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Banu Bargu . Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. xvii + 459 pages, acknowledgments, abbreviations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth US$65.00 ISBN 978-0-231-16340-8.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2017

Hannah Gehl*
Affiliation:
Virginia Tech
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Abstract

Type
Briefly Noted
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2017 

Banu Bargu's Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons seeks to “show the link between specifically self-destructive violence and the power of the state, or how fatal corporeal acts of insurgence reveal, communicate with, and perform a response to the continuing presence of sovereign power” (27). The book begins with accounts of the weaponization of life by leftist political prisoners in Turkey, and then relates them to situations across the globe with examples of organizations such as PKK, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc., and their global ramifications. Bargu wishes to communicate that self-destructive acts and the use of human weapons is a logical and premeditated political statement against the asymmetric distribution of political power and not an act of fanaticism or a psychotic break with reality. These traditional explanations for self-destructive behavior demonize these individuals, and ignore the meaning behind their actions. However, Bargu does not necessarily support the weaponization of life, and portrays it as a violent and radical political statement, analyzing both the pros and cons of such action.