Feuer mit Feuer zu bekämpfen

In August I wrote a blog post titled “A Great Flame,” where I offer sympathy to human beings who, forced against a social or political wall, choose to set their bodies on fire in protest, an act which, differentiated from the terrorist attacks which kill many, claims only one victim–the protester who struck his own match. As the days go by, particularly during this last year of unrest in the greater Middle East, I have read news account after news account of people who have chosen self immolation over living another day beneath a regime they find oppressive. And it got me to thinking; is this shocking event becoming trivialized by the mass numbers of fiery suicides taking place in the developing world?  Has the impact been undermined by a developing everyday occurrence? Is there another non-violent act that can have the same shocking impact? I can’t answer the last question, but here are my thoughts on the first two.

When Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire, it was the most shocking display of patriotism that the world had ever seen, setting in motion the eventual collapse of the Catholic regime in Vietnam and the US failure to win the war. By time we get to 2012 when, during the last year, 15 people have set themselves on fire in China to protest against the occupation of Tibet, we find that these suicides, although highly symbolic, are largely done in vain. This is a depressing thought, because all life is sacred, and the only silver lining that can exist in death, particularly suicide, is if that person’s death has some kind of meaning–promoting positive sociopolitical reform.

Instead of inspiring change, these immolations have only inspired copycats; however, I still stand by the sentiments expressed in my August post.

But there does sit a place where these acts can still inspire fear and shock, and that is the Western world, specifically the US. While Americans read about self immolations on a regular basis, they take comfort in the thought that “that’s just an African/Middle Eastern/East Asian thing.” But what if it started happening in the US? While the sociopolitical conditions in the US are far from a point from which reconciliation can only be found by the collapse of the government, there is still the problem that this country engages, on a daily basis, in some military act that is conducive only of death, destruction, and the flexing of hegemonic muscle. And while the US desperately tries to maintain that power while China overtakes the US as a world superpower, there is bound to be some kind of confrontation. Perhaps it will not be something on US or Chinese soil, but if we learned nothing else from Qaddafi in the 1980s, he did teach us that the US does not take kindly towards being humiliated.[1]

Someday things will get to a point in this country where, in order to survive, we must destroy the empire.  Wenn wir die Welt lieben, dann müssen wir sie zerstören. If not, then we risk a great uprising of flames. I hope that doesn’t happen, but I don’t believe the US is equipped to handle being only the second most powerful country. My hope is that if there arises a need for a violent uprising in the US, that protesters instead consider following in the footsteps of Thich Quang Duc and other great flames, rather than resorting to murdering their fellow countrymen and countrywomen. Any act of violence that can be vilified carries the burden of villainy, and that undermines the entire reason for protesting in the first place.

[1] The American Bombing of Libya