Most of us are more or less in agreement on the meanings and connotations of the words in the title above. The word responsibility is often positively charged and relates to an individual’s various liberties and duties.
Oftentimes one can read something like the following in the media: “The organization XXX was responsible for the bomb attack which claimed four lives.” I think we have to re-think the meaning of this word. In a positive sense, being responsible is something we all strive for in many parts of our lives. Responsibility makes us grow as individuals. But being responsible for a crime or a misdeed sends a completely different semantic signal. In a negative sense, the word responsibility denotes a meaning of shame and blame. Subsequently, we should use the word blame when writing about actions such as the violent taking of lives in the many hotspots of the world. When a crime is committed it is a matter of blame, not responsibility.
Our societal norms and systems of justice make a distinct demarcation between murder and suicide. Within orthodox Christianity and Judaism they are both serious crimes against God. However, modern society perceives a decided difference between these two words. A vast majority of us think of murder as an infinitely more serious act than suicide, which in many cases is deemed almost a ”right” where an individual is master of his or her own rise and demise. Suicide is also often justified as a last-case outlet for depression.
When an individual extinguishes both his own life along with others, the label he is given by the media is that of a suicide bomber, or the deed is often described as a suicide bombing attack, a somewhat bizarre expression. But the words chosen in this context imply a conscious, value-related choice where suicide achieves primary importance (and in some odd way also becomes excusable and legitimate) and the murders committed as part of the same deed become peripheral with a spattering of anonymity. The reasoning, that one wishes to point out the fact that a person is willing to use his own body and life as a weapon, does not motivate the use of the term. A person who, in cold blood, kills both himself and others is a murderer, irrespective of what others think about and believe concerning the religious, ethical or political implications of suicide.
Certain media in the United States and other countries have begun using the correct term for these crimes: murder. Consequently, the young men and women who kill both themselves and others are homicide bombers – neither more nor less.
And those who hurt others to further their own cause do not bear responsibility, but instead blame.
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