International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 60

International Journal on Criminology
should pay as much attention to this criminogenic psychological phenomenon as
the smuggling of nuclear or biological material, which are inoffensive without the
prior existence of this phenomenon. Finally, I prefer Étienne de Greeff’s expression
(“process of legitimization of criminal action”) to that of fatwa, since this process
has inspired every terrorist group since antiquity and constitutes the common trait
of several entities, ideologies, and religions, as emphasized by Walter Laquer in
Terrorism.
Suicide Attacks
Two preliminary observations:
• By exposing the mental state of the candidates for “sacrifice,” suicide attacks
reveal the symbolic reality of the criminal groups to which they belong.
• The candidates freely join a group whose customs remind them of their own,
whence their identification with the group.
Care should be taken to avoid simplistic analyses that would mislead us
and hinder the crucial development of strategies to combat it. Knowledge certainly
dissipates fear, but while an erroneous vision diminishes fear for a short time, it
subsequently favors the spread of crime.
First difficulty: analysis always happens after the fact, in the absence of the
suicidal subject. This occurs even if we have information on the person, his or her close
relations, and the sponsoring group; sometimes we have the person’s final statement
(even extravagant ones). Against common sense and the instinct to live, the suicidal
act nonetheless expresses the reaction of one being to a feeling of psychological
imprisonment.
Identification of the Individual with the Group
The overt strategy of sponsors aims to shake the state and make it yield to
the terrorists’ demands, but the suicidal act is the result of covert work focused on
the unconscious, thanks to which the preachers of terror penetrate into the minds
of credulous novices. Manipulating the minds of individuals, these preachers mix
together the psyche of the candidate for suicide with the collective experience of the
group, while claiming to “liberate” the individual, “save” his or her soul—which is in
fact caught up in a criminogenic discourse.
Mixing together individual psychology and that of the group is the only way to
“fabricate” a human bomb. If we recall Durkheim’s statements on (individual) suicide,
which express, according to him, “the relaxation (collective) of social bonds, a sort
of collective asthenia, or social malaise, just as individual sadness, when chronic, in
its way reflects the poor organic state of the individual.” Then these pseudo-religious
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