“Sacrificial Devotion” as Analytic Concept: Is It Serviceable?

Michael Roberts

The revisiting of the  9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in USA and other prominent sites TODAY  has prompted me to revisit a WEBSITE entitled “SACRIFICIAL DEVOTION” which was set up with aid from Jacob Copeman and others in 2010.

“Sacrificial Devotion” is a wide, catch-all concept that encompasses human commitment to a cause in a wide variety of ways.  Mothers pursue their devotion to their new born infants and children throughout this our world. Warriors have displayed devotion to their aggressive goals aand depradations over the centuries. The two World Wars in the 20th century saw such bravery, aggression and horror in numerous contexts and modalities. The Anzacs of Australian legends and Charles Bean’s ‘recordings’ were (are) just one expression of this widespread phenomenon.

So, too, were the Japanese kamikaze in World War Two., the suicide strikes deployed by Islamic zealots in the Middle East and the wide range of suicide atacks and assassinations implemented by the  LTTE –including dynamite-laden motor boats hitting ships. High profile leaders of countries (e.g. Sadat of Egypt, Kadirgamar and Premadasa of Sri Lanka) have been among those eliminated by suicide bombers.

Mohammed Atta … The series of attacks known today as 9/11 mounted by Islamic zealots marshalled by Mohammed Atta, of course serve as the acme of suicidal hits because of the targets they hit and the weaponry deployed —  even outbidding the Japanese kamikaze deployment of fighter planes and mini-submarines.

The term sacrificial devotion also embraces those committed and courageous individuals who  doused themselves with petrol and fired their own bodies in protest actions denouncing a foreign aggressor or pursuing a cause: for instance Thich Quang Duc in Saigon on 11 June 1963, Norman Morrison in Washington on 2nd November 1965 and Jan Palach in Prague in 1989 ….

 

 

 

 

 

Jan Palach Memorial today in former Wenceslaus Suquare in Prague now renamed Jan Palalh Square 

THE CHALLENGE: the question I raise is “simple’: is the  concept of “Sacrificial Devotion” a serviceable tool for Academia and journalese? Is it too omnibus? …. too broad?

PERTINENT LITERATURE 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Morrison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Palach

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ALSO SEE  the old items in a dormant web site THAT is web-headlined THUS:  sacrificialdevotionnetwork.wordpress.com
…. a gathering at Adelaide Uni in late December 2005 that brought a wide assortment of academics from Australia and New Zealand together in late December 2004(?) to discuss suicidal devotion to political cause. My memory is dim, but I recall that Riaz Hassan (Flinders), Daya Somasundaram, Carl Thayer (Canberra), Daniel Nourry, Rohan Bastin, Jacob Copeman, and Ajit Kanagasundaram were among the participants.