Sacrifice in Vietnam

50 years ago today Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from the Linh-Mu Pagoda in Hue, Viet­nam, burned him­self to death at a busy inter­sec­tion in down­town Sai­gon, Viet­nam. Eye wit­ness accounts state that Thich Quang Duc and at least two fel­low monks arrived at the inter­sec­tion by car, Thich Quang Duc got out of the car, assumed the tra­di­tion­al lotus pos­i­tion and the accom­pa­ny­ing monks helped him pour gas­ol­ine over him­self. He ignited the gas­ol­ine by light­ing a match and burned to death in a mat­ter of minutes. Dav­id Hal­ber­stam, a report­er for the New York Times cov­er­ing the war in Viet­nam, gave the fol­low­ing account: “I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were com­ing from a human being; his body was slowly with­er­ing and shriv­el­ing up, his head black­en­ing and char­ring. In the air was the smell of burn­ing human flesh; human beings burn sur­pris­ingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sob­bing of the Viet­namese who were now gath­er­ing. I was too shocked to cry, too con­fused to take notes or ask ques­tions, too bewildered to even think. As he burned he nev­er moved a muscle, nev­er uttered a sound, his out­ward com­pos­ure in sharp con­trast to the wail­ing people around him.”

Thich Quang Duc had pre­pared him­self for his self-immol­a­tion through sev­er­al weeks of med­it­a­tion and had explained his motiv­a­tion in let­ters to mem­bers of his Buddhist com­munity as well as to the gov­ern­ment of South Viet­nam in the weeks pri­or to his self-immol­a­tion. In these let­ters he described his desire to bring atten­tion to the repress­ive policies of the Cath­ol­ic Diem régime that con­trolled the South Viet­namese gov­ern­ment at the time. Pri­or to the self-immol­a­tion, the South Viet­namese Buddhists had made the fol­low­ing requests to the Diem régime, ask­ing it to: Lift its ban on fly­ing the tra­di­tion­al Buddhist flag; Grant Buddhism the same rights as Cath­oli­cism; Stop detain­ing Buddhists; Give Buddhist monks and nuns the right to prac­tice and spread their reli­gion; and Pay fair com­pens­a­tions to the vic­tim’s fam­il­ies and pun­ish those respons­ible for their deaths.

Both Thich Nhat Hnah and Rus­sell McCutcheon that by con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing the event in 1963 Viet­nam, the self-immol­a­tion can be seen as a “polit­ic­al act” aimed at call­ing atten­tion to the injustices being per­pet­rated against the South Viet­namese people by a pup­pet gov­ern­ment of Euro-Amer­ic­an imper­i­al­ism. In this con­text, Thich Nhat Hnah describes the act of self-immol­a­tion as fol­lows: The press spoke then of sui­cide, but in the essence, it is not. It is not even a protest. What the monks said in the let­ters they left before burn­ing them­selves aimed only at alarm­ing, at mov­ing the hearts of the oppress­ors, and at call­ing the atten­tion of the world to the suf­fer­ing endured then by the Viet­namese. To burn one­self by fire is to prove that what one is say­ing is of the utmost import­ance. The Viet­namese monk, by burn­ing him­self, says with all his strength and determ­in­a­tion that he can endure the greatest of suf­fer­ings to pro­tect his people…. To express will by burn­ing one­self, there­fore, is not to com­mit an act of destruc­tion but to per­form an act of con­struc­tion, that is, to suf­fer and to die for the sake of one’s people. This is not suicide.

Thich Nhat Hanh when on to explain why Thich Quang Duc’s self-immol­a­tion was not a sui­cide, which is con­trary to Buddhist teach­ings: Sui­cide is an act of self-destruc­tion, hav­ing as causes the fol­low­ing: (1) lack of cour­age to live and to cope with dif­fi­culties; (2) defeat by life and loss of all hope; (3) desire for nonex­ist­ence. The monk who burns him­self has lost neither cour­age nor hope; nor does he desire nonex­ist­ence. On the con­trary, he was very cour­ageous and hope­ful and aspires for some­thing good in the future. He does not think that he is des­troy­ing him­self; he believes in the good fruition of his act of self-sac­ri­fice for the sake of oth­ers. I believe with all my heart that the monks who burned them­selves did not aim at the death of their oppress­ors but only at a change in their policy. Their enemies are not man. They are intol­er­ance, fan­at­icism, dic­tat­or­ship, cupid­ity, hatred, and dis­crim­in­a­tion which lie with­in the heart of man.

Arash Shari­fi

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Arash Sharifi

Author at I Am Hip-Hop Magazine 

Arash has been pas­sion­ate about Hip hop for many years. He believes through hip hop you can teach, edu­cate and empower people to become bet­ter ver­sions of them­selves and help and sup­port their com­munity and oth­ers. Hip hop is more than just music, it can be a teach­er to us all.

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