The Dark Side of Culture (4): Martyrdom

The face of Jesus Christ in agony on his way to martyrdom. Catedral basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, Zaragoza, Spain (Source: own photo).

Martyrdom requires four pre-conditions to be satisfied. There has to be a martyr, a group of people with whom the martyr is associated, a defined enemy, and a live conflict between the martyr's group and the enemy. The martyr is the individual, who lays down his or her life - willingly or unwillingly - at the hands of an enemy for a cause or a belief widely shared by the group to which the martyr belongs.

Conflicts along cultural lines, such as religious wars, are particularly likely to produce martyrs, because cultural differences are so easily exploited for political purposes. Culture, unlike so many other aspects of life, are characterised by fundamental asymmetries of knowledge, namely people's usually very detailed and intimate understanding of their own culture and their almost total ignorance of other cultures (see here). Profound ignorance lies at the heart of culture-based conflicts some of which are among the worst humanity have ever seen (see here).

Martyrdom is one of many manifestations of culture-based conflict. Like others, it is encouraged by and serves political interests, but it also has some unique and interesting features. In this note, I explain martyrdom and its political underpinnings with reference to examples from the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

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The words "The Glorious Dead" adorn the side of the Cenotaph Wall Memorial in Whitehall, London (Source: here)

Martyrdom is extremely useful from a political perspective, because martyrs heighten contrasts in the perceptions about friend and enemy. This is why governments glorify those who die for their country ("Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”) and churches worship saints, who die for the faith (for a list of Catholic martyrs see here). Martyrs attain their heroic status posthumously by having paid the ultimate price for defending or advancing the interests of his or her group. The greater the strength of the enemy and the more brutal the enemy's oppression the greater the value of martyrdom. Strength and brutality confers impressions of cowardice and moral and intellectual inferiority onto the enemy, while the martyr attains even greater attributes of bravery and moral and intellectual superiority. In turn, this increases support for the cause through elevating its moral legitimacy. Still, not all martyrs are born equal. The effectiveness of the martyr from a political perspective depends crucially on three factors:

Voluntary versus involuntary sacrifice

Voluntary martyrdom is generally preferable to involuntary martyrdom, because voluntary martyrdom demonstrates far more commitment to the cause. The Martyrs of Cordoba are among the most classic of cases of voluntary martyrdom; forty eight Christians who stuck to their faith knowing they would be executed for doing so.

Still, involuntary martyrdom can also be hugely politically advantageous, especially if the victims can be shown to have been innocent. The victims of the 9/11 attacks in the United States did not volunteer to die, but they still became an extremely useful 'justification' for the subsequent US attacks in which more than 500,000 people were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had not even been involved in 9/11.

Similarly, the unwilling victims of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar in 1919, who died at the hands of the British, became important martyrs for the cause of Indian independence even through they did not go to their deaths voluntarily. Gordon’s death in Khartoum on 26 January 1885 made him an instant martyr for the British Empire. Gordon had no choice in the matter of his martyrdom, but this did not detract from its political usefulness.

New Yorkers taking to flag waving in the immediate aftermath of the involuntary martyrdom of 9/11 (Source: here)

The more harrowing the better

The political usefulness of martyrdom is maximised when martyrs die the most harrowing deaths possible. As the horror of martyrdom increases, the emotional response is heightened. Extreme violence induces traumas that can be very difficult to rationalise and almost impossible to erase from the memory, so politicians can use them over and over again to encourage powerful emotional reactions long after the original martyr has perished. This is why the two sides in the Northern Ireland conflict adorn the walls with the names of martyrs. And it is why painters commissioned by the church were instructed to paint harrowing images, such as the one below.

Sicilian Saint Agatha looks to the heavens after she has had both her breasts cut off (Source: here)

Individual versus group martyrdom

Martyrdom is most easily weaponised for political purposes if the trauma has been inflicted on large groups of people. When very large numbers of people are killed and maimed the trauma becomes collective. Collective traumas lend themselves especially well to exploitation for political purposes, because they invoke powerful reactions in whole populations at the same time. In other words, they serve to corral entire communities, even countries, for or against certain causes.

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Let me now illustrate these general observations about martyrdom with reference to Israel's ongoing genocide Gaza. Jews, a cultural group, obviously suffered an enormous trauma at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust, but today the Israeli government is exploiting the martyrdom of the Jews in the Holocaust to ameliorate the negative reactions to its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

To see how, let us briefly review the original trauma. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered six million Jews across German-occupied Europe. The Nazis portrayed Jews as a race, because it made it easier to make the case that Jews are inferior and, once thus dehumanised, their eradication became less morally onerous for those who had to do the killing. In reality, there is no such thing as a Jewish race. Jews are members of a specific culture, which, like all other cultures, has created myths about its own origin, including religious versions. For more information about Jewish culture see here).

Anyway, due to the scale of the atrocity against the Jews and the extreme barbarity employed by the Nazis, the trauma of the Holocaust has survived long after the atrocity itself. Only a dwindling number of survivors of the Holocaust are still alive today, but every Jewish person alive still suffers by association. Even non-Jews cannot help feeling traumatised by the Holocaust to some degree, because the memory of the martyrdom of the Jews is deliberate being kept alive in schools, the media, museums, and elsewhere.

The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. spreads awareness about the genocide committed by Nazis against European Jews during World War II (Source: See here).

