Remembering Aaron Bushnell – Mondoweiss Aaron Bushnell died by self-immolation in protest of the Gaza genocide a year ago today. His memory should stir a fire in our souls, and force us to evaluate our commitment to a better world.
On February 25, 2024, millions across the world tuned in to see a video flash across our timelines, soon to be followed by countless headlines. In the video, a young man in military fatigues gave a brief speech before standing in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C., pouring a liquid atop his head and body, and lighting himself on fire in what was the most high-profile instance of self-immolation in recent memory. His last words in the speech he gave would be forever imprinted on the minds of those who saw his last act: “My name is Aaron Bushnell, and I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force. I will no longer be complicit in genocide. 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.” Before his body collapsed as he was engulfed by flames, he let out several screams in which he said “Free Palestine… Free Palestine… Free Palestine.” His chant became more and more strained as the fire burned, and by his last repetition it was clear Aaron was experiencing a level of pain many will never in their lives experience or understand. Shortly after he was transferred to a hospital by emergency responders, he succumbed to the injuries of his last political act – becoming a martyr for a cause he believed in so deeply that he would endure the worst pain imaginable to bring attention to it. His death would ripple through mainstream media and political circles, with many demonizing him as a dangerous, unhinged radical, or just as nefariously, a man with mental health issues who simply committed suicide as a result of deep internal struggles. As the news sunk in, many wrote their think pieces, made their positions known, and did everything they could to analyze and wrestle with the graphic violence that they had witnessed. Others took the moment as one to reflect on their own lives, analyze their efforts for a cause Aaron had given his life to, and wrestle with the horrific reality that his action was done with the explicit message that the pain he would experience was nothing compared to the pain of those he was fighting to center. I know I am not alone in saying I can remember the day like it was yesterday. I heard the news before the video and struggled to watch the video itself for several hours. I only ultimately watched knowing that Aaron had chosen his method because of his need to send a message to the world at large, and I could not in good conscience avoid his last act as if it was simply a headline. By the end of the video, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I had to sit down, cry, call my loved ones, and try to explain to those around me what I was feeling. Some, who themselves organized, were wrestling with the same complex web of emotions I was; all of us just trying to wrestle with what we had witnessed. The overriding questions of “A military member did what?” to “What do we do?” to the final question we all confronted of “Are we doing enough?” were being tossed back and forth in every call and text I made that day. For many of us, these had been questions we had already been asking as to that point more than 30,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza amid the Zionist entity’s genocidal campaign. Centering that context is critical in this reflection, as it was what Aaron was calling for. Aaron’s act was a contradictory one: an act of immense graphic violence guaranteed to garner attention to himself done in service to a cause he desperately wanted people to pay attention to. It almost feels like a disservice to note that it is feasible that he would’ve been happy leaving this world unknown as a person so long as the cause he fought for was highlighted. His decision was one of revolutionary selflessness: giving his body and soul to a cause greater than him to draw attention, if even a brief moment, to the suffering he had seen for months to that point. But what had he seen? Like all of us, Aaron had spent the days, weeks, and months since October 7, 2023, witnessing untold horrors unfolding across the digital world. The genocide in Gaza has been one that has been live-streamed from the beginning by Palestinians who wanted the world to see the brutal colonial violence they were experiencing and had been experiencing for decades. Thousands of Palestinians were being actively slaughtered by Israeli bombs and bullets – many of which were directly supplied by their U.S. imperial benefactor. Videos of children crushed under rubble, of fathers carrying the remains of their family members in bags, of people being crushed by Israeli armored bulldozers, of entire blocks of Gaza being leveled and inhabitants rounded up and murdered by an occupational military hellbent on their annihilation, all were circulating daily. Every one of us had seen these images and videos, many of which had been provided by Palestinian reporters bravely working day after day on the ground – facing direct targeting by the same military as it assassinated those who might tell the stories of what was happening around them to the world. We had become more desperate as these images flooded our screens with our protests, sit-ins, letter-writing campaigns, and more failing to change the ongoings. Thousands poured into the streets to find that our politicians, be they Democrats or Republicans, were dedicated to the genocide in Gaza in ways that superseded the interests of even their political bases. Aaron saw the same images we did. One must question whether or not he felt a unique sense of desperation and perhaps culpability as he wore the uniform of a military that was directly complicit in the slaughter he was witnessing. His political development, according to his friends and family, led him to the path of becoming an anarchist while serving, which must have made for a complicated internal struggle for