Citing the Qur’an, Bin Laden claimed that Allah ordered Muslims to make holy wars and to fight to see to it that “His word is the highest and the uppermost and that of the unbelievers the lowermost.” When God ordered Muslims to carry out jihad and to kill and to fight, he said, “Fight them, and God will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you (to victory) over them, and heal the hearts of the believers.” According to Bin Laden, Allah has “ordered us to make holy wars.” Therefore, no Muslim may say that he does not want to do jihad in the cause of God because, after all, “Is there another way to repel the infidels?”

From Bin Laden’s perspective, acts of violence are virtuous because they represent the means to punish non-believers and to—”heal the hearts” of believers. The infidel is someone who refuses to worship and submit to Allah. Acts of violence are undertaken in the name of God—to punish infidels and compel submission.

Bin Laden advocates acts of terror in the name of Allah. Hitler authorized acts of terror in the name of Germany. Terroristic violence is initiated to punish people who—the believer imagines—do not worship the sacred object that the believer worships. Violent collective actions are designed both to punish non-believers for refusing to believe; and to compel the non-believer to believe.

Terroristic violence seeks to demonstrate the power of the sacred object worshipped by one’s own group—by crushing or squelching members of non-believing groups. Acts of violence are designed to give witness to the greatness of one’s god, nation or ideology. The believer initiates acts of violence in order to terrify—induce feelings of shock and awe--in the minds and hearts of believers and non-believers alike.

Just as Hitler created the Final Solution in an effort to prove that Germany was omnipotent, so Bin Laden created September 11 in order to give witness to the power and greatness of Allah. In each instance, the objective was to persuade people that the sacred object worshipped by one’s own group was inescapable—could not be evaded. No one was exempt from the obligation to submit. Those who did not voluntarily submit--would be compelled to do so.

Victims of the September 11 suicide bombings were, as Ruth Stein put it, required to submit or bow down to the terrorist in a way analogous to “how the terrorists themselves worship God.” As terrorists sacrificed their own lives for Allah, so people in the World Trade Center were compelled to die for Allah. The terrorists required that others submit to the God to which they themselves had submitted.
 

IV. Violence as Squelching Doubt

Part and parcel of fanatic belief is the idea that everyone should worship the same god or nation or ideology that one’s own group worships. True believers like Hitler and Bin Laden become deeply disturbed when they realize that there are people in the world that do not share their beliefs.

What’s more, people like Hitler and Bin Laden often imagine that non-believers are working actively to destroy their god, nation or ideology. Bin Laden states, for example, that it is necessary to “restrain the fury” of non-believers. Hitler claimed that Jews represented a “force of disintegration” working to break Germany into pieces.

An order of November 1, 1944 to the Air Force (when the German military already knew that the war had been lost) stated that anyone who expressed doubt about the Fuehrer—criticized him or his measures or defamed him—was a person without honor who “deserved to die.” Lecturing his SS-men, Himmler stated that if anyone should ever be disloyal to the Fuehrer or the Reich “even if only in thought”—it was up to them to see to it that this man “departs from the brotherhood.” Requiring absolute faith, National Socialism revolved around making sure that people who were insufficiently devoted to Hitler and Germany—”departed their lives.”

I hypothesize that where there is fanatic belief—when one imagines that an object is omnipotent—then doubt also must be present. Doubt cannot be separated from fanatic belief—because in reality there is no such thing as omnipotence. If no-thing is absolutely true and no-thing absolutely powerful, then if someone believes that some-thing is absolutely true and absolutely powerful--doubt must be present.

Terroristic violence is undertaken to squelch doubt. As the believer begins to realize that the object he or she worships is not omnipotent—that there is no such thing as omnipotence in the world—the sense of doubt may be projected into another group or class of people. This other group or class of people comes to symbolize disbelief in the goodness and power of the object with which one’s own group is identified.

In order to maintain faith—remain attached and devoted to the sacred object—the believer must rid himself of feelings of skepticism and doubt. To rescue the sacred object—remove feelings of doubt and disbelief—acts of violence may be undertaken against a group or class of people that symbolizes doubt and disbelief. Those who doubt or do not believe in the sacred object that one’s group worships are called infidels, or enemies. These doubters or disbelievers—infidels or enemies—must be squelched, or eliminated.

Indeed, the other group may possess a sacred object or ideal that seems antithetical to one’s own sacred object or ideal. The other nation, god or ideology—by virtue of its very existence—threatens one's own nation, god or ideology. If the other nation, god or ideology is omnipotent, how can one claim--maintain the belief--that one’s own nation, god or ideology is omnipotent?

Throughout Western history, groups have sought to affirm their own belief systems by eliminating or destroying other groups of people whose beliefs contradict the beliefs of one’s own group. Phrases like “kill the infidel” or “kill the heretic” or “kill the Jew” or “kill the enemy” articulate the feeling that one must destroy another group or class of people to preserve the omnipotence of the sacred ideal that constitutes one’s own group.

One of the central themes of the twentieth century was the clash between the ideologies of communism and capitalism. One side declared “Kill the capitalists,” while the other side responded, “Kill the communists.” The human race nearly was destroyed because a group that embraced one ideology felt that it was impossible to exist in a world that contained a group embracing the opposing ideology.

The struggle between competing ideologies—each possessing a claim to absolute truth—is a fundamental source of collective forms of violence. The very existence of an other ideology—claiming to be absolutely true—is felt as working to undermine or destroy one’s own ideology. Acts of violence are initiated to determine—once and for all—”the truth.”