Portland Rain and Aaron Bushnell's Sacrifice

All three of us are feeling much better. Kamohelo is still in hospital, though I’m told she’s looking better. Evan went to school and felt fine last night. Whatever I had has passed. I went out into another rainy wintry day in Portland this afternoon, fierce wind blowing across the urban landscape, and made this photo. I am going to say something now about Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation, so if that subject is too upsetting or not what you need to hear about today, please stop now.

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Since Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, I have been watching media “spin,” each medium interpreting his action differently according to who owns and advertises in that medium. I was disappointed to see that The Guardian included the man’s alleged “anarchist past” in their headline and spent more time describing his former religion than describing what Aaron Bushnell said and did. The Guardian was also incomplete. It reported that he shouted “Free Palestine” before he set himself on fire. He did, and then he shouted that phrase five times while he was on fire, and he remained standing as he shouted it until he could no longer utter sound nor remain standing. 

It was a well-planned, carefully designed form of “extreme protest” (Bushnell’s own words). I don’t see any evidence that he was “mentally ill,” and I don’t call what he did a suicide. Thich Nhat Hanh, a revered Buddhist teacher, explained that Buddhist monks who self-immolated in Vietnam were not committing suicide but calling attention to the suffering in their country, just as Bushnell called attention to the suffering in Palestine. “To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance,” Thich Nhat Hanh wrote. “To express will by burning oneself, therefore, is not to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, that is, to suffer and to die for the sake of one’s people. This is not suicide.” The full article includes ample context for Thich Nhat Hanh’s words and a full historical account of the immolations of the monks.

Bushnell’s final words, before the six times he shouted “Free Palestine” are as follows: “I’m 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.” After he spoke those words on a video camera he took with him, he put the camera down where it could film his action, took a firm standing position in front of the gates of the Israeli embassy, poured a substance all over his Air Force uniform, put on his hat, and lit his clothing on fire.

Some media are speculating that Aaron Bushnell was “mentally ill.” Is self-immolation to call attention to extreme suffering more mentally ill than carpet bombing an enclosure where 2 million people are trapped? What about sending weapons capable of mass murder to a government that wants to use those weapons to destroy human lives? How do we define “mentally ill” and how does mental illness on the global scale differ from mental health?