Suicide

Warren Sproule (Warren.Sproule@SOCIOL.UTAS.EDU.AU)
Wed, 26 Oct 1994 12:59:58 +0200

John Ford's last post contained much food for thought. I was instantly
reminded of the 1963 self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Qang Duc in
Saigon as a protest against the Diem regime, and the wave of suicides which
followed. I don't quite see this as a purely "non-western" phenomenon
though, if I think about Irish prisoner Bobby Sands' hunger strike in the
late '70s...or did Sands expect to LIVE, and did his protest just go too
far? This is where the ethnomethodological critique of Durkheim's _Suicide_
(Jack Douglas in particular) kicks in, ie, on the question of *motivation*.
Off the cuff and probably not very helpful, but I thought I'd flick in a
quick 2c worth...

WS