IMHO, Self immolations are not, in the true sense, a definition of suicide bombers (SB). The SBs take lives along with themselves. I see the difference something like hara-kiri and kamakazi. The Rajiv Gandhi case is the only one I know of where other lives were taken.
But that aside, SBs do so becuase they are desparate. Islamic SBs are different in the sense that they are encouraged to do so (kill the infidels & self) and one is granted you so many virgins for the effort. Kamakazis (if I am not mistaken) owe their very lives to the Emperor (not God, I think). If you find cases of Hindu SBs, the reasons are more out of sheer desperation or making a political statement, and not because Hinduism dictates or encourages it. During WWII, there were many US service men who would strap themselves with grenades and blow up Germans (and themselves) -- die fighting. Would that be considered as sucide bombing? Most wouldn't. On 5/18/05, Roy, Santanu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Exactly what do you mean by a Hindu suicide bomber? Wasn't Rajiv Gandhi > assasinated by a "Hindu" who was also a suicide bomber? Suidicide bombing is > quite well and alive among the LTTE, almost all of whom are "Hindus". Self > immolation for political causes is rampant in south India. > No society believes in suicide. And every society I know of believes in > martyrdom - in some form or the other. > Santanu. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rajen > Barua > Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 9:06 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Dilip/Dil Deka; ASSAMNETCOLORADO > Subject: Re: [Assam] It takes a village? > > After all is said and done, there is another side of the equation. One will > have to answer why there is no Hindu suicide bomber or an Assamese suicide > bomber. And you don't have to struggle for the answer. > It is because the Hindu society or Assamese society donot believe in > suicide. Islam does. In Islam, one can go to haven by committying suicide > for the country. > Rajen Barua > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Dilip/Dil Deka" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "ASSAMNETCOLORADO" > <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 9:33 AM > Subject: Re: [Assam] It takes a village? > > > >If you want to stop a wave of suicide bombings, the likes of which we are > > >seeing in Iraq, it takes a village. I am a big believer that the greatest > > >restraint on human behavior is not laws and police, but culture and > > >religious authority. > > > > > > *** That is a very interesting belief. It is a convenient one, now that > suicide- > > bombings have become the norm in Iraq where none existed and after > > thousands of innocents have been slaughtered by US bombs for which no > > village nor religious outrage was anywhere to be seen or heard, and > > particularly since Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11. I don't recall > Friedman's > > outrage at the killing of Iraqi innocents by US bombing. Where was his > faith? > > Where was his village of the righteous? > > > > The politics of religion is no different from any other poiltics. Suicide > > bombing is an act of desperation against an overwhelming enemy. It is > > assymetrical warfare at its most assymetrical. > > > > The expressions of outrage like Friedman's or those of others who find > > common cause with it is selective ast best, and thus will go nowhere, as > > history amply illustrates. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From: Dilip/Dil Deka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Date: 2005/05/18 Wed AM 09:42:39 EDT > > > To: ASSAMNETCOLORADO <[email protected]> > > > Subject: [Assam] It takes a village? > > > > > > >From the article below, I quote, "In identifying the problem, though, > Mr. > > Na'mat also identifies the solution. If you want to stop a wave of suicide > > bombings, the likes of which we are seeing in Iraq, it takes a village. I > am a > > big believer that the greatest restraint on human behavior is not laws and > > police, but culture and religious authority. It is what the community, > what the > > village, deems shameful. That is what restrains people. So how do we get > the > > Sunni Arab village to delegitimize suicide bombers?" > > > > > > Laws and police, or shame on the perpetrators by means of culture? Which > > one do you think works better? Does religion (as Friedman says) have any > role > > in bringing about restraint? > > > Dilip > > > Outrage and SilenceBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN > > > Published: May 18, 2005 > > > > > > It is hard not to notice two contrasting stories that have run side by > side > > during the past week. One is the story about the violent protests in the > > Muslim world triggered by a report in Newsweek (which the magazine has > > now retracted) that U.S. interrogators at Guant?namo Bay desecrated a > Koran > > by throwing it into a toilet. In Afghanistan alone, at least 16 people > were > > killed and more than 100 wounded in anti-American rioting that has been > > linked to that report. I certainly hope that Newsweek story is incorrect, > > because it would be outrageous if U.S. interrogators behaved that way. > > > That said, though, in the same newspapers one can read the latest > reports > > from Iraq, where