Self-immolation isn’t what it used to be.
This ultimate form of protest became global news in 1963 when the venerable monk Thich Quang Duc set himself ablaze in the middle of Saigon, Vietnam, protesting religious oppression. Doused in gasoline, the monk sat serenely in lotus position and lit a match. A bird of paradise thus blossomed and bloomed, and quickly charred his body.
The photographer Malcolm Browne captured Thich Quang Duc’s fiery renouncement of the mortal coil, the image quickly becoming an icon of the Vietnam War era. The term “self-immolation,” in fact, entered into common English usage after his death, which led to a coup d’etat that toppled the pro-Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem regime.
Half a century later, to die by fire in protest registers little more than a media blip.
As of this writing, 117 Tibetans have set themselves ablaze since 2009 in a series of protests against Chinese rule. The most recent incidents came in April, when two young Tibetan monks and a lay Tibetan woman set themselves on fire. There was little coverage of their deaths.
Indeed, with the exception of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself on fire and thus sparked what became known as the Arab Spring, self-immolation has by all accounts become a failed form of protest as an agent of change. Since Bouazizi, in fact, 150 more Tunisians have set themselves on fire in protest against the new government that took over after the downfall of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s secular dictatorship.
Whether in Syria or Palestine, Greece, Italy or Vietnam, individuals continue to go up in flames as crowds look on.
“All the Tibetans who resort to self-immolation do so because they feel they have no other way to make China and the rest of the world listen to their country’s call for freedom,” Byrne-Rosengren, director of the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet, told Radio Free Asia last month.
Alas, China has turned a deaf ear to their cries, while the world media has averted its eyes.
Aristotle once observed that the plot of a tragedy should be so framed that, even without witnessing the events, simply hearing of them should fill one with “horror and pity” — even lead to insight and action. But the amphitheater of the 21st century has fallen into decay, scattered and fragmented into a multitude of media platforms. There are too many actors in too many theaters and their tragedies — overwhelming, lacking in context, incoherent, truncated or badly reported — have lost their grip on the human psyche.
Studies about desensitization of the modern mind are aplenty, but the general consensus is that over-saturation of images and narratives of violence have resulted in a collective numbness. A profound act of public death cannot hope to sway a world in which horror itself has lost its power.
What we want instead is entertainment, and what we gravitate toward and react to, more often than not, is profanity.
A year after Bouazizi went up in flames in Tunisia, an unknown amateur filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula,” aka “Sam Bacile,” inflamed the Middle East with incendiary video clips ridiculing the prophet Muhammad. His film turned the Arab Spring of 2011 into the Autumn Rage of 2012, resulted in the death of an American ambassador in Libya, and continues to be a bone of contention in Washington.
The cynic observer can’t help but wonder: If self immolation no longer works as an agent for change, then is it still worth the price?
At its most profound the act stands as the highest form of human compassion, a confirmation of life by giving up one’s own. At its most incoherent self-immolation becomes more expressive of the frustration of the powerless. The individual, enamored by death, possessed by anger, elicits neither horror nor pity but cynicism. After all, to burn with passion is very much different than to be consumed by rage.
Fire — this gift and curse to humanity — is a terrifying beauty. Contained, it hints at elegance, cooks our food and propels our world. Out of control, it engulfs body and soul. It seduces. It overpowers. And it destroys.
In a world where individuals leverage more power online than in the public square, it may be that to live burning with desire for change — regardless of the oppression and humiliation — is the real challenge to becoming actual agents of change in the world. So why not live instead? And find new paths that call attention to the suffering of one’s cause. Find a way to force the world’s attention once more back onto the stage — and evoke pity and horror in us all.
To burn with that desire, to call our attention and hold our gaze until we weep — isn’t that worth living for?
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy