Aaron Bushnell wanted to tell everyone that we and the Gunmen were involved in committing atrocities, even if we did not want to admit it (Anatolia)
Why would a young white US Air Force officer decide to set himself on fire?
Why... is the central question in incidents like this, especially after the absence of expressions of “sub-affiliation” related to skin color or belief. He is not dark-skinned, and he did not utter a takbir that would make him affiliated with extremism and terrorism, as is the norm.
And because “why?”
A central question in this case;
The narratives justifying foreign policies supporting the war of extermination targeting the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip were keen to circumvent it through elusive interpretations, and avoided dealing objectively with the question.
The American media treated the incident that took place on Sunday, February 25, in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., with coldness to the point of ignoring it. However, they were unable to continue to cover it up or continue to ignore it, as in an almost similar incident in which an objector to the war of genocide set fire to... His body occurred on December 2, 2023, in front of the Israeli Consulate General in Atlanta, USA, leaving the Palestinian flag near his burning body at the time.
The Atlanta event did not receive significant media attention at the time, despite some published reports about it.
This time, the Washington, D.C., incident brought together elements that pushed it to the forefront of network and then media attention. The event was broadcast live on the network, and its political message was completely clear, and the one who committed it was an officer in the US Air Force.
What if Bushnell was a Russian soldier declaring his protest against the Kremlin's policies and its war in Ukraine, by setting himself on fire or otherwise?
Well, he would have been elevated in American and European media and cultural platforms to the ranks of global symbolism, and speakers on political platforms on both sides of the Atlantic would not miss the opportunity to praise his sacrifice and “breathtaking courage.” Some of this Western glorification happened with a Russian media figure who displayed a sign protesting the Ukraine war in A Russian news studio, exactly two years before Bushnell was involved in his objection to a Washington-backed war against the Palestinian people.
Self-immolation behavior usually expresses despondency of some sort, but Bushnell, the young military aviation officer, acted as if he was confidently moving forward toward a noble mission.
He chose to sacrifice himself for the sake of an idea that he expressed in clear humanitarian and value-based terms, through focused advocacy whose brief words ended with a chant of freedom for Palestine.
At the peak moment, the young officer continued chanting until his last breath. He shouted over and over again as the fire quickly consumed him: “Free Palestine... Free Palestine... Free Palestine.”
He took advantage of the parts available to him from the last moment while he was burning to the ground to unleash this chant, and his words resonated throughout the world.
Bushnell and the question of despair
There are no indications that Bushnell was disillusioned with his life;
Indeed, he seemed deeply frustrated by its significance if he continued to serve the army of a country he saw as engaging in genocide.
He seemed completely dissatisfied with the politics of his country and those who held its keys, whom he expressed in a significant term of separation from the people: “our ruling class.”
Bushnell realized that these people were putting their fingers in their ears so that the roaring chant of “Free Palestine” would not reach it, which had been resounding in American and Western squares for five months until now, relentlessly, so he decided to launch the same chant in his exceptional way, using live broadcasting as a means to pass the message to the world. He will be preoccupied with what he has created for a period of time, so that his breath does not choke and the words do not fade away.
He chose the scene of the event very carefully. In this location, Washington, DC, intersects with the embassy of occupation and genocide located there, and in the form of his robe another intersection with the milieu from which he came is evident.
Aaron Bushnell came dressed in his army clothes. He even made sure at the last minute to wear his military hat before setting himself on fire, thus expressing his own concept of the honor of the military, which refuses to submit to an immoral approach.
Aaron Bushnell did not come to this place in vain. He wanted to try the logic of fire with fire when he lit a flame in his body;
Condemning an administration that refuses to stop the fire that is burning tens of thousands of children, women and civilians with its ammunition.
It may be said in an epic formulation;
The Air Force officer decided to baptize himself with fire in a Teheran effort, and sought “martyrdom” on the altar of American policy that supports genocide in Gaza and conspires to deprive Palestine of its freedom.
Perhaps what shocked viewers most was the video clip that immediately spread across the horizons;
Aaron kept cheering for the freedom of Palestine while the fire consumed him, as if he wanted his fire to become coolness and peace for Gaza and its people.
He repeated the phrase to the fullest extent imaginable from his last moment, which he wanted to immortalize in this way, and this phrase, “Free Ballstein,” appeared engraved on its own in countless popular slogans, banners, and designs in squares and networks, with breathtaking drawings of him bearing specifications of an epic nature that glorified his moment and inspired its meaning. .
