The face of Jesus Christ in agony on his way to martyrdom. Catedral basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, Zaragoza, Spain (Source: own photo).
Culture first emerged as a way to make sense of the world before the arrival of science (see here). Early cultures evolved in different directions, because of geographical isolation and differences in the natural environment.
As human population expanded, cultures came into contact more frequently, leading to conflict due to the powerful interplay which exists between culture and politics (see here). Cultural differences, it turned out, could easily exploited for political gain, because of a fundamental asymmetry between most people's intimate understanding of their own culture and their almost non-existent understanding of other cultures. Most dark manifestations of culture - see here - can be attributed to this asymmetry.
Martyrdom is one of many manifestations of the dark side of culture. It is a time-honoured practice encouraged by politicians (or other people in positions of power, such as religious leaders) to garner support for causes championed by the powerful.
The purpose of this blog post is to explain the politics of martyrdom and to illustrate - with reference to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza - how martyrdom is exploited just as much today as in the past, even in very sophisticated societies, such as Israel.
Martyrdom arises when four conditions are satisfied: You need a willing martyr, a group of people to whom the martyr belongs, a defined external enemy, and a live conflict between the martyr's group and that external enemy. The martyr is an individual (or sometimes a group of individuals), who dies - willingly or unwillingly - at the hands of the external enemy for a cause or a belief widely shared by the martyr's group.
Since these ingredients can be found in most conflicts it is not wonder that martyrdom has occurred countless times in the history of human strife.
A martyr attains heroic status posthumously by paying the ultimate price for defending or advancing the interests of his or her group. Posthumous heroism is maximised when the external party is superior in strength and brutish in nature. The combination of strength and brutishness confers the impression of moral and intellectual inferiority onto the external party, while the martyr - through self-sacrifice - attains attributes of bravery and moral and intellectual superiority.
Martyrdom is extremely useful from a political perspective because of the sharp contrast in perceptions of the martyr and the external enemy, especially in the context of conflicts between groups from different cultures. Organisations that exercise leadership within individual cultures, such as governments or churches, recognise the value of martyrdom. Therefore, they cultivate martyrs as role models within their respective cultures. It is entirely unsurprising that martyrdom thus mostly emerges in the context of religious or political conflicts.
But how exactly does martyrdom bestow political benefits upon those in power?
Put simply, the sacrifice of a heroic and moral and intelligent person for a cause elevates the cause; the cause attains greater moral legitimate, is seen as more just, and therefore also more worth aspiring to for lesser members of the group. Martyrdom operates as an instrument of control by way of example (the martyr’s sacrifice) to strengthen support for causes or myths that underpin governments and churches. 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).
The words "The Glorious Dead" adorn the side of the Cenotaph Wall Memorial in Whitehall, London (Source: here)
Yet, not all martyrs are born equal. The effectiveness of a martyr from a political perspective depends on several factors of which the following three are probably the most important:
First, voluntary deaths are strongly preferable to involuntary ones, although martyrdom is still possible when deaths are involuntary. Involuntary deaths are particularly useful when the victims are innocent. The victims of 9/11 clearly did not volunteer to die, but they have still become useful martyrs for an American version of freedom (and their martyrdom was immediately exploited as 'justification' for the US invasion Iraq, where more than 500,000 people were killed even though Iraq was never even involved in 9/11). The unwilling victims of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar in 1919, all of whom died at the hands of the British, also became involuntary yet important martyrs for the cause of Indian independence. Gordon’s death in Khartoum on 26 January 1885 made him an instant martyr for the British Empire. It does not really matter whether he had any choice in the manner of his demise.
Even New Yorkers took to flag waving in the immediate aftermath of the martyrdom of 9/11 (Source: here)
Second, it is highly desirable as far as political effectiveness is concerned that martyrs die as harrowing deaths as possible. The worse the horror the more powerful the emotional response. Extreme violence is useful, because it induces traumas that are difficult to erase from the memory and challenging to rationalise. Hence, when left untreated such traumas can be relied upon by politicians to deliver distorted reactions to events and violent emotional upheavals when the right triggers are pulled, even long after the martyr has perished.
Sicilian Saint Agatha looks to the heavens as she is martyred and has both her breasts cut off (Source: here)
Third, martyrdom is more effectively weaponised for political ends when the trauma caused by the martyr's demise is not solely experienced by an individual, but rather by the entire group. When very large numbers of people are traumatised by an episode of martyrdom the trauma becomes a collective trauma. Unlike individual traumas, collective traumas are especially susceptible to exploitation for political purposes, because they invoke powerful reactions in many people at the same time. As such, they can be used to corral people for or against certain causes.
