Kamikaze’s paradise

Abstract

The terrorist attack on Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 represents a pivotal moment in dynamic that shapes explanatory and identification category of the West in a crisis of relationship with other that has taken on tone of a clash of civilizations . Within this scenario, present work starts from interpretation of suicide terrorist as kamikaze to develop a reflection on construction of categories we/other in contemporary Western society. The image of martyr who seeks - through bomb that will destroy his earthly life - a road to paradise is an archaic paradox that still resonates in us, reduced to a simplified simulacrum, in itself sufficient to explain absurdity of a gesture so powerfully destructive. The paradise of suicide bomber assumes function of a screen that allows us to distance ourselves from other, confine him to a world totally alien, so different as to be driven by irrationality and inhumanity. In a society that is increasingly immune and saved from negative, image of paradise becomes a necessary filter to face destructive event, avoiding need to relate with it in an attempt to understand.