Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 7
mission—that either involves the conversion of everyone else or, in some cases, the
destruction of everyone else. Sometimes a retreat to another country or geographic area is
only the end process of failed (albeit amateurish or sporadic) attempts to convert society to
the aspirations of the cult leader. In any event, legislative definitions of terrorism in the
wake of 9/11 refer to political, ideological, and religious motivations as underpinning the
objectives and acts of groups designated terrorist.
By locating Al Qaeda in a broader context of a world jihadist movement, I believe we are
painting the wrong picture and providing the wrong narrative, just as we are magnifying the
significance of motley jihadist groups by declaring a ―war‖ on terror. Too many politicians
want to run with the clash of civilizations and turn it into a war of civilizations, rather than
seeking to marginalise the fringe lunatics. Far better would it have been to characterise Bin
Laden as the self-indulgent leader of a personal cult with his own idiosyncratic take on
Islam—a heretic, in fact, not the warrior hero he has become in the eyes of too many, in
large part because Western propaganda has inadvertently characterised or anointed him as
a military leader with some substance, rather than as a religious cult leader who got lucky
in his own perverse way on 9/11. Even Francis Fukuyama has now admitted that ―before
the Iraq war we were probably at war with no more than a few thousand people around the
world who would consider martyring themselves and causing nihilistic damage to the United
States,‖iv which puts the problem into a more realistic perspective. We should also consider
the assertion that ―no more than five out of the 14,000 such schools [pesantren—religious
boarding schools] in Indonesia indoctrinate their students with a harsh and confrontational
form of Islam and provide them with the religious justification for violence in pursuit of
religious goals.‖v
Home-Grown Terrorists
Professor Robert Pape observes that
Sociologists tell us that the key feature of a cult is not the content of its
belief system or the presence of persuasive leaders, but the existence of a
hard boundary separating a self-contained group from the society at large. A
hard boundary is important because it enables highly intrusive control … in
the rigid manner necessary to maintain a system of shared beliefs that is
markedly at variance with the surrounding culture.vi
He observes that the key factor in the mass suicides at Waco, Jonestown, and other settings
was that ―members of the groups lived in physical isolation from the surrounding society.‖
Pape says that these cult mass suicides are examples of Durkheim‘s category of fatalistic
suicides, whereas terrorist suicides are examples of altruistic suicide committed by
members embedded in their communities, and where the act of suicide is in pursuit of
socially acceptable political objectives. However, this analysis does not explain the dynamics
of home-grown suicide bombers living in Western societies.
I am not a psychologist, and I strongly advocate the need for a multidisciplinary approach in
this area. However, it seems to me that members of high-demand groups can function
among other members of society, although the control found in groups living within hard
physical boundaries might be difficult to replicate and maintain. While physical isolation
(which can take various forms, from camps to prisons,vii to weekend seminars) can be an
important aid to indoctrination, it is the psychological barriers that cult members carry
around with them that create an invisible wall between the chosen elite and other members
of society. Of course, the effectiveness of this wall depends on the effectiveness of the
indoctrination, so that in some cases exposure to members of the wider society, and even
inadvertent access to contesting viewpoints might result in a weakening or even a
breakdown of the psychological conditioning received. Hence the observation that terrorist
mission—that either involves the conversion of everyone else or, in some cases, the
destruction of everyone else. Sometimes a retreat to another country or geographic area is
only the end process of failed (albeit amateurish or sporadic) attempts to convert society to
the aspirations of the cult leader. In any event, legislative definitions of terrorism in the
wake of 9/11 refer to political, ideological, and religious motivations as underpinning the
objectives and acts of groups designated terrorist.
By locating Al Qaeda in a broader context of a world jihadist movement, I believe we are
painting the wrong picture and providing the wrong narrative, just as we are magnifying the
significance of motley jihadist groups by declaring a ―war‖ on terror. Too many politicians
want to run with the clash of civilizations and turn it into a war of civilizations, rather than
seeking to marginalise the fringe lunatics. Far better would it have been to characterise Bin
Laden as the self-indulgent leader of a personal cult with his own idiosyncratic take on
Islam—a heretic, in fact, not the warrior hero he has become in the eyes of too many, in
large part because Western propaganda has inadvertently characterised or anointed him as
a military leader with some substance, rather than as a religious cult leader who got lucky
in his own perverse way on 9/11. Even Francis Fukuyama has now admitted that ―before
the Iraq war we were probably at war with no more than a few thousand people around the
world who would consider martyring themselves and causing nihilistic damage to the United
States,‖iv which puts the problem into a more realistic perspective. We should also consider
the assertion that ―no more than five out of the 14,000 such schools [pesantren—religious
boarding schools] in Indonesia indoctrinate their students with a harsh and confrontational
form of Islam and provide them with the religious justification for violence in pursuit of
religious goals.‖v
Home-Grown Terrorists
Professor Robert Pape observes that
Sociologists tell us that the key feature of a cult is not the content of its
belief system or the presence of persuasive leaders, but the existence of a
hard boundary separating a self-contained group from the society at large. A
hard boundary is important because it enables highly intrusive control … in
the rigid manner necessary to maintain a system of shared beliefs that is
markedly at variance with the surrounding culture.vi
He observes that the key factor in the mass suicides at Waco, Jonestown, and other settings
was that ―members of the groups lived in physical isolation from the surrounding society.‖
Pape says that these cult mass suicides are examples of Durkheim‘s category of fatalistic
suicides, whereas terrorist suicides are examples of altruistic suicide committed by
members embedded in their communities, and where the act of suicide is in pursuit of
socially acceptable political objectives. However, this analysis does not explain the dynamics
of home-grown suicide bombers living in Western societies.
I am not a psychologist, and I strongly advocate the need for a multidisciplinary approach in
this area. However, it seems to me that members of high-demand groups can function
among other members of society, although the control found in groups living within hard
physical boundaries might be difficult to replicate and maintain. While physical isolation
(which can take various forms, from camps to prisons,vii to weekend seminars) can be an
important aid to indoctrination, it is the psychological barriers that cult members carry
around with them that create an invisible wall between the chosen elite and other members
of society. Of course, the effectiveness of this wall depends on the effectiveness of the
indoctrination, so that in some cases exposure to members of the wider society, and even
inadvertent access to contesting viewpoints might result in a weakening or even a
breakdown of the psychological conditioning received. Hence the observation that terrorist
