Suchergebnisse

A striking aspect of the South Korean political protest movement of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s was the frequent self-immolation of young Korean activists. The author attempts to interpret the personal meanings of political suicides through an analysis of notes, letters, and diaries left by seventeen young Korean activists. (DÜI-Sen)

The first image that the question of violence in the Middle East conjures up, especially in the West, is that of the suicide bomber. This association, etched into the political imaginary particularly over the course of the last two decades, is due neither to the number of victims suicide bombing creates (more conventional weapons of war can claim as many or more victims), nor to the identity of its victims (conventional weapons are also often directed at civilians). Rather, the potency of the image of the suicide bomber is connected to the simultaneously self-destructive and other-directed form that this act of violence takes. If the Orientalist impulse that has raised the image of the suicide bomber to iconic status is deeply problematic, it nonetheless constitutes an involuted acknowledgement of a reality: the significant rise in self-destructive violence (and not just in the Middle East). I have in mind practices such as hunger striking, self-immolation, and fatal self-mutilation, which constitute an emergent repertoire of struggle that has come to mark a certain current of radical politics around the globe. Those modalities of self-destructive violence that are not directed at others are overshadowed by suicide bombing.

This paper analyses opinions of political self-sacrifice amongst Tibetan refugees, and explores their meaning for wider debates on the evolving relationship between religion and politics in the Tibetan national struggle. This is a particularly pertinent question at present, given the recent prevalence of self-immolation in Tibet and connected debates about whether such protests are religious or political issues. Does the increase of self-sacrificial political methodology indicate a secularisation process of the Tibetan movement, as some have suggested, or is it simply reflective of the natural fluidity of religion's political influence? This paper supports the latter position and seeks to explore the nature of this dynamic relationship, including the positioning within it of the Dalai Lama.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Tables -- Introduction -- Part I: Changing Practices During the Late Chosŏn Era -- 1. Yŏl (烈): Chaste Martyrdom and Literati Writing in Late Chosŏn Korea (1392-1910) -- 2. Politics and the Discourse of Virtuous Sacrifice in Late Chosŏn Korea Chŏng Yagyong's Discussion of Righteous Killing -- 3. Resurrecting Ch'oe Cheu: Tonghak Martyrdom in Late Chosŏn Dynasty Korea -- 4. Choosing to Die: Catholic Voluntary Martyrdom in Late Chosŏn Korea -- Part II: Colonial-Postcolonial Transition in South Korea -- 5. A False Martyr's Wager: Yi Kwangsu and Colonial Collaboration -- 6. The Political Dynamics of Sacrifice and the Sacrificial Narrative in Modern Korea: The State and the Historical Ontology of Student Soldiers -- Part III: Democracy and Labor Activism in South Korea -- 7. Reading Chun Tae-il: Making Sense of a Worker Self- Immolation in 1970s South Korea -- 8. The Construction of Martyrdom and Self-Immolation in South Korea -- 9. Untimely Death and Martyrdom after May 1980: Suicide in the South Korean Democracy Movement Seen through the Case of Pak Sŭnghŭi -- 10. The Birth of an Ethical Subject: The 1980s and South Korean Literature -- 11. From Martyrdom to Apostasy: Kim Chiha and the Politics of Death in South Korean Democratizations -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Ritual, Dramatic Performance, and Suicide: An Anthropological Perspective -- Part 1. The Suicide Note -- 3 The Presentation of the Self in Suicide Notes -- 4 Dramatic Suicide Notes -- 5 The Body as a Suicide Note -- 6 Suicide and the Communicative Condition: Audience and the Idea of Suicide -- Part 2. The Location of the Suicidal Act -- 7 The Location of the Suicidal Act -- 8 Suicide Away from Home -- 9 Hotel Suicide and the Drug Subculture -- 10 Back to Nature: Suicide in Natural Areas -- 11 Suicide in the Grand Canyon National Park -- 12 Suicide in Public -- 13 Suicide on Television and Online -- Part 3. The Methods Chosen for Suicide -- 14 The Methods Chosen for Suicide -- 15 The Rehearsal: Nonfatal Suicidal Behavior as a Precipitant of Suicide -- 16 Suicide by Fire: Ethnicity as a Predictor of Self-Immolation in the United States -- 17 Have Gun, Will Travel -- 18 Unusual Suicides -- 19 Methods of Suicide Around the World -- Part 4. Cultural Scripts for Suicide -- 20 Russian Roulette and Duels -- 21 Death by Seppuku -- 22 Self-Immolation as a Protest -- 23 Victim-Precipitated Homicide -- 24 Sati -- 25 Suicide as the Liberation of the Soul -- 26 Conclusion -- About the Authors -- Author Index -- Subject Index.

