Juergensmeyer Martyrs And Demons Chapter 6 Summary

In chapter 9, “Martyrs and Demons," Juergensmeyer begins with discussing a quote from Timothy McVeigh, one of the convicted bombers of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. At his death sentencing, he quoted Justice Louis Brandeis, saying, “Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher, for good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.” He was stating that the war he took part in was far from over and that its resolution was still uncertain. This same type of thinking is a base of the ideology behind Islamic Terrorism, while the struggle may not look promising, one day things will turn in their favor. Those who dedicate themselves to this struggle are held in high esteem, especially those who commit suicide (by bombing) in

an act of “self martyrdom”. These acts of terrorism are viewed by the extremest groups to simply be a defense; Osama bin Laden claimed that his acts were defensive, since it was America who declared war on Muslims by its “crimes and sins” committed in the middle east.

Juergensmeyer mentions that these suicide bombers are not thought of as such by the extreme Islamic groups, but rather as “self-chosen martyrs," a term brought up by Dr. Rantisi, which defines these people as soldiers in a great war who honorably gave up their lives for the sake of their community and religion. As important this sense of martyrdom is in radical Islam, so is the idea of enemies. The primary enemy is always the religious rival or local political authority that directly threatens the activist group (Radical Islams) and what they stand for. The Secondary Enemy is a moderate leader on ones (Radical Islams) own side. They are seeing as protecting the Primary enemy, for example a moderate leader in the West attempting to have good relations with America. More than any other nation, the US is viewed as the enemy for radical Islamics, clearly shown by the 9/11 attacks on the Word Trade

Center. So why is America such an enemy of radical Islamics? Firstly America is often viewed as a secondary enemy, having so many economic and political partners worldwide. Secondly, Modern culture in America also is to blame, for example, the predominancy of sex and alcohol in it. Thirdly, success of the American Economy is to blame, many corporations are based out of the US or affiliated with it. Radical Islamists think of America as a “superhuman” force, a cosmic foe. This process is called Satanization, this idea allows radical Islamic to feel that they have a sense of power over America, by committing acts of terror that install fear into the public in an effort to overcome/attack this “superhuman” power.
“The Truth about Islam” by Andrew Mack gives a realistic explanation of Islam and discusses many of the common misconceptions of the faith.

It notes that ISIS is the worlds deadliest political party, heavily associated with radical Islamics. However, it points out that we must be careful to not confuse this small minority of ultra-violent muslims with the rest of the over one billion muslims worldwide today. A 2003 study by Steven Fish at California Berkeley found that between 1994-2007, annual homicide rates in the Muslim world averaged 2.4 per 100,000 people, or a third of the rate for the non-Muslim world. Clearly, Islam and death do not directly coincide, so why are groups like ISIS such a huge problem today? Fish pointed out that Islamic radicals were responsible for 70 percent of deaths from “high-causality terrorist bombings” around the world from 1994-2008. This points out that at least in modern times, the perpetrators of extreme terrorist bombings are predominately Muslim, thus explaining why groups such as ISIS are such a problem today. ISIS uses very narrow and extreme interpretations of medieval Islam that greatly influences its killings and how they kill, often very gruesomely. It is very important when reading these two sources to remember that Juergensmeyer is almost exclusively addressing radical Islamics, reading just his article leaves one with the feeling that all Muslims are radicals, which this article by Mack clearly shows is not the case. However,

this article gives great insights on why Islam is associated with terror today, the majority of recent “high casualty terrorist bombings” being contributed to radical Islamics.
These readings gave me some valuable insights on Islam and Islamic terrorism in the world today. I feel that Juergensmeyer did a great job describing Radical Islamic Terrorism in the world today, using plenty of past and present examples and instances to support his ideas. However I feel that reading his work, although I know it is focused on Islamic Terrorism, paints a picture of all Muslims as terrorists because he has very little mention of the fact that very few Muslims are extremists. This is when the article by Andrew Mack comes in to greatly contribute to Juergensmeyer’s work. Mack does no favors and makes no excuses for the behavior of radical Islamics, he simply makes it clear that these radicals are a tiny percentage of all Muslims today. These readings only furthered my belief that when it comes to Muslims, they are a great peaceful people as a whole, but have a small percentage of bad, radicals, that unfortunately paint the picture that all Muslims are like this, furthered by the medias portrayal of them. This only pushes the Us vs. Them idea, and promotes the radical’s process of Satanization.