him. I imagine he had many sober conversations with himself, but truthfully I will never know. His last statement does indicate that he did at the very least feel a level of complicity, one he decided he could not sustain. That much we know to be true. His political development and views are ones borne of empathy, and reading his own words we can clearly paint a picture of someone with dep love for his common man. In his own words: “I’ve always been bothered by the reality of homelessness, even back when I was growing up in a conservative community. I have come to believe in the importance of solidarity politics and I view the enforcement of homelessness as a major front in the class war which must be challenged for all our sakes. I view helping my houseless neighbors as a moral obligation, a matter of social justice, and a matter of good politics. If I don’t stand with those more marginalized than me today then who will be left to stand with me tomorrow. I view enforced homelessness as a societal failing and a crime against humanity. I believe that no one deserves to be deprived of basic human necessities. I believe that homelessness as an involuntary condition must be abolished.” The act he chose after seeing such imagery, though violent and for some controversial, is not one without historical context. Self-immolation has been a semi-frequent form of political protest in countless struggles throughout history. Notably, Buddhist monks living under the boot of the South Vietnamese U.S. puppet government self-immolated to protest that regime’s policies. In a letter to Martin Luther King Junior, Thich Nhat Hanh would later state, regarding their acts, that: “To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with the utmost courage, frankness, determination, and sincerity.” This, in my opinion, is what we should internalize as we come to the first anniversary of Aaron’s sacrifice. There is a tendency among many to look back at his action and think that the solution is better mental health systems when our comrades are struggling, that the action is not one to be glorified, and that what his death represents is something unfortunate though powerful. I think that does not do justice to Aaron’s memory or the path he chose. Aaron was a man who, as a member of an imperialist military force, found life in the Palestinian struggle – life that forced him to recognize the complicated web of contradictions in front of him and choose to commit to an act with longstanding political and historical significance to try to change something… anything… about it. His act, far from being something of selfishness and suicide, was one of life and sober, revolutionary contemplation. He deserves to be remembered not as a man with deep internal struggles who chose suicide, but as a man who put himself through unthinkable pain to push us one step closer to a liberated Palestine and a liberated world. His memory should stir a fire in our souls, and force us to evaluate our commitment to a better world. He is among millions of martyrs who have given their lives for the cause of liberation in every corner of the globe. His act is proof of his dedication to his beliefs, and his unwillingness to sit idly by as horrors unfold in front of him. Though not a call for us to replicate his methods, we should strive to replicate his dedication every single day of our lives until Palestine is liberated from the river to the sea.James RayAaron Bushnell and the universe of moral obligation – Mondoweiss Through his self-immolation, Aaron Bushnell aligned himself with the Palestinian people and joined them outside the universe of moral obligation of the West. One year later we are still struggling to understand his radical action. Aaron James Bushnell was an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force. In a video live-streamed on Twitch, which has since been removed for guideline violations, he walks down International Drive in Washington D.C., announcing that he “will no longer be complicit in genocide.” Walking with a camera in one hand and a thermal bottle in the other, he explains that he is “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 is not extreme at all.” Bushnell places his camera down. He centers himself in the frame. He lifts his sticker-covered bottle and douses himself with a liquid. He shouts, “Free Palestine!” He takes a lighter to his right leg. Nothing happens. He tries his left leg. Nothing happens. He directs his lighter to the ground and he’s engulfed in a fire. He shouts “free Palestine” six more times in the next 42 seconds between screams of pain and stomping his feet. Pieces of fabric fly away from his burning body. He falls partially out of the frame with his burnt leg shining under the sun, slowly losing life. Officers gather around him. Three officers spray him with separate fire extinguishers. Another officer points a gun at him, keeping aim from different angles around his colleagues. The video stops. The U.S. Air Force later confirmed that Bushnell died on February 25, 2024 I always knew about Rage Against the Machine but started actively listening to them only in December 2023 to silence the sounds of distraught Arabic underneath monotone translations, far-away explosions that reverberate closer and closer, European colonialist propaganda, sirens that never fade away, and wailing forming into a desperate chorus. When I watched Bushnell’s self-immolation, Rage was a coincidental source of making sense of the world. Rage’s album cover is a square-crop of Malcolm Browne’s photograph of Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation in 1963 in Saigon, South Vietnam. Michael Biggs, an Oxford University professor, lists Quang Duc’s protest as the first of the 20th century. Of course, self-immolation is a historical practice, especially in Mahayana Buddhism that Quang Duc practiced, but his was a calculated public act. Quang Duc’s self-immolation involved inviting Western journalists to observe and report on the protest. So, participating in it. He sat in the lotus position at a major intersection. Other monks poured petrol over him. As he burned, a group of monks disseminated their political demands in English. Another group lay on the roads, blocking fire engines from reaching the scene. Michael Biggs understands the archaic nature of such acts. But he points to two developments that make it into a modern practice. First is the reach of mass media. Where Quang Duc’s self-immolation was organized for Western journalists, Bushnell live-streamed his for the world to see. Yeah, common for today. Second is the “transformation of state repression,” which stopped executions that inflicted bodily punishments. Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, illustrates the transformation in Discipline and Punish that opens with the execution of Damiens the regicide, involving molten lead, red-hot pincers, quartering, etc. Such public spectacles disciplined onlookers, teaching them how to behave. But these punishments transformed, moving from the body to the soul, disciplining the psyche to create docile citizens. Any spectacle displays power. Self-immolation is one such display. It is shocking not only for its bodily affliction but also because it usurps the government’s monopoly over violence. Bushnell’s self-immolation in fatigues, violating protocol, announcing his partisan politics, acting insubordinately and engaging in a public demonstration is nothing but a “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.” Bushnell grew up in Orleans, Massachusetts, in a monastic religious group, the Community of Jesus, with his parents and sibling. Reports on his self-immolation characterized his upbringing as “conservative,” “isolated” with “high expectations and “tight restrictions,” controlled by “leaders and teachers,” organized around a “communal home-school.” The New York Times report also included allegations from 2021 of psychological abuse of community members without apparent connections to him. Bushnell is described as “shy” and “thoughtful,” who experienced “anxiety” as a teenager. He had been seeking therapy, also advising a friend from his religious community to do the same. He departed from the Community of Jesus in 2019, leaving behind his family and the only world he had known. He began active duty in the Air Force in 2020, where he was a cyber defense operations specialist at the joint base in San Antonio, Texas. He was set for discharge in May 2024. Bushnell had been planning to transition back into civilian life. One plan considered the SkillBridge program in Ohio. The other plan was an online computer science degree course, for which he was registered to start a week after his self-immolation. In the coverage of his personal life, Bushnell appears to be an average teenager and young adult coming into his own in an inherited world. His links to “anarchist activism,” “alleviating poverty,” “opposing capitalism,” and general left-leaning politics are all normal for someone whose heart aches for others. But there cannot be any doubts about his mental state in organizing his self-immolation. It was intentional. It was planned. In preparation, Bushnell signed a will apologizing to his sibling, leaving behind $37,000 in savings and a $500,000 life insurance policy. He gave his cat, Sugar, to his neighbors and a $2,000 check. He texted a friend, “I hope you’ll understand. I love you. This doesn’t even make sense, but I feel like I’m going to miss you.” Bushnell posted on Facebook, which has since been removed, “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” He emailed several news outlets with the subject line “Against genocide” with a link to host his live stream. The email included a request, “I ask that you make sure that the footage is preserved and reported on.” Talia Jane, an independent journalist, was among those who received Bushnell’s early notification of his intention. She coordinated with several others to identify, locate and stop him. Following his successful self-immolation, she conferred with his friends who insisted that it was his wish for the video to be seen. Jane blurred the video and uploaded it. Bushnell orchestrated his self-immolation as a calculated public act. He attended to his personal belongings. He invited the media to watch. He directed the violence inward onto himself. But he was immediately caricatured as mentally ill. The officers dispatched to Bushnell were sent to handle “an individual that was experiencing a possible medical/mental health emergency.” The Air Force concluded its active-duty member was experiencing a “mental health” episode. But how has mental health as our excuse to get out of anything become an official classification? Because what is mental health? What is the “mental” part, specifically? Is someone mentally ill when they wish the world was something else? When they act with a conscience? Is not the military an institution for the mentally ill? What is it to commit your life to a cause determined by people who themselves do not go to war? What is it to kill another human just because you were born in a place? How does someone recover from such actions? Should we not be concerned about all soldiers? Following protocol for suicide reporting, news outlets included hotline numbers at the end of reports. But some reduced Bushnell’s self-immolation to a mental health episode and suicide without political motivation. Others compared his political motivations to suicide bombers. Such reactions are expected, Biggs notes, as all political motivations are married to ideologies. However, in addition to the politics of self-immolation, there’s an ideology about suicide that is twisted and turned to convenience. In the sense that there’s an ongoing change in how we talk about suicide – died by suicide, not committed. The shift from “committed” to “died by” alludes to the social decriminalization of the act. It implies that all individuals have the right to their own life. Then how is suicide with political motivations bad? The responses to