The Israeli government is acutely aware of the political usefulness of the collective trauma of the Holocaust. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regularly refreshes associations between the Holocaust and Hamas' attack on 7 October 2023. This serves two purposes: (a) vilifying Palestinians; and (b) minimising the outrage over Israel's barbaric mass-murder in Gaza.

The vilification of Palestinians is perhaps best appreciated by the fact that Israel continues to receive broad support, including military aid, from Western nations despite its disproportionate response to the Hamas attack. By deliberately associating the Holocaust with the Hamas attack, Israel makes it difficult for anyone to argue the Palestinian case to avoid instant association with the Nazis, or, at a minimum, with some form of anti-Semitism.

Yet, there is NO relationship between Nazism/anti-Semitism and Palestinians. Nazism ended in 1945 and those who were actively involved in perpetrating the Holocaust are for the most part dead. Not a single Palestinian alive today had anything to do with the Holocaust. In fact, the vast majority of the Palestinian did not even have anything to do with the Hamas attack. Their only “crime” is that they happen live in a territory that also contains within it an organisation that attacked and killed 1,200 Israelis on 7 October. The truth is that Palestinians are an extremely vulnerable, poor, and very badly armed people. They receive moral support only from Spain and Ireland, and their only source of arms with which to defend themselves are pariah nations like Iran and rebel groups such as the Houthis in Yemen. They are the true David against Israel's Goliath.

The fact this simple and obvious reality continues to elude politicians, the media, and huge numbers of people in Europe and the United States testifies to the effectiveness of Israel's martyrdom rhetoric.

The rhetoric also serves to lessen the blame for Israel's war crimes. By constantly referencing the Holocaust, Netanyahu has been able to stretch the interpretation of Israel’s “right to defend itself” far beyond what would otherwise be possible. The vicious but limited attack by Hamas on Israel has now become accepted as justification for Israel attack on the entire population of Gaza. Tolerance for Israeli atrocities is particularly strong in the United States, where the Jewish martyrdom rhetoric is most effective. Europeans are less naive, but they have so far been unwilling to jeopardise bilateral relations with the US over Gaza. Result: Israel's atrocities continue with impunity.

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The great irony in Israel's use of martyrdom to commit atrocities in Gaza is that it is now creating large numbers of fresh martyrs among the Palestinians. Remember the three conditions for effective martyrdom; innocent victims, horrible deaths, and population-level trauma. All these conditions are satisfied in Gaza. In fact, extremist Zionists are even calling for Gaza to be entirely annexed by Israel and US President Donald Trump has called for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza. This is the stuff of dreams for Palestinian martyr peddling politicians.

Israel has already created enough fresh Palestinian martyrs for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people to continue for many more decades. Israel has thus condemned itself to be viewed as a pariah nation in large part of the world for years to come, with the result that Israelis will continue to be regarded as personas non grata in many countries.

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Martyrdom manifest itself in different ways depending on levels of income and education as well as the importance of religion. Young men from poor and badly educated backgrounds are generally more likely to join an army and go fight than young men from richer and educated communities. Thus, Israel prefers to use martyrs from the past (mainly Holocaust victims), while Islamic fundamentalist groups prefer contemporary martyrs, that is, people who sacrifice themselves in real time. It gets progressively more difficult to convince people to martyr themselves as countries get wealthier, more democratic, and less religious, because the opportunity cost rises.

Hamas fighters in Gaza - some of them will blow themselves up to become martyrs (Source: see here)

Islamic fundamentalist groups tend to exist in operate in societies with many oppressed, badly educated, very religious, and poor people. Israeli fundamentalists less so, although Israel has its fair share of fanatical religious extremists, who play a critical part of Netanyahu's government coalition. Yet, even the most zealous Zionists are less willing to offer themselves as martyrs than Palestinians, because they are too rich.

Orthodox Israelis with guns - none of them are keen to blow themselves up to become martyrs (Source: see here).

In fact, the unwillingness of Israelis to die for Israel is so strong that Israel goes a very long way to avoid its soldiers dying or becoming prisoners. And when it occasionally happens anyway Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to get its soldiers back, including agreeing to prisoner swaps in which hundreds of Palestinians are freed for very small numbers of Israelis. Israel's fear of contemporary martyrdom also explains why Israel uses such extreme and indiscriminate weapons in its war against Hamas. It bombs densely built-up areas with many civilians in preference to sending in foot soldiers to avoid risking its own soldiers' lives. Most Israelis would simply not accept a military strategy that required many Israelis to die on the streets of Gaza.

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It is not just Islamic fundamentalists, the Netanyahu government, and other actively warring parties, who exploit martyrdom for political purposes. Martyrdom is ubiquitous in Western culture, although many of us barely notice. How many Danes, for example, have ever given thought to the fact that the image that adorns the inner sleeve of Danish passports depicts a martyr being tortured to death on the cross (picture below)?

The inner sleeve of a Danish passport shows a martyr being tortured to death. (Source: own photo).

The cross is Christianity’s most potent symbol - and it is a martyr image. Many of the finest paintings in the world were financed by churches and therefore frequently depict martyrdom, including Caravaggio's masterpiece below. There is probably not a single church in the US or Europe, which does not glorify the cross, ideally with a writhing Jesus nailed to the wooden beams.

The crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio (Source: see here)

Perhaps you, the reader, are wearing a crucifix pendant around your neck as you read these words? If so, remember the jewellery with which you currently adorn yourself is an instrument of torture. Few, if any, can truly claim not to be under the spell of martyrdom, one of the darkest sides of culture.

The End