The question of the fundamental motive remains clear: why did a young Air Force officer do it in particular, whose members pass special psychological and emotional tests?
If the readings of the motivations are multiple, they will not go beyond the effect of the immoral policies inciting a US Air Force officer to burn himself in Washington, DC, and to do so specifically at the embassy of the settlement war base that occupies Palestine.
It was possible to persuade a young man in the prime of his life to refrain from burning his body after the broad reality hidden behind the veil of emotional isolation and interpretive deception was suddenly revealed to him, but that required retracing the scene in reverse and examining its premises.
Washington, DC, could have averted the incident if the Biden administration had adhered to the moral and ethical slogans that the United States boasts about.
At the very least;
The Air Force officer would not have set his body on fire if his country had sought fairness in certain incidents, for example with its betrayed young compatriot, Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by the occupation army in Rafah 21 years ago when she was in March 2003 on a solidarity mission with Palestinian citizens. Those whose lands were being bulldozed by the occupation forces in the southern Gaza Strip. She tried to persuade the bulldozer commander to stop the destruction, but he crushed her tender body.
The gap between politics and the masses
The new self-immolation by burning was a shocking expression of a state of schizophrenia between the “ruling class,” as Bushnell put it, and circles of the people. Manifestations of the schizophrenia were evident between the discourse of political and media platforms on the one hand and the discourses of squares and networks on the other.
Bushnell appeared to embody, in an exceptional manner, a deepening crisis of schizophrenia among American and Western youth.
Between the content of educational archives and educational courses on the one hand;
On the other hand, the reality of the practices and complicities that were revealed to its observers.
These circles are experiencing a “cultural shock” as a result of prolonged, unprecedented coexistence with their countries’ approach to supporting visible genocide, justifying witnessed brutality, and justifying horrific war crimes. What is happening in Palestine this time is not hidden among the Afghan Hindu Kush mountains, nor is it isolated in the coastal and desert countries, where the practices of armies are hidden. In the West, it is out of sight, and it is not practiced through proxy wars for which responsibility can be easily evaded.
The long Gaza season (2023-2024) in particular is the one that was able, more than any previous season, to test major slogans that fell over the heads of generations that found themselves in a revealing moment in the mirror of their reality.
There is still nothing hidden in Gaza that can be hidden in a world that sees, hears, and follows the horrors of the Strip, where a million children and their mothers are being terrorized and bombed relentlessly.
It was carried to the world via live broadcast, day by day, hour by hour.
No woven propaganda narrative will withstand its audio and video scenes or justify the crushing of civilians by bombing for which the United States and its allies provide more military, political, financial and propaganda support, in addition to the war of starvation whose connivances are woven and whose horrific scenes are visible.
Gaza...and the twinge of awareness
Bushnell's path to the site of the Embassy of Occupation and Extermination in Washington, D.C., was not as short as it might seem. It was not measured in miles he rode and then steps he traversed on foot.
Before running the video broadcast over the network and delivering a plea that ended with a burning surprise;
When he poured the contents of the can on his body and voluntarily surrendered to the flame bath.
Behind this experience was an earth-shattering experience, when reality was revealed to the young soldier as he had never seen it before, and his dreamy perceptions of his country’s policies and its interpretations of the world’s events and issues vanished.
Aaron realized the scene outside the bubble of the dominant narrative that contained generations of the United States, which is America’s narrative about itself, the world, and its foreign policies.
And about the Middle East, of course.
Gaza, located in the middle of the Mediterranean, pierced that bubble, creating a twinge of awareness of a reality that had never been perceived without its misleading packaging in this way before.
This amazing gap between bright slogans and shameful practices, or between declared commitments and the extent of compliance with their requirements, has become clear to wide circles of young people in Western democracies.
What Bushnell said in his epic argument was crystal clear: From now on I will no longer be involved in genocide!
It is clear that Bushnell also feels personal responsibility for this involvement, as he is not just a young white American who has been burdened by the policies of the “ruling class.”
Moreover, it belongs to a relatively elite corps in the American army, and in this respect it has special, possible views of facts or details that the general public cannot see.
What enhances the effect of this privacy;
It has been reported that the military pilot obtained information about the participation of his country’s forces in the ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip in some way, according to circulating media reports in this regard, and the public may soon be in for some interesting disclosures and details in this regard.
The phrase “I will no longer be involved in genocide” meets the essence of the slogans and chants of the squares that have been echoing relentlessly since the first days of the brutal war of genocide from the throats of millions of male and female demonstrators.
Most of them are young.
