The human body as a terrorist weapon : hunger strikes and suicide bombers /
James Dingley, Marcello Mollica
- 2007
Hunger strikes were a feature of the internal unrest in Northern Ireland. This article considers the history of the hunger strikes and tries to identify what motivates people to participate in such acts. Suggests that traditional religious beliefs are a strong element recalling classical social theory that "emphasized the central role of religion in community". Argues that in the non-Western non-industrialised world religion has a central role in daily life. Suicide bombers (who are likened to hunger strikers) are thus said to be appealing to the populations of their own social contexts. By contrast such actions appear incomprehensible to Western observers who try (and fail) to explain the individual in western terms rather rather than in the terms of their own society.