Self-Immolation
People Who Set Themselves on Fire

The historical basis for self-immolation is unclear. The idea of sacrifice is a key in Buddhist thought and self-immolation could be thought of as the ultimate form of sacrifice. However, it is hard to totally embrace such a violent act, even if it is directed on the self. Scholars believe that the act can be traced back in history for thousands of years. Thich Nhat Hanh, a well-known authority on Buddhism, believes that the practice of self- immolation may be connected to the ritual of burning incense on one’s body as a form of vow taking. Several sources point to Buddhist scripture, especially the Lotus Sutra, as one possible origin of the practice.

No matter what the specific historical origins are for self-immolation, there is a definite connection between fire and the act of sacrifice. Many stories come to mind about pagan rituals in which plants or perhaps animals are sacrificed to the gods by fire. Self-immolation can be best thought of as a way of sacrificing one’s self in the name of ending suffering. In that sense, self-immolation transcends the idea of a religious practice or a political statement and becomes a spiritual plea for peace.

Self-Immolation in Vietnam

One of the earliest known uses of self-immolation as a protest against the Vietnam War is also one of the most famous. On June 16, 1963, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc immolated himself in downtown Saigon. Quang Duc was actually protesting religious persecution under the Diem regime, not the war. However, the case could be made that Diem would not have been in power had it not been for U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Quang Duc's self-immolation was a rallying point for political protest in South Vietnam. Directly following the self-immolation

the political climate in Saigon changed as if hit by the drop in pressure preceding a hurricane. Vast demonstrations broke out. The city people, who had for years remained passive, terrified before the Diemist police, crowded into the pagodas to kneel and weep, then, following the bonzes [Buddhist monks], burst forth into the streets calling for the downfall of the Ngos [the ruling family in South Vietnam] (Fitzgerald, 74).

Obviously, Quang Duc's self-immolation had a huge effect on the South Vietnamese population. It is not surprising that Quang Duc's act also affected the Americans who later immolated themselves in protest to the war.

It is important to note that Quang Duc was not the only monk to use self-immolation as a form of protest. On August 16, 1963, only 2 months after Quang Duc's self-immolation, another monk immolated himself in Phanthiet, about 100 miles from Saigon. The use of self-immolation continued as the war waged on. In May of 1966, Thich Nu Thanh Quang, a Buddhist nun, immolated herself in the city of Hue.

Her death inspired a demonstration of some twenty thousand people in Saigon and a series of eight other self-immolations by Buddhist bonzes and nuns throughout the major cities of Vietnam...President Johnson called the suicides "tragic and unneccessary" and said that they obstructed progress towards holding the elections for a constituent assembly. On May 31, a group of students and Buddhist youths burned down the U.S. consulate in Hue (Fitzgerald, 289).

Again, it seems that the self-immolations were a rallying point for political protest in South Vietnam. While conducting my research, I was suprised to learn that self-immolation is still used today as a form of protest against religious persecution in Vietnam. Although Buddhist officials try to downplay these self-immolations, they admit that that act is often revered by the Vietnamese Buddhist community.

Self immolation In America

The most well known and highly publicized act of self-immolation by an American took place on November 2, 1965. Norman Morrison, a devout Quaker and father of three, immolated himself outside of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's office at the Pentagon. As if the location was not notable enough, there is another reason that Morrison's self-immolation gets more attention than other acts of self-immolation in America. Morrison brought his infant daughter with him to the Pentagon that day.

The headline of the Washinton Post on November 3, 1965 read, "Man Burns Self to Death at Pentagon, Baby in His Arms Saved from Fire Before Hundreds." The New York Times reported, "Baby of Quaker Escapes Unharmed." The November 15 edition of Newsweek took it a step further. "Morrison's macabre act of protest almost included the sacraficial murder of his own baby daughter."

Honestly though, no one is sure what exactly happened that day. The eyewitness accounts contradict each other. This point is illustrated in Paul Hendrickson's The Living and the Dead. Here, Hendrickson recounts five events that shaped McNamara's term as Secretary of Defense, one of which is Norman Morrison's self-immolation. Major Richard Lundquist reported that he discovered Morrison's daughter, Emily, sitting on the ground. He then picked her up and carried her to garden "where he hands her either to a woman who has a blanket or to Pentagon guards." Another witness, Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Johnson, told Hendrickson that he had to knock Emily out of Morrison's hands. But on second thought, admitted that he may have remembered it wrong. (Hendrickson, 215). Whatever the case may be, we know that Emily did survive and was picked up by Morrison's wife later that night.

