Suicide bombers and institutional racism

I was delighted with the recent stand taken by the College President on institutional racism in British psychiatry (Psychiatric Bulletin, April 2003, 27, 155). There was a similarly strong reaction to an article by Hickling and Hutchinson (Psychiatric Bulletin, March 1999, 23, 132–134), on ‘Roast Breadfruit psychosis’, which though appearing on the surface to be harmless and scientific, had the inevitable effect of causing significant offence to a specific minority group by equating the normal phenomenon of identity confusion in this racial group with psychosis or madness.

I was shocked, therefore, to read Dr Gordon's piece on the suicide bomber (Psychiatric Bulletin, August 2002, 26, 285–287), and the more recent editorial in the British Journal of Psychiatry on suicide terrorism (Salib, 2003). Attempting at all to debate and medicalise such an obviously political issue is, in my view, an example of the denigration by association of specific minority groups. Discussing psychiatric aspects of suicide bombers with madness and such insinuations is offensive. In the article, Dr Gordon quite skilfully weaves a weakly-disguised thread of associations linking the suicide bomber, through terrorism, and a focus on the Arab and Muslim origins of suicide bombers, to the horror of 11 September, weapons of mass destruction and potential global destruction. I would contend that such views, even if offered in the form of scientific or philosopical debate, are aggressive and racially provocative, insofar as they inevitably leave the minority group readership with a counter-transference of having been abused or undermined.

One cannot help but question the role of the Bulletin and its naïvety in allowing itself to be unwittingly ‘hijacked’ in this way. After all, the issue of suicide bombers, or Roast Breadfruit psychosis, can hardly be said to be of significant relevance to everyday clinical practice. Indeed verbal denigration has been identified as the initial stage in a behavioural pathway leading to violence against minority groups (Hayes, 1994). I wonder if perhaps the publication of this and similar articles reflects something of an increasingly blatant right-wing agenda, which is becoming visible not just in the UK, but across Europe.

Dr Shooter is right. Institutions have a collective responsibility to uphold, and publish those values and opinions that are wholesome and non-discriminatory. And so have all of us.