April 4, 2024

Do not fetishize self harming attention seeking!

I am now back to blogging. There is still so much to blog about it is hard to know where to start. What I always go for is what people generally do not want to hear. That is one big reason why I do not get so many readers.

Here is a topic worth a blog, with a point which most people who follow this topic are not going to want to hear. The actual incident from which the topic arises is a few weeks past now. That is, the “self immolation” of Aaron Bushnell in front of an Israeli embassy building in the United States, on February 24th, to protest the Gaza genocide.

It may be better to talk about this now, after the discussion about it has played out, and the emotional responses have cooled somewhat. It is a relief that there have been no copycat “self immolations.” Some of the comments on it seem to wish there would be.

At least some commentators on the sorry incident acknowledged that Bushnell would have had something wrong with his mind. So would anyone who would do that. It is not a sane thing to do.

Glorifying such an act is also a little crazy. It gets pretty bad when people who would never endanger themselves for a cause, are ecstatic when someone else harms themselves in order to draw attention to the cause. Worse, when they try to encourage more people to do it.

This is not a way to advance any cause. If anything, it would tend to discredit the cause, making its adherents look like lunatics, with good reason. Worse, it depends on spectacle; it is the gruesome way the self victimizer dispatches his or her self which gets attention. It would be little noticed if someone merely jumped off a bridge to protest the Gaza war.

Stupid people will tend to be impressed by this kind of action. More intelligent people will more likely be uncomfortable with it. A sensible person is offended by this type of “martyrdom”. This will include not only self immolation but suicide bombings or suicide missions.

Some cultures have more of a tradition of this kind of martyrdom than others. In some, it is still consider acceptable to protest something by lighting yourself off. In others, starving yourself to death is the preferred method.

In some cultures, suicides in various ways have been encouraged or even required as a way of satisfying some idea of personal honor. In some militaristic cultures, suicide missions may be commanded and required to be obeyed. The ugly thing about these is that often the victim is locked in by some social indoctrination of obligation, are often ‘groomed’ for sacrifice, and do not really do it voluntarily.

It seems that as societies become more sophisticated, this kind of behaviour becomes discouraged. The cults of self sacrifice which build up around such acts become criticized and ridiculed. However, such cults may start to emerge again when a particular society is experiencing some extreme stress.

That certainly is the case in the anglosphere. We are now getting some iconography about Bushnell. Some people are now imitating him to the extent of making a show of starving themselves to death. That is at least a better idea than flaming out; it provides an opportunity to rethink the value of one’s life, and the logic of such actions.

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I have written before about the negative effects of martyr cults and self harming attention seekers, mostly in relation to “whistleblowers” and especially to Julian Assange. I made the point that adoration of the martyr or “sacral victim” is pathologic. It transposes to the sacral victim the fear of punishment for transgressing the will of the hegemon. It purges the shame of not having courage to do anything oneself about the injustice.

In my fiction work parodying the Assange cult, I referenced the human sacrifice cults of primitive societies, specifically in precolumbian mesoamerica. Sacrificial victims would be the subject of hysterical adoration in the time leading up to their death, and for a time after. People who were not capable of succeeding at anything else in life would often willingly become sacrificial victims in order to briefly bask in that glory, or merely to have the gratification of knowing they would be briefly famous.

Most organized religions have turned away from sacrifice and martyrdom, with occasional lapses. Old Jehovah told the Jews he did not want sacrifices anymore, just commitment. Christians stopped being martyrs when they became the dominant religion in the roman empire. Certain Christian missionary groups have become fond of the idea of martyrdom until reined in by higher authority.

Western ideas of the Islamic religion include that martyrdom cults are part of it. However, Islamic theology has a different idea about martyrdom that do Western cultures. Moslem clerics have usually spoken against suicide bombings and suicide tactics in war.

As in most religions, suicide is forbidden in Islam. The suicide bombers which were in vogue for awhile in recent years, came from extremist groups which were considered heretical by mainstream Islam. We do not see much of that tactic anymore.

Present day fighters against Israel usually plan operations so they have a reasonable chance of surviving. They conserve their manpower, but accept the need for high casualties in an asymmetrical war against a sadistic enemy. They still often prefer fighting until death if they are caught with no way out.

There is a kind of fatalism among the Palestinians and, it is thought, among moslems generally. Their word for martyr is said to be synonymous with ‘witness’. A martyr goes to heaven and witnesses that he or she has been killed unjustly.

Of course, the martyr is really messaging this to the world. The Palestinians have become good at sending this message out through the internet. Their martyrdom message is very effective.

It is effective precisely because the martyrs are not seeking out martyrdom. They are mostly not doing anything to avoid it either, if it compromises their integrity as people. This kind of martyrdom is more on the lines of the doctor who says to the Israeli army; “My patients cannot be moved. If I abandon them they will all die. If you want to kill us all, then have that on your conscience.” If the Israelis have one.