 
Wang Ding John - Before and After

What drove this man, a father of three young children, to burn himself to death? Although he never talked about taking his own life with his wife, several of Morrison's friends reported that he had discussed it with them. One friend, John Paisley, said, "We had to talk him out in the same manner last year. He wanted to do it when the monks in Saigon were killing themselves in that way" (Hendrickson, 223). A close friend of Morrison's, John Roemer, said that he had discussed self-immolation with Morrison on several occasions. When asked what he thought made Morrison decide to go through with it, Roemer replied,

I don't know. I don't know. He fought the war more and more deeply. I mean, when are you one of the Germans?...You have to be mentally different to fly in the face of received wisdom in this country. He played it out in his mind, I think, in terms of being a moral witness (Hendrickson, 224).

Roemer tried to explain Morrison's actions at a memorial service three weeks after his immolation:

In a society where it is normal for human beings to drop bombs on human targets, where it is normal to spend 50 percent of the individual's tax dollar on war, where it is normal...to have twelve times overkill capacity, Norman Morrison was not normal. He said, 'Let it stop' (Hendrickson, 224).

Anne Morrison sheds some light on Norman's mindset in a recent article for Winds of Peace, a Quaker newsletter. On the morning of November 2, the day he died, Morrison had read an article in I.F. Stone's Weekly, an anti-war paper popular at the time. The article recounted the accidental bombing of a Saigon church by American aircraft. A priest who was wounded in the bombing exclaimed, "I have seen my faithful burned up in napalm. I have seen the bodies of women and children blown to bits. I have seen my villiage razed. By God it's not possible" (Morrison Welsh, 5). Norman included the article in a letter he wrote to his wife before leaving for the Pentagon. In the letter, he wrote he "must act for the children in the priest's villiage" (Morrison Welsh, 4). Months, even years, of agitation over the escalading war in Vietnam boiled over when he read that article. In fact, reading about the children dying in Vietnam probably played a role in Morrison's (conscious or unconscious) decision to bring his daughter with him. Concerning that decision, his daughter, Emily wrote, "No matter what could have happened to me, I believe I was purposefully with my father ultimately to symbolize the tragedy and brutality of war. Because I lived, perhaps I symbolized hope as well" (Hendrickson, 236).

Unfortunately, it seems that that symbolism was missed by many people (see the Newsweek excerpt above). Instead of seeing Morrison's immolation as an act of sacrifice and an act of witness against an unjust war, alot of Americans just seem to have missed the point. Luckily, there were a few who understood the power of Morrison's message - the people of Vietnam. The Vietnamese, especially in the North, revered Morrison for his act of sacrifice. The list of honors is rather surprising: a street named for him near Hanoi, a postage stamp displaying his image, and several poems dedicated to him. In one poem, North Vietnamese poet To Huu writes from the perspective of Norman Morrison. The poem presents the juxtaposition of anger towards the American government and the love Norman Morrison had for his daughter. The third stanza reads

McNamara!
Where are you hiding? In the graveyard
Of your five-cornered house
Each corner an continent.
You hide yourself
From the flaming world
As an ostrich hides it head in the
burning sand.

Those are some strong words to say the least. To Huu's words bring up a very interesting question. How was McNamara affected by Morrison's immolation, which took place within viewing distance from his window? Hendrickson writes that around the time of Morrison's immolation, perhaps even before, McNamara had started to doubt the possibility of an American victory in Vietnam. In fact, while giving testimony in the 1984 Westmoreland/CBS trial, McNamara "stated under oath that no later than 1966 he had come to believe the war could not be won militarily, and that indeed he may have arrived at that conclusion by the latter part of 1965" (Hendrickson, 234). Hendrickson then points out that McNamara kept his position until February of 1968. If he felt so strongly about the Vietnam issue, why didn't leave his position in protest?

Before I crucify him, however, it would only be fair to look at what McNamara himself has to say about Morrison's immolation and its effect on his decisions. In In Retrospect, one of his many memoirs, McNamara writes, “Morrison’s death was a tragedy not only for his family but also for me and the country. It was an outcry against the killing that was destroying the lives of so many Vietnamese and American youth” (216). He adds that following the tragedy he bottled up his emotions, which created tension at home. Looking back on the protest movement as a whole, he writes, “Surprising as it may seem to some, I felt great sympathy for the protestors’ concerns” (217). As true as that may be, Hendrickson’s point still stands. If McNamara did feel so much sympathy for the protestors, why didn’t he do more to defuse the Vietnam conflict? He was after-all, the Secretary of Defense. Yes, at the time of Morrison’s immolation McNamara did begin raising questions concerning America’s chances of success in Vietnam. However, it is obvious that his “sympathy” alone was not enough to end the war.

