Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty airman wearing his uniform, poured gasoline on himself and set himself alight on February 25th outside of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. He did so in protest of the genocide in Palestine and the military policy which made him complicit.
While the capitalist media tries to paint every action in support of Palestine as antisemitic, if they don’t ignore it entirely, his action seems calculated to change the narrative. His uniform and whiteness culturally demand reverence, his act is impossible to blame on hatred of an Other. It asserts that discussion of genocide and colonization can’t be dismissed as the hyperbole and naïvity of college students.
Many journalists are inserting a “mental health crisis” angle into their reporting of the event. While we do not know Bushnell’s medical history, there is no reason to believe his actions were irrational or disproportionate. Those who think so are underrating the severity of the situation in Palestine. Others are deliberately obscuring it for their career prospects.
On social media, there are indications that Bushnell was involved in the activist Left. In that sphere, organizations have struggled to break from their acquired habits and develop new strategies and tactics in accordance with our new era. This of course is an era of intense struggles to defend democratic rights, against fascism, colonialism and other racial violence. Symbolic protests are called “shut it down” and strikes are expected to materialize from little more than a graphic. It’s no wonder that people with the most desire to sacrifice for the cause are forced to find an outlet in such individualistic actions.
We often invoke John Brown, as we should. But more often we discuss only his sacrifice and death (which was not his intention), rather than his years of studying history and military strategy; as well as his meeting and planning with the leading figures of black liberation. Without that, he may have been only a footnote in history. Decades of defeat, marginalization, and fragmentation of the Left, as well as neoliberal decay of civil society, have undermined our ability to organize effectively and across ideological lines, as he did then.
Bushnell’s heroic martyrdom is a warning. Our role as organized socialists is immense and serious. Faced with imperialist war, the horror, destruction, and misery around us, if we wanted to we couldn’t stop the bravest of us from staking their lives in action. If we don’t build and support democratic structures of popular decision-making, it will take the form of isolated individualistic action, disconnected from mass demonstrations, strikes, and boycotts.
We need people like Bushnell alive, not dead. And if we are forced to sacrifice our lives for the struggle, it should be part of an effort that inflicts real damage on the oppressors. Imagine the role he might have played in the future, as a revolutionary of his moral character embedded in the enemy’s forces. Let’s build a movement where sacrifice and heroism is unified with popular democracy, strategic vision and tactical thinking.
-A.S.
