Michael Sharon, November 30, 2002.

The concepts of the “purifying death” of the Arab Shahid vs. the Kamikaze

Note: The notion of the “purifying death” was initially introduced into the Arab mind’s sphere during the War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel at the Suez canal Zone, in the years 1968- August 1970. See quotations from the Arab press highlighting this concept at its initial appearance in Michael Sharon’s work from 1970 (Prepared during his army service in the Israeli Intelligence), "Governance and Retrogression - Aspects of Authority, Governance and Social Reality in Egypt as Demonstrated in the War-of-Attrition”.

This work focused mainly on Helplessness in Abd-el-Nasser heavy bureaucratic power-centralized Egypt. The work demonstrated centralized-power’s resultant morphogenesis of helplessness structures – single-focality-distributed - and their migration into numerous areas of Social reality. This, together with the prevalence of apathy, frustration and displaced goals, were indicated by reflections in literature and drama. See also quotations from this work in his article “The bloody Moloch in Arab civilization” (Hebrew)

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The “purifying death” of the Shahid vs. the Kamikaze

The concepts or the “purifying death” of the Shahid vs. the Kamikaze are radically different.

The Islamic “purifying death” refers to corporeal purification from evil entities described as injuring the soul and inflicting suffering in abundance, where here the boundary horizons are the dichotomy of evil vs. the endless good. This is the mode of the Shahid’s purifying death.

On the other hand, the “purifying death” of the Samurai is not related to the inter-personal and social dichotomy of evil vs. good.

Here, this notion is related, rather, to an orientation or affinity towards a global trans-human entities: Nature, Earth in the sense of a cyclic continuation in correspondence with the essence of the universe and its eternal, cosmic laws. Here the “purification” is inherent in a unification with the ultimate order of things, while abandoning the corporeal; whereas the Shahidic purification is tended towards extinguishing the seeds of human evil found in others, which have also adhered to himself thus “contaminating” him, such that the purification is both self directed and environmental.

The Shahidic act of purification is characterized by an excess of physical objects: These objects are beautiful, highly aesthetical, “good” and right.

Thus, young suicide bomber woman in Jerusalem visited just before her suicide a shop of fashionable shoes, for nourishing her soul and deriving power from the presence of beautiful and pleasant objects, in her “war” for purification from the bad and discordant objects of this world. At the moment of the suicide bombing she clung to a solid looking elderly man, with seemingly good face, as if drawing power from unification with the good end escaping forever away from ugliness and evil.

A young suicide bomber man exploding in a coffee house in the small town of Kiryat Hayim, near Haifa, smiled at the moment of suicide a strange smile lacking any hatred towards a good and pleasant looking girl sitting at the coffee house, at whom he had been staring at those final moments. The border-moment between life and death was not modulated by just sheer hatred, since if it was, he would have inflamed himself by focusing on people of a rougher look. This man “took” with him to eternity, so to speak, the essence of the Beautiful and the Good, which he tried to impregnate his consciousness with at the last glimpse of life.

The image of the world beyond is also characterized by a dream-like slow movement toward the Shahid of beautiful objects and pleasant-looking good maidens wearing holiday’s cloths. Behold, here the suffering, evil, the wounds of harm and bad luck and the ugliness of the world have all passed away for good, and there are now only everlasting Good and Beauty, forever.

On the other hand, the purity image of the Kamikaze is not characterized by excess of good and beautiful physical objects. Rather to the contrary, here prevails minimalism, an ethereal and airy essence embodying eternal nature, like a branch of the cherry-tree in the winter.

The last moments of the Shahid are within the group or crowd.

The last moments of the Kamikaze are in solitude, with himself and the whole universe, towards eternity.

The emergence of Pacifying religions vs. Autonomy-laden religions

In many third-world and other countries prevail harshly despotic regimes, centralization of power and a practice of heavy oppression of wide populations. In such condition religion, or rather, further modifications and shifts imposed upon old-rooted dominant religions, can serve as a pacifying factor that impedes change and initiative. These modes of further modifications upon existing and dominant religions are enabled by adoption and perpetuation of and endowing legitimization to unacceptable conditions while promising higher worlds and pink-colored hidden reality behind the horizons of wretched life on earth.

In contrast to the Hegelian/Marxist approach to religion as opium for the masses, I hold in a more distinct way that there is a radical difference between a pacifying religion and an autonomy-laden religion, as follows:

1) Fetishist pantheism and property displacement -

Into pacifying religion often marked pagan and pantheistic elements are infiltrated, inducing intensified fetishist worship of colorful objects – which form a sweeping value-laden displacement in regard to substantial and valuable objects. Thus the drive for attaining real possessions is minimized, and the awareness of the socially built-in worldly expropriation is abolished.

2) Black magic, Satanism and displaced power –

In pacifying religion, elements of Satanism and black magic are apt to be intensified, as a way to express, in magical means, hostility and hatred and to“avenge” for the expropriation. These serve to self-induce a sense of imaginary power as a substitute for real economic or political power. Examples are the Voodoo rituals that infiltrated into Christianity in Haiti and other South American countries.

3) Thanatos (Death instinct) and suicidal images as personal-horizons:

Purifying death –

In pacifying religion the striving for life and for extending it is replaced by viewing “purifying death” as a transcendental fundamental factor, that cleanses the suffering of earthly life and the lasting pain of expropriation. Such are the suicidal tendencies prevalent in the extreme Islam (Such as El-Qaeda and other fundamentalist Islamic movements in the middle east).

Overall, a pacifying religion is imbued with Thanatos motifs, indiscriminant and diffuse revengeful motifs and fetishist and satanistic motifs. All of these infiltrate into monotheistic religions and modulate them.

Will the religious beliefs of hundreds of millions in the third-world and other countries assume these dark hues in the era which we step into, in addition to the abilities for spreading terrorism and attaining means for inducing mass murder?

The tendency for indiscriminant killing of civilian population

The tendency for indiscriminant killing of civilian population, the one of the Shahid - the suicide bomber - is radically different from the valiant warrior approach (such as even that of the Kamikaze) that focuses on the combat units of the enemy. The approach that highlights ultimate Death as a goal in itself (rather than the armed struggle with the enemy’s soldiers) is imbued with manichaeistic motifs (i.e., the war of the ultimate good with ultimate evil).

Where Manichean motifs greatly increase in a specific approach or faith, it may at times strive for indiscriminant killing of populations portrayed as irredeemably “contaminated” with Satanism. The extremist Manicheist ignores the fact that there are pleasant, clever and kind people in the population being the subject of his wrath, and hardens up his heart. This is enabled by his perpetual proclamations to himself, that even if he clearly feels that in front of him, among the target population, there are excellent and kind people, still, even they are incorrigibly contaminated with evil and one “must” pass them off the world. In the third world where harm, injustice, oppression, poverty and despotism are abundant, the weight of the manicaeistic approach is apt to greatly increase in the faiths and beliefs of people.