Other American Who Self Immolated:
Alice Herz, Roger LaPorte, George Winne
Unfortunately, there is very little information available about the other Americans who immolated themselves in protest to the Vietnam War. It seems that in many ways, American society has tried to forget about these brave men and women of conscious and their attempts to give us all a wake up call. Perhaps that is part of a bigger attempt to forget about the whole Vietnam era.

Although Norman Morrison receives much more media recognition, he actually was not the first American to immolate him/herself in protest to the Vietnam War. Alice Herz, an 82 year old pacifist, immolated herself on a Detroit street corner on March 16, 1965.

One of the few sources of information on Herz’s immolation I have is a short New York Times article from March 17, 1965. The article reports that passerby beat out the flames after Herz poured cleaning fluid on herself and ignited it. She was subsequently taken to the hospital and according to the article, was in critical condition. A Fire Department lieutenant said that Herz had spoken to him on the way to the hospital. She explained her actions with the following words: “I did it to protest the arms race all over the world. I wanted to burn myself like the monks in Vietnam did.” Again, we see that the self-immolations in South Vietnam had a definite impact on protestors in the U.S.

The article reports that the police found a note by Herz protesting "the use of high office by our President, L.B.J., in trying to wipe out small nations." In the note, Herz criticized Harry Truman for similar actions and said, “I wanted to call attention to this problem by choosing the illuminating death of a Buddhist.” The article went on to quote Herz’s daughter who believed that her mother’s act “wasn’t mental derangement or a psychological compulsion”, but, “an idea about the need to do something that would call attention to the gravity of the situation.” The clarity and lucidity of the note also attest to that conclusion.

The article concludes with a statement by the pastor of the first Unitarian Universalist Church, which Herz had attended for 10-15 years. The pastor called her “an intellectual ‘in the best sense of the word’ who was once a Quaker ‘and still thinks of herself as a Quaker.’” The pastor added, “This is not the work of a crackpot.”

There are several similarities between Alice Herz and Norman Morrison that are worth noting. Perhaps most importantly, both were devout Quakers (at least at some point in their lives) and pacifists. Also, it is obvious in both cases that they had been concerned about America’s foreign policies for some time. Also, they both made reference to the self-immolations in Vietnam.

There is only one other American self-immolation that I have found any significant documentation for, that of Roger LaPorte. LaPorte, 22, immolated himself outside the United Nations building in New York City on November 9, 1965, one week after Norman Morrison did the same outside of the Pentagon.

The headline in the November 10th New York Times reads simply, “Man, 22, Immolates Himself In Antiwar Protest at U.N.” The article reports that LaPorte, “a member of the Catholic Worker movement,” immolated himself at dawn as he sat cross-legged in front of the U.N. building. Police and U.N. guards beat out the flames and LaPorte was taken to the hospital. On the way, LaPorte, still conscious, explained his action by saying, “I’m a Catholic Worker. I’m against war, all wars. I did this as a religious action.” With burns covering 95 percent of his body, the article reports, LaPorte nodded yes when asked by hospital psychiatrists if he wanted to live. According to a Newsweek article he then fell into a coma and died 33 hours later.

The Times article goes on to quote Arthur Goldberg, the chief U.S. delegate to the UN at the time. Almost 40 years later, his statement is still chilling.

Mr. Goldberg said that while the youth had undoubtedly been impelled by ‘the highest principles and motives’ his action was ‘terribly unfortunate and terribly unnecessary…Perhaps there has been failure on our part,’ he went on. ‘Perhaps we are not sufficiently communicating to the people of the world our dedication, our attachment and complete commitment to the idea that peace is the only way for mankind in the nuclear age.’

LaPorte, like Herz and Morrison, was very committed to religious practice. Before joining the Catholic Workers, he had attended a seminary in Vermont and hoped to become a monk. He, however, withdrew from the seminary early and attended college in New York.

The only other American whose self-immolation I have found a reference to is that of George Winne. The only information I have concerning Winne is that he immolated himself sometime in 1970, when he was attending the University of California at San Diego. Unfortunately, I have not yet found any additional information.

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