of what people, things, worked in professional and semi-professional occupations.
and events are like—we could not get through everyday life. Many were scientists, engineers, and architects.
As we traverse society, our files of “similar people” and What? Most terrorists are intelligent, educated, family-
“similar events” are usually adequate. That is, the explana- oriented, professional people? How can this be? Sageman
tions we get from our interpretations usually satisfy our found that these people had gone through a process of
“need to understand.” Sometimes, however, our radicalization. Here was their trajectory:
files for classifying people and events leave
us perplexed, not knowing what to make 1. Moral outrage. They became angry,
of things. For most of us, suicide terror- even enraged, about something
ism is like this. We don’t know any terror- that they felt was terribly wrong.
ists or suicide bombers, so it is hard to 2. Ideology. They interpreted their
imagine someone becoming one. moral outrage within a radical,
Let’s see if we can flesh out our men- militant understanding of Islamic
tal files a bit. teachings.
Sociologist Marc Sageman (2008a, 3. Shared outrage and ideology. They
2008b) wondered about terrorists, found like-minded people, often on
too. Finding that his mental files were the Internet, especially in chat rooms.
inadequate to understand them, he 4. Group support for radical action.
decided that research might provide They decided that thinking and
the answer. Sageman had an un- talking were not enough. The moral
usual advantage for gaining access wrong needed dramatic action. The
to data—he had been in the CIA. choice was an act of terrorism.
Through his contacts, he studied 400
al-Qaeda terrorists who had targeted To understand terrorists, then, it
the United States. He was able to is not the individual that we need to
examine thousands of pages of their look at. We need to focus on group
trial records. dynamics, how the group influences
So let’s use Sageman’s research to the individual and how the individual
test some common ideas. I think you’ll What does a suicide bomber look like? This influences the group (as we studied in
find that the data blow away stereo- 16-year old blew herself up in a supermarket in Chapter 5).
types of terrorists. west Jerusalem. Two others were killed and 16 In one sense, however, the image of
were injured. the loner does come close. Seventy per-
• Here’s a common stereotype. cent of these terrorists committed them-
Terrorists come from backgrounds of poverty. Cunning selves to extreme acts while they were living away from the
leaders take advantage of their frustration and direct it country where they grew up. They became homesick, sought
toward striking out at an enemy. out people like themselves, and ended up at radical mosques
where they learned a militant script.
Not true. Three-quarters of the terrorists came from the
middle and upper classes. Constantly, then, sociologists seek to understand the rela-
tionship between the individual and the group. This fascinat-
• How about this image, then—the deranged loner? We ing endeavor sometimes blows away stereotypes.
carry around images like this concerning serial and
mass murderers. It is a sort of catch-all stereotype that For Your Consideration
we have. These people can’t get along with anyone;
they stew in their loneliness and misery, and all this ↑ 1. How do you think we can reduce the process of radicali-
bubbles up in misapplied violence. You know, the work- zation that turns people into terrorists?
place killer sort of image, loners “going postal.” 2. Sageman concludes that this process of radicalization
has produced networks of homegrown, leaderless ter-
Not true, either. Sageman found that 90 percent of the rorists, who don’t need al-Qaeda to direct them. He
terrorists came from caring, intact families. On top of this, also concludes that this process will eventually wear
73 percent were married, and most of them had children. itself out. Do you agree? Why or why not?