Glamorizing the Face of Terrorism. By Virginia Postrel.

Glamorizing the Face of Terrorism. By Virginia Postrel. Time, August 5, 2013. Also here.

The Rolling Stone Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Interview. By Janet Reitman. NJBR, July 21, 2013.

SPIEGEL Interview with Salman Rushdie: “Terror Is Glamour.” SPIEGEL Online, August 28, 2006.


Postrel:

No sooner had Rolling Stone put Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover, looking doe-eyed and rock-star disheveled, than critics denounced the editors for “glamorizing terrorism.”

 

“The cover of Rolling Stone is meant for glorifying rock stars, icons, and heroes NOT murderers!” protested a typical reader in the article’s online comments thread. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino decried the magazine for its “celebrity treatment” of Tsarnaev and for sending the “terrible message that destruction gains fame for killers and their ‘causes.’”

 

Unfortunately, Islamist terrorism doesn’t need Rolling Stone to make it glamorous. For the right audience, apparently including Tsarnaev, it already is. Understanding the nature of that glamour could offer clues to discouraging future terrorists. But first we have to acknowledge that terrorist glamour exists.

 

The novelist Salman Rushdie recognized the connection in a 2006 interview. “Terror is glamour—not only, but also,” he said, arguing that many terrorists “are influenced by the misdirected image of a kind of magic . . . The suicide bomber’s imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people’s lives.”

 

The interviewer was flabbergasted, but Rushdie was correct. Glamour is about much more than celebrity, sex appeal or shiny dresses. It’s a product of imagination—and a powerful form of persuasion.

 

Glamour gives its audience the feeling of “if only”—if only I could belong to that group, wear that dress, drive that car, date that person, live in that house. If only I could be like that. By embodying our longings in a specific image or idea, glamour convinces us, if only for a moment, that the life we yearn for exists. That dream can motivate real-world action, whether that means taking a resort vacation, moving to a new city, starting a band or planting a bomb with visions of martyrdom. What we find glamorous helps define who we are and who we may become.

 

Janet Reitman’s Rolling Stone story on Tsarnaev points to several sources of glamour that have nothing to do with celebrity: the allure of military action, utopian causes and a lost homeland and identity. All these things speak to desires that go deeper than fame. “It is not uncommon for young Chechen men to romanticize jihad,” Reitman writes, describing “abundant Chechen jihadist videos online” that show fighters from the Caucasus who “look like grizzled Navy SEALs, humping through the woods in camouflage and bandannas.”

 

To be a jihadi warrior, these images suggest, is to be a man. Martial glamour is as ancient as Achilles. It promises prowess, courage, camaraderie and historical importance. It offers a way to matter. The West once recognized the pull of martial glamour—before the carnage of World War I, the glamour of battle was a common and positive phrase—but it ignores at its peril the spell's enduring draw, especially for those who feel powerless and insignificant.

 

Unlike traditional soldiering, Islamist terrorism provides a sense of belonging even to those operating independently of a larger group or cell. “We Muslims are one body, you hurt one, you hurt us all,” Tsarnaev wrote as he hid from authorities. Taking up the greater cause allows an alienated youth to feel part of something special, even as his personal problems dissolve in the larger whole. Radical jihadism taps into the glory of “changing the world” as surely as any other political movement.

 

It’s easiest to imagine an ideal life in a time or place you know only from selective images, whether that's Ernest Hemingway’s Paris, Ayn Rand’s Galt's Gulch or Carrie Bradshaw’s New York City. For political movements, the distant ideal may be a future utopia, a past golden age or a faraway homeland. With its dreams of a restored caliphate, Islamist terrorism combines utopia and a golden age. For second-generation immigrants in secularized and non-Muslim societies, it may also draw on the glamour of a distant homeland. A friend told Reitman that Tsarnaev “would always talk about how pretty Chechen girls were” even though he hardly knew any. “I want out,” Tsarnaev tweeted in March 2012.

 

Critics who fear that putting terrorists on magazine covers may encourage future violence have a point. Fame is a spur. But Islamist terrorism draws on much more complex and powerful forms of glamour than a desire for rock-star treatment. Dispelling that magic is both harder and more essential than denouncing Rolling Stone.


Rushdie Interview:

SPIEGEL: While researching your books – and especially now after the recent near miss in London – you must be asking yourself: What makes apparently normal young men decide to blow themselves up?

 

Rushdie: There are many reasons, and many different reasons, for the worldwide phenomenon of terrorism. In Kashmir, some people are joining the so-called resistance movements because they give them warm clothes and a meal. In London, last year’s attacks were still carried out by young Muslim men whose integration into society appeared to have failed. But now we are dealing with would-be terrorists from the middle of society. Young Muslims who have even enjoyed many aspects of the freedom that Western society offers them. It seems as though social discrimination no longer plays any role – it’s as though anyone could turn into a terrorist.

 

SPIEGEL: Leading British Muslims have written a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair claiming that the growing willingness to engage in terrorism is due to Bush’s and Blair’s policies in Iraq and in Lebanon. Are they completely wrong? Don’t the atrocities of Abu Ghraib and the cynicism of Guantanamo contribute to extremism?

 

Rushdie: I’m no friend of Tony Blair’s and I consider the Middle East policies of the United States and the UK fatal. There are always reasons for criticism, also for outrage. But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people. If the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, for example, were to be miraculously solved from one day to the next, I believe we wouldn’t see any fewer attacks.

 

SPIEGEL: And yet there must be reasons, or at least triggers, for this terrible willingness to wipe out the lives of others – and of oneself.

 

Rushdie: Lenin once described terrorism as bourgeois adventurism. I think there, for once, he got things right: That’s exactly it. One must not negate the basic tenet of all morality – that individuals are themselves responsible for their actions. And the triggers seem to be individual too. Upbringing certainly plays a major role there, imparting a misconceived sense of mission which pushes people towards “actions.” Added to that there is a herd mentality once you have become integrated in a group and everyone continues to drive everyone else on and on into a forced situation. There’s the type of person who believes his action will make mankind listen to him and turn him into a historic figure. Then there’s the type who simply feels attracted to violence. And yes, I think glamour plays a role too.

 

SPIEGEL: Do you seriously mean that terrorism is glamorous?

 

Rushdie: Yes. Terror is glamour – not only, but also. I am firmly convinced that there’s something like a fascination with death among suicide bombers. Many are influenced by the misdirected image of a kind of magic that is inherent in these insane acts. The suicide bomber’s imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people’s lives. There’s one thing you mustn’t forget here: the victims terrorized by radical Muslims are mostly other Muslims.

 

SPIEGEL: Of course there can be no justification for terrorism. But nevertheless there are various different starting points. There is the violence of groups who are pursuing nationalist, one might say comprehensible, goals using every means at their disposal . . .

Rushdie: . . . and there are others like al-Qaida which have taken up the cause of destroying the West and our entire way of life. This form of terrorism wraps itself up in the wrongs of this world in order to conceal its true motives – an attack on everything that ought to be sacred to us. It is not possible to discuss things with Osama bin Laden and his successors. You cannot conclude a peace treaty with them. They have to be fought with every available means.