“We are all culpable,” Matt Nelson said before lighting himself on fire. This is the third such incident in a year.
It was not immediately clear why the man did what he did.
I think it might be the Israeli genocide in gaza?
Gee, we ah…have no clue why
They are still investigating why Aron Bushnell sacrificed himself the same extreme horrific way. I have