Let me illustrate these rather abstract concepts with reference to a real life present-day example. The trauma in question is the Holocaust committed by Nazis against European Jews during World War II. The political entity exploiting this trauma today is the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu in order to manage reactions to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Let us first review the original trauma. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered six million Jews across German-occupied Europe. Due to the extreme barbarity of the Nazis, the trauma of the Holocaust has survived long after the atrocity itself. Not only do survivors of the Holocaust still suffer from their direct exposure to the trauma, every Jewish person alive today does so too. In fact, the horrors of the Holocaust are so widely disseminated in schools, the media, museums, and elsewhere that millions of people - even those who are neither Israeli citizens nor regard themselves as members of Jewish culture - have been traumatised to various degrees [1].
Institutions like the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. have done much to spread awareness about the genocide committed by Nazis against European jews during World War II (Source: See here).
The Netanyahu government is exploiting this trauma today for political purposes in the context of the Gaza conflict. Netanyahu's twin objectives are to vilify Palestinians and to minimise the fallout from Israel's genocide against civilians in Gaza. He seeks to achieve these two objectives by exploiting the associations that arise in the minds of millions of people in Israel and around the world whenever Israel is attacked.
Due to the profound and widely known trauma of the Holocaust, it is impossible for anyone who attacks Israel not instantly and on a deep emotional level to become associated with the Nazis, or, at a minimum, with some form of anti-Semitism. By implication, Palestinians are cast as villains with association to the Nazis.
Yet, the association between Nazism/anti-Semitism and Palestinians has no basis in the real world. Not a single Palestinian alive today had anything whatsoever to do with the Holocaust. Nazism ended in 1945 and those who were actively involved in perpetrating the Holocaust are for the most part long dead. In fact, most Palestinians in Gaza did not even have anything to do with the attack on Israel on 7 October. Their only “crime” is to live in a territory that happens to contain within it an organisation (Hamas) that recently attacked and killed more than 1,200 Israelis. Yet, the emotion association created between Nazis and the Palestinians makes it easier to justify Netanyahu's barbarity against Palestinians.
Netanyahu is also exploiting associations with the Holocaust in order to lessen blame when Israeli forces commit war crimes. Netanyahu understands that by casting Israel as victim, he immediately evokes strong emotional associations with the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. This association further amplifies the sense of indignity at the Hamas attack, which in turn enables Netanyahu to stretch the interpretation of Israel’s “right to defend itself” far beyond what would otherwise be acceptable. In other words, the vicious but limited Hamas attack on Israel has already become accepted in many quarters as a legitimate reason for Israel to attack the entire population of Gaza (as opposed to just Hamas) and to do so with extreme prejudice.
In short, the association with the Holocaust allows Israel to act with near impunity. The tolerance for Israeli atrocities is particularly strong in the United States, the most powerful nation in the world. The martyrdom association to the Holocaust has undoubtedly enabled Israel to get away with killing and maiming far more people in Gaza than most other nations would have been able to get away with. The importance of the alliance with the US is further strengthened by the fact that America's allies in Europe and elsewhere generally do not want to jeopardise their bilateral relations with the US over Gaza. And so the plight of a small marginalised people like the Palestinians is allowed to continue.
Yet, martyrdom can cut both ways. By now, the Israeli atrocities have become so extreme that the Palestinians are attaining martyr status. Remember the three conditions for effective martyrdom. The vast majority of killed or maimed Palestinians are clearly involuntary victims. Most are dying horrible deaths, including torture, starvation, and indiscriminate killings using modern weapons. And an entire population of people are being victimised by Israel. In fact, extremist zionists are now calling for Israel to annex parts or all of Gaza. By ow, any objective observer can clearly see parallels here with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 (see here) and Hitler's desire for 'Lebensraum'.
The numbers speak for themselves. Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis on 7 October. In response, as of early 2024, the Israelis have displaced 85% of Gaza's population of 2 million (for the US government's estimate of Gaza's population see here). In addition, Israeli forces have so far killed twenty times as many Palestinians as the number of Israelis murdered on 7 October. Most of dead are women and children with zero involvement in the 7 October attacks. And Israel is on record saying that the campaign against Hamas will continue for many more months (see here).
In my mind, Israel has created so many Palestinian martyrs that the conflict is now certain to continue for many more decades. Israel will continue to be viewed by many as a barbaric pariah nation, and Israelis will continue to be persona non grata in many countries.
