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Dr. Sadeq's Answer
By Robert J.
Loewenberg, IASPS President
MEMRI is one of several analysis and
translation services about the Mideast. In this
present translation of two separate utterances, from a
newspaper and the Iqraa TV channel, a Dr. Sadeq calls
President Bush "you stupid idiot, you basest man
in the world." Our president does not see
that "Sharon is a criminal murderer..."
while Dr. Sadeq who speaks "as a
professional psychiatrist" clearly sees "the
height of bliss." It is what comes of a
non-criminal murder which is that of one's self in
order to kill (but not to murder) others; Jews.
As a scholar or student of what is least accessible to
sensible experience, this Egyptian psychiatrist tells
us that when a person "dies a martyr's
death" he achieves certitude about life. It all
"comes with the end of the countdown....[when]
you press the button to blow yourself up. When the
martyr reaches 'one,' and then 'boom,' he explodes,
and senses himself flying, ...he knows for certain
that he is not dead....It is a transition to another,
more beautiful world." How can a human being know
for certain that he is alive when he is dead and his
self has been blown to bits by him"self"
when "certainty" about death is the very
thing men never have had? But this psychiatrist says
he has this certainty -when he is still alive as a
self in the normal way. What is the meaning of this
puzzle? Should we dismiss the doctor as a terrorist in
speech?
It would not be much of a task to hold this individual
up to ridicule or to opprobrium, as it were the verbal
form of terror and the wish to destroy. The savagery
is certainly there, and the hatred, especially of
limits. But others will do this. It's not important.
Still, it would be a mistake to dismiss this
commentary as only venom and wild shrieking. Beneath
it all there is coherence and clarity. It's much worth
understanding.
First of all, in glorifying self-murder and the murder
of people, especially of every single Jew by Arab
Palestinians, "as long as there is even a single
Palestinian left," it's plain we are not
listening to a non-Western man. For in fact in
describing the highest bliss, brought about by the
highest possible murder which is that of a single Arab
self, we are being told why every single Jew must be
killed (not murdered). The Jews are the people of ego
or selves. The Arabs are the people of life; who
"die...so that others would live." Other
Arabs. That is, it tells us the answer to the question
which is asked by people in the West or "why do
they hate us."
The answer is simplicity itself. They hate us because
we are alive. Moreover, this hate of us is justified
in self-murder, "those who sacrifice their
souls." How is this? Someone, "an individual
who loves life" is alone capable of the highest
bliss that comes from self-murder in killing Jews for
whom such "concepts do not exist." There is
no contradiction here. Dr. Sadeq understands this all
"may seem strange to people who see the human
soul as most sublime." It is most sublime only
when certitude is more sublime. Certitude is what
comes who one goes "'boom,'...explodes and senses
himself flying, because he knows for certain that he
is not dead." In sum only "those who
sacrifice their souls" have certitude about
death.
Dr. Sadeq's comments are not incoherent or illogical
and surely they are not immoral where morality means
how one should live with respect to the most important
aims of existence: one's self and society. If Arabs
are assured of a certitude about being alive only when
they are dead in an act of suicide bombing, or which
is to say that being in existence as a person and with
respect to other persons or society comes about in
self-murder (un-selfishness as brought about by the
sacrifice of one's own soul for the society which
exists to itself bring about this larger truth for
every other "self"), then Dr. Sadeq is a
soul doctor indeed.
What seems gibberish or close to it is a primitive or
raw presentation of Nihilism. But this is what prompts
the West's political intellectuals to ask: Why do they
hate us? Islamic terrorist societies and culture is an
experience of existence as certitude by way of murder
of the self. Communism. Nazism. And the ism that
stands between these two as a point stands between a
line.
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