Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization

by Reza Aslan

Suicide terrorism is by no means a distinctly Islamic or even religious phenomenon. The tactic was popularized by the Marxist militants of the Tamil Tigers during their violent insurgency against the Sri Lankan government. Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, has compiled a database of every suicide attack that took place in every part of the world from 1980 to 2003. His data demonstrate that “there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions.” In Pape’s database, secular groups account for a third of all suicide attacks. There is, it seems, a simple reason why suicide has become such a common method of terrorism: it works. When one’s adversary possesses the most formidable military hardware, when its strength cannot be challenged in battle, suicide terrorism levels the playing field.