Self-immolation and Suicide Attacks: An Interpretive Approach to Self-destruction as a Political Act among the Young

This exploratory study compares the act of self-immolation in Korea and Vietnam with the acts of suicide attackers in Palestine. Both of these self-destructive behaviors are intentionally committed as a means of conveying a challenge or a message, to one's own group as well as to the powerful group against which their groups were struggling, that more should be done to overcome wrongs or injustices. Based on an analysis of suicide notes, this piece not only identifies important similarities and differences between these self-immolators and those who killed themselves for Palestinian and radical Islamic causes but also finds interesting developmental problems of those politically-motivated youth suicides, a controversial but little studied phenomenon which has had profound impacts on modern societies.