“I will no longer be complicit in genocide [in Gaza]. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” the man apparently said before setting himself alight and repeatedly shouting “Free Palestine!”

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  • tree@lemmy.zip
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    edit-2
    7 months ago

    It's a bit of a beleaguered point, but it's very telling that this will assuredly get almost no coverage on big news networks like abc, cbs, fox, etc. and virtually no coverage in the larger papers like the NYT, sure the press agencies like Reuters and the AP will cover it and then redistributors like your source will publish this, but little thought among the media class/commentariet will be given to the man who decided there was so little hope of being able to do anything through legal/electoral means to stop a genocide that he could no longer stand idly by and had to do something to protest the sheer inhumanity of what's going on. Barely anyone probably still remembers the person who did the same thing and died in 2022 on earth day protesting inaction on climate change/destruction, that story was absolutely buried. I don't support any kind of self harm, but doing something as drastic as this requires a pretty compelling reason, most people remember Tibetan monks doing the same thing, but the same importance was not extended to that person in 2022 and will almost definitely not be extended to this person now. I may end up being wrong, but I expect this to be out of the news cycle/discourse in days at most.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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      edit-2
      7 months ago

      most people remember Tibetan monks doing the same thing

      Out of political selfimmolations there were 7 Tibetan cases, but dozens of others including many Americans. I wonder why "most people" remember particularly those. Would it be that US media wasn't fair to report not only this one here?

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          Lmao that's what i was talking about, the one on this album cover wasn't even Tibetan, he was Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese buddhist monk, selfimmolating in Saigon in 1963 as protest against US-backed South Vietnam government persecuting buddhists.
          So why people like you think he was Tibetan if not for media misleading you? This was literally the most famous of public selfimmolation and the one that started it all for in XX century.

    • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]
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      7 months ago

      doing something as drastic as this requires a pretty compelling reason

      I've already had a couple people immediately retort "wow mental health is scary", then say "nobody will remember his name".

      These people will shamelessly undermine any action then act disappointed that these actions are quickly ignored.