More statements might be added in coming weeks.
A woman, 27, who has not been identified in the mainstream media burned herself with gasoline (?) outside Israel's consulate in Atlanta, Georgia December 1st. "Jane Doe" survived and is at the Grady Memorial Hospital, an "unperson" for the media, as Sam Husseini put it, though maybe it can be justified to protect her privacy. It was mentioned that she had a Palestinian flag with her or a burned flag was found by the first responders. Afterward her home was searched or ransacked by the Atlanta police – in a 'normal' way, or is she being treated like a terrorism suspect? How "authoritarian" is government in the Atlanta area? – husseini.substack.com/p/jane-doe-who-immolated-herself-at
Aaron Bushnell burned himself outside Israel's embassy in Washington, DC shortly before 1pm February 25th and passed away around 8pm that day. NPR could not immediately 'confirm' why Bushnell did this? After ignoring the anti-war movement for decades they have talked about and even promoted pro-Palestine anti-war events [note that they remain very much with the Biden administration on Ukraine, Haiti, China, Yemen, etc.]. Was the coverage of these two self-immolations strange? One factor might be not wanting to encourage suicide, but I don't remember them mention the anti-suicide hotline at any time in covering this: one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=1234114390:1234114391 (audio) and www.npr.org/2024/02/25/1233810136/fire-man-israeli-embassy-washington I think "Jane Doe" in December was only mentioned after Bushnell acted. Some would condemn individual acts of sacrificial heroism. I think there was a lot of debate about this regarding the struggle in Turkey a few decades ago.
Sam Husseini gave many examples February 26th: husseini.substack.com/p/ignoring-immolators-lulls-the-society
Also Ann Wright, also on the 26th: www.commondreams.org/opinion/kill-selves-to-stop-war
[An incomplete international listing, 1948 to 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_self-immolations I heard of an incident in Japan, probably before 2010, that doesn't seem to be included, etc. I planned to add more here.]
[Today (?), April 19, 2024, a man set himself on fire in a park near the New York City (Manhattan?) courthouse where Donald Trump is on trial for the falsifying business records and Stormy Daniels payments trial. The police said something like the "victim" threw "pamphlets," relating to "conspiracy theories" in the air before burning himself. The "conspiracy theories" might not relate to Trump. The man is still alive and a few police officers were injured by the fire.]
[5/1: Apparently the man from Florida (I think Saint Augustine) who burned himself April 19th was Max Azzarello, 37, who studied anthropology at UNC (Chapel Hill?) and had an MA in urban planning from Rutgers consortiumnews.com/2024/04/30/patrick-lawrence-this-isnt-fascism/
[5/1: Apparently the man, 37, from Saint Augustine, Florida who burned himself, fatally, around 1:35pm EDT Friday, April 19th in Collect Pond Park, opposite New York's Centre Street Courthouse was Maxwell Crosby Azzarello (born April 11, 1987). Apparently like me he studied anthropology at UNC-Chapel Hill, and he received an MA in urban planning from Rutgers. He was an official in Tom Suozzi's 2013 campaign for executive of Nassau County, New York. Apparently his mother died in May 2022. In August 2023 he was arrested three times, in one incident for reportedly throwing wine at a Bill Clinton autograph. On April 19th had a sign saying "Trump is with Biden and they are about to fascist coup us" (all capitalized?): consortiumnews.com/2024/04/30/patrick-lawrence-this-isnt-fascism/ (I don't necessarily recommend the entire article), en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Maxwell_Azzarello , and Azzarello's SubStack, The Ponzi Papers, is archived at: web.archive.org/web/20240420044339/https://theponzipapers.substack.com/p/i-have-set-myself-on-fire-outside
Student George Winne Jr. (April 2, 1947 in Detroit – May 11, 1970 around 2am in La Jolla?) burned himself fatally after 4pm May 10th in Revelle Plaza at the University of California, San Diego, over the Vietnam War: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_George_Winne_Jr.
