25th February 2024.
Aaron Bushnell sets fire to himself outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., as a protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people, and the USA's part in supporting this. Aaron Bushnell, a serving member of the US Air Force, self-immolated while wearing his military fatigues.
26th February 2024
Aaron Bushnell dies due to injuries sustained from the previous day. I am now writing this in July. There has been no change in the US’s policy regarding Israel; there has been no change in Israeli policy regarding Palestine. Aaron Bushnell has been regarded as a hero and martyr in some quarters. I’m here to tell you that he has achieved precisely one thing – the ending of his own life.
In the short time after his death, the media was centering the life and actions of one white American man over the ongoing atrocities against the Palestinian people. How many innocents has Israel cruelly murdered since then? How many children? What were their hopes and dreams? This is not so much talked about. All while the US has no more than a stern word with its Israeli allies.
What gets to me is that before his self-immolation, Aaron said he was going to engage in “an extreme act of protest.” I counter that his means of protest could have been much more extreme, and by this, I mean a more effective attack against those he was protesting. As a member of the US military, I assume he was weapons-trained; could he not have aimed weapons at his superiors? At his colleagues who disagreed with his views on Palestinian liberation? A more adventurous spirit may have even stolen an aircraft or other vehicle and set out to attack a US military base. I read that he specialised in cybersecurity; could he not have spent the remaining years of his natural life undermining the cybersecurity of the US military from the inside? Or that of Israel?
The mind boggles with almost limitless potential in ways he could have made some concrete attack against the US and/or Israel. Instead, he chose not to. Instead, his attack was only against himself. The Palestinian cause faces the same peril, and one less anarchist exists in the world. I can’t see why anyone believes his choice was a good decision.
To you, I say, “live.” Live your life to the fullest, hold on to yourself, and grow out in your power, wherever it takes you. All we have is the time that fate has allotted to us, and to choose to shorten it voluntarily is to give in and accept defeat. Every moment, you have a choice: to increase your power, to push back against your rulers, your overseers.
Aaron chose defeat, Aaron chose a spectacle with no concrete action. “Heroic,” “martyr,” “the highest sacrifice,” were some responses to this waste of liberatory potential. I believe it should be evident that there must be some alignment between means and ends in our theories and praxes. It should be self-evident that self-immolation leads to one end only... the annihilation of yourself. There is something deeply wrong when anarchists decide to applaud this instead of seeing it as the waste of life that it is.
How will you act?
Kozlov Masih (2024)
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