Self Immolation: A brief history of the incomprehensible act

It's breathtaking. It's incomprehensible. This isn't suicide as we know it. This is something altogether different. It's defined as self immolation. It's a self inflicted death for the purpose of protest, either political or religious, particularly by burning. It's an "extreme form of protest, an act of martyrdom".

It dates back centuries but Buddhist monks have made it much more commonplace in the last 10 years. There have, though, been several acts in the last 50 or so years in the western world. In 1968 20 year old student Jan Palach of Czechoslovakia ignited himself to death on the streets of Prague in protest over the Soviet Union’s recent invasion and control over Czechoslovakia. Palach is remembered and celebrated in Czechoslovakia to this day.

Perhaps the most famous and consequential act of self immolation is the one committed by Buddhist monk Quang Duc who, in June of 1963, set himself ablaze in a busy intersection of Saigon in protest of the treatment of Buddhists by President Diem of South Vietnam. Diem was Catholic and he had placed increasing restrictions on Buddhists. Buddhists made up approx. 90% of those residing in South Vietnam.

Quang Duc was driven by car while a large group of his fellow monks walked in unison through the streets of Saigon until they reached a particularly busy intersection. Quang Duc got out of the car and walked out into the street. He placed a small cushion on the ground in the middle of that intersection and took the lotus position before one of his fellow monks doused him with gallons of gasoline. Quang Duc had a match which he quietly lighted after saying prayers. There were many prayers spoken by the other monks before and after. It was carefully orchestrated. The media outlets were notified beforehand that something was going to happen that day in downtown Saigon. The Associated Press, Time magazine and other news representatives were there in anticipation of an unknown “event”. It was meant to happen in broad daylight and in full public view. Ironically, perhaps, Quang had recently returned from 3 years of total isolation in the mountains. He would soon be front page news.

Astonishingly, in front of a growing crowd of onlookers, Quang remained totally motionless as the giant orange flames engulfed him. It was only after 10 minutes that his lifeless body collapsed.

Quang Duc's act, as tragic and repulsive as it appeared, is thought by many historians to have changed the world. Within a few weeks almost a dozen more buddhist monks repeated Duc's act of self immolation. Public protests against Diem were expected daily. Four months later President Diem was overthrown and assassinated. When President Kennedy saw a photo of Duc's act he was visibly shaken according to witnesses. The United States privately supported the upcoming coup d'etat against Diem that was largely catalyzed by Duc's violent act of protest. Many historians feel that this act of self immolation in Saigon was the tipping point regarding United States combat involvement which was to come less than a year after Diem's death. At the time of Diem's assassination the U.S. was providing advisory assistance and support to South Vietnam forces but no direct military action.

"Afterward, four more monks and a nun set themselves ablaze protesting Diem before his regime finally fell in 1963. Rather suddenly, setting oneself on fire became a political act. As the American presence increased in Vietnam in the mid- to late 1960s, more and more monks committed self-immolation, including thirteen in one week. It even took place in the U.S., right outside the Pentagon, when Norman Morrison, an American Quaker burned himself to death while clinging onto his child as a mark of his rejection of the Vietnam War. (His child survived, and Morrison was revered in Vietnam for his purported martyrdom.)"

Yes, a 31 year old Quaker from Pennsylvania named Norman Morrison who wore a suit and tie felt compelled to carry out the ultimate and terminal act of civil protest. He deliberately carried out his act directly below the Pentagon office of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Morrison had a wife and two small children. It seems unconscionable to imagine that a father of young children could carry out this type of act. His family has undergone many hardships following his death, including the death from cancer of his 16 year old son just a few years after Morrison's act.

“Norman's sacrifice was well known in Vietnam. His wife Anne had received letters of support and thanks for years. She knew the North Vietnamese government had issued a stamp with Norman's face on it, and named a street in Hanoi after "Mo Ri Xon". She had received condolences from President Ho Chi Minh, and an invitation to visit.
But she didn't take up the invitation until the late 90s, after a Vietnamese man approached her at a talk and told her that when he was little, like other Vietnamese children, he had learned by heart a poem dedicated to Norman by North Vietnam's poet laureate.”

Below is a link to an article written on the 45th anniversary of Morrison's death.

https://www.theguardian.com/li...

Since 2009 Hundreds of Tibetans have committed acts of self immolation in protest of the Chinese treatment of Tibet. It happens here in America more than one might think.

"A man named David Buckel did it in a Brooklyn Park in 2018 after decades of fighting for LGBTQ rights and the environment. He had been the lead attorney for the estate of Brandon Teena, the transgender man raped and murdered in Nebraska in 1993 and whose life was made into the movie “Boys Don’t Cry.”"

“Buckel was 60 when he gave up the fight and set himself on fire, leaving a note next to the spot where he would die, apologizing for the mess. His life ended inside a ring of soil he had shaped to contain the fire.

Similarly, Methodist minister Charles R. Moore had been part of protests since Vietnam, battling racists, bigots and warmongers. He was 79 and tired in 2014 when he drove to the parking lot of a strip mall in East Texas and set himself on fire in protest of the social injustice that persisted after all those years.

For those of you who are Christians (approximately 70% of this country) there is an acknowledgement that Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed in order to save humanity. I think this is a proper characterization. According to the Bible, Jesus could have dispatched of those who were trying to persecute him and hang him on a cross to die. It is clearly seen as an act of martyrdom and the ultimate self sacrifice.

I'm not sure what to say although I am always attentive when I see individuals making personal sacrifices for causes greater than themselves. I have mentioned many times the completely genuine and unsolicited sacrifice made by Malibu's Harold Mintz who gave one of his kidneys to save the life of "anyone who needs one". He saved the life of a young mother in Virginia who needed a kidney to survive. His gesture was unprecedented and initially denied on the grounds that only someone who was mentally unstable would make this kind of a sacrifice for a total stranger. Imagine that for a second. We live in a society, in a culture, where you are deemed mentally healthy if you hoard billions and hide your money in foreign accounts to shield yourself from paying taxes, but seen as being potentially unstable if you want to subject yourself to some incalculable risk to save the life of a stranger.

It's hard not to be shaken by these ultimate sacrifices. It's hard not to pause and reflect. We are so accustomed to people who focus strictly on themselves and their own welfare that it is almost a non human characteristic to give your life (painfully) when there is little, if any, hope that your sacrifice will change anything.

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal.

They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness.”

-Aldous Huxley

Food for thought....