Suicide Bombers

Many would agree that suicide is impious as it usurps the monopoly of God in asserting one’s life over his/her death. But, how is it different from any other form of killing? If latter is assumed to be directed by He then why isn’t the former so?

One of the ideologies asserts that life is worth living if it possesses something worth dying for. It stems from the theory that the worth of a thing is determined from what one is ready to relinquish for it. So, is suicide an act of proclaiming the worth of the absent?

Suicides are primarily those for whom their lives have come to feel worthless. Yes, perception! Such perceived lack of worth and the associated hunger for a quick way out, results in suicide. Such perception is at times socially impressed as in the case of Sati-victims. Many cases of consentaneous Sati-victims have existed. Likewise cases of conditioned perception of worthlessness or no avail result in suicide. One can contest the use of the phrase “conditioned perception” but the intent is to stress that the quintessence of our lives is to live by all means and in whatever unpleasant proviso it metes out. Consequently, doesn’t any deviation whether affected or acquired necessitate amends? Moreover, our perceptions like impressions are relative and bourne out of our own standpoints. Often, what seems unpleasant now ceases to do so in future. Every misfortune is equally opportune. Hence, a suicide’s standpoint is, at best, myopic. And, it remains the duty of all those in immediate vicinity cognizant of the suicide’s standpoint to affect a paradigm shift through counseling. A counsel can affect, to quote Hemingway, grace under pressure.

The annals of history are rife with stories of martyrs who relinquished their lives for sake of their principles or faiths. They often did so, to arouse guilt in the nemesis. With martyrdom going out of fashion, the suicide-bombers have taken the place. While martyrs where revered, the suicide-bombers are not. Probably since, unlike a martyr, the suicide-bomber takes along with himself many non-consentaneous others, in the process. The martyr bets his life for his cause but suicide bomber bets his along with all those around him.

Another perception is that death, though not desirable, in name of abundant similar life around, one’s sacrifice is worth. Suicide bombers also die for sake of better life for those in their fraternity. The ultimate freedom is the freedom from the fear of death thus depriving their antagonists of the only manipulable part of themselves, their bodies. Having nothing to loose they become profoundly menacing as well absolutely invulnerable and invincible. Annex to that, the suicide bombers score an ideological pyrrhic victory as they are ready to die for the cause, for which their enemies are not. Thereby slipping through the fingers of power leaving it groping in thin air, they force it to betray its own vacuousness. Like the epical tragic hero, the suicide bomber rises like phoenix from his own annihilation by the very resolution with which he had embraced it. Blowing oneself in crowd makes it the most historic event in plebeian life of the suicide bomber. To quote Macbeth, nothing in his life becomes him like leaving of it. This is both his triumph and his defeat. The deed as well professes that everyone has one formidable power at their disposal i.e. to die as devastatingly and as fiercely and surreally as possible. In times to come, the smack of eccentric unconventionality in this act is likely to catch the fancies of those desperate, resulting in sporadic if not perpetual suicide bombings.

The irony of the plight of a suicide-bomber is that he envisions that the only way of attaining justice is through injustice, making deaths inevitable without desiring it. Verisimilar to the predicament of those leapt into the arms of death from World Trade Center to escape being incinerated in it. They were not seeking death but were choosing one form of death, the suicide, over the other. Suicide is often not love for death but the perceived inevitability of it.

Suicide is also a complex symbolic act, one which has a lethal mix of despair and defiance. It avers that even death is preferable to the wretched way of life. The inherent self-violence in the act is more vivid than that done by what suicide escapes in the process. The act also contrasts the self-determination involved in perpetrating one’s kill with the lack of it in the quotidian existence. It has breathtaking might as it involves dispensing with oneself for eternity. However, the perplexing question posed is that if one could live in the way the one dies then would there have been any need to die at all? But again, unlike life, suicide is one time act which seeks to escape the very question altogether. The suicide also symbolizes freedom - the only form of sovereignty available to all alive is the power to dispose one’s death at one’s will. But, this exercise of freedom betrays the concomitant responsibility hence making the act absolutely abominable.

- Rahul Sinha