At the time, South Vietnam was led by President Ngo Dinh Diem, a devout Catholic who had taken power in 1955, and then instigated oppressive actions against the Buddhist majority population of South Vietnam. This began with measures like filling civil service and army posts with Catholics, and giving them preferential treatment on loans, land distribution, and taxes. Over time, Diem escalated his measures, and in 1963 he banned flying the Buddhist flag during Vesak, the festival in honour of the Buddha’s birthday. On May 8, during Vesak celebrations, government forces opened fire on unarmed Buddhists who were protesting the ban, killing nine people, including two children, and injured many more.
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Unfortunately, standard measures for negotiation – petitions, street fasting, protests, and demands for concessions – were ignored by the Diem government, or met with force, as in the Vesak shooting.
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Since conventional measures were failing, the Inter-Sect Committee decided to consider more extreme measures, including the idea of a voluntary self-immolation. While extreme, they hoped it would create an international media incident, to draw attention to the suffering of Buddhists in South Vietnam. They noted in their meeting minutes the power of photographs to focus international attention: “one body can reach where ten thousand leaflets cannot.” It was to be a Bodhisattva deed to help awaken the world.
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On June 10, the Inter-Sect Committee contacted at least four Saigon-based members of the international media, telling them to be present for a “major event” that would occur the next morning. One of them was a photographer from the Associated Press, Malcolm Browne, who said he had “no idea” what he’d see, beyond expecting some kind of protest. When Thich Quang Duc and his attendants exited the car, Browne was 15 meters away, just outside the ring of chanting monks. Browne took more than 100 photos, fighting off nausea from the smell of burning gasoline and human flesh, and struggling with the horror, as he created a permanent visual record of Thich Quang Duc’s sacrifice.
The sacrifice was not in vain. The next day, Browne’s photos made the front page of newspapers around the world. They shocked people everywhere, and galvanized mass protests in South Vietnam. US President John F. Kennedy reportedly exclaimed “Jesus Christ!” upon first seeing the photo. The US government, which had been instrumental in installing and supporting the anti-communist Diem, withdrew its support, and just a few months later supported a coup that led to Diem’s death, a change in government, and the end of anti-Buddhist policy2.
Nielsen also includes unsuccessful or actively repugnant examples of it.
The sociologist Michael Biggs6 has identified more than 500 self-immolations as protest in the four decades after Thich Quang Duc, most or all of which appear to have been inspired in part by Thich Quang Duc.
I’ve discussed Thich Quang Duc’s sacrifice in tacitly positive terms. But I don’t want to uncritically venerate this kind of sacrifice. As with Kravinsky’s kidney donation, while it had admirable qualities, it also had many downsides, and the value may be contested. Among the 500 self-immolations identified by Biggs, many seem pointless, even evil. For example: more than 200 people in India self-immolated in protest over government plans to reserve university places for lower castes. This doesn’t seem like self-sacrifice in service of a greater good. Rather, it seems likely many of these people lacked meaning in their own lives, and confused the grand gesture of the sacrifice for true meaning. Moral invention is often difficult to judge, in part because it hinges on redefining our relationship to the rest of the universe.
I also think this paragraph about Quang Duc is quite relevant:
Quang Duc was not depressed nor suicidal. He was active in his community, and well respected. Another monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, who had lived with him for the prior year, wrote that Thich Quang Duc was “a very kind and lucid person… calm and in full possession of his mental faculties when he burned himself.” Nor was he isolated and acting alone or impulsively. As we’ll see, the decision was one he made carefully, with the blessing of and as part of his community.
I’m not certain if there’s a particular point you want me to take away from this, but thanks for the information, and including an unbiased sample from the article you linked. I don’t think I changed my mind so much from reading this though.
I recently read The Sacrifices We Choose to Make by Michael Nielsen, which was a good read. Here are some relevant extracts.
Nielsen also includes unsuccessful or actively repugnant examples of it.
I also think this paragraph about Quang Duc is quite relevant:
I’m not certain if there’s a particular point you want me to take away from this, but thanks for the information, and including an unbiased sample from the article you linked. I don’t think I changed my mind so much from reading this though.