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Caravan of Martyrs - Sacrifice and Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan (Hardcover)
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Caravan of Martyrs - Sacrifice and Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan (Hardcover)
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What compels a person to strap a vest loaded with explosives onto
his body and blow himself up in a crowded street? Scholars have
answered this question by focusing on the pathology of the
"terrorist mind" or the "brainwashing" practices of terrorist
organizations. In Caravan of Martyrs, David Edwards argues that we
need to understand the rise of suicide bombing in relation to the
cultural beliefs and ritual practices associated with sacrifice.
Before the war in Afghanistan began, the sacrificial killing of a
sheep demonstrated a tribe's desire for peace. After the Soviet
invasion of 1979, as thousands of people were killed, sacrifice
took on new meanings. The dead were venerated as martyrs, but this
informal conferral of status on the casualties of war soon became
the foundation for a cult of martyrs exploited by political leaders
for their own advantage. This first repurposing of the machinery of
sacrifice set in motion a process of mutation that would lead
nineteen Arabs who had received their training in Afghanistan to
hijack airplanes on September 11 and that would in time transform
what began as a cult of martyrs created by a small group of Afghan
jihadis into the transnational scattering of suicide bombers that
haunts our world today. Drawing on years of research in the region,
Edwards traces the transformation of sacrifice using a wide range
of sources, including the early poetry of jihad, illustrated martyr
magazines, school primers and legal handbooks, martyr
hagiographies, videos produced by suicide bombers, the manual of
ritual instructions used by the 9/11 hijackers, and Facebook posts
through which contemporary "Talifans" promote the virtues of
self-destruction.
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