Using complexity science, we develop a theory to explain why some social movements develop through stages of increasing intensity which we define as an increase in social focusing. We name six such stages of focusing: disintegration, revitalization, religious, organisation, militaristic, and self-immolation. Our theory uses two variables from the social sciences: differentiation and centrality, where differentiation refers to the internal structure of a social system and centrality measures the variety of incoming information. The ratio of the two, differentiation/centrality (the d/c ratio) is a shorthand way of saying that centrality must be matched by a corresponding level of differentiation to maintain basic focusing. If centrality exceeds differentiation, then the result is a lack of focusing—disintegration. On the other hand, the more differentiation exceeds centrality, the more the system moves into the higher stages of social focusing, from revitalization to the final stage of self-immolation. To test the theory we examine historically indigenous social movements, in particular, the Grassy Narrows movement in northern Ontario Canada. We also suggest how the theory might be applied to explain other examples of social movement, especially millenarian movements at the end of the 20th century. We also suggest sociocybernetic ways the rest of society and the social movement itself can change its own social focusing.

В статье рассматривается взаимосвязь между «тибетским вопросом» и религиозно-политической ситуацией в Тибете. Основное внимание уделено анализу «тибетского вопроса» в широком историческом контексте, современной религиозной ситуации в Тибете и протестному движению тибетцев. Автор показывает, что существуют две диаметрально противоположные парадигмы «тибетского вопроса»: китайская и тибетская. Китайская парадигма сводит «тибетский вопрос» к проблеме статуса Далай-ламы, в то время как тибетская к проблеме политического статуса Тибета по отношению к китайскому государству. Китайские власти пытаются разрешить «тибетский вопрос» при помощи стратегии экономической модернизации Тибета, которую они расценивают как ключ к достижению стабильности и единства нации. Отмечая несомненные достижения экономической политики китайского правительства, автор тем не менее считает, что ставка на сугубо экономическое развитие без учета религиозно-политического фактора не оправдалась, свидетельством чего является эскалация тибетского протестного движения в форме ожесточенных самосожжений. По мнению автора, главной причиной эскалации напряженности в Тибете является патовая ситуация в сино-тибетском переговорном процессе, обострившаяся в связи с преклонным возрастом Далай-ламы. В настоящий момент перспектива прорыва во взаимоотношениях сторон не просматривается, поэтому наиболее вероятным представляется конфронтационный сценарий по старому образцу: Пекин не идет на уступки в тибетском вопросе, Дхарамсала продолжает придерживаться тактики давления на китайское правительство посредством интернационализации «тибетского вопроса». ; This article examines the "Tibetan question" in a broad historical context, the contemporary religious situation in Tibet and the Tibetan protest movement. It shows two diametrically opposed paradigms of the Tibetan issue Chinese and Tibetan. The Chinese paradigm reduces the "Tibetan question" to the issue of the Dalai Lama's status, while the Tibetan to the issue of the Tibetan political status in relation to the Chinese state. Chinese authorities are trying to solve the problem through economic modernization, which they regard as the key to achieving stability and national unity. The author, however, shows the limits of the purely economic approach without taking into account the religious and political factors. The article deals with the escalation of the Tibetan protests in the form of the Buddhist selfimmolations. The main cause of such escalation is a stalemate in the Sino-Tibetan dialog, further complicated by the Dalai Lama's old age. As the prospect of a breakthrough is hardly visible, the old confrontation seems to be the most probable scenario: Beijing does not make concessions to the Tibetan issue, while Dharamsala continues to adhere to tactics of pressure on the Chinese government through the internationalization of the "Tibetan issue".

