ABSTRACT
The compelling aspect of the narrative is not only in its content, but how it is presented to the target audience, which normally requires ideological leaders. It is consistently reinforced through communication and through propaganda of the deed. The Oberammergau Passion Play has descended upon that otherwise peaceful and devout town in Bavaria every ten years with the regularity of a cicada invasion. The only such production to survive at least two attempts by the Catholic Church to eradicate it as anachronistic, the play is both famous and notorious. The finite nature of providence, rather than a desire for retribution, is what seems to have continually propelled the progression from celebration to devastation. Analysts of terrorism in the Middle East also commonly employ the metaphor of the Passion Play. Counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency specialists are particularly fond of the word grievance because it both trivializes the causes of violent extremism and absolves governments of any responsibility to redress them.
