INTRODUCTION
After the incident of 9/11 American public was shocked and traumatized by it. The incident that cost many lives and implied that national defense of the country was not as strong as they thought, have stirred many controversies. The incident that was done by islamisic radicals caused many people in the United States to think about Islam and the moslem in negative way. The idea of islamophobia then emerged and developed rapidly like never before. Terrorist by John Updike is a humbling attempt to explore the socio-psychological of a fundamentalist. Despite written from American perspective, the novel managed to cover the character development journey of a terrorist.
Terrorist is the 22nd novel by John Updike, published in 2006 by Alfred A. Knopf. The story centers on Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, an American-born Muslim teenager, who is very obedient to Islam. His obedience and his mentor’s influence, Shaikh Rashid, made him hate Americans who he considered as infidels. It leads him to become a terrorist.
John Updike was born on 18 March in 1932, in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954 and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. He was a member of the staff of The New Yorker in 1955 to 1957. Further, his novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal. In 2007 he received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Updike died in January 2009.
Photo by Elti Meshau on Unsplash
The novel begins with a brief monologue by Ahmad on the condition of American youth as represented by the student body mingling in the corridors of his high school. He gets into a fight with an older boy named Tylenol who thinks Ahmad is flirting with his girlfriend Joryleen. While Ahmad has sexual impulses toward the girl, he represses them, as God instructs. Ahmad finds solace at his mosque (located in an abandoned dance studio above a bail bonds office) and in the study of the Qur'an under the guidance of his imam, Shaikh Rashid. He believes his conviction to be stronger than that of his teacher because of the Shaikh's tendency to interpret the Prophet Muhammad’s hadiths figuratively and to display traces of a skeptical mind-set.
Supporting Ahmad at home is his rather negligent mother, Teresa Mulloy, a third-generation Irish American who, while raised as a Catholic, has abandoned her religious beliefs. Because of her religious infidelity and comparative openness toward sexuality and relationships with men, she has become one of the many objects of Ahmad's hatred — although in her case she is accorded a dutiful love as well. On the other hand Ahmad idolizes his absent father, an Egyptian immigrant who abandoned him and his mother when Ahmad was three years old. Then he meet Jack Levy is the guidance counselor and former civics teacher at Ahmad's high school. He meets Ahmad through a required meeting he has with every student, and he denotes Ahmad's future with "n.c." and "l.c.", two private abbreviations that stand for "no career" and "lost cause," respectively. Over the course of the novel, Jack becomes interested in Ahmad and seeks to help him. Levy is an American Jew who has abandoned practicing his religion yet (as many characters in the novel note) still maintains the stereotypical Jewish cynicism and depression. He can be just as critical as Ahmad about American culture, but rather than viewing it in terms of distance from God he sees it as the outcome of historical events and naked greed.
Ahmad graduates high school and begins to deliver furniture for a living, much to the chagrin of his guidance counselor, Jack Levy. Over time, Ahmad accepts and even professes increasingly-radical viewpoints on the September 11th terrorist attacks and the concept of women as distracting whores. He spends time with a man named Charlie who is the nephew of Ahmad's boss at Excellency, the furniture store. Charlie reinforces Shaikh Rashid's teachings and leads Ahmad to consider taking drastic action against the society he observes as materialistic and distracted from the real questions of mankind by hurting its civilians.
For his part, Ahmad desires to become a truck driver was also on the advice of his Shaikh because driving is a practical skill of good merit whereas academic studies serve only to advance (American) secular beliefs. He is also afraid that academic studies will strengthen his occasional religious doubt. Trucking is also the path that leads Ahmad toward involvement in a terrorist plot directed against the American "infidels" (non-Muslims) — an attempt to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River.
