International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 33

Know What You Are Fighting
situations: all of this helps with release and clearly pushes to action—“acting out,”
as some specialists would call it. The formats of individual psychology of passage to
action are thus transposed to the group.
Understanding that group psychology is only a sum of individual psychologies,
the preachers of death collect unifying doctrinal elements. Based on biased terminology,
their erudition sometimes borrows from theology and politics, and sometimes from a
fantasy that promises paradise to “criminal souls,” to cite a pioneer of criminology. 14
A celestial metapsychology compensates for terrestrial psychological suffering.
According to the individual psychological procedure where returning a person to his
or her tender childhood reawakens repressed trauma, the psychology of group action
proceeds in the same way, by turning back and atavistic regression.
Criminalizing the target (for example, the existing political power) requires
virulent and defamatory discourse loaded with references to lend it some credibility.
The goal is to change the nature of the target into a form of death drive, to make
potential fanatics hate it. The image of the sovereign on whom power confers the
symbols of authority and paternity—strength, legitimacy, omnipresence, providence—
is often targeted by this diabolical procedure. Directly or not, each of these symbols
touches each person, his or her individual motivations, and his or her personal history.
Touching on these symbols can therefore massively unleash aggressive potential.
Incriminating the chosen target starts with discourse using a specific etymology.
The term tyrant (or despotic sovereign), taghout in Arabic, becomes the ideal means
to incriminate a ruler for unbelief, along with an accompanying cortege of fantastical
representations. Islamist propaganda expands this concept to injustice, the exploitation
of peoples, iniquity, and terror to elicit collective anxiety and frustrations. The ensuing
psychological state imposed on the mind is a burning desire to take revenge on a
sovereign who has betrayed the people and the social contract.
These feelings of betrayal and vengeance relate to the archaic psychological
structure of the child, to its mental complexes and conflicts. Raised to rank of an
heroic exploit, the criminal act made sacred comes to destroy the image of the
sovereign. The narcissistic omnipresence of the all-ego is present here, rejecting any
other sovereignty. Criminal projects, the progressive incrimination of targets evolve
and change over time and space, with the destructive rage of the terrorist striking its
targets each time that they counteract the advance of the destructive drive.
According to the preachers of death, the concept of taghout encompasses all
of the agents of the state, their relatives, and their subordinates: anyone who rejects
the demands of the terrorist. The following is a document sent by the Armed Islamic
Group (GIA) to all terrorists when the president of the Algerian Republic announced
clemency measures. For the GIA, the term taghout designates:
14
Ames criminelles [Criminal souls] is the title of a work by Étienne De Greeff, published by Casterman
in 1949 (Paris: Casterman, 1949).
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