What kind of people are suicide bombers? How do they justify their actions? In this meticulously researched and sensitively written book, journalist Christoph Reuter argues that popular views of these young men and women—as crazed fanatics or brainwashed automatons—fall short of the mark. In many cases these modern-day martyrs are well-educated young adults who turn themselves into human bombs willingly and eagerly—to exact revenge on a more powerful enemy, perceived as both unjust and oppressive. Suicide assassins are determined to make a difference, for once in their lives, no matter what the cost. As Reuter’s many interviews with would-be martyrs, their trainers, friends, and relatives reveal, the bombers are motivated more by how they expect to be remembered—as heroic figures—than by religion-infused visions of a blissful life to come.
Reuter, who spent eight years researching the book, moves from the broken survivors of the childrens’ suicide brigades in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, to the war-torn Lebanon of Hezbollah, to Israeli-occupied Palestinian land, and to regions as disparate as Sri Lanka, Chechnya, and Kurdistan. He tells a disturbing story of the modern globalization of suicide bombing—orchestrated, as his own investigations have helped to establish, by the shadowy Al Qaeda network and unintentionally enabled by wrong-headed policies of Western governments. In a final, hopeful chapter, Reuter points to today’s postrevolutionary, post-Khomeini Iran, where a new social environment renounces the horrific practice in the very place where it was enthusiastically embraced just decades ago.
"We are as yet a long way from fully understanding the various manifestations of suicide terrorism and its motives, but My Life Is a Weapon is an important contribution. Reuter has traveled for years through Arab countries, the Middle East and Central Asia and is able to talk more or less freely to people and read texts usually not accessible to the average foreign correspondent. His account of suicide terrorism is, to the best of my knowledge, the first (of its kind) in any language."—Walter Laqueur, Times Literary Supplement
"Against the violent Manichean rhetoric of the times, and its brute
interventionism, Reuter offers a counter-narrative: suicide attacks in
Israel-Palestine will stop when Israel withdraws from the Occupied
Territories; more generally across the region, the West should keep out."—Jacqueline Rose, London Review of Books
"This is a journalist's history . . . with solid exposition, sharp observations and flashes of insight. . . . For instance, in invading and occupying Iraq, he maintains, the Bush administration is playing into the hands of terrorists like Osama bin Laden, creating exactly the context of humiliation that provides new recruits."—William S. Kowinski, San Francisco Chronicle
"[A] well-researched history of suicide attacks, which touches on the 12th century Assassins but concentrates on today. . . . Suicide attackers can be educated and uneducated; religious and secular; comfortably off and destitute: their link is the decision they make to transform their powerlessness into extraordinary power."—The Economist
"Christoph Reuter . . . interviewed as many families of suicide bombers as he could find, canvassed their countries of origin for insights, and has compiled the results in a short, readable book. The windows Mr. Reuter makes into suicide terrorists' family lives . . . show how lamentable is the ethos of chauvinism and pride that supports suicide terrorism. But they also show how fragile and contrived that support can sometimes be."—Brendan Conway, New York Sun
"[Reuter] integrate[s] impressive research with personal interviews and experiences that give the material immediacy and emotional force. . . . [H]is message is an important one, and it is this: the myths that poverty, or deprivation, or humiliation, or paradisiacal virgins or religious zealotry or hopelessness or plain ignorance are ultimately driving suicide attacks are 'simply wrong'. . . .. What is driving the spread and intensification of such attacks, he suggests, is a record of apparent success in attaining strategic objectives from 1980 to 2000, even if such success was bought at a horrible cost."—Avery Plaw, Montreal Gazette
"Everyone frustrated by the spread of suicide bombing as an extension of politics by other means would be wise to read and dwell on My Life is a Weapon. . . . Reuter's book offers rich data for mulling the topic."—Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer
"This insightful, sensitively written book deserves a wide audience."—Jane Adas, Christian Century
"Likely to become the standard text on the subject."—Washington Post Book World
"Fine first-hand reporting is combined with a sensitive effort to explain."—Foreign Affairs
"Reuter has provided an excellent overview of the nature of contemporary suicide attacks. The book is well worth reading for all students of this topic."—John C. Zimmerman, Terrorism and Political Violence
"Christoph Reuter's modern history of suicide bombing helps put today's headlines into context. As Reuter's assessment makes clear, suicide killers are not irrational fanatics, but cost-effective weapons employed by rational organizations. Reuter traveled around the world to talk with 'martyr's' families and their tutors, reporting what he found in lucid, often moving prose. The world would be a far safer place if our leaders were to heed his wise words of advice."—Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill
"This engaging book brings us face to face with scores of determined activists who kill and die for God. Yet it is more than a series of portraits. This thoughtful study reflects on the social contexts and historical moments that give rise to such extremes, and calls for a tempered world view that would reduce the frequency of such tragic, lethal acts. There is nothing quite like it."—Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
"Christoph Reuter's new study makes an important contribution to the growing field of suicide terrorism. Many readers will benefit from his comprehensive coverage of the historical record of both Islamic and non-Islamic cases."—Robert Pape, University of Chicago
