Martin, you are either an apologist for murder or a total naif. The term "martyr" has an old positive connotation, see e.g., Fox's Book of Martyrs, a mid 16th C, Protestant compiliation of the victims of Bloody Mary's state terror campaign to restore Catholicism in England in the 1550s. The term is of course redolent with political correctness, but not modern PC; it's a loaded term from the get go, implying that the dead died in a worthy cause. Actually it's an interesting transmutation to apply the term to suicide bombers at all, because traditionally martyrs are killed involuntarily by others.
Moreover the term is _not_ common outside the Muslim countries, and in those countries it is only used by fans of suicide bombing. There is no chance that the term w ill be adopted in the West or elsewhere as a neutral mutually accepted term,a nd any attempt to use it as such will only impede discussion and the serach for a solution.
Just a question for the curious: do you think "martyrdom" or suicide bombing, whatever you want to call it, is a morally acceptable and/or politically prudent method of struggle?
jks
>
> You are free to participate in the contest of
> creating the politically
> correct 'connotation'. I'd prefer to accept the
> common term and get on
> with the process of understanding and finding a
> remedy.
>
> To call my statement an endorsement is pure spin and
> pointless since I'm
> not in the contest. Call them 'marxists' if you
> like, since that word has
> no meaning any more. <g>
>
> The 'religious message' credentials are dubious.
> Religion can be a tool
> of state power - our fundamentalism against their
> fundamentalism.
>
> Martin
>