Baathist and jihadist suicide bombers have killed 400 > Iraqi > > Muslims in the past month - most of them Shiite and Kurdish civilians > > shopping in markets, walking in funerals, going to mosques or volunteering > > to join the police. > > > > > > > > > > > > Yet these mass murders - this desecration and dismemberment of real > > Muslims by other Muslims - have not prompted a single protest march > > anywhere in the Muslim world. And I have not read of a single fatwa issued > by > > any Muslim cleric outside Iraq condemning these indiscriminate mass > > murders of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by these jihadist suicide bombers, many > of > > whom, according to a Washington Post report, are coming from Saudi Arabia. > > > > > > The Muslim world's silence about the real desecration of Iraqis, coupled > > with its outrage over the alleged desecration of a Koran, highlights what > we > > are up against in trying to stabilize Iraq - as well as the only workable > > strategy going forward. > > > > > > The challenge we face in Iraq is so steep precisely because the power > shift > > the U.S. and its allies are trying to engineer there is so profound - in > both > > religious and political terms. > > > > > > Religiously, if you want to know how the Sunni Arab world views a > Shiite's > > being elected leader of Iraq, for the first time ever, think about how > whites in > > Alabama would have felt about a black governor's being installed there in > > 1920. Some Sunnis do not think Shiites are authentic Muslims, and are > > indifferent to their brutalization. > > > > > > At the same time, politically speaking, some Arab regimes prefer to see > the > > pot boiling in Iraq so the democratization process can never spread to > their > > countries. That's why their official newspapers rarely describe the > murders of > > civilians in Iraq as a massacre or acts of terror. Such crimes are usually > > sanitized as "resistance" to occupation. > > > > > > Salama Na'mat, the Washington bureau chief for the London-based Arabic > > daily Al Hayat, wrote the other day: "What is the responsibility of the > [Arab] > > regimes and the official and semiofficial media in the countries bordering > Iraq > > in legitimizing the operations that murder Iraqis? ... Isn't their goal to > thwart > > [the emergence of] the newborn democracy in Iraq so that it won't spread > in > > the region?" (Translation by Memri.) > > > > > > In identifying the problem, though, Mr. Na'mat also identifies the > solution. > > If you want to stop a wave of suicide bombings, the likes of which we are > > seeing in Iraq, it takes a village. I am a big believer that the greatest > restraint > > on human behavior is not laws and police, but culture and religious > authority. > > It is what the community, what the village, deems shameful. That is what > > restrains people. So how do we get the Sunni Arab village to delegitimize > > suicide bombers? > > > > > > Inside Iraq, obviously, credible Sunnis have to be brought into the > political > > process and constitution-drafting, as long as they do not have blood on > their > > hands from Saddam's days. And outside Iraq, the Bush team needs to be > > forcefully demanding that Saudi Arabia and other key Arab allies use their > > media, government and religious systems to denounce and delegitimize the > > despicable murder of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq. > > > > > > If the Arab world, its media and its spiritual leaders, came out and > > forcefully and repeatedly condemned those who mount these suicide attacks, > > and if credible Sunnis were given their fair share in the Iraqi > government, I am > > certain a lot of this suicide bombing would stop, as happened with the > > Palestinians. Iraqi Sunnis would pass on the intelligence needed to > prevent > > these attacks, and they would deny the suicide bombers the safe houses > they > > need to succeed. > > > > > > That is the only way it stops, because we don't know who is who. It > takes > > the village - and right now the Sunni Arab village needs to be pressured > and > > induced to restrain those among them who are engaging in these suicidal > > murders of innocents. > > > > > > The best way to honor the Koran is to live by the values of mercy and > > compassion that it propagates. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Assam mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam > > > > Mailing list FAQ: > > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html > > To unsubscribe or change options: > > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam > > > > > > ________________________________ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Assam mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam > > > > Mailing list FAQ: > > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html > > To unsubscribe or change options: > > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam > > > _______________________________________________ > Assam mailing list > [email protected] > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam > > Mailing list FAQ: > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html > To unsubscribe or change options: > http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam > > > _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
