Preliminary reports have listed a suspect for the supposed “mastermind” of the attacks on Paris. Were it a recent Syrian immigrant, the analysis could fit on a single Tweet. As a friend of a friend humorously summarized it on Facebook: “Marine Le Pen should buy an hour of air time on French TV, smoke a cigarette, and just stare at the camera and shrug.” People from a foreign land devoted to a foreign religion would make intuitive sense for perpetrators of this kind of attack. The 9/11 attacks were carried out by these kinds of people, after all. And that is not to say that is not the bulk of ISIS’ current makeup. But ISIS and their allies are rooted to the lands they occupy and their adjacent territories. 9/11 being a notable exception, exporting jihad is not a common occurrence. One could make an argument that it doesn’t fit ISIS’ profile (see Graeme Wood’s take on the organization).
Yet the attacks did occur. The profile of the ringleader (again, preliminary) is that of a second generation immigrant raised in Belgium. His parents were from Morocco and effectively non-religious. They were nominally Muslim, but apparently didn’t attend mosque, perhaps the functional equivalent of a Chreaster. The family seems to be middle class, and the man appeared to have gone to a good school. He was young–a Millennial, as all the hip magazines would put it–only 27. His older sister works as a professional of some kind, lives in a wealthier area of town, and doesn’t even wear a veil. He attended a college, a Catholic one at that, but dropped out.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/abdelhamid-abaaoud-suspected-mastermind-of-paris-terror-attacks
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/europe/belgium-confronts-the-jihadist-danger-within.html?_r=0
This guy, this kid, was effectively an agnostic who converted to Islam. He didn’t grow up saturated in hard-line fundamentalism in a foreign country, he grew up in a spiritually apathetic Western household. He went to Syria after dropping out of college and signed up for ISIS. He wasn’t coerced, it wasn’t the only life he ever knew, he sought it out. Why? I have my own hunch, which I’ll share, but considering that my insight may not be brilliant, at least recognize that the above are apparently the facts of this case, regardless of the “why”. If we’re going to speculate, I think it’s an interesting profile, one that I’m not sure many people were anticipating.
Although counterintuitive, this profile still makes a fair amount of sense. If I may brag, I called for a bet the night of the attacks that the guy would be a second generation resident of the area. Maybe it was just a lucky guess on my part, but here was my hunch for the psych profile: this kind of attack, while explainable by fundamentalist religious motivations, is also explainable by narcissistic tendencies. What causes someone like the suspect to join a cause like ISIS is someone who doesn’t know how they are, someone insecure with themselves, who “knows” they are important but then can’t square that with the fact that objectively they aren’t–that is, the rest of the world doesn’t see them that way.
The question of who we are and what our purpose is is the fundamental concern of man. We answer this in various ways with religion. When Nietzsche noted that “God is dead”, he wasn’t excited about this, he was deeply worried. God answers these questions for us. Without Him, we are left to our own devices, and that’s going to cause us a lot of psychological stress to say the least. Religion may be silly, but it can be a major anchor of psychological stability. Since the Enlightenment, the West has been dealing with this adjustment. There are things that can hold our psychic attention. Family is the big one. Work and hobbies often suffice for others. Alcohol and other chemical substances are another, although less recommended by doctors. My flippancy aside, it is a rather serious quandary. The existential pressure we put on people today is massive. You can be anything, we’re told. Anything is a hell of a thing to live up to. What happens when we don’t make it? When we don’t meet our expectations? Well, we can change our expectations and take solace in what we have, or… What? Anger? Pain? There’s no terror like the terror born from the realization of your own impotence.
The NY Times quotes him briefly, and the lines are revealing. The answer on the English test would be about how he feels that Muslims are mistreated, and his emotions are all punctuated by religious rhetoric. But this is all fluff, diversion. Here’s the money shot: “Are you satisfied with the life you lead, a humiliating life…?” This is not the pleading of a man who is secure in his faith in God, it is the timorous worry of a man who does not know who he is or what to do with his life. He was supposed to be anything, but people see him as nothing. Nothingness is tough. Kierkegaard took one solid look into the Abyss and said “Fuck that!” and went back to church. But our suspect? He had no church. And when he looked for one in his home, he came up wanting. He’s a stranger in a strange land. Catholics at his college couldn’t hook him. He looked to his parents for guidance, but they had no real church to speak of either. He had his heritage: Islam. He had no real spiritual connection to it, but the idea of a spiritual connection is what seduced him. The religion is, in a sense, a fetish object. The jihad of ISIS, the effort to rebuild, to resurrect the Caliphate: this was a purpose he could latch onto, that something beyond ourselves we all need to feel like we matter, to get us through the day. He went to Syria and basked in the purpose. He was a good fit too. He boasted about how he could operate without the authorities catching him. “I believe I’m better than most people”, I think is what a narcissism personality inventory would ask him to rate on a scale of 1-5.
He didn’t find solace in his work, his hobbies, his family. He didn’t turn his frustrations inward into self-loathing and alcoholism. He channeled this fear and embarrassment of his perceived impotence into rage. And he recruited others to the cause. If I were a betting man–and I am!–I would wager the people he signed up may have been in a similar boat.