Full Text

Could the voluntary death of the combatant be a subject for research and reflection? How can one analyze the suicidal practices ranging from victimless self-immolation to the acts of the most murderous kamikaze? What do we understand of their authors' motivations? Would suicidal-bombings have become the archetypal form of the violent acts we tend to describe as « terrorism »? Would the kamikaze have become the obvious figure of such violence? Five years after 9/11, no one can ignore the role of passion when it comes to death, sacrifice and clandestine organisations resorting to devastating suicides as one of the possibilities within the array of conceivable actions. This issue tries to open new research-perspectives while avoiding the common confusion between voluntary participation and fanaticism, between suicidal practices and ultimate self-sacrifice for a cause. Through history, and beyond the Middle East, this issue of Cultures & Conflict attempts exploring the logics of sacrifice and the strategic issues raised by voluntary death in combat. It also focuses on the reasons as well as on the social and individual conditions through which one could interpret this choice of death.