Martyrdom and Sacrifice in a Time of Terror

• Autores: Mark Juergensmeyer
• Localización: Social research: An international quarterly of the social sciences, ISSN 0037-783X, Nº. 2, 2008 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Denial), págs. 417-434
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In an interview Dr. Abdul Aziz Rantisi, the political head of the Hamas movement in Palestine, objected to my use of the term “suicide bombers” to describe his young colleagues in Hamas who chose to blow themselves up in acts of violence against Israel (Rantisi, 1998). His concern was the idea that their acts were done idiosyncratically or thoughtlessly. He preferred to think of them as “self-chosen martyrs,” soldiers in a great war who diligently and reverently gave up their lives for the sake of their community and their religion. I have seen some of the videotapes taken of the young men the night before their deaths, and they indicated that these tragic foot soldiers for Hamas thought of themselves in just that way—as martyrs. They were trying not to avoid life but to fulfill it in what they considered to be an act ofboth personal and social redemption. In this way they were connecting a contempo rary political strategy to a sacred history of martyrdom and sacrifice