Bushnell’s self-immolation insidiously use lay psychology to discredit all political motivations. But there is no winning in the sphere of competing ideologies. To each their own. So, how do we think about Bushnell’s self-immolation? Well, he wanted it “preserved and reported on.” Watch it. Stare at it. Let it imprint itself in your mind so that it permanently changes you. In addition to Quang Duc’s self-immolation, Rage’s album responds to the Los Angeles Police Department officers’ beating of Rodney King. As four officers beat King, their colleagues looked on and participated in silence. The jury couldn’t agree on the charges against one officer but acquitted the rest. The L.A. riots ensued. Sylvia Wynter, emeritus professor at Stanford, observed that the officers were acquitted owing to a short-form clause appearing in several reports. “N.H.I. No. Humans. Involved.” This designation by the L.A.P.D. applying to young black males and darker-skinned Latinos allowed officers to “deal with its members in any way they pleased.” Classifications like N.H.I. organize circles of belonging. Those in the inner circle, Wynter elaborates, participate in the “universe of moral obligation – that circle of people with reciprocal obligations to protect each other.” Those in the outer circle are aliens that can be treated differently. Yet Wynter probes, where do such classifications come from? They’re social constructs. We make them. We put them in place. We enact them. Wynter implicated herself with her colleagues for creating the inner and outer circles. After all, the L.A. police officers, judges and jurors were once their students. Wynter clarifies that, in the context of L.A., N.H.I. isn’t overtly genocidal but, nevertheless, produces genocidal effects. In the context of Palestinians in Gaza, a similar clause might not exist. However, a similar phrase might have been when Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to Palestinians as “human animals” and there is of course ample evidence and official statements confirming genocide as explicit state policy. When people are alienated from humanity all forms of violence are permissible. It’s not just death and destruction that’s permitted. But the denial of their humanity. That we witness people killed in front of us, and no matter what anyone attempts, it just doesn’t stop. That student activism, fundraising, marches, and rallies appeared to achieve nothing. That we collectively and individually cannot effect any change. It’s because there are no humans involved. Bushnell traveled to Israel and the West Bank with the Community of Jesus in 2016. He visited Biblical sites and spoke with students at Bethlehem University. However, he had little to say about the trip – as much as any 17-year-old. He developed concrete views about the situation eight years on. In his self-immolation video, he labels Palestine a colony. He recognizes that the continuation of colonialism is “what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” Moreover, he acknowledges that he was “complicit in genocide.” At the time of Bushnell’s self-immolation, there was a public hesitancy with the word genocide. It was still months before the New York Times instructed journalists against using the words “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide” and “occupied territory.” In a way, Bushnell was prophetic about the situation because there cannot be any hesitancy after the day-by-day evidence of the destruction wrecked for 14 months. But it’s not that ethnic cleansing and genocide have quantitative measurements that justify the accusation. It’s that the simultaneous denial and perpetuation of colonial propaganda reveals the circles of our moral obligation. To ensure life and safety for ourselves we’re expected to condone state violence as docile subjects. Outside the circle, the spectacle of state violence is delivered for the world to see. So, Bushnell implicates us, too, when he acknowledges his complicity. The commentators, influencers, journalists, politicians, and all those with public platforms who deny Palestinians the dignity – of food, home, love, truth – were students, too, sitting side-by-side with us all. The divisions, hatred, individualism, and violence are taught. Our spaces for collective learning are categorically useless as we’ve collectively put Palestinians in Gaza outside the universe of moral obligation. Bushnell’s self-immolation, albeit directed inward, wasn’t an act of individualism. It was for his human kin. He died for every death we all witnessed. But he had alternatives. Soldiers often refuse to participate in war as conscientious objectors. They withdraw themselves from war but remain onlookers. Bushnell put himself outside the universe of moral obligation. There, guns are pointed at you as you burn. Your fraternity dismisses your actions as a mental health episode. The public you chose to serve questions your politics. And you might be forgotten. Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian professor, was murdered in the genocide on December 6, 2023, and was not buried until February 4, 2025. He penned a poem, “If I Must Die.” The last lines read, “If I must die, let it bring hope, let it be a tale.” Alareer’s use of “if” and “must” foretells his death – premature, at the age of 44, for the cause of freedom. Bushnell, at the age of 25, burned to death for the cause of a “free Palestine.” Neither of them had to die. Bushnell’s self-immolation never had the potential to achieve a ceasefire or a pathway to Palestinian liberation. He would’ve known that. Yet he acted. Just as there’s no sense to be made from a genocide, there’s no sense to be made from a self-immolation. They’re both failures of our humanity. Goodbye, Aaron. I will always talk about you. Ryan D’Souza -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#35455): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/35455 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/111387150/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