Alice Jeanette Herz (Strauß or Strauss; May 25, 1882 in Hamburg, Germany – March 26, 1965 in Detroit) fatally burned herself March 16th in Detroit over the Vietnam War, the first American to do so (?): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Herz
Novelist Huguette Gaulin Bergeron fatally burned herself June 6, 1972 in the Old Port of Montreal's Place Jacques-Cartier; she was born in 1944: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguette_Gaulin
Catholic Worker Roger Allen LaPorte (July 16, 1943 in Geneva, New York – November 10, 1965 in Manhattan) burned himself fatally November 9th (?) in front of the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Library in New York City for pacifism (?): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Allen_LaPorte
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Aaron_Bushnell
www.democracynow.org/2024/2/28/aaron_bushnell_self_immolation_gaza_protest
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/27/alet-f27.html
WSWS chair David North censored by YouTube? www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/15/rcyp-m15.htmlan-indicatorof-the-profound-change-in-consciousness-in-the-united-states/
By veteran Mike Prysner: empirefiles.substack.com/p/tribute-to-aaron-bushnell-by-iraq
www.tempestmag.org/2024/03/aarons-sacrifice/
geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/media-israel-bias-aaron-bushnell-gaza-genocide
redphoenixnews.com/2024/03/03/honor-aaron-bushnells-sacrifice-organize-and-resist/
2022 Green US Senate candidate and veteran Matthew Hoh: twitter.com/MatthewPHoh/status/1762160060975788131
www.thenation.com/article/society/aaron-bushnell-gaza-self-immolation/
By John Parker, Peace and Freedom Party candidate for Congress (California district 37, at the south end of the state): www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/02/28/honor-aaron-bushnell-free-palestine/
informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/03/02/disgust/14/
By Chris Hedges, condemned by David North of the WSWS? – chrishedges.substack.com/p/aaron-bushnells-divine-violence
english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/from-rachel-corrie-to-aaron-bushnell--sacrificing-for-palest
www.greanvillepost.com/2024/02/27/brian-berletics-moving-homage-to-aaron-bushnells-sacrifice/
theintercept.com/2024/02/28/aaron-bushnell-reddit-fire-protest-israel-palestine/
theintercept.com/2024/03/07/aaron-bushnell-fbi-anarchism-extremist/
The Claudia-Karina 2024 presidential campaign highlighted: www.youtube.com/watch?si=BBiAv568T_VhuVdw&v=0QfPm2izBGU&feature=youtu.be ?
(?) nypost.com/2024/02/27/us-news/aaron-bushnell-claimed-secret-knowledge-of-us-forces-in-gaza/
Rightist associated with the Zionist Tablet: thedailyscroll.substack.com/p/february-26-2024-the-peoples-temple Only a passing reference to Aaron Bushnell, but typical Zionist points from Bernard-Henri Lévy www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/stop-the-war-in-gaza ; not connected to Bushnell but it sounds like the "War on Terror" years on local college campuses under Bush and Obama at UC Berkeley in the mid-2020's: www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/berkeley-safe-space-for-hate ; the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations fund the alleged linkage of Zoroastrianism, remnants of Iranian monarchism, anti-government Iranians (portrayed as willing tools for the "West" in the media), Zionism, and anti-Palestinian politics on the occasion of Nowruz this week: www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/deep-roots-nowruz-zoroastrianism ]. At least one Zionist on Facebook was wishing for more burnings after December 1, 2023, and I think that was the first time I heard that someone had burned themselves over Palestine, though even people in the "West" have been facing jail, private and state-sponsored harassment campaigns and doxxing, loss of employment and possibly education, deadly violence, etc.
A vigil in Portland, Oregon February 28th, one of several across the country: www.workers.org/2024/03/77324/ and www.workers.org/2024/03/77348/ Green Party candidate Jill Stein spoke at a rally at the UN building in New York March 15th.
Bronx Anti-War Coalition statement: www.workers.org/2024/02/77193/
A poem by Julia Wright: www.workers.org/2024/03/77403/
Search: www.workers.org/?s=aaron+bushnell
From: www.workers.org/2024/02/77176/ –
The following statements appeared on Resistance News Network on Feb. 26, 2024.
Islamic Resistance Movement
We, in the Islamic Resistance Movement, express our heartfelt condolences and our full solidarity with the family and friends of the U.S. pilot Aaron Bushnell, whose name has been immortalized as a defender of humanitarian values and the plight of the oppressed Palestinian people who are suffering due to the U.S. administration and its unjust policies, like the U.S. activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed by a Zionist bulldozer [March 16th, today,] in 2003 in Rafah, the same city for which Bushnell paid for with his life to pressure his country’s government to prevent the criminal Zionist army from attacking it and committing massacres and violations in it.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden bears full responsibility for the death of Aaron Bushnell due to its policy that supports the Nazi Zionist entity in the genocide war against our Palestinian people, as he gave his life in order to highlight the massacres and Zionist ethnic cleansing against our people in the Gaza Strip.
The heroic pilot Aaron Bushnell will remain immortal in the memory of our Palestinian people and the free people of the world, and a symbol of the spirit of global humanitarian solidarity with our people and their just cause.
