Experts link suicide bombings, education

Najeeb Shafiq, assistant professor of education policy studies at IU, is not convinced that suicide bombings are attributable to a lack of income and education.

Shafiq analyzed a 2005 public opinion survey detailing suicide bombings in relation to six predominantly Muslim countries.

Along with Abdulkader Sinno, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, he, published a study questioning the relationship between education and income levels and suicide bombings.

“I was a little hesitant to write about it for a professional audience,” Shafiq said. “It was ambitious, but when you write these papers, you hope one person will read them. It’s humbling when there’s some interest.”

Shafiq said a complex picture emerged from the study. The findings depended on two things, he said: the cultural differences of the countries and whether the bombings targeted innocent citizens from the Muslim countries or foreigners from America, Iraq or the Western world.

“So what we think is happening is most people in the Muslim world view it as guerrilla warfare against foreigners,” he said. “Against citizens, it’s terrorism. We think the solution to that is much more complicated than just increasing education.”

In one finding of the study, Shafiq said, was that educated and rich citizens tend to have stronger political and social opinions and are willing to protect those views by extreme methods.

“Upon reading, what you find is the poor and less educated are too busy surviving to have strong political opinions,” he said. “If you ask a poor person in Arkansas what they think about Iraq, in all likelihood they’re not going to care very much.”

Shafiq said dissatisfaction with government and foreign policy is often a motivation for the bombings.

The more dissatisfied a person is in the government, he said, the more likely he or she will support suicide bombings.

“We hope other people go out and confirm or check the robustness of our findings by looking at other data that’s emerging,” he said.

“So far I think qualitative researchers and journalists only talk to people who try to blow themselves up or leaders of organizations or families of people who’ve been bombers,” he said. “But that’s missing part of the story. There’s a lot to be learned from going out and talking to ordinary men and women.”

Shafiq said another purpose of the study was to reassess the curriculum of schools in the Muslim world.

There is a rich history in the United States and other countries of conflict resolution education, he said, but over time, that aspect of education has gone away.

“We encourage policy makers to look into the curriculum and look into incorporating peace education,” he said.