The science behind Isil’s savagery

In the wake of David Haines’ beheading, we have republished this piece
explaining why Isil carry out their atrocities

As Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria butcher thousands of “infidels”
and carry off their women and children into slavery, many in the West are
inclined to see this as an unique outcrop of Islamic fundamentalism. Yet
after overrunning a Bosnian town on 11th July 1995, Bosnian Serb –
ostensibly Christian – forces, cold-bloodedly massacred 8,000 Bosnian
Muslims at Srebrenica. Hutu genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda, Khmer Rouge
mass-murder of Cambodian city-dwellers, Nazi genocide of Jews, Gypsies and
the disabled…. the list of savagery is as long as it is profoundly
depressing.

What, then are the origins of savagery, if they cannot be ascribed to a single
religion or ideology?

1 – Savagery begets savagery

^{Prisoners at Auschwitz: but some of the cruellest guards were prisoners
themselves}

The first part of an answer may be horribly simple: savagery begets savagery.
Callousness, aggression and lack of empathy are common
responses by people who have been harshly treated themselves. In the
Nazi concentration camps, for instance, many of the cruellest guards were
themselves prisoners – the notorious “kapos”. Sexually abused children –
particularly males – are more likely to go on to become sexual abusers
themselves as adults, although
the majority do not. Victims, in other words, often respond to trauma by
themselves becoming victimisers.

2 – Submersion in the Group

^{Isis fighters capture a Syrian army base}

But victim becoming victimiser is not the only explanation for savagery. When
the State breaks down, and with it law and order and civic society, there is
only one recourse for survival – the group. Whether defined by religion,
racial, political, tribal or clan – or for that matter by the brute
dominance of a gang-leader – survival depends on the mutual security offered
by the group.

War bonds people together in their groups and this bonding assuages some of
the terrific fear and distress the individual feels when the state breaks
down. It also offers self-esteem to people who feel humiliated by their loss
of place and status in a relatively ordered society. To the extent that this
happens, then individual and group identities partially merge and the
person’s actions become as much a manifestation of the group as of the
individual will. When this happens, people can do terrible things they would
never have imagined doing otherwise: individual conscience has little place
in an embattled, warring group, because the individual and group selves are
one so long as the external threat continues. It is groups which are capable
of savagery, much more than any individual alone.

You can see it in the faces of the young male Islamic State militants as they
race by on their trucks, black flags waving, broad smiles on their faces,
clenched fists aloft, fresh from the slaughter of infidels who would not
convert to Islam. What you can see is a biochemical high from a combination
of the bonding hormone oxytocin and the dominance hormone testosterone. Much
more than cocaine or alcohol, these natural drugs lift mood, induce optimism
and energise aggressive action on the part of the group. And because the
individual identity has been submerged largely into the group identity, the
individual will be much more willing to sacrifice himself in battle – or
suicide bombing, for that matter. Why? – Because if I am submerged in the
group, I live on in the group even if the individual “me”, dies.

When people bond together, oxytocin levels rise in their blood, but a
consequence of this is a
greater tendency to demonise and de-humanise the out-group. That is the
paradox of selfless giving to your in-group – it makes it easier for you to
anaesthetise your empathy for the out-group and to see them as objects. And
doing terrible things to objects is fine because they are not human.

3 – The out-group as objects

^{The revered (Shia) Askari mosque in 2006, after (Sunni) al-Qaeda blew it
up}

But here is one daunting fact as we contemplate the Sunni-Shia carnage in Iraq
and Syria: in-group tribalism is strengthened – and loathing for the
out-group correspondingly increased – where religion defines the groups.
Even when aggression against the other group is self-destructive – as we can
see so tragically across the Middle East – religiously-based groups
advocated a degree of aggression against their opponents which
was absent in non-religiously defined groups.

4 – Revenge

^{Isis militants apparently leading away captured Iraqi soldiers in Tikrit}

Revenge, which is a strong value in Arab culture, may play a part in
perpetuating the savagery. Of course vengeful retaliation for savagery
begets more savagery in a never-ending cycle. But more, while revenge is a
powerful motivator, it is also a deceiver, because the evidence is that
taking revenge on someone, far from quelling the distress and anger which
drives it, actually
perpetuates and magnifies it.

5 – Leaders

^{Shakir Wahiyib is a feared enforcer for the Islamic State who does not
cover up his face in videos of his killings}

Finally, people will do savage things if their leaders tell them it is
acceptable to do so, particularly if they have given their selves to the
group self. The Rwandan genocide was switched on by a series of radio
broadcasts by a small group of leaders to a population who, by that
instruction, were turned into savage murderers of former friends and
neighbours who were in the out-group. The soldiers of the Soviet army
committed mass rape as they invaded Germany in 1945 because senior
commanders had advocated it. Islamic State fighters are slaughtering unarmed
Christians and Yazidis because their leaders have told them that this is the
right thing to do.

Leaders at many levels from the tribe to the country, are responsible for this
savagery, and so leaders can eventually stop it – just as they chose to do
in Rwanda, after international pressure. But the trouble is, as we have
seen, when leaders choose to encourage savagery, not quell it, there is
nothing hard-wired into human beings to stand up against it.

Ian Robertson is Professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin and was
the founding director of Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience

IS: ‘world’s richest terror group’ – in 60 seconds