Abstract
Analyzing the LTTE’s use of the cyanide capsule as a part of their uniform, and their code of honor and allegiance to the Tamil nationalist struggle, this chapter excavates nationalism’s and patriotism’s ultimate demand to kill and be killed in service of the nation and/or the state. Focusing on suicide as an enigmatic expression of willfulness, readers are invited to listen to the narratives of self-sacrifice in the testimony of soldiers and insurgents that take the form of a riddle by the choice to take his or her own life in the theaters of war. As an act of willfulness, suicide is analyzed as a radical choice of disobedience—as an act of conscientious abjection. Journeying into multiple theaters of war, readers witness the condition of getting lost in that willful attachment to killing and being killed in service of patriotism and national belonging, that something to die for.
“Comfortably Numb,” Pink Floyd, The Wall, Columbia Music, 1979; “Comfortably Numb,” Pink Floyd, published on January 12, 2016, YouTube video, 06:22, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-xTttimcNk.
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Sangarasivam, Y. (2021). Comfortably Numb: Abjection & Anarchy. In: Nationalism, Terrorism, Patriotism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82665-9_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82665-9_5
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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