Don't let Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation be in vain

It is a call and a charge to fight for Palestinian Freedom and the end of this genocide.

Feb 26, 2024

Two things before I begin. One, there are ways to plug into Palestine organizing at the end of the piece. Two, a warning. I do not share images of the self-immolation that was done yesterday, but I do discuss the act throughout.

A man set himself on fire yesterday. Standing before the Israeli embassy, a man dressed in fatigues, identifying himself as a member of the U.S. Air Force, self-immolated. Before doing so he stated that he could “no longer be complicit in genocide.” He then said, “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.” Then, he set himself on fire. While burning he repeatedly yelled “Free Palestine.” This was all live streamed. There is video and an image I cannot bring myself to show you. His name was Aaron Bushnell, and he has now passed away from his injuries.

I spent much of yesterday stuck feeling like there is nothing to say, while simultaneously wanting to scream and scream and scream. What does it take for someone to resort to self-immolation, perhaps the most extreme act of protest an individual can undertake, an act that reminds us of the war in Vietnam, the revolutions of the Arab Spring, these moments in history when desperation and courage violently collide? Sitting with that answer, with how the horror of Israel’s genocide in Gaza must have weighed on Aaron for him to resort to this act, is painful beyond measure. Some people will try to look away, but one man has now forced much of the world to stare directly at the horrors of Israel’s genocide in Gaza once again. When someone in the U.S. military says that they cannot be complicit any longer, it should be a wake-up call. Every politician, every enabler and participant in Israel’s atrocities must be forced to confront the brutal repercussions of their actions. Not only should they be hounded about the genocide they’re complicit in, they should be doubly hounded about how that mass murder is boomeranging back home.

And it’s on us to make sure this drastic, life-ending act wasn’t in vain. It shouldn’t be, but it is. There will likely be some sort of effort to sweep this under the rug. I am not being conspiratorial here, simply stating how mass media and the rich and powerful will respond. I have read over a dozen articles since Aaron’s self-immolation. Only a couple headlines mention the reasons for this drastic and unfathomable protest. When the articles first ran Sunday afternoon most didn’t even directly connect the man lighting himself on fire to the genocide in Gaza. Several have since been updated. But the headlines remain, and today and the days to come will test whether or not we can amplify the message of a man who was willing to set himself on fire for what he believed in.

There is a haunting precedent. In December a woman self-immolated in Atlanta, in front of the Israeli consulate. We don’t have photo or video of her like we do of Aaron, who was very deliberate about making sure evidence would be available and disseminated yesterday. The story from Atlanta may even have informed why he went the route of live-streaming and contacting media. Because if you search for the woman who set herself alight in Atlanta less than three months ago, you will find very little. The coverage of the act essentially ended after three days. There were a handful of articles about the security guard who helped save her life that followed. I say apparently because I am unable to find out what happened to her. I cannot find a single article, or even a tweet to tell us if she is alive. I cannot even find her name.

My fear is that the initial media response here spells a similar fate for Aaron, and his self-immolation. His desperate, brave plea to the world. Nearly every headline is misleading. Nearly every one fails to mention Gaza or Palestine or genocide. Many Zionists, and much of the U.S. right-wing, are dismissing him out of hand. We have seen how the media coverage of Palestine has been immensely harmful and has enabled mass slaughter again and again over the last four and a half months.

So it’s on us. I wish it wasn’t, I truly do. I wish the desperate and inconceivable cry of a man at the end of his rope was enough. I wish 30,000 murdered Palestinians was enough. It should be so, so much more than enough. More than enough to demand peace, more than enough to cut of funds and arms to Israel, more than enough for our government to try to end this genocide. We have gone beyond the pale, witnessing live-streamed slaughter and atrocities committed beyond our comprehension. And yet. And yet. And yet it is still abnormal to call for a permanent ceasefire, if you’re in the U.S. Congress. Even when every conceivable demographic, from Jews to Evangelical Christians to the general public as a whole, supports an end to the death-dealing in Gaza, politicians refuse to listen.

When the Atlanta self-immolation occurred in December, some people immediately resorted to the “don’t make it political” refrain. As laughable as that might seem, as patently absurd as that might seem in the face of perhaps the single most drastic act of political protest someone can engage in, we may see that argument on a mass scale in the coming days. We may see an effort to call him mentally ill, despite the clear articulation of his reasoning and the substantial history of self-immolation as thought-out political protest. Or we may just see an effort to leave this behind. The coverage of Aaron, of his immolation and his powerful words of protest may cease, as it did days after the one that took place in Atlanta. I don’t know. I don’t know what the coming weeks and months hold, regarding this devastating act or the genocide in Gaza.

What I do know is that our duty, our responsibility to Aaron, to the woman in December, and to the people of Palestine most of all is to not let up. We can’t let this be swept under the rug and we can’t let it be forgotten, any of it, from the infinite sacrifice made by countless people in Gaza, or the sacrifices made by those here at home doing everything and anything they can think of to halt a genocide. For all of them, we must not let up, we must escalate, we must increase pressure until it is unavoidable and undeniable. That pressure must then be brought to bear on the state of Israel, as it was on apartheid South Africa decades ago.

As Aaron shared on Facebook not long before setting himself aflame, “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.” So let’s do it. Let us act. Let us do everything we can to halt the genocide in Gaza. Now, today, and every day until it is ended and Palestine is free. Let us make the memory of Aaron Bushnell a revolution.

And please, take action. Find local branches of the groups below, or other groups organizing in your area:

Support Palestine Action: https://www.palestineaction.org/

Dissent against the War Machine: https://wearedissenters.org/

Apply pressure for a ceasefire now: https://ceasefiretoday.com/

Take action with Jewish Voice for Peace: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

Take action with the Palestinian Youth Movement: palestinianyouthmovement.com/

Take action with IfNotNow: https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/

Support Boycots, Divestmest, and Sanctions: https://bdsmovement.net/

Find a protest to attend: https://www.gazaispalestine.com/take-action