Rationality, civilization, and suicide attacks

Résumé 0

Do suicide attacks in general, and Palestinian ones in particular, challenge essential aspects of the civilizing process, as defined by Norbert Elias? In this type of action, the control of aggressiveness and the repression of pleasure in the face of suffering seem to be lacking. The terrorist actor would appear to break the civilizing process of norms, not only with the eruption of their brutal violence, but also because their group publicly expresses satisfaction regarding the infliction of death and suffering, and lastly because they break the state monopoly of the use of force. Suicide attacks hurt Israeli and Western sensitivity because they deliberately target civilians and thus show a specific relation to death as well as a particular construction of the image of the self and the adversary. They reveal a split in conceptions of life and death between Palestinians and Israelis. In addition, they illustrate another gap: the propensity of Palestinians to exhibit their force, and the desire of the Israelis to dissimulate the violence they deploy.