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The moral is, do not deliberately seek harm upon yourself. Do not, however, submit to the will of bullies and ‘enforcer’ types. Do not go out of the way to confront them, but try not to not let them deter you from what you would normally do.

In line with this, I am not a big fan of pacifism, either. I take a very dim view of those who would encourage people to go out and get themselves beaten up, injured, or arrested just to prove some point. Even more pathetic are the people who approve of always giving way when confronted with violent intimidation. There may be no choice in such situations but there is nothing particularly virtuous about it.

Pacifism is something you do when you are being pushed around by persons you are unable to defend against. Even then it depends on having an audience. It is best to avoid situations where you cannot defend.

However, you should always defend against aggression when defense is possible. Importantly, you should come to people’s defense when they are confronted with aggression. The point, to repeat, is to not gratuitously self harm, or encourage others to self harm.

The question is, how would we apply these principles to the object of opposing the Israeli genocide in Gaza, far away from where we live. Zionism, with its powerful and very aggressive political network, has brought the conflict close to us. People doing the standard protest methods are being confronted with intimidation through the full spectrum from police aggression, to denial of employment, to internet trolling.

I am generally dubious about conventional ‘protest’ methods of achieving political actions. People need to better think through what they are trying to do. Asking for a ceasefire is pathetic. What is needed is a permanent end to the blockade of Gaza.

The Israeli government and its Zionist network in western countries have shown that they are impervious to persuasion or any indirect pressure. The thing which will stop them is an end to the flow of munitions to them. These come mainly from the United States, which is very much influenced by its Zionist ‘lobby’ and unlikely to stop voluntarily.

An air and sea blockade of Israel will cut off the flow of lethal ordnance. A coordinated attack by the Arab countries surrounding Israel will end all further aggression in Gaza and the West Bank rather quickly. Getting that to happen is complicated and outside the scope of this essay.

All that people in Canada can do to further this is to turn public opinion against Israel and Zionism, and show there is global support for Palestine. Creating disruption for the public, blocking roads and bridges, closing shopping malls, really is not a useful way to do this. Neither is getting yourself arrested and beaten up by cops and Zionist thugs.

To repeat, Setting yourself on fire is a very wrong way to go about it. Mere passive public demonstrations are useful when there is an audience. If they were not having an effect, the Zionists would not be trying so hard to shut them down.

This is why there is a growing and disturbing trend for police, here in Canada, to attack and harass proPalestinian demonstrations. This is especially concerning from Toronto police, who have notably desisted from the political suppression in recent years. Now they are blocking march routes and raiding organizer’s homes.

I believe a basic rule of political activity of any kind must be, that you must be able to protect the participants and deter any retaliation against them. If you cannot, then you should lay low until you can. You cannot have police beating you up and arresting you just for marching around.

The first recourse for attacks is to take your own legal action. This means, to sue and impose costs on the attackers. As well, you cannot be on the defensive in criminal court. You must be able to consistently and quickly get the charges thrown out. All this requires a defense fund and some good lawyers.

If this is not possible, then a political action movement must be able to repel the police in the street. The point of repelling them is to prevent them from assaulting or arresting anyone. Of course, if things are at that level, the key people in the movement need to be made impossible to identify or locate.

Contrary to the convictions of very passivized people in most Western countries, all this is not so hard to accomplish. Most police, except in flat out totalitarian countries, will back off when they encounter serious opposition.

I am not here getting into the strategies of non lethal street warfare. But most police adhere to the doctrine that if they are going to use force, they cannot lose. If a political group such as proPalestinians can mobilize a street force of some thousands of people who are organized, disciplined, and proficient with non lethal weapons, the police are finished.

The government can either negotiate or call in the army. Calling in the army would be a very dangerous thing for any government. It is likely to turn the public strongly against them.

Those are the extent of a political action movement’s options in getting police and other groups to leave them alone while drawing attention to the Gaza genocide. To go about getting government to suspend material aid to Israel, and purge institutions of Zionist agents, would be somewhat more demanding.

If there is not a sufficient corps of people who can practice the type of responses called for by the circumstances, then it must be recognized that the aim is not realistic. Continuing it is going to get into self harming martyr behaviour. But these aims should be achievable.

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In all circumstances, people should not gratuitously invite harm. They are doing nothing wrong and should reasonably expect to not be interfered with. But if there is no means to deter attack, you have to back off, for now.

People who go out to try to get themselves arrested, or who harm themselves in any way to draw attention on themselves, must be dissuaded where possible. They may be encouraged to seek assistance with their mental health. Those who try to instigate other people to sacrifice themselves are scum.

Bushnell was deranged. What he did, did nothing to help the Palestinian cause. In fact it mocked the suffering of the people of Gaza. They did nothing to bring any of this on themselves. They are all trying to survive.