On Sunday night , Shaikh Rashid reassured his decision is genuine act to stand up for the truth of Allah. On the planned day, even though he could not find Charlie and the crew in planned location, he continued the mission alone. On the way, he met Jack Levy that has been alerted by Hermione Fogel about the possibility of the involvement of Ahmad in terrorist attack. Jack attempted to convince him to not continuing his terrorist mission and also told him that Charlie Chehab was a CIA undercover agent and has died because the other side finally figured it out. While approached the planned location, he reconsidering his interpretation of Islam by remembering the interpretation od sura Al-Waqia. He realized that God doesn't want to destroy the world that he has made or killing the people by the terrorist mission. Finally, he and Jack rode through Manhattan to return to New Jersey.
Research Questions:
What are the manipulation tactics that is received / experienced by Ahmad?
Why is Ahmad prone to manipulation?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Etymologically, psychology comes from latin word psyche and logos which means soul and science. It is the science of behavior and experience. This behavior can be influenced by various factors such as environmental factors and factors of the individual himself. Psychology can also be described as “the science that systematically studies and attempts to explain observable behavior and its relationship to the unseen mental processes that go on inside the organism and to external events in the environment”(Kagan & Havemann, 1968:13 in Aras, 2014). Meanwhile manipulation can be defined as “the various means by which organisms influence and exploit the sense organs and behavioral machinery of other organisms” (Dawkins & Krebs, 1978; Krebs& Dawkins, 1984 in Higgins & Lauterbach, 1987).
Psychological manipulation itself is “a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through indirect, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.” (Wikipedia) This manipulation which is done by the manipulator causes the specific behavior of the victim’s specific conduct in certain matter, in accordance with own self-serving wishes of manipulator. However, Harriet B. Braiker (2004) identified the following ways that manipulators control their victims:
Positive Reinforcement
This is the basic principle of reward. If you like what someone is doing and you want to increase the frequency and consistency of the desired behaviour, you provided a reward, or positive reinforcement, for it. It also includes praise, superficial charm, superficial sympathy, excessive apologizing, money, approval, gifts, attention, facial expressions such as a forced laugh or smile, and public recognition.
Negative Reinforcement
Negative reinforcement is sometimes known as aversive conditioning—the “reward” is the avoidance or stopping of an aversive experience when the subject complies with the nasty experiment’s desires. It involves removing one from a negative situation as a reward.
Intermittent or Partial Reinforcement
Both positive and negative reinforcement can be given either a continuous and consistent basis or on an intermittent, partial, randomized, and unpredictable basis. These two schedules of reinforcement—the pattern of frequency and predictability of the reinforcement—have a great deal to do with how the mark feels about the person who is delivering the reinforcement and about the behaviour that is generating it. Partial or intermittent negative reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and doubt. Partial or intermittent positive reinforcement can encourage the victim to persist - for example in most forms of gambling, the gambler is likely to win now and again but still lose money overall.
Punishment
Punishment is used widely as disciplinary or control mechanism. Punishment generally produces erratic behaviour—sometimes the undesirable behaviour persists, and sometimes it stops temporarily, only to reappear later in the same or a different form. It includes nagging, yelling, the silent treatment, intimidation, threats, swearing, emotional blackmail, the guilt trip, sulking, crying, and playing the victim.
Traumatic One-Trial Learning
This is a method to controlling behaviour. In other words, you do not need the second experience to learn about something that can make you hurt or trauma. A terrifying traumatic experience can produce long-term and generalized effects. Further, the manipulator uses the traumatic experience to control the victim behaviour. Usually it is using verbal abuse, explosive anger, or other intimidating behavior to establish dominance or superiority; even one incident of such behavior can condition or train victims to avoid upsetting, confronting or contradicting the manipulator.
ANALYSIS
What are the manipulation tactics that is received / experienced by Ahmad?
Harriet B. Braiker’s (2004) theory of tactics that are done by manipulators to control their victims are found in Terrorist novel by John Updike.
