ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of suicidal terrorism has attracted increasing attention, due to the prominence of events like the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the bombing of the US Marine Headquarters in Beirut, and the successful attacks on Israeli targets. This chapter outlines a theory of suicidal terrorism in the broad sense of the term, that is, including all the manifestations of self- and other- directed aggression in the name of absolute truth. The true believer’s physical death is not an ending, however, but rather a rebirth into a sublime, transcendental existence, a once- and-for-all attainment of immortality. The striving for a sense of immortality is in itself neither compensatory nor irrational, writes R. J. Lifton, but an “appropriate symbolization of our biological and historical connectedness”. The chapter suggests that the deviant behaviors that characterize the stage of disorganized victimization are often variations on a single theme, the survivors’ wish for self-destruction.
