Women Kamikazes: A comparison between Chechnya and Palestine

2 Introduction This work aims to give description of and bring understanding to a subject of great topical interest: suicide terrorism carried out by women. The women who lend themselves to blow up their bodies in extreme acts are known, in the same way as men are, as kamikazes; yet the use of this term can lead to a problem of an etymological nature. In Latin countries, such as Italy and Spain, the term kamikaze is usually applied to those who decide to carry out acts of terrorism by using their own body as a human bomb. The phenomenon of martyrdom, often leading back to terrorism of Islamic foundation, has tragically become known to Westerners above all after the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11th 2001. However, this term precisely refers to events in the Far East during the Second World conflict. Such a term (literally: divine wind), in fact, designated the typhoons which sank the Mongolian fleets towards the end of the XIII century and kept Japan from an almost certain invasion. Being associated with the medieval indigenous image, the Second World War Japanese pilots were particularly confident in their mission, proud to be able to fight and sacrifice themselves for the salvation of their country. In the light of what has been expounded, using the term kamikaze both to indicate the current phenonenom of islamic suicide troops and to describe any ‘suicide’ action results as absolutely improper, since, on the one hand, the term refers to a different cultural environment and, on the other, concerns rather different situations; the Japanese were actors in a regular and well-defined war while today’s “kamikazes” often act in the context of a non-conventional war. So as not to fall into the problem of etymology, nor to fall in the consistent improper use of the term, we can adopt the English expression which, in order to refer to the dynamite-loaded attackers, use suicide bomber or body bomber, thus concisely rendering the concept clear. In the world of Islam, the word which refers to those who sacrifice themselves to witness their own political-religious faith is “shahid” 1 (pl. Shuhada), a word which cannot be separated from the expression jihad. 2 The phenomenom of martyrdom cannot be considered apart from the clear connexions with a sort of religious fanaticism, which sinks its roots in the Muslim tradition 1 Shahid: the word comes from the root s-h-d; in its first form it has the meaning of “ to be witness to”(something); but the term can denote a witness and martyr or those who have fallen for the faith.   2 Jihad:word wrongly translated with the expression holy war.