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What Is to Be Done?
This month I’d like to talk for a moment about Aaron Bushnell, the airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy recently to protest US support for the war on Gaza. His choice to end his life in that horrific manner has understandably raised a great deal of discussion about his motivation, whether the act itself calls into question his mental health, and the efficacy of his protest as a means to accomplish his aims. Perhaps the simplest explanation is the most likely: he just felt he had no other choice.
While self-immolation as a form of protest is uncommon in this country, it has occurred numerous times, dating back at least to the Vietnam War. There is an argument to be made that the actions these people take are an indictment of our whole society, the inability of our system to respond to the needs of people, and the feeling that our structures of power are by their very nature unresponsive to even the most desperate situations when doing so curtails the interests of the powerful. Protests involving millions of people on the streets seem to have little if any long term effects, from the anti-war movement to the climate movement.
Governments and corporations pay lip service to moral choices, but the endless wars go on, and fossil fuel energy production increases every year (setting record highs in 2023), in spite of the growth of renewable sources.
It can seem as if there’s nothing to be done, and that sometimes leads people to make the ultimate statement against the status quo.
In 2018, David Buckel, a gay rights lawyer, set himself on fire in Brooklyn to protest lack of action over climate change. On Earth Day 2022, 50-year-old Wynn Bruce set himself on fire in front of the United States Supreme Court for the same reason.
So what is to be done?
Mass protests seem to have little effect on policy, but they do have an effect on the participants. The sense of solidarity that can be felt by marching alongside hundreds of thousands of people who share a common passion for building a better world is a powerful endorphin that can help give one the strength to carry on.
And as someone I know recently said, just focus on what’s right in front of you. Maybe you can’t solve all the world’s problems, but you can take action to shut down a power plant next to an elementary school. You can feel a little better knowing that the next generation of children in that school won’t have to breathe that pollution. And the work itself, the doing, can strike a small light in the darkness of our times.
Read more on Aaron Bushnell:
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