The concept of political fanaticism is examined, with attention to psychological features, its relationship with prejudice, & possible developmental features. Four situations showing attributes of fanaticism where suicide is used as part of the political process are described: self-immolation, Islamic terrorism, the kamikaze, & the hunger strike. In this context, the links between suicide & terrorism, & fanaticism & terrorism are considered. The assumption of abnormality often used to explain the forms of suicide discussed is critiqued, & a behavioral account of the forces that might contribute to the political suicide act is developed. 33 References. Modified HA

Why did Tunisian protests following the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi lead to a massive wave of uprisings across the entire Arab world? Who participated in those protests, and what did they hope to achieve? Why did some leaders fall in the face of popular mobilization while others found ways to survive? And what have been the lasting results of the contentious politics of 2011 and 2012? The Arab uprisings pose stark challenges to the political science of the Middle East, which for decades had focused upon the resilience of entrenched authoritarianism, the relative weakness of civil soci

We are thrilled to present this special issue of IJMES on "Maghribi Histories in the Modern Era" with guest editor Julia Clancy-Smith. The issue was conceived as an effort to bring scholarship on the Maghrib and Mashriq into closer dialogue. We issued the call for papers in December 2010, weeks before the self-immolation of Muhammad al-Buʿazizi in Tunisia triggered the string of upheavals often referred to as the Arab Spring. That North Africa took the lead in upending authoritarian regimes makes this issue especially timely. Although none of the pieces deals directly with contemporary events, they provide innovative ways for thinking about historical transformations and genealogies.

On 17 December 2010, the self-immolation of a young street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, a town in inland Tunisia, instigated the uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring or the Arab Revolutions – a wording that I will use here as a translation from the Arabic al-thawrât al-`arabiyya. Observers were shocked at the radical protests arising in these regions, where authoritarian regimes had crushed all serious opposition over the decades. Conflicts governed by geopolitics, in particular the ongoing Israeli–Arab and Israeli–Palestinian hostilities, and the focus on political Islam and jihadism as the only globalized locus of political protest, have arrogated any attention for societies, their transformation, and their mobilization.

The tumult across the Middle East and North Africa, sparked by the self-immolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in December 2010, has rocked many states in the region, and toppled some long-established regimes. The way militaries have behaved has depended on particular national situations. In some cases, such as Tunisia and Egypt, the armed forces distanced themselves from the regime; in others, such as Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and, for a time, Libya, where relatives of the rulers were entrusted with command responsibilities, security forces remained more cohesive or fought back. In these cases, dependeable, elite and generally well-resourced units carried much of the repressive burden. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract: Tunisia's Jasmine revolution took academics and policymakers by surprise. In hindsight, declining socioeconomic conditions, intensifying authoritarianism of the ruling regime, and public dissatisfaction with the growing corruption of the president's extended family suggested that the country was ripe for revolution. Other factors contributing to revolutionary change included the literal and figurative spark of Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation; the regime's decision to employ deadly force against protestors; the widespread use of cellphones and social media, most notably Facebook; the role of youth and other civil society groups; and the military's pivotal decision to side with the protestors. International actors, especially the United States, played a facilitating role.

Tunisia's Jasmine revolution took academics and policymakers by surprise. In hindsight, declining socioeconomic conditions, intensifying authoritarianism of the ruling regime, and public dissatisfaction with the growing corruption of the president's extended family suggested that the country was ripe for revolution. Other factors contributing to revolutionary change included the literal and figurative spark of Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation; the regime's decision to employ deadly force against protestors; the widespread use of cellphones and social media, most notably Facebook; the role of youth and other civil society groups; and the military's pivotal decision to side with the protestors. International actors, especially the United States, played a facilitating role. Adapted from the source document.