In an article that appeared in the Saudi daily Al-Yawm, titled "The Globalization of Islamic Suicide" author and journalist Sawsan Al-Sha'er wrote that the extremist Islamist groups are taking advantage of global communications to recruit suicide bombers, and predicted the spread of the suicide bomber phenomenon to Britain as well. The following are excerpts from the article: [1]
"The Proponents of the Suicide Ideology Have Taken Advantage of Global Communications"
"One of the most conspicuous manifestations of globalization is communication technology, which has made communication between people easy, available, cheap, and accessible to all, large and small, with no need for a license or oversight, via open skies and without geographical or political borders.
"The proponents of the suicide ideology have used global communications in the best possible way, taking advantage of all available and accessible means for disseminating their ideology and writings, with no borders or obstacles to prevent them from doing so.
"Evidence of this is the effectiveness of recruitment of suicide bombers in all Islamic areas, with no need for central leadership to carry out the recruitment, or for a base to take them in. They carry out their suicide operations in many areas on all continents, with no political borders…
"All that is needed for recruiting [suicide bombers] is mass communications, to spread the Islamist slogan. Today, the centers for recruiting [suicide bombers] are no more than websites or satellite television channels, to which the youth connect from internet cafés, scattered throughout our Arab world, that have boosted the still-active traditional recruitment centers concealed in the mosques in far-flung villages.
"Further, perpetrating [suicide attacks] needs no leadership. Any group – even if it is small and limited in capability, and with primitive means – can carry out what it sees fit, as did the group that recently [perpetrated] the recent attacks in Cairo.
"I myself have visited many Jihad websites, and I have seen the extent of the degradation of the minds and lives of the youth, and I see how adults are profiteering from them. Things became worse when the websites began disseminating emails with murderous pictures and ideas that turn a man into a ticking bomb – as if these websites are stores selling weapons without [restriction] by laws or regulations…
The Recruitment Centers are Heard From Preachers' Pulpits and Satellite Channels – Can We Then Ask Where These Murderers Come From?
"…In the Islamic section of a Bahrain paper, one writer published a series of over 20 articles, over the course of an entire year, in which he called on the youth to wage Jihad, cursed the [Arab] regimes and governments, and claimed that in today's societies there is apostasy and sin … and all this happened within earshot of and before the eyes of the paper's editor-in-chief and director – without them doing a thing to prevent the crime of selling this murderous weapon. This selling is still continuing, and the paper is still raking in the profits.
"The public recruitment centers do not need to call on the youth directly to commit suicide bombings – it is enough for them to create the enemy, and the enthusiasm of the youth takes care of the rest. The pulpits of our mosques are disseminating propaganda to the point where those who hear it say 'Enough.' The teachers in our schools are suckling our children on hatred of the other, and so on and so forth. All these are recruitment centers selling licenses to murder, to anyone who wants…
"Imagine that all these various centers – spoken and heard from the preachers' pulpits or on the satellite channels, and written in books or [posted] on websites – sell licenses [to murder]. Can we then ask where these murderers come from?...
"The sellers of licenses to kill have effectively taken advantagae of global communications to serve their purposes. And why not? After all, their activity is not subject to legislation or oversight… After we read about three English youths of Asian background breaking into one of the mosques in London to prevent the worshipers from voting in the [recent] elections, on the grounds that [Muslims] should not vote in these elections, expect the English 'Islamist' version of exploding suicide bombers soon.
"This is the globalization of the suicide culture."
Endnote:
[1] Al-Yawm (Saudi Arabia), May 12, 2005.
