Better suicides

Every month, a significant number of Afghan women choose to end their marriage and “hopefully” life through self-immolation. There is yet another way of interpreting this Al-Jazeera video..

Afghan women are so frustrated at the abuse suffered in the hands of their fathers or husbands that they choose to burn themselves rather than continue to live like that (self-immolation). This involves pouring petrol on top of their head and setting themselves on fire. This is a particularly painful way to die. The few who survive, are condemned to live a much shorter life in atrocious physical pain. Furthermore, in a failed state such as Afghanistan, it is unlikely that anybody can take care of them, so they most likely end up in the care of those whose “will to power” they were trying to escape.

While horrifying, the situation described by the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera seems to suggest a better way to die for would-be suiciders. Rather than burn yourself in a slow, painful death like Afghan women, one could choose the much more civilised Western way. It’s the way warrior westerners die – namely in long, drawn-out, vitality consuming, never-ending, Kafkaesque trials. Or the alternative reserved for Muslims: imprisonment at Gitmo, or CIA renditions to torturing states.

Sources / More info: rferl-afghan, wpr-afghan, rawa-march-8, yt-self-immolation

VerbaVolant, suicide, discrimination, sexism, afghan, status, women, woman, arab, muslim, islam, feminism, self-immolation, burning, death, kafka, kafkian, kafkaesque