Fusako Shigenobu (Japanese: 重信 房子, Hepburn: Shigenobu Fusako, born 28 September 1945) is a Japanese communist activist, writer, and the founder and leader of the now-disbanded militant group Japanese Red Army (JRA).
Born in Japan, Shigenobu became involved in New Left activism while attending night school at Meiji University in Tokyo. In 1969, she joined the Red Army Faction (RAF), a communist group that advocated immediate, armed revolution against the governments of the United States and Japan. Eventually becoming one of its senior leaders, Shigenobu played a significant role in establishing the International Relations Bureau for the organization.
In 1971, she helped found the JRA as an offshoot of the RAF. That same year, Shigenobu and the JRA relocated to the Middle East in an effort to start a world revolution, as well as to assist with the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation while working in concert with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). During the 1970s and 1980s, members of the JRA took part in a number of violent incidents, including bombings, mass shootings, and hijackings. Although Shigenobu did not directly participate in these activities, during this time she attained international fame as the leader and public-facing spokesperson for the JRA.
Throughout her years in hiding and later imprisonment, Shigenobu authored 10 books, including a book of poetry.
Following her arrest in 2000 after several years of hiding, Shigenobu was put on trial for passport forgery and alleged conspiracy involving an attempted hostage-taking operation at the French Embassy in The Hague in 1974. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006 and released in 2022.
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whirling dervishes yeah?
Edit
I was actually thinking of several more obscure examples I read about in an anthropology source a while back, but I couldn't find it again; it was particularly common in several parts of Africa where there were few consciousness-altering plants available.
The dervishes look similar but the aim I'm guessing is closer to meditation; the practices I read about were genuinely dangerous health-wise (extreme exhaustion, without pauses, without food or water) and resulted in full-on hallucinatory trips.
Yeah idk about dancing til exhaustion, I think the Mevlevis go for a good while, there's certainly a trance/meditation/mysticism happening there, but idk about going til point of collapse.
There's also something similar but maybe not quite like Zaouli from the ivory coast too, wherein the dancer dons a large costume and is said to be taken over by a spirit that dances or something? Made to look inhuman and/or as if the costume dances on its own/without a dancer inside it. I don't think that's specifically Zaouli but I can't find others atm