Vietnam to Gaza, self-immolation as a political protest has a long history

On June 11, 1963, in a busy corner in what is now known as Ho Chi Minh City, Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire and burned to death in protest against the South Vietnamese government’s persecution of Buddhists.

A photograph of the 73-year-old Buddhist monk in the midst of self-immolation, an act considered one of the most extreme forms of protest, made newspapers just 15 hours later, shocking the world and leaving an indelible impression on people everywhere who saw it.

Over the following months, at least five more monks set fire to themselves in protest against the government.

Fast forward February 25, 2024. More than four months into Israel’s war on Gaza, US airman Aaron Busnell would acknowledge he was about to engage in an “extreme act of protest” and set himself ablaze outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC to protest Tel Aviv’s relentless brutalities that has claimed nearly 30,000 Palestinian lives.

"I will no longer be complicit to genocide,” 25-year-old Bushnell had said before the act.

"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 colonisers, it's not extreme at all – this is what our ruling class has decided will be normal," he added.

In December 2023, an unidentified person self-immolated outside of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta. Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said at a news conference, “We believe it was an act of extreme political protest that occurred,” without releasing details of the individual, including name, age, or gender, adding that a Palestinian flag was found at the scene.

From protesting genocide to climate crisis inaction, several other notable incidents in recent history have seen people set themselves alight in a desperate and ultimate attempt to elicit action and change in the face of injustice.

In protest against Vietnam war

US citizen Norman Morrison, who was holding his toddler Emily in his arms, lit himself on fire near the US Pentagon after driving about 65 kilometres from his home in Baltimore on November 2, 1965.

Morrison dropped his baby before he was engulfed, and she was not injured. Badly burned, he succumbed to his injuries on arrival at the hospital. The 31-year-old was protesting US military involvement in the war in Vietnam.

In a statement after his death, his wife Anne Morrison said: “Norman Morrison has given his life today to express his concern over the great loss of life and human suffering caused by the war in Vietnam. He was protesting our government’s deep military involvement in this war. He felt that all citizens must speak their true convictions about our country’s actions.”

Against Soviet rule

Jan Palach was an economics and philosophy student who became a symbol of resistance against the Soviet invasion of then Czechoslovakia, setting himself on fire in central Prague on January 16, 1969. He died days later.

According to Reuters, the 20-year-old left behind a letter which called for the end of censorship and Soviet propaganda, while also urging for a general strike.

In the hospital, before he died on January 19, Palach said, “People must fight against the evil they feel equal to measure up to at that moment.” Despite the widespread mourning by the Czech people, Palach's act did not immediately achieve its intended outcome.

In January 1989, thousands of people came out in what is considered the country’s biggest anti-government demonstrations since Palach’s death 20 years prior, which toppled an authoritarian system and ended more than 40 years of communist rule in the country in what is known as the Velvet Revolution.

Government failings

Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi was already struggling to make ends meet for his family and was feeling hopeless when he was stopped by the police, who had reportedly slapped and spat at him before confiscating his goods and toppling his cart.

In an act of despair responding to that fateful day on December 17, 2010, Bouazizi set himself on fire outside the governor’s office after he went there to appeal for his goods back.

He had been unsuccessful, with the governor refusing to meet with him, despite Bouazizi saying, “If you don’t see me, I’ll burn myself,” according to news reports.

Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation sparked protests against substandard economic management and political autocracy across the Arab world, leading to what is known as the Arab Spring. In Tunisia, the demonstrations toppled President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had been ruling for 23 years.

In an opinion piece for CNN, Salman Shaikh, the then-director of the Brookings Doha Center and Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, wrote of Bouazizi a year after his death,“His was a cry for dignity, justice, and opportunity, which continues to be heard around a region undergoing tumultuous change.”

For independent identity

On February 29, 2016, an 18-year-old Tibetan monk, Kalsang Wangdu, immolated himself near the Retsokha monastery in a traditionally Tibetan area in China’s Sichuan Province to protest Chinese rule while calling for “Tibet’s complete independence”.

That same day, Dorjee Tsering, a 16-year-old student, also set himself alight in the Indian city of Dehradun while shouting “Free Tibet.”

Following the incident, Hillary Clinton, then a Democratic candidate running for president, was photographed holding an image of Dorjee while speaking to the president of advocacy group Tibetan National Congress in Minnesota, according to The New York Times.

Self-immolation and climate crisis

Wynn Bruce, a climate activist from Boulder, Colorado, self-immolated on Earth Day, outside the US Supreme Court building, almost two years ago on April 22, 2022.

His father, Douglas Bruce, told The Washington Post, “I agree with the belief that this was a fearless act of compassion about his concern for the environment,” adding that his son had previously tried to set himself on fire in front of the World Trade Centre in 2017.

Kritee Kanko, a climate scientist who said Bruce was a friend and member of her Buddhist community, had been planning the self-immolation for “at least one year.”

“This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis [sic]. We are piecing together info but he had been planning it for at least one year,” Kanko posted on social media after his death.

However, Kanko later told The New York Times in an interview that she wasn’t entirely sure of his intentions, highlighting that “people are being driven to extreme amounts of climate grief and despair” and that “what I do not want to happen is that young people start thinking about self-immolation.”