Sorry, but that's plain inaccurate. Why wouldn't you kill yourself for a cause you actually believed in? There are plenty of examples. The earliest Christians faced certain, and horrible, death for not renouncing their religion. Later on, Christianity had got to the point where its two major factions faced off with appalling persecutions on both sides, both of them knowing that to continue to be a faithful Catholic or a determined Protestant, depending on the monarch's or adversary's whim, was as good as a self-sentence of death.
And many have down the ages killed themselves to draw attention to their beliefs: I realize some of you are too young to have seen the pictures, but plenty of Vietnamese Buddhist monks immolated themselves in protest at the invasion of their country by Americans. The Japanese took their loss of honour and face very seriously, and fell upon their swords rather than face capture and humiliation, whether in ancient tribal conflicts or the world wars. There is not a whole deal of difference between killing yourself and knowing that you will definitely be killed by someone else, when you believe strongly enough in what you're doing.
Just because we fail to understand other people doesn't make their actions unrepresentational: suicide bombers represent certain minority factions, those committed to dying for their beliefs by their own hand, rather than waiting to be shot down in the street by their enemies. Monks burning themselves alive in protest were terrible sights caught on camera, but they very definitely represented both a race and a religion.
When you decide to read about other people of the world, you have to put aside preconceptions and your own cultural heritage, and try to understand the way that their world is framed. Just as I've no personal desire to eat witchety grubs on a visit to Australia, doesn't mean that Aboriginals shouldn't!