The tragic incident that cost pilot Bushnell his life is an expression of the growing anger among the people in the U.S. who reject their country’s policy that contributes to the killing and genocide of our people, and rejects their government’s violation of global humanitarian values, by providing cover to ensure the impunity of the Nazi entity and its leaders from punishment and accountability.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department
The act of a U.S. soldier sacrificing himself for Palestine is the highest sacrifice and a medal, and a poignant message to the U.S. administration to stop its involvement in the aggression.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine affirmed that the act of Aaron Bushnell from the U.S. Air Force by setting himself on fire in front of the Zionist embassy in Washington, D.C., in protest against the war on Gaza, in which he called for the “liberation of Palestine,” confirms the state of anger among the people in the U.S. due to the official U.S. involvement in the Zionist genocide war being waged on the Gaza Strip.
It also indicates that the status of the Palestinian cause, especially in U.S. circles, is becoming more deeply entrenched in the global conscience, and reveals the truth of the Zionist entity as a cheap colonial tool in the hands of savage imperialism.
The Front expresses its full solidarity with the soldier’s family and all the U.S. sympathizers who took a honorable stance and whose struggle and pressure to stop the genocide on the Strip have not ceased, confirming that the act of a U.S. soldier sacrificing his life to draw the attention of the U.S. people and the world to the plight of the Palestinian people, despite its tragic nature and the great pain it involves, is considered the highest sacrifice and medal, and the most important poignant message directed to the U.S. administration, that it is involved in the war crime in Gaza and that the people in the U.S. have awakened and are rejecting this involvement, calling on the administration to stop this support and bias for the Zionist entity.
The Front sent a message to the Arab soldier to take this U.S. soldier who sacrificed his life for a noble cause like the Palestinian cause as an example and role model, and to leave the trenches of waiting, incapacity, and move to the trench of confrontation in support of Palestine and its people who are being slaughtered, besieged, and starved in full view and hearing of the world and just a few kilometers from Arab lands and meters from the borders.
Palestine will be victorious as long as it has deeply engraved itself in the consciences of the world, and history will record in golden letters the names of all the sympathizers and free people of the world who stood with it and sacrificed their lives for its sake.
These statements were lightly edited [by Workers World and again here]."
Tweets from Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei (?):
February 28th at 8:23am with 62.2k views, 195 comments, 573 re-tweets, 1.9k likes, and 25 bookmarks:
The West’s disgraceful antihuman policies with regard to the genocide in Gaza have reached such a point that a US military officer sets himself on fire. #AaronBushnell
twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1762830903410102578
February 28th at 10:39am with 337.5k views, 298 comments, 782 re-tweets, 3k likes, and 63 bookmarks:
The genocide in Gaza is even too much for that young person who was brought up in the Western culture. His conscience was hurting and he set himself on fire. #AaronBushnell
twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1762865228121768068
February 28th at 11:04am with 46.5k views, 207 comments, 496 re-tweets, 1.8k likes, and 18 bookmarks:
With regard to the situation in Gaza, Western culture has introduced itself, exposed itself, and revealed how corrupt, how perverted, and how cruel it is.
twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1762871443933569404
There have probably been many more responses internationally. A street was re-named for Bushnell March 10th in Jericho, Palestine.
February 26th:
Statement by ANSWER National Director Brian Becker on the Self-Immolation of U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell at the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C.
The decision by U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell to set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy while condemning the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide being carried out against the people of Gaza was a desperate act designed to arouse public outrage. He made the ultimate personal sacrifice to end a genocide that the entire world has been witnessing for the past months.
This was an act of martyrdom by a U.S. service member who was outraged by the actions of a government that speaks in his name. Aaron said as he set himself on fire, “I will not be complicit with genocide”.
His actions cannot but remind one of the self-immolation of 22 year-old anti-war activist Norman Morrison, who doused himself in kerosene and set himself on fire below the office of then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon to protest the escalating genocidal war waged by the United States against the people of Vietnam. Six months before Norman Morrison took his own life, president Lyndon Johnson had authorized the mass use of napalm against the people of Vietnam and escalated the carpet bombing that was killing thousands of civilians each week. Morrison’s act was also in line with the self-immolation protests carried out by Buddhist monks in South Vietnam to protest the South Vietnamese puppet government. Daniel Ellsberg witnessed Norman Morrison’s self-immolation. He was horrified and cited it, along with the mass anti-war protests sweeping the country, as one of the factors that affected him deeply as he moved into active opposition to the war. He ultimately released the Pentagon Papers to the media, which revealed that the U.S. government had been lying about the Vietnam War for a decade.
People all over the United States, in the millions, have been involved in mass actions to protest the U.S. support for Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people in recent months. People have also engaged in civil disobedience actions of many types. Many have been arrested and are facing trial, including many whose constitutional rights were violated by violent police repression.
Aaron Bushnell’s action is a reflection, an indicator, a marker, of the profound change in consciousness in the United States. The previously dominant narrative that backed the Israeli apartheid government is dramatically giving way to a narrative based on the truth: that the Palestinian people have been the victims of dispossession, ethnic cleansing, violence of all types and now a genocidal killing spree in Gaza. And people in the United States and around the world are horrified and are mobilizing on multiple fronts in support of Palestine.
