ABSTRACT
For generations, humanity has sought such supremacy† through traditional warfare. But this supremacy was always the province of generals and kings. e tragedy of combat was inscribed on the soldier’s material body (see Grand, 2007). With the advent of religious terrorism, tragedy is erased from the body of the foot soldier. Ecstatic possibilities seem accessible to everyman. In militant Islamic fundamentalism, new converts can always Œnd “inŒdels”; they can construct and detonate bombs. us the terror-warrior becomes more than a foot soldier, as Stein (2002) suggests. He subordinates himself to God, and then he imagines a fusion with that God. Awakening in the a…erlife, he will become his own king. SacriŒcing
innocent lives and sacriŒcing his own material body, he gains the sense of “mystical election” (see Girard, 1972) which Nietzsche (1885/1963) ascribed to the Übermensch (Super-Man):
The Demonizing Structures of Terror and Counterterror
To formulate e›ective answers to terrorism, we must concede its brilliance. As a strategy of war, it is extraordinary. As a mode of Heroic transformation, it seems perverse. But it is also radical and alluring. To us, the suicide bomber is the archetype of what I would describe as the “Demonic Hero.” To attain the status of absolute goodness, the Demonic Hero must Œnd a personiŒcation of evil and then vanquish that personi-Œcation. e Demonic Hero claims purity and power in violent contest with an identiŒable Villain. is Villain is portrayed as a formidable and evil opponent, whose death confers strength on the Hero. But in these demonizing structures, this “formidable villain” is actually an innocent and helpless victim. e Demonic Hero must cloak his violence in mystery, awe, and revelation, so that the actual innocence of this Villain is never discovered. is is the foundational structure of terrorism and human sacriŒce. To achieve his own Heroic transformation, the terrorist requires the bombed body of the civilian-inŒdel. To acquire his “talisman of supremacy” (Girard, 1972, p. 12), evil is projected onto innocence, and violence is practiced as a form of ritual puriŒcation. An outgroup must be dehumanized and used as the repository for badness. To claim his own ecstatic goodness, that badness must be subjugated, extruded, exterminated. When this type of “sacriŒcial ritual” is ascendant in a culture, there is a continual search for the “Evil Other” and a continual e›ort to purge that Evil Other without any evidence that this Other is evil (see
Frankfurter, 2006). ere is no presumption of innocence, there is no discourse of reason, and there is no Hero without a sacriŒcial Villain. In these contexts, reason is replaced by exhortation, fear, awe, and exaltation. In my view, this is the structure of Heroic demonology, and it is the underpinning of fundamentalist terrorism.*
To outwit terrorism, we must answer and resist its Heroic demonology. Tragically, during the Bush years, American counterterrorism was a shadow of its opponent: We, too, were in a fever of unreason. roughout our counterterrorism practices, there was no presumption of innocence, there was no discourse of reason, and there was no Hero without a sacri-Œcial Villain. We searched for the Evil Other, we imprisoned and tortured that Evil Other, without demonstrable evidence that this particular Other was a terrorist. Our Heroic mythology relied on human sacriŒce: the dead in Iraq, the prisoners in extraordinary rendition and indeŒnite detention. Meanwhile, real threats were uncontained. We, too, have had our rituals of mystery and revelation. Creating a system of torture, disappearance, and indeŒnite detention, we eviscerated our democracy.