The leaders of countries and governments who appear with ties and elegant clothes and are careful to choose their circumstantial phrases very carefully while exaggerating the insertion of humanitarian and moral vocabulary into their deceptive formulations.
They are involved - according to the rhetoric of the masses in the squares and networks - in the war of extermination, supporting the occupation, and depriving Palestine of its freedom.
There is a chant in English on both sides of the Atlantic that expresses this conviction: “O Western leaders! You cannot hide. You support genocide. We will hold you accountable for genocide.”
This chant is usually presented in multiple versions that include the names of senior politicians and the most prominent companies accused of collusion with the occupation and the war of extermination in the Gaza Strip.
Beyond solidarity
What Bushnell did, in the form of extreme self-objection, goes beyond the traditional concept of solidarity with a just cause.
The incident comes within the “post-solidarity” state, which is represented by adopting the cause, organically belonging to it, and dedication to supporting it.
With effort, suffering, and enduring the consequences and costs for it, even if they amounted to paying fines, losing privileges, and losing jobs. Devotion with Bushnell reached the point of self-combustion when he was convinced that the situation required it.
It is not an exaggeration to conclude that the masses of squares and networks that mobilize for Gaza and raise the flag of Palestine around the world see themselves as Palestinian as well, and should be understood as such, and it may seem that Bushnell acted as if he were Palestinian;
Palestinian in the sense of belonging to a just cause, even if he emerged from a different ethnicity and culture and chose his own way of expressing his position and belonging.
These angry generations and circles do not raise the Palestinian flag or wear the keffiyeh to show a passing stance;
It is aware of a certain responsibility that it bears for what is happening if it agrees to drop its banners, break its pens, and silence its tongues, as silence kills and ignorance encourages genocide.
These growing circles have come to regard standing with Palestine as a serious test of their value-based and, rather, principled commitments. They consider letting down Gaza and the Palestinian people in this historic position as a form of disavowal of these values and principles, regardless of the elegant formulations resorted to by speakers of Western countries and governments who are distinguished by their remarkable skill in encapsulating Their policies and marketing of their positions have long fooled the masses of democracies who are indifferent to what is happening overseas.
The body is the message
In the middle of the last century, Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan spoke of his saying: “The medium is the message.” In this same way, Bushnell wanted to burn the dominant narrative about Palestine and the world by pouring an incendiary substance on his body and setting it on fire, and he used his body as a mediator in this.
He saw his action as a “violent act of protest,” as he said before committing it, but this act is rather considered one of the most cruel manifestations of peaceful protest against oneself, and he explained in his video narration broadcast on the Internet that this cruelty remains less severe than what is being inflicted on the Palestinian people in the ongoing war of extermination.
Aaron Bushnell joined the famous people in this objection;
Like the young Czech Jan Palach, who set himself on fire in Prague in 1969 in anger at the Soviet invasion that ended the short season of reforms known as the “Prague Spring.”
The young Tunisian man, Mohamed Bouazizi, was a notable example in the Arab world, when he burned his body in 2010.
Condemning his humiliation and deprivation of his meager livelihood on the side of the road in marginalized Sidi Bouzid, he ignited the spark of the masses, west and east.
There are other famous cases that precede Bushnell, including the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quan, who burned himself in 1963 in Saigon to denounce the persecution of Buddhists in South Vietnam.
Others committed a similar act, including a Korean Buddhist monk who burned himself in Seoul in 2017;
Condemning a settlement agreement with Tokyo regarding Japan's sexual exploitation and enslavement of thousands of Korean women during World War II.
These and these remain a few out of a huge number of those who took this approach without paying attention to them, as happened with the demonstrator who set his body on fire in front of the occupation consulate in Atlanta in December 2023.
US Army soldiers will not need to follow the exact path of their colleague Bushnell. It is sufficient for them to capture the message and express it in multiple ways, as did former soldiers who dared to burn their military uniforms in Portland three days after the event, in imitation of what the Air Force officer did, which heralds a wave of A new number of objections were sparked by Aaron.
The bond between the individual and the masses
In ordinary cases, it is not appropriate to project individual cases onto the general population, as the exceptional actions undertaken by individuals are not suitable on their own to read societal quantitative trends.
But Bushnell, even if it represented an extremist expression in its nature, it brought the same contents that have been spreading across American and Western public circles for the five months that preceded his depicted position.
His action emerged from a rising societal trend among young people in particular, regardless of the percentages observed in surveys by environment and time segments.
The slogan: “Not in our name” expresses a moment of public awakening to a reality being committed elsewhere on behalf of the peoples of Western democracies.
