Aaron Bushnell, who died last month, ‘sacrificed everything’ for Palestinians, says mayor of Jericho
A few of the initial paragraphs for context follow - but the article is worth reading fully:
The Palestinian town of Jericho has named a street after Aaron Bushnell, the US air force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest against the war in Gaza.
The 25-year-old, who died on 25 February, “sacrificed everything” for Palestinians, said the mayor of Jericho, Abdul Karim Sidr, as the street sign was unveiled on Sunday.
“We didn’t know him, and he didn’t know us. There were no social, economic or political ties between us. What we share is a love for freedom and a desire to stand against these attacks [on Gaza],” the mayor told a small crowd gathered on the new Aaron Bushnell Road.
Bushnell livestreamed his self-immolation on the social media platform Twitch, declaring he would “no longer be complicit in genocide” and shouting “free Palestine” as he started the fire. Law enforcement officials put out the flames, but he died in hospital several hours later.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 31,000 people, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The war was triggered by the cross border attack on 7 October when Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 250 people.
Even as governments in Europe and the US have largely continued to back Israel’s campaign in Gaza as part of the country’s right to self-defence, Palestinians have taken heart from popular protests held from Michigan to Madrid.
I still question the intentions of the media and how a lot of outlets immediate ran to claim his actions as mental health related.
Like sure, I can see where that’s coming from in a sense since self-immolation is inherently self-harm and you have to question a person’s mental health for doing so, but at the same time, I don’t know of anybody off-hand who says the same about the Buddhist monks who did the same in Vietnam.
Maybe times have changed and people don’t see that action the same way as they used to back then, but if they are going to call this a result of mental health, I really hope they keep consistency with that from here on forward.
Mental health is a scapegoat for reasonable reactions to the absolutely horrible times we are living through.
Someone does something crazy for a cause I agree with -> Heroic, valiant, inspiring
Someone does something crazy for a cause I disagree with -> Mentally ill, traumatised, brainwashed
Lest I’d have to begin to consider I might have been supporting monsters all along.
The only mental health issues I see are from the people in power that stand by and let these atrocities go unchecked.
Just to explain why, not to take from your broader point, it’s because he’s not of the people being harmed. Typically this form of protest is done by those being harmed.
The thing is, and I’m not bringing it to say it is anyone’s obligation no matter what they do or who they are, but Bushnell was a soldier. A soldier is usually already not as removed from the idea of death or harm coming their way, unlike most other people. Ideally, they are not readily available to put their own lives in the line, but they are aware the job entails duty and that duty may require more than common resources, hence putting the body at risk.
When you simply shift this duty to uphold justice for oppressed people on the other side of the planet rather than to sit with thumbs twiddling for your own country’s military orders, it is easily justifiable to use this resource in line to protect others.
A journalist, a psychiatrist, or many of the other life occupancies have different resources they use and can also utilize as a last resort.
Airman. He also had some pretty extreme claims about who exactly was doing what in Gaza.
An airman is a specific subset of soldier. I know you’re just trying to be dismissive, but stop being a pedantic asshole, and wrong at that.
Soldiers serve in an army. The USAF hasn’t been a part of the army since 1947. Pedantic, sure. Wrong? No.
A definition for soldier is one who serve in an army and an army is “a large organized body of armed personnel trained for war especially on land” (emphasis mine, note not explicitly on land) or “a unit capable of independent action and consisting usually of a headquarters, two or more corps, and auxiliary troops”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/army
The Air Force absolutely fits the latter definition, and it fits the former as well if you don’t consider the land part exclusive, which it isn’t.
Other definitions of soldier also exist, which do not require it be a member of an army, but a military in general. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soldier
If you’re going to be pedantic, at least be pedantic and accurate. There’s no sense in being pedantic and wrong.
Vietnam
Not the best example.
There were soldiers dishonorably discharged from Vietnam for shell shock because PTSD was not yet officially recognized at the time. And because of that discharge, they were then not able to get VA benefits for the mental healthcare that they needed.
What is the connection between a monk immolating himself and American soldiers having ptsd?
The OP has a valid point in that both cases were instances of self immolation.
OP made the connection to the monks and said that what they did was not questioned as a mental health issue. I only meant to point out that there was not a great track record of mental health issues being identified/treated during that time.
You know this article pissed me off with the self-immolation bit.
Self Immolation in protest couldn’t be from preexisting mental illness. He clearly was emotionally impacted by his experience in the environment enough that his rational brain thought that by assuming such agonizing pain and stating the protest, the message would get heard a squeak louder.
Suicidal people don’t think rationally. They want the pain to end. Or they become wildly careless. They don’t sit there and go "how do I accomplish some good and end my suffering " while selecting the second worst way to die.
While I 100% agree with your interpretation in this case, I’m sure we can agree that “mentally ill person setting themselves on fire because the voices in their head told them too” is a plausible scenario. Self-immolation itself can absolutely be mental illness.
This was not mental illness.
I agree with most of your comment, but when I was suicidal I absolutely was looking for ways to achieve something good through my death.
What’s the first worst?
Drowning by far.
I only took a small amount of marsh water in, but Jesus Christ, the panick is unbelievable. You can’t get rid of what’s in there and you use up whatever is in your blood so quickly. Also the water fucking hurts like a mother fucker. And if you survive. Like I did, I got pretty bad pneumonia from it.
Horrible.
Probably Starvation, because of the whole “body slowly eating iitself up” thing.
You know, the way Israel (with, lets never forget, the unwavering support of the US and Germany) is killing children in Gaza.
See, in order to assume his act was “crazy,” we have to start by making it a normative principle nobody should ever lay down their life for others. I think the divergence over whether his act was political or was he automatically crazy boils down to: are you a bootlicker?
The question is does it have any reasonable possibility at all of saving other’s lives?
Wasn’t Jericho destroyed by the ark of the covenant or something?
No, it was destroyed by angry men screaming and blowing horns until the walls gave up.
Heck, it would be cooler if it were destroyed by plasma glassing by the scarier Covenant from Halo, not that pitiful ark from the bible tales /S
Nope. Just like most of the early books of the Old Testament, that was pure fiction.
https://www.britannica.com/video/179549/Battle-of-Jericho-archaeologists-event-Book-Joshua
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It’s kinda funny that Indiana Jones actually had zero impact on pretty much anything that happened in that movie.
Whether it really happened or not, I think enough time has passed to allow rebuilding it several times over.
It’s so nice seeing him get honored. So many people here in the US are trying to bury the story or portray it as a mere suicide.
I think it was unfortunate that the dude took the protest to the extreme by self-immolating.
Loop of
