Citation

Roberts M. Social Analysis 2006; 50(1): 73-102.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006)

DOI

10.3167/015597706780886120

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Since Weber's time, it has been believed that 'enchantment' progressively gave way to secular rationalism and its disenchanted ways. This essay breaks the twinning of enchantment with 'irrationality' in developing the argument that enchanted practices and pragmatic methods co-exist fruitfully in the activities of the LTTE. Circumstantial evidence, arising from pictures and descriptions of hero rituals sponsored by the LTTE, provides the foundation for this argument. It is suggested that the Saivite universe of being has nourished these symbolic compositions. A photograph of Black Tigers paying homage to their dead with guns in the left hand and flowers in the right provides a condensed demonstration as well as a point of departure for this suggestion. It is a moment of conjunctiveness that has the potential to fuse past, present, and future, thus achieving 'fusion force'. © Berghahn Journals.

Language: en

Keywords

Suicide; Martyrdom; Commemoration; Rationality; 'Fusion force'; Embodied practices; Enchantment