„Мучеништво“ Тамилских Тигрова У Шри Ланки – Вера У Самоубиство Ради Стварања Државе
Tamil Tiger ’Martyrdom’ In Sri Lanka: Faith In Suicide For Nationhood?

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the ‘suicide-martyrdom’ deployed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka as a political strategy for self determination and liberation from the ‘Sinhala hegemony’. The protagonists have given a new political-religious meaning to the historically celebrated acts of religious martyrdom, which took place in the name of faith and belief. Suicide strikers do not believe that the suicide acts they commit are lethal. They are portrayed to be valiant acts of honour and sacrifice on behalf of the family, ethnic community, and more importantly against the ‘terrorising other’ whose ‘acts of violence’ must be terminated. It is performed not as an act of violence, but a resolute sacrifice for the sake of compatriots and their freedom. The author draws some aspects from the research and writings of Peter Schalk and Michael Roberts who have addressed the same subject area on martyrdom as a form of secular resistance, and the latter, on religious aspects in the military formation of a suicide striker and in the aftermath of the mission. He argues that the reconstruction of an astute faith in suicide and its ritualisation as a well crafted political tool and as a powerful means to instil fear psychosis in the enemy for the creation of a separate state.

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