Suicide Bombers are the product of oppressive structures that humans have always confronted writes Ananya Mukherjee Reed

AMIDST THE last few days of carnage in the Middle East, mainstream media in several parts of the world have become obsessed with the phenomenon of suicide bombers. Two broad narratives seem to have emerged.

The first, that this is a direct outcome of Yasser Arafat's brainwashing of young adolescents who are already born into an ideology that is premised on terror and violence. The second, is that this is an outcome of the total destitution that young Palestinians face; bereft of any economic or political future, the only career choice they face is one of martyrdom.

These arguments are neither new nor plausible, but are proving to be surprisingly resilient. They gained particular currency in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and had much to do with the complex events leading up to that day. Let us examine them here, beginning with the latter. The intent is not to justify the terrorism of suicide bombing; rather it is to question the arguments that end up justifying the continued colonization and collective oppression of specific populations in the name of a "war on terror."

Within the general discourse on terrorism, especially post-9/11, it has become fashionable to argue that we need to focus on the "root causes" of terrorism — poverty, misery and illiteracy. A whole range of voices, ranging from the World Bank to a wide variety of so-called progressives argues this case with much fervour.

I see this as an expression of the missionary-colonialist sentiment. In this world-view, the civilizing mission has to be picked up from where it was left off. The more benign of these colonialists would argue that this should be accomplished not through conquest, but by feeding and educating the poor millions in the developing world.

Now, in a world where hundred of millions live under $1 a day, think what would happen if poverty bred terrorism. South Asia alone, the prime target of Bush's war on terrorism, is home to 400 million who live in absolute poverty. How many of them have taken to arms?

A South Asian myself, I know the counter-argument only too well. It is the madrassas, the Islamic religious schools, where terrorists are bred. There is some obvious truth to that: However, there is a counter-factual question that we also must confront. Can it be established with any certainty that the madrassas would have churned out Osama bin Laden's cadre without the active initial patronage of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency?

It is also true that madrassas recruit from the ranks of the poor. In that sense, is poverty not a direct cause of terrorism? I think not. In my view, poverty is not a cause but an outcome, of the myriad forms of oppression, administered by local and global powers.

We come now to the second narrative — of Islam as a religion that condones violence and war. Many theologians have dismissed the superficiality of this argument. What I continue to be surprised by, however, is the assertion that religious extremism in the Islamic world is almost impossible to contain since it enjoys widespread popular support.

But why should there be popular support for something that is so destructive? The pat answer is that there is a pre-disposition towards extremism and fundamentalism amongst the "ordinary Muslim." Viewed through this lens, any "reformist" efforts from within the Muslim world (like that of Pakistan President Musharraf's) are inherently futile.

But such an ethnic predisposition toward militancy leading to the support of religious regimes is not borne out by history. Time and again, there has been resistance to repressive political regimes within the Muslim world — exactly as there has been in the non-Muslim world. The most striking example of this is provided by the resistance of women against the most brutal of religious regimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

The issue of women's resistance is particularly important since women are so often regarded as passive repositories of religious values. In some sense, the same argument is made about Arafat's schoolgirl killers, who passively get brainwashed into terrorism.

In light of this argument, it is important to ask why young women did not lay down their lives for the Taliban. Why was there mobilization against the devout Islamic regimes in Iran and Pakistan? And why do they now take up arms for the liberation of Palestine? Putting the question this way can perhaps help us to delineate the root causes of terrorism.

Poverty, misery, repression and Islam are common denominators, and yet resistance finds very different targets. At times it is directed against Islamic regimes, and at other times against regimes that oppress Islamic populations. Why? Because resistance — which culminates in this immensely, dehumanized form of suicidal terrorism — has nothing to do with Islam. They lie, rather, in the myriad forms of imperialism, subjugation, and oppression humans continue to confront.

Together these constitute yet another specific kind of terrorism — a much more violent, organized, powerful and systematic one than the terrorism of suicide. These violent, organized, powerful and systematically unjust forms of terrorism are the "root causes" that the suicide bombers want to see removed.

However, in light of the life experiences of these schoolgirl killers, they see little hope of that happening as a result of the goodwill of Kofi Annan or the Pope, or through any negotiated political process, simply because these processes cannot overcome the structures of oppression in which they are embedded.

As history tells us, the end to any form of subjugation has never come about without resistance or merely through goodwill and missionary zeal. Here's one example close to home.

Could slavery have been abolished merely with a sufficient dose of American liberalism in the absence of slave revolts?