Traumatic One-Trial Learning
This tactic emphasizes on several acts of intimidating to establish dominance or superiority such as verbal abuse or explosive anger. The manipulative figure in the novel, Shaikh Rashid, actually never showed his explosive anger to Ahmad, but his actions showed that he tried to intimidate Ahmad to establish his dominance and superiority. If he succeeds in building up his superiority to Ahmad, the boy will trust each of his words without doubting a word. The main example of an act that the Shaikh Rashid does is verbal abuse that in the form of spreading hate speech to Ahmad. The definition of hate speech as written in dictionary.com is speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. Hate speech is usually intended to demean something and is followed by the use of cruel and derogatory language on the basis of membership in a social group. It is clearly seen that the shaikh tried to brainwashing Ahmad to hates all about america and infidels in the name of islam. The hate speeches about America that is uttered by Shaikh leads Ahmad to always said that American is their enemy and have taken away their God.
“My teacher at the mosque says that all unbelievers are our enemies, . The prophet said that eventually all unbelievers must be destroyed.”(p.68)
The other example of how his teacher attempts to build up his superiority is that he sat on the high-backed chair to augmented his height. It is shown in the excerpt “...it was strange for Ahmad, as two of them stood close together in collusion, to feel how much taller he had become than his master, who during Quran lessons augmented his height with that high-backed chair the silver threads”(p.266). As we realized that the more high or big the body of the people , he will easily dominates his opponents. The other fact is that the higher people can be preferred to be leaders. This is supported by Social Science Quarterly journal , Dr Murray asked 467 college students to give a picture of an ideal national figure and almost 64% from them portrayed a leader that more height than the citizen. In this case, Shaikh Rashid doesn't have a tall body but he decisive it by sit in high-chair to dominate Ahmad.
All intimidation from such manipulators can condition or train victims to avoid anger, confrontation or contradiction with manipulators. One day, Ahmad does not agree with what his teacher said but rather than contradicts him, he just agree. It is proved in the quote “....but, knowing that any qualification or sigs of further argumentation would anger his teacher, responded, ''No.'' (p.77)Positive Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement is the addition of a reward following a desired behavior. In this novel, it shows that Shaikh Rashid cares about Ahmad by often advising him on things that he considers good and bad, and also giving him some money to buy books. This is one of his tactics to make Ahmad trust him even more.
“... Ahmad studies the Commercial Driver’s License Home Study Course booklets, four of them, each stapled together. Shaiks Rashid helped him send away to Michigan for them writing the check for $89.50 on the mosque account.” (p. 73-74)
Then, he leads Ahmad to have the same thoughts with him by conveying something with beautiful and subtle words. It causes Shaikh Rashid can make an agreement with Ahmad and promising him an award—obtaining heaven. He assures Ahmad that heaven can be obtained instantly if he detonates a bomb with himself in the Lincoln Tunnel to exterminate Americans who they consider as infidels.
“The imam shuts his eyes again as in a holy trance, his closed lids shuddering with the pulse of the capillaries within them. His voice emerges from his mouth cogently, however. "Your translation to Paradise would be instant," he states. "Your family-your mother-would receive compensation, i'dla, for her loss, even though she is an unbeliever. The beauty of her son's sacrifice may perhaps persuade her to convert. All things are possible with Allah." (p. 235)
Negative reinforcement
Negative reinforcement is a term described by B. F. Skinner in his theory of operant conditioning. In negative reinforcement, a response or behavior is strengthened by stopping, removing, or avoiding a negative outcome or aversive stimulus. This act is used by Shaikh Rasshid by asking Ahmad to become a truck driver Instead of supporting Ahmad to continue his studies. He was afraid if Ahmad continues his study he would doubt his believe in Allah. He also told Ahmad that the Academic Study would only advance America, the country they hate. When Mr Levy, a counselor at New Prospect High School, asked him whether or not his teacher suggests that a bright boy like him a variety of viewpoints in a diverse and tolerant society like America. Then, Ahmad told that his teacher never suggest it and said that such a relativist approaches trivializes religion. In this case to be a truck driver is the negative reinforce to avoid a negative impact of academic study according Shaikh Rashid.
