British Christian views of suicide bombers

How are suicide bombers and their motives seen by others? This question is important in filling the context in which attitudes and beliefs are developed in conversations, in which inter-group relations are conducted, and in which political decisions are made.

This article describes British Christians’ views of suicide bombers. Our material was based on interviews conducted in early 2002, when the destruction of the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001 and associated events in the USA were still freshly engraved in public consciousness.

We are interested in the general question of whether and how religion is seen to sanctify outrageous behaviour. People may do otherwise unacceptable things in the name of religion, that would not be done otherwise. Other causal factors are involved, as is clear from other chapters in this book. Here however we are concerned with how such sanctified pieces of outrageous behaviour are seen by others?

Some examples of sanctified outrages include highly publicized and well-documented events such as the Spanish inquisition, and the Jonesville mass “suicide”,  one of several cases in which the leader of  a religious group persuaded their followers to commit suicide when the group came under threat and attack. Inter-group conflict with focus on religious factional issues can routinely involves horror,  such as during Catholic-Protestant conflicts in Northern Ireland, and Hindu-Muslim conflicts at the time of the India-Pakistan partition. Then there are individual engagements in behaviours which are religiously-sanctioned, to the extent that self or others are endangered. harmed or incommoded, for example Jonathan Martin, a fundamentalist preacher, who set fire to York Minster in 1829. He believed he had been divinely inspired by prophetic dreams (Lipsedge, 2003). Martin had been outraged by religious laxity in society and among religious leadership.

When explanations are offered for behaviour – our own, and others’ – we can never be aware of all causal factors. Social psychologists have investigated the biases that may occur in the selection and creation of explanations for behaviour. One such bias is the fundamental attribution error (FAE) (Jones & Harris, 1967; Ross, 1977). The FAE involves underestimating the importance of situational factors in others’ behaviour, and overestimating situational factors in explaining ones own behaviour. Hence the attribution of internal causes for (undesirable) behaviour to another person, for example in explaining a violent outburst “He is evil”. Ones own behaviour is explained/excused in terms of external, situational factors, for example “I had no sleep for three days”  The Ultimate Attribution Error (UAE) extends the Fundamental Attribution Error to all members of an out-group (Pettigrew, 1979 ). The UAE is more likely when a relevant aspect of identity is salient – for example religious identity, and in situations of intergroup conflict, and among the more prejudiced. Terms used in describing in-group behaviours might include: martyr, performing necessary duty, self-sacrificing. Undesirable, ant-social behaviour is attributed to external causes, such as provocation by the out-group.Terms used is describing the out-group might include: terrorist, torturer, beast (Pettigrew, 1979; Hewstone, 1990; Hunter, Stringer & Watson, 1991). Undesirable behaviour in the out-group is attributed to internal causes. 

Religious identity is as salient as, indeed perhaps more salient than it has been in recent history (Cairns, 1982; Hewstone et al, 1992, Takriti, Barrett & Buchanan, 2002). We might therefore expect to see evidence of the Ultimate Attribution Error in the explanations offered by Christians, and those of Christian background, for the attacks carried out in the USA on 9 September 2001. Evidence of the UAE might be expected to be stronger among actively practicing Christians, for whom religious identity would be more salient.

As well as being interested in the UAE, we were interested in the more general question of the extent to which religious factors were seen as causal and blameworthy for the attackers’ behaviour. 

The study.

Aims:

This study examines whether British Christian views of suicide attackers’ behaviour could be understood  in terms of the UAE hypothesis. The UAE hypothesis would lead us to expect that the suicide bombers’ behaviour would be explained in terms of internal rather than external causal factors, and that this would be more pronounced among those identifying themselves as practicing Christians.

Method and participants

This was a qualitative study in which we collected explanations of suicide bombers’ behaviour, and conducted a thematic analysis of these explanations. 

A purposive volunteer sample of 14 British adults participated in open-ended semi-structured interviews asking for their views on the September 11 suicide bombers, the influence of religion, and their ideas on martyrdom. The interview schedule is appended. All participants were told that they could decline to answer any question, or opt out of the interview altogether, without giving a reason. The mean age of participants was 33 years (range 21-84). There were 7 men and 7 women. Six were (self-defined) practising Christians, and 8 were non-practising. The latter were all from a Christian background, with both parents identified as Christian. The interviewer was a young British woman psychology student. The interview schedule is appended.

Transcripts were examined for themes (Smith, 1995, Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis). Corroboration of the salient themes was undertaken by providing a judge with a list of themes, and quotations to place under the most appropriate theme. All quotations were placed appropriately.

Results

The underlying questions were the extent to which religion was seen as causal and blameworthy for the attacks on 11 September 2001, and similar events, and the extent to which the ultimate attribution error was evident from a comparison of the views of those for whom religious identity was more salient, compared with the religiously non-practising.

First theme: Fundamentalism vs true religion.

 The first theme emerging involved the distinction between two forms of religion, true religion, and bigoted/fundamentalist religion. All participants expressing this distinction were confident that true religion was not implicated in the attacks, but that a distorted form of Islam had been used to justify the attacks and to drive the attackers behaviour.

Religion has been used as a tool. I don’t know their religion well, but I know that it doesn’t say that you should kill people in cold blood…(they are) so fanatical about their religion, they will do anything

It’s a bigoted form of religion that they’ve made up themselves.

It is obviously based around their version of Islam, which I don’t think is Islam.

The planes were hijacked by fundamentalists…they believed they were doing it for their religion, but I don’t think this is true. I don’t blame religion because most religions are peaceful…these people have just got their wires crossed…deviant from the laws of the religion and taken it too far.

Second theme:  Explanations by practising and non-practising Christians - bigotry, fanaticism vs.culture and upbringing

Practising Christians’ explanations of the attackers’ behaviour emerged in terms of  internal and motivational factors:

They don’t care about anything and are selfish people…brainwashed bigots

Hatred…wished to damage the West

They are a bit twisted…don’t think about the effects

Non-practising Christians’ explanations involved accounts of external, social and cultural factors.

They have been brought up with it. All older people teaching them and encouraging them to hate and persecute and that this is part of their religion.

I realised that It’s been enforced by the culture and the background.

Third theme: Ability to see that they could be seen as martyrs by own group.

Participants were generally aware that their own perspective – that the attackers’ behaviour was morally wrong – was not shared by the attackers’ own group. In this group attackers were viewed as heroes and martyrs within the Islamic world.

In their own land they’re heroes. They are demi-gods to (people) there, but not to me

They’re iconoclastic to me because I respect (them) for doing something I couldn’t

Some people believed that what they did was good, and to these people they would be martyrs, but to me they are not martyrs at all…they are people who were passionate about a cause…I feel total anger towards them…I can’t ever understand why they did it.

Conclusions

Support for the UAE?

Less internal attributions for negative acts, by ingroup compared to outgroup (Hewstone, 1990) The practising Christians for whom religious identity was presumably more salient, and thus more likely to see the bombers as outgroup, appeared to make internal attributions more frequently than the non-practising.

Conclusions: what can we conclude which goes beyond the support indicated for the UAE?

Religion is both absolved and blamed. ”True” religion does not allow killing of innocents. The Blair manoevre was followed - the bombers were said to be following a twisted, bigoted, fanatic distortion. 

The majority of those interviewed did not believe the bombers to be martyrs, but could appreciate how they could be seen as such by the in-group