Aaron Bushnell’s Divine Violence
JVL Introduction
We have neglected to date to carry a report on the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell, in protest against the war on Gaza.
We were wrong not to do so.
Chris Hedges explores its significance here in these reflections on those who have burnt themselves to death in support of great causes, when other ways of expressing their concerns seemed inadequate or were closed off to them.
He draws on Walter Benjamin for the “divine violence” of his title, a term Benjamin used to describe these extreme acts of resistance.
And he shows how such acts in other times and places have had extraordinary effects.
Hedges writes: “If Bushnell was willing to die, repeatedly shouting out ‘Free Palestine!’ as he burned, then something must be terribly, terribly wrong.”
He cites Bushnell, shortly before his suicide:
“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.”
RK
This article was originally published by The Chris Hedges Report on Sat 2 Mar 2024. Read the original here.
Aaron Bushnell’s Divine Violence
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A street in Jericho has been named after Aaron in his honour and the sacrifice he made:
‘Jericho honours Aaron Bushnell with street name’
https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/palestine-israel/2024/03/11/aaron-bushnell-st-street-jericho-palestine/
The silence in the UK on Bushnell’s death has been extraordinary and surely shameful. We must remember him, as the Palestinians are already doing by naming a street after him. He is as important as Boris Nemsov – Camden council should agree!
Political suicide lives on in the witnesses and survivors. I know of at least one such suicide protest against the invasion of Iraq which lives on in family members who are now leading antiwar activists and antiZionist researchers.
At the same time we should recall that in the years of despair and reaction following the Arab Spring ignited by Bouazizi’s inspirational death , many young Tunisians burned themselves alive without the same political results. From burning to drowning, many of them then risked their lives on the Mediterranean.
The suicides of Tamil Tigers often deliberately caused civilian deaths… So it is good to read Gandhi’s essay on the misuse of hunger-striking to defend the caste system (fasts undertaken by the political forerunners of today’s BJP). It is of course the end purpose and not the method that is important and – dare I say – sometimes holy.
Whether or not the self-immolation can be designated as “divine violence”, the term used in the summing up by Chris Hedges, is open to question. Divine has implications of being godlike. Nothing that has been said or written by Aaron in the time leading up to his act of defiance has given any indication of his religious leanings. What does have implications are his words quoted by Chris in his article: “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 colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” These words indicate that Aaron saw the butchery being perpetuated by the Israeli State, with the full support of the USA, on the Palestinian people not from a moral or religious perspective but from a class perspective. The “corrupt and discredited ruling class” that Chris speaks of should be terrified as their system of oppression and suppression is being questioned more and more by younger generations who see the attacks on Gaza as a defence of the interests of capitalism and imperialism. It is no accident that Aaron was a serving member of the USAF and his act was an expression of his anger with his own government. That government, and the interests in defends, should remember the words of Napoleon – “beware when bayonets should learn to think”.
Thank you for this inspired report.
It is blessed piece which does honour to the ultimate act of love that a human can perform.
May you too be blessed for participating in, describing, spreading and thus allowing the rest of us share in the wonder of that selfless act.