Yet, the Israeli martyrdom card is still far more powerful than the Palestinian one. Those who dare to accuse Israel of genocide in public often find themselves under attack and accused of anti-Semitism. The charges of genocide against Israel warrant, at a minimum, examination in the International Court of Justice due to the weight of evidence available, including public statements by Israeli officials and extremely well-documented attacks on civilian targets (see here).
So far, only South Africa, which has a special moral status on account of its history of Apartheid, is pointing the torch of justice at Israel. This is because the deliberately strategy of linking criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza with anti-Semitism is casting those who criticise Israel in the same camp as those who attacked Israel and those who perpetrated the genocide against Jews in the Holocaust.
No one seems to see that Israel's position today in no way bears any resemblance to the vulnerability of Jews in Europe in the 1940s. Israel has by far the most effective military in the Middle East and it is strongly backed by the United States.
Today, it is the Palestinians who are the vulnerable party. They are poor and poorly armed. They can count only on mostly moral support from countries like Iran and Houthi rebels in Yemen as well as other fundamentalist Islamic groups.
Martyrdom tends to manifest itself differently depending on levels of income and education as well as the importance of religion. Israel’s preferred martyrs hail from the past (mainly Holocaust victims), while the martyrs of Islamic fundamentalist groups tend to be 'fresh', that is, people who sacrifice themselves in real time. This difference reflects the fact that it generally becomes more and more difficult to convince people to become martyrs the wealthier, more democratic, and less religious they get [2].
Hamas fighters in Gaza - some of them will blow themselves up to become martyrs (Source: see here)
Islamic fundamentalist groups make far greater use of contemporary (living) martyrs than Israel, because Islamic fundamentalist groups operate in societies that are more oppressed, less well educated, more religious, and poorer than Israel.
Of course, Israel also has fanatical religious extremists, which formpart of Netanyahu's government coalition. Yet, even these superstitious zealots do not willingly agree to martyrdom, because they are too rich; the opportunity cost of death is simply too high. This is why Israel is forced to make use of dead martyrs instead. Israel simply does not have religious fanatics, who also happen to be poor and uneducated enough to want to sacrifice themselves in the name of a religious or political cause.
Orthodox Israelis with guns - none of them will blow themselves up to become martyrs (Source: see here).
In fact, the unwillingness of Israel’s soldiers to become martyrs is so strong that Israel must go a very long way to avoid any of its soldiers falling victim or becoming prisoners of war. And when this occasionally happens anyway Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to get them back, including agreeing to prisoner swaps in which hundreds of Palestinians are freed for just a single Israeli soldier.
The asymmetry reflects the elevated fear of martyrdom among living Israelis. It also explains why the hostages taken by Hamas pose such an enormous political liability for Netanyahu and indeed why Israelis will probably never forgive Netanyahu for the huge loss of Israeli lives on 7 October.
I should also mention in this context that the fear of dying a martyr's death is one of the most important reasons why Israel deploys such extreme and indiscriminate violence in its war against Hamas Bombing in densely built-up areas with many civilians will kill a lot of completely innocent people, but it will spare the lives of Israeli soldiers. Most Israelis would simply not accept any military strategy that would require Isralies to die in large numbers on the streets of Gaza.
The inner sleeve of a Danish passport shows a martyr being tortured to death. (Source: own photo).
To end this small note on martyrdom, it is worth remembering that it is not just Islamic fundamentalists, the Netanyahu government, and others like them who exploit martyrdom for political purposes. Martyrdom is so ubiquitous in Western culture that many of us barely notice. How many Danes, for example, realise that the image on the inner sleeve of their passports is that of a martyr being tortured to death on the cross (picture above)?
The crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio (Source: see here)
The cross is Christianity’s most potent symbol. Many of the finest paintings in the world have been financed by churches and they frequently depict martyrdom, including Caravaggio's painting above. 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.
Perhaps you, the reader, are even wearing a crucifix pendant around your neck as you read these words? If so, remember the jewellery with which you adorn yourself is in fact an instrument of torture. Few, if any, can truly claim not to be under the spell of martyrdom, nor indeed free from the dark sides of culture.
The End
Endnotes:
[1]: The Nazis attempted to portray Jews as a race. In fact, there is no such thing as a Jewish race. Rather, 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).
[2]: The link between income/ignorance/powerlessness and proclivity towards contemporary martyrdom is entirely universal. For example, young men from poor and badly educated backgrounds in the United States and the United Kingdom are far more likely than young men from richer and educated communities to join the army and potentially sacrifice themselves martyrs on the altar of patriotism in some foreign war.
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