A suicide bombing’s missed opportunity
On October 5, 2014 a Kurdish woman carried out a suicide attack against ISIL/ISIS forces besieging the Syrian city of Kobane. According to reports the 20 year-old charged ISIS militants and detonated a grenade. It was unknown how many militants were injured or killed in the attack.
The attack attracted limited media attention despite the seeming irony of the circumstances. Most in the West associate the use of suicide tactics with radical, fundamentalist Islamic groups like ISIS. Kurds, on the other hand have been seen as more moderate. In fact, the U.S. has largely seen them as allies in the efforts to stabilize Iraq. Until recently, most suicide bombers were males. In this instance, a female, mother of two young children, from a presumed moderate group used suicide attack against a violent, radical group.
On the surface, this event seemed to warrant greater attention from western media. The media has extensively covered the atrocities being carried out by ISIS in the border regions of Syria and Iraq. Videos of mass executions of soldiers and graphic beheadings of hostages are regularly documented. There have been numerous reports of non-Shia civilians being executed for apostasy.
The media has also reported on the particularly disturbing treatment of captured women, many of whom are Kurdish. Girls as young as early teens have reportedly been sold and traded as wives or, more abhorrently, as sex slaves. This practice has been publicized and celebrated by ISIS rebels, while governments near and far are incapable of stopping it.
It would seem the story of a suicide attack by a mother of two, in a city at risk of being overrun by this 21st century horde would illustrate the desperate conditions of the Kurdish inhabitants. One would think such a story would resonate with mothers and fathers here in the West, thinking of their families being placed in such jeopardy. Yet, western media largely let the story drop soon after the first reports. Perhaps there were reasons for that, other than possible lack of interest.
Discourse in the West has become extremely comfortable with a conventional wisdom about suicide bombers. These individuals must be broken in some way. We have become convinced that only persons with a significant defect could use themselves as sacrificial weapons of destruction. At the very minimum, we might allow for the very young and naïve to be brainwashed into such violent, nihilistic acts. Either way, the idea of suicide as a weapon has been deemed a violation of natural and human law.
But how does that correspond with the sympathy one could feel for this young woman? Anticipating what might follow an ISIS victory, could one appreciate her desperation? Knowing her potential fate, would we acknowledge that such an extreme act could seem a viable option? As a mother, does her willingness to commit such ultimate sacrifice seem more understandable?
If any one of those questions can be answered in the affirmative, then the perception of suicide bombing must, of necessity, be reconsidered. If we can possibly sympathize with one individual willing to commit such an act, then we must re-evaluate our ‘one size fits all’ judgment of all such acts. For many that are quite contented with self-righteous condemnation, such a consideration is too complicated, and uncomfortable.
Reports in the days after the attack revealed that the woman, who went by the name Arin Mirkan, was actually a fighter who had run out of ammunition. Her final act was to attack ISIS fighters with her last grenade. This could arguably differentiate her actions from those of a suicide bomber carrying out a pre-planned attack on a civilian population. But that dialogue never occurred.
It was also learned that Mirkan served in an organization that is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK. The PKK is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union for its activities in Turkey. The freedom fighter on the Syrian side of the border is a terrorist on the Turkish side.
So the context of this story makes it more complicated than first reported. This is not the ‘typical’ suicide bomber. People are reluctant to look at the underlying causes of suicide bombings, or consider a context where it may be understandable. Most are also comfortable with the application of the term ‘terrorist’ to brand individual or groups, to mark them the equivalent of medieval outlaws. Perhaps there is a problem with this branding policy. But more nuanced positioning requires more dialogue, more thought, and usually has no clear right answer. Perhaps the story was a little too complicated for the average media web post, or audience. It might have required more serious consideration than what can fit into a 30 second segment. Perhaps that is why the coverage ended so abruptly. That’s unfortunate.
