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Immolation at the White House gates and other acts of suicidal activism.

19:14 / 15.11.04

Over yonder, BarbeLillith asked me(sarcastically) if we should start setting ourselves on fire now.

Well, now, we are.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man set himself afire Monday just outside a White House gate and repeatedly yelled "Allah Allah" as a Secret Service officer held him facedown on the sidewalk.

...

Witnesses reported hearing screams and seeing a man in flames. The man's right trouser leg was burned.

Afterward, he lay on the sidewalk about 10-15 feet from his partially burned raincoat, attache case and various papers. A fire extinguisher was there as well. Secret Service personnel confiscated the man's items.

...

There was no immediate word on the man's condition or what led to the fire. There was evidence of an ignitable liquid at the scene, Etter said.

This comes less than two weeks after the guy shot himself to death at Ground Zero.

Is this a new thing for America? I don't remember it happening for Reagan or Clinton, but maybe I just didn't hear about it.

19:20 / 15.11.04

My cousin listed these examples on her LJ a few days ago -

-On November 3, 1965, Norman R. Morrison, a 31 year old Quaker, also burned himself to death in protest of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This incident however was outside the Pentagon, only about 100 feet from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's office. He was a father of three children aged 6, 5, and 1. His youngest was with him at the time of his self-immolation, but escaped unharmed.

-In 1976, Maurice Ploscowe was the Republican candidate for United States Congress from a district on the West Side of Manhattan. The district included the offices of the New York Times, ABC News and CBS News. Ploscowe killed himself ten days before the election by jumping from the balcony of his Central Park West apartment. The front page story of his death in the New York Times was the first mention of his name in the paper that year.

-Mitch Snyder worked for the homeless in Washington D.C. for many years. He was quite distraught that the government could not feed the nation's homeless, but they could build bombs and missiles meant for other countries. In 1984, he went on a hunger strike, threatening to kill himself through starvation. The strike ended with the Reagan administration granted him money to rebuild the homeless shelter that he ran. However, still distraught in 1990, Snyder took his own life, hanging himself from an electrical cord in his bedroom at the shelter.

-During a round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Cancun, farmer/activist in Korea burned himself in protest of liberalization of agriculture in Korea. In addition, at least two labor leaders killed themselves after the strikes that they led were declared illegal.

-In the year 2003 at least 11 U.S. Army soldiers and 3 Marines committed suicide in Iraq.

19:33 / 15.11.04

The second and the last examples seem more like, well, professional stresses rather than political concerns (although you have to wonder how many votes the suicidal politician got, if the 10 days wasn't enough time to get his name off the ballot).

00:25 / 16.11.04

He was a father of three children aged 6, 5, and 1. His youngest was with him at the time of his self-immolation, but escaped unharmed.

I doubt it.

14:27 / 16.11.04

One thing that needs to be pointed out is that there is no sure indication that this was an act of protest other then the choosing of the location. Granted, it's a pretty good shot that it was. The real question should be: What is the effectiveness of this? Personally, I doubt that it is highly effective, other then pointing a quavering finger at just how bad it's gotten.... there is a strong tendency in the US to dismiss such persons as "kooks",(their words, not mine).

14:57 / 16.11.04

Is this a new thing for America? I don't remember it happening for Reagan or Clinton, but maybe I just didn't hear about it.

in addition to the examples ibis cited, UMass Amherst student Greg Levy (the stepson of Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman) set himself on fire on Amherst Common to protest the first Gulf War in 1990, and died.

The real question should be: What is the effectiveness of this? Personally, I doubt that it is highly effective, other then pointing a quavering finger at just how bad it's gotten.... there is a strong tendency in the US to dismiss such persons as "kooks",(their words, not mine).

agreed, fucked-up as that is.

15:02 / 16.11.04

Witnesses reported hearing screams and seeing a man in flames. The man's right trouser leg was burned.

Afterward, he lay on the sidewalk about 10-15 feet from his partially burned raincoat, attache case and various papers. A fire extinguisher was there as well. Secret Service personnel confiscated the man's items.

This is actually a curious story, different from the "political suicide" stories. It's unclear from the AP report whether the man or the Secret Service brought the fire extinguisher to the scene, but it does say that the man set fire to his possessions, his raincoat, his trouser leg. It seems possible that his goal was to draw attention to his the attache case or "various papers," rather than to kill himself. Though surely he must have expected the Service to snatch them right up. I'd be interested to hear what their investigation turns up on this man, though we'll probably never know.

15:44 / 16.11.04

That story is a strange one -- but it does mention they found "a quantity of flammable liquid" nearby, so he was pretty serious about setting *something* on fire.

Lemme see....

More on this today from the Australian press.

OK, it's a weird story.

A man who set himself on fire just outside the White House has worked for the FBI as an informant.

Newspaper reports said he was distraught over his inability to return to his home in Yemen to visit his critically ill wife.

Mohamed Alanssi, 52, arrived at the White House gate with a letter addressed to US President George Bush.

After talking briefly to uniformed Secret Service officers, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and set his clothes ablaze.

...

He told the paper by fax and telephone that he was "going to burn my body at unexpected place".

He also faxed a letter to an FBI agent in New York who has had contact with him.

In 2003, Alanssi was the subject of a Washington Post story describing his role as an FBI informant who provided information on terrorist financiers in Yemen.

Alanssi told the Post in recent interviews that he was upset because he could not travel to Yemen to visit his wife, who has stomach cancer. He also said the FBI had not kept promises of help made to him.

More at the link, and here, on AFP (with a photo).

--------

Just for more background, here's an article I linked to in the Conversation about protest suicide in the context of non-violent activism. It starts with the burning monks, but moves on to hunger strikers and Rachel Corrie.

And here's an old topic I started on The Suicide Bomber, which touched on suicide fads & suicide-as-patriotism in Japan.