'Paradise Now' & Why People Blow Themselves Up

• Why 2005 Palestinian film ‘Paradise Now’ is as important as ever

• Brainwashing ideology or aggression stemming from frustration - what makes people turn to political extremism and violence?

• And where to watch the film

What motivates political violence? Michael Gove, the current minister for "levelling up", attempted to address the question about so-called Islamic extremism in 2006 with his book 'Celsius 7/7'. The wonderful historian William Dalrymple described it as "a confused epic of simplistic incomprehension" (his full review rips it to shreds and is worth a read) but it went on to influence the current government approach to Islamic extremism through programs like Prevent. In essence, Gove’s rehashed neo-conservative idea: Islamists despise western freedom and want to take over by any means necessary. Gove asserts these beliefs "are shared by a broad spectrum of Muslim opinion."

This ideological focus incorrectly imagines Muslims as inherently susceptible to anti-state violece because of their faith. In practice, it’s informed the Prevent programme where state employees have a duty to refer to the government people, often children, who cause them a bad ‘gut-feeling’. Leading to situations that would be comical if they weren’t potentially traumatising, like when a teacher called Prevent because a Muslim child said ‘eco-terrorist’ in a French class touching on environmental activists. The next day, officers asked the 13-year-old “whether he was affialated with Isis” - a word he didn’t know because why the fuck would he? As the genocide in Gaza continues and the British right-wing brand protesters as extremists, these sorts of Muslim-hating ideas are bubbling up to the fore again.

The antitode is an Oscar-nominated 2005 film made by Palestinians and Israelis which explores the question in a more humanistic way, specifically to the Palestinian cause. 'Paradise Now' (2005), written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad, follows friends as tight as brothers, Said and Khaled, who live in Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The film depicts their recruitment for suicide bombings in Tel Aviv. Before breaking into Israel, their final statement gets recorded on VHS. Hot-head Khaled goes first. Holding a rifle, wearing a keffiyeh, he reads from a page:

“…I have decided to sacrife myself, The only thing we can do is fight. For Israel, to live with Palestinians as equals inside a democratic system is equivalent to suicide [for the Jewish state]. Neither does it accept the solution of two states, even though it would be to the detriment of Palestinians...It uses its war machine and its power to force us to accept its conditions to covert us to being inferior or to die. But, as a martyr, I do not fear death. Only this way would I come out victorious”

After a few more lines, the cameraman realises he failed to record. Said makes his statement along similar lines, but the film leaves us unsure if he truly means it. Why did they sign up then? Watching this film shows us their personal reasons, which I will not reveal. You should watch the film. However, their motivations do not stem from fanatical devotion to an extremist religious cause or rabid anti-semitic hatred. Their motivations arise from personal frustrations. As Abu-Assad says, ‘the politicians want to see it as black and white, good and eveil, and art wants to see it as a human thing’.

I’ve been interested in what drives people to political violence since a teenager - a kind of academic but macarbe fascination. I’ve came across many theories - most relevant here is the frustration-aggression hypothesis which has much in common with Abu-Assad’s human approach. Simply put, when people’s aspirations are blocked and eroded, as in occupied Palestine, they, unsurprisingly, become angry and frustrated. Some of those angry people become more receptive to using violence to force change or, in the case of the film’s suicide bombings, to kill Israeli soldiers and civilians and make a statment. Abu-Assad described it best in an interview from 2005:

“I think the most important motive in Palestine for these kinds of actions is that you want to end your humiliation. The Occupation is really humiliating people every day. You feel that you are being [treated as] inferior. Secondly, you want to prove to yourself that you are not weak, because daily you are facing humiliation; you feel that you’re a coward if you do nothing about it, and by killing yourself in this manner—with others and causing damage—you’re telling the world and yourself, ‘I am not a coward. I am turning my cowardice, (or weakness, let’s say) to enormous power.’ These two factors are very important in the decision- making.”

In 'Paradise Now', as in much of occupied Palestine since 1948 when the Israeli military isn’t actively persecuting or killing Palestinians, apartheid presents daily humiliations, and neighbourhoods and families are split as part of the usual divide-and-rule tendencies of occupiers. By the end of the film, each time I have seen it, I wonder if they simply just wanted to escape such miserable lives but were afraid to be banished to hell for suicide. "Only this way would I come out victorious," says Khaled to a non-recording camera. In another scene, Suha, the daughter of a famed martyr who returned to the West Bank from Morocco to work in a human rights organization, admonishes Khaled. "It's not a sacrifice, it's revenge," she shouts. Suha believes in non-violent resistance; Khaled and Said cannot bear living in such an inferior position anymore and see no point in non-violent resistance from such a place. “If we had airplanes we wouldn’t need suicide bombs”, says Khaled. The film's morality proves so nuanced that it’s hard not to empapthsise with both perspectives: Suha who lost her father to a resistance that she sees as only inciting more Israeli violence, or Khaled and Said who want to end their daily humiliations.

Perhaps unsuprisingly ‘Paradise Now’ was met with criticism for undeserved accusations of anti-semitism or promoting violence. It does no such thing. The same accusations are being levelled at people who want an end to a merciless bombing campaign today. I leave the final words to an optimistic Hany Abu-Assad interviewed in January 2024:

“just as what happened with the fall of the Bastille in the French Revolution in 1789 … Gaza is the Bastille of our day. Yes, there will be a lot of blood, but the Bastille is falling and after that, a lot is going to change.”

Watch the film - let me know what you think.

Links:

Paradise Now is available to rent on Apple TV or Amazon Prime. If you don’t mind the terrible quality, it’s also on YouTube for free.

For a great breakdown of the current moral panic about ‘radical Islam’ in British discourse triggered by Gaza protests, check Peter Oborne speaking on Double Down News

Peter Oborne has also written the ultimate book on understanding western Islamophobia past and present, ‘The Fate of Abraham’

For a human-centered look at the women and girls who joined Daesh, read ‘Guest House for Young Widows’ by Azadeh Moaveni