A perpetration that remained hidden in its nature and complicity from the mass of these peoples who seemed satisfied with the approved propaganda narrative regarding what is being practiced with the world in general and the “Middle East” in particular.
Bushnell appeared in this scene to say in his own way: Not in my name, or as he stated in his plea: “I will no longer be involved in genocide.”
As this young man who caught the world's attention was keen to appear in an army uniform in which he identified with the extended ranks of his country's citizens, who serve the state and obey its policies and orders;
In this way, he sent a message stating that he had come to the site of the Embassy of Occupation and Genocide as an appointment in Washington, DC.
In order to object from his position in military service in the Air Force to an established approach that violates his principles and shakes his conscience.
Bushnell did not differ in content, then, from the position of American and Western masses declaring their anger at the policy of supporting genocide, even if the boy chose to express the same content in a special way.
This method immediately found widespread resonance among the masses who appreciated his precious sacrifices, especially since he was a white American who enjoyed privileges, livelihood opportunities, and career advancement prospects. The demonstrators were inspired by his words and began reciting them in symbolic demonstrations and memorial gatherings whose locations were carefully chosen, as Bushnell had done before them.
So spoke Aaron Bushnell
It is unfair to say that Bushnell's burned body will not change policies that were not shaken by scenes of brutal genocide and will not care about his charred remains either. Even his military commanders were absent from the mass memorial activities held for him, as was expected.
Washington, DC, and its allies on both sides of the Atlantic will remain faithful to its usual approach, and will be able to swallow the bitterness of the symbolic military defection demonstrated by the Air Force officer and pass its critical moment, and the media platforms will strive to divert attention from the question “Why?”
With tricks of interpretation that attempt to strip the meaning of the event and extinguish the essence of the objection, so that the Air Force boy does not succeed in turning minds and consciences in an undesirable direction, even if his pictures are raised in the squares and his words are echoed among the masses.
Reports of confusion about the juvenile case found their way into the serious press itself, even in the prestigious “Washington Post,” which published a report in the section “Domestic Crime and Public Safety” two days after the incident, in which it addressed the environment of Aaron’s upbringing in a manner consistent with the attempt to isolate the impact of the case from the environment. society and stigmatizes it with religious extremism and anarchic tendencies.
However, Bushnell passed away after lighting the flame of frank words that were understood by wide circles of his generation, and his phrases will remain available for circulation and inspiration in the present and the future.
Perhaps what Bushnell wanted to say to the generations: Verily, verily, I say to you, and my sacrifice of my life bears witness to my sincerity in what I say. The truth is that we, sinners, are complicit in committing atrocities, even if we do not wish to admit it.
Here I am purifying myself from collective sin in my own way, so disavow it in their own ways. Shout like I shout, and be truly loyal to freedom.
Some of them in online circulation were inspired by Bushnell's concept of sacrifice and redemption from multiple angles, because he placed himself on the altar of extermination in order to open eyes, move minds, and shake consciences, after the roaring chants of millions in the democracies of the West were unable to move a resident or calm a mover.
It is a collective sin, not an individual sin.
This is what he expressed in his last argument. Through this position, he tried to free himself from the prick of conscience and motivate the masses to free themselves from the accumulations of negligence and traditions of inaction.
Bushnell was seen the next day on posters that depicted him in an epic moment of “martyrdom,” carried in his military uniform in two pure arms surrounding the owner’s head with a halo of holiness, in a visual restoration of the doctrine of “crucifixion and redemption” in the church narrative and symbolically projecting it onto Bushnell’s sacrifice of his dear life in exchange for what was dearer to him.
That is, his dignity and humanity as he imagined them.
Bushnell chose to jump from the aircraft carrier in order to entrench himself with the people of Palestine, and this was implied in the words and witness of sacrifice.
He was seen after his body was burned in several locations.
He appeared to some of them at the apartheid wall built by the occupation in the West Bank. He appeared in a heroic form facing a Palestinian boy who was giving him a military salute with great respect and pride, as if he had appeared to him from the Gaza tunnels.
Others saw him as a hero flying with wings on the horizon of the freedom he wanted for Palestine, and in other visual formations he removed the fabricated cinematic legend of Rambo to finally give the American army uniform the character of just resistance and the liberation of the peoples after the military pilot turned him into a flammable substance.
Graphic designs in this way have multiplied on social media sites and crowd gatherings, as an expression of capturing the epic message that the Air Force officer formulated in his position and embodied it in his moment that will remain stuck in the minds of the people.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.