Fair enough, Dave. But they’re certainly a stage or two on from…

Tonight’s headlines: this year’s quota for the wheat harvest has been met in record time.

…or even, weekend entertainment consisting of readings from the book of Turkmenbashi.

And I guess your model still has a whole bunch of border/ethnic disputes to account for that don’t end up in suicide terrorism, even though the power asymmetries involved would suggest that as a logical alternative. Aceh, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and so on.

I don’t know that my answer’s right, btw. But I am convinced that a relationship of some sort between democracy and suicide bombing exists at this point in time – and therefore, unfortunately, one too between repression and personal safety. For me the solution is one suggested in the thread above: leaders just to come out and be honest. “Hey, in any decent sort of democracy, people are going to get killed. End of story.”

HOWEVER, your model, much as it displeases me, still fits my exception of Saudi Arabia. I think you’re wrong because, now I think about it, my fundamental model of “human nature” if you will presupposes a “will to power” therefore there is always an underground waiting for overthrow the current bastards. There is rather too much evidence against this thesis. The happy reigns of Hitler and Stalin and Blair are for instances. Still. I live (“get by” may be a better phrase) in a sort of Dionysian reverie of lions rousing from sleep, and yawning to each other, “Chains, what chains?”

Not at all. Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, UK, USA, Turkey, Russia, Iraq since “liberation”, Afghanistan ditto. Then the intended targets of those suicide bombings not actually in democracies: Casablanca (Spanish/Israelis), Tunisia (German tourists), Egypt (Western tourists), Yemen (USS Cole), East Africa (US embassies). And so on.

So, if liberal democracy isn’t a necessary prerequisite, here’s a question: why in “secular Arab” despotisms that are hated by radical Islamists just as much as they hate “Western blah decadent democracy blah” haven’t there been significant numbers of suicide attacks? For me: because terrorists can move around freely in a democratic environment, but not in a repressive one. And because they need a free media for the real purposes of their attacks to be realised. Let’s face it, they’re not going to be able to kill us all off on ratios of 4:52. They need broadcast media doing their work for them – frightening people, clearing the way for authoritarian little shits like Blair, Clarke and Blair.

[Health warning: the original post wasn’t my considered opinion, just the unpleasant conclusion of a chain of logical thought.]

So Jardyce’s point is roughly: Saddam was a bastard, but the reason that he became — and remained for so long — ruler of Iraq was that a repressive bastard was actually the best option (from several very bad ones) for the country. I suspect there’s quite a lot in that. But I don’t agree with it. “That democracies have been the targets of almost all suicide terrorism lends this credibility” must be a reference to Israel, which is a democracy. But the suicide bombings are about the Occupied Territories, and Israel’s internal politics seem unlikely to affect the motives of suicide bombers. Hamas and similar organisations behave like the weaker side in border disputes/ethnic conflict everywhere, if you ask me. (OK, the suicide angle is novel.) And, as the bombers are committed to dying, the threat of torture or execution strikes me as a poor deterrent. Real repressive countries (North Korea, Syria, China, for example) can’t be relied on (because they don’t have a free press) to give accurate statistics for, er, terrorist activity. So, no, I don’t buy that Israel suffers suicide bombings because it is a democracy, while Syria doesn’t because it isn’t. I believe that repression makes things worse. (You could ask why, since Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive regimes on earth, Saudi terrorists exclusively strike other countries. And the answer is, I don’t know.)

Has anyone genuinely looked into this with serious research? Sounds like the sort of thing that sociology departments should be locking people in boxes with fake aliens to find out about. I just find it hard to believe that people wouldn’t be broadly stoical about it.

Of course, it might be political suicide to suggest that a problem is beyond you to solve, as Chatshow Charlie steps up and claims a unique insight into the mind and motivations of the terrorists and storms to an unexpected general election victory, but that’s another thing altogether.

On average, a person living in a democratic society[1] is less likely to be killed than a person living in an undemocratic one. And on the whole, the countries with the best records on human rights tend to have lower-than-average rates of homicide.

But humans don’t just die by being killed, they die from other causes too. To truely evaluate how safe people are from dying we must factor in death from all causes, and consider life expectancies. According to Nationmaster the 10 countries with the longest life expectancy (counting only countries with a population of >1 million), are: Japan, Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, Hong Kong, Canada, Italy, France, Spain.

Of these 10, only Singapore and HK aren’t democracies. All are a good deal less repressive than Baathist Iraq was.

What does this prove? That mild repression (HK or Singapore style) is no less safe than democracy. I expect both Blairs would like to see a Sinaporean or HK level of repression in Britain, i.e. the sort of place where you are safe provided you don’t criticise government policy or look like a Brazilian electrician.

Quite why they can’t just throw their hands up and admit that terrorism’s going to happen anyway, no matter what anyone does, I have no idea.

Oh, wait. Mass panic. Forgot about that one…

More that the absence of Liberty prevents terrorism. Not the same thing.