The other negative reinforcement is when Ahmad agrees to involved in bombing plotting that has been planned by Mr Rashid. As we know that his master is really hate American way that considered by them as infidels. His master wants to destroy american that they think wants to avoid them from jihad. The bombing plotting that has been planned is considered as jihad by Mr.Rashid. This bombing plotting is obviously the negative reinforcement that is done by Shaikh Rashid to Ahmad . He manipulates Ahmad by saying that its the golden way to meet Allah and he won't feel the pain because in that moment he has with allah.
“You will not be there to experience it, you will already be in jannah, in a paradise, at that instant, confronting the delighted face of God. He will greet you as his son.” (p. 237)
Intermittent Reinforcement
As stated in Alleydog.com's online glossary, in behaviorism, Intermittent Reinforcement is a conditioning schedule in which a reward or punishment (reinforcement) is not administered every time the desired response is performed. Intermittent reinforcement patterns greatly affect how quickly the operant response is studied, what is the rate of operation at a certain time, and how long it continues when reinforcement is no longer done. In this way Shaikh Rashid intends to remind Ahmad about the existence of jannah and hell. If people want to become the part of Jannah he must always in sirotol mustaqim. In order to achieve the eternal paradise, Ahmad can't follow the style of American society that is materialistic and hedonistic which seems to have no god. He has to follow the islam rule that has been exlained by his imam for isntance to pray 5 times a day, not in psysical contact with the opposite sex, or read the Quran and the interpretation. This reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and doubt that is portrayed in the novel his closed characteristic on how Ahmad really hate American style that he considered as hedonist and materialistic which can take away God from him side. Furthermore, if the reinforcement is positive , the victim will persist in his goals.
“But the Quran says there is no comfort but for those who believe in the unseen Paradise and who observe the injunction to pray five times a day, which the Prophet brought back to earth after the night journey on Buraq`a broad, blazingly white back.”(p.10)
Why is Ahmad prone to manipulation?
The reasons why Ahmad is prone manipulated can be seen through both external and internal factors. External factors are the factors that are not occur from within the individual itself, but are usually caused by the environmental conditions experienced by victims, while internal factors are more likely caused by the personality traits or geneticas factors that can ``t control over and the condition of the family they have had since the victim was a child.
Actually between the internal or external factors are related to each other. The internal factors is from his character that closed to the world. While, external factors why Ahmad is easily manipulated can be observed by the view of how is his relation with other people like his classmates or co workers and the environment around him. Obviously, Ahmad doesn't have a best friend when he was in school caused his closed characters(internal Factor). Moreover, he is seldom talk to her mother . This leads him just rely on his teacher that actually is a good manipulator, Sheikh Rashid. Because since young (11years old) he most often communicate with the sheikh, he makes the teacher as his main source of information. He seldom watch television , even he stated that the entertainment on television is destructive “Infidels, they think safety lies in accumulation of the things of this world, and in the corrupting diversions of the television set. They are slaves to images, false ones of happiness and affluence. But, even true images are sinful imitation of God, who can alone create.”(p.2) He just watch television to look for traces of Allah in America and all about Islam things. His closeness to the world, to the people around him and even his mother or the closeness to the television cause him to lack information about the real world he lived in. He failed to distinguish between true and false information because he was already closed to the world.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the manipulation tactics that is received by Ahmad are intimidating act, verbal abuse in hate speech, positive reinforcement like giving him advice and attention, manipulated him to hate something used beautiful and subtle words.
Ahmad is easily manipulated because of the lack of information about the world that is caused bad communication relation with his mother since he was a child..
REFERENCES
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Buss, David M, and Mary Gomes. “Journal of Personality and Psychology.” Tactics of Manipulation, vol. 52, no. 6, 1987, pp. 1219–1229., https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/2015/09/tactics_of_manipulation_1987_jpsp.pdf.
“Psychological Manipulation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Nov. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation.
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