Aaron Bushnell’s sacrifice takes place on the eve of a planned invasion of Rafah by the Israeli military. People all over the United States are coming together on March 2nd for mass actions in cities and towns across the United States as part of a global day of protest demanding no invasion of Rafah, a ceasefire to end the Israeli killing spree and the lifting of the siege of Gaza.
We send our sympathy and solidarity to Aaron Bushnell's family and loved ones. He has made the ultimate sacrifice in a quest for justice and in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine.
Brian Becker,
National Director, ANSWER Coalition
Veterans for Peace, www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2024/02/26/veterans-peace-statement-about-aaron-bushnell-protesting-dea , February 26th:
Madmen Arsonists Strike Again: They as Much as Lit Aaron Bushnell’s Match for Him
Aaron Bushnell just couldn’t take any more.
He couldn’t bear to see any more people eviscerated and incinerated by American bombs dropped by Israelis on innocent Palestinians.
So, in his Air Force uniform, he walked determinedly to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. and set himself on fire.
What can we say about a young man who would do that to protest his government’s acts of cruelty and genocide?
It is important we say nothing before quoting his own calmly spoken, final words to the world.
“I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal. Free Palestine!”
You can see Aaron’s last minute of life in this video, blurred out after he strikes the match.
In it, he shouts, “Free Palestine” six times. The last five are combined with screams of agony before he falls silent.
A voice off-camera, shouts repeatedly, “Get him on the ground…on the ground,” which is the correct thing to do when someone is on fire.
People frantically rush in with a fire extinguisher. A police officer or uniformed guard appears and points a gun in Aaron’s direction. Someone calls out “I need a fire extinguisher…a fire extinguisher…another one…I don’t need guns; I need a fire extinguisher.”
Why would Aaron do something this extreme?
More of the “why” may come to light. But what he said in that video is sufficient. He could “no longer be complicit in genocide.”
Aaron’s motivation is strikingly similar to that of Norman Morrison, a 35-year-old, Quaker activist who set himself ablaze in the Pentagon parking lot below Secretary of War McNamara’s office, November 2, 1965.
In a letter to his wife, Morrison had written, “Dearest Anne, For weeks, even months, I have been praying only that I be shown what I must do. This morning with no warning, I was shown … Know that I love thee but must act for the children in the Priest’s village,” in reference to an article he had read in which a Catholic priest described Vietnamese “women and children blown to bits” from U.S. bombing and napalm.
Too many of us in VFP have seen the suffering war creates and it never leaves our memories. All of us agonize over our government’s aiding and abetting the slaughter of innocents.
We prod ourselves, “what is the most, the very best thing, I can do?”
That question moves some to learn the history of Palestine that they’ve too long ignored; some to contact elected officials; some to join a public protest; some to go on fasts; some to block roads or congressional offices and go to jail. But it never feels like enough.
Some may perceive fasting to the death or self-immolation as crazy and extreme beyond measure. Others see it as entirely appropriate because the horror protested is itself insane and extreme beyond measure.
Few who care deeply will have the courage to fast to the death or do what Aaron Bushnell did. But in addition to whatever inadequate things we already do, we can, we must, do two more things.
The first is to consciously let people who are pained and grieving at what our government does know that they are not alone. We should not assume our colleagues and comrades know we are aware of their anguish.
Secondly, we can resolve that we will move beyond simply reacting to bestial policies.
We could call our policymakers “madmen arsonists” because they go around the globe setting fires much faster than we can extinguish them.
These policymakers, swaddled in privilege, take their orders from those who profit from death and suffering. We know who they are: the people who run Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and their fellow merchants of death, and the people who finance what the merchants do.
These madmen arsonists operate on a grand scale internationally but also on a singular, small scale as in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. They as much as lit the match for Aaron Bushnell. The fire that killed Airman Bushnell was simply the “collateral damage,” as it’s so callously called, of the ongoing conflagration in Palestine.
Our firefighting will never keep up with arsonists who operate on a global scale. We are long overdue to learn the fire prevention skills needed to halt them.
Fire prevention in this context means prohibiting the lobbying, advertising, vote buying, campaign funding and actual legislation writing that corporations do behind constitutional shields given them by the Supreme Court, like free speech and protection.
Until we strip corporations of their shields, they will continue to amass economic and political power to govern us, to set fires large and small, while we run frantically for fire extinguishers until we are exhausted, penniless and gone.
Veterans For Peace is learning the necessary fire prevention skills we need as we continue fighting fires set by the madmen arsonists. It is simply our responsibility to do both at the same time.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment