Self-immolation

This is an article on the ritualistic suicide practice. For the record company, see Self Immolation.

File:Thich Quang Duc - Self Immolation.jpg

Thích Quảng Đức pictured during his self-immolation.

Self-immolation is the act of self-sacrifice by suicide. Literally, “immolation” implies suicide by fire, but the term also includes other forms of self-sacrifice.

History

Self-immolation, while tolerated by Buddhism and Hinduism, was practiced by religious or philosophical monks, especially in India for Sati, throughout the ages, for various reasons, including political protest, devotion, renouncement, etc.. Certain warrior cultures also practiced it, such as in the case of Charans and Rajputs.

During the Great Schism of the Russian Church, entire villages of Old Believers burned themselves to death in an act known as "fire baptism". Scattered instances of self-immolation have also been recorded by the Jesuit priests of France in the early 1600s. Their practice of this was not intended to be fatal, though. They would burn certain parts of their bodies (limbs such as the forearm, the thigh). The reason they did this was to signify the pain Jesus endured while upon the crucifix. It was an alternative to flagellation.

A number of Buddhist monks, including Thích Quảng Đức in 1963, self-immolated in protest of the discriminatory treatment endured by Buddhists under the authoritarian administration of President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam — even though violence against oneself is prohibited by most interpretations of Buddhist doctrine.

On November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison used kerosene to burn himself to death outside The Pentagon as a protest against the Vietnam War. Exactly one week later, Roger Allen LaPorte killed himself for the same reason outside the United Nations headquarters.

Jan Palach was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.

In 2001 a group of people self-immolated in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China. Communist party broadcast the event nationally on Chinese new year and claimed the immolators were practitioners of the Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong. The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident have since been heavily debated internationally as Falun Gong supporters claimed it was a setup by the Chinese government as part of the ongoing crackdown on the movement.

Malachi Ritscher was a Chicago musician and anti-war protestor who commited suicide by self-immolation as a political protest against the War in Iraq.

In 2007, it was revealed that more Kurdish women were attempting self-immolation. [1]

In fiction

• The ancient legends of Heracles include his death by a funeral pyre he built for himself.
• At the climax of Richard Wagner's opera, Götterdämmerung, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde throws herself into Siegfried's funeral pyre.
• In Dan Brown's book "Angels And Demons" the papulate self immolates after learning a dark secret.
• Denethor committed suicide via self immolation in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. He attempted to burn his son alive on the same pyre, but the timely intervention of Peregrin Took saved Faramir. The influence of Sauron, combined with the seeming inevitability of the fall of Minas Tirith drove him to death.
• In Carol Shield's book "Unless", Norah the daughter of the main character chooses to live on the streets in search of "Goodness" in response to having witnessed the self-immolation by a Muslim woman on a street-corner in Toronto.
• In the final pages of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's creation, overcome with remorse at Victor's destruction, which he knowingly brought about, declares his intention to self immolate in the farthest reaches of the Arctic wasteland, north of Archangel, Russia.

In popular culture

• Revolutionary socialist rock band Rage Against the Machine used the graphic photo of Thích Quảng Đức's self immolation on their self-titled debut album.
• The 2001 film Waking Life depicts self-immolation.
• Industrial metal group Fear Factory has a song on their CD Archetype (album) entitled "Slave Labor" which has lyrics that talk about the self-immolation of Kathy Change.

See also

• Hunger strike
• Charans, a caste in India known for ever-readiness to perform self-immolation
• Sati, an old custom in which a Hindu widow would immolate herself on the funeral pyre of her husband
• Suicide methods

External links

• Mumbai: Protesting Tibetan attempts self-immolation
• The Copycat Effect (New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8223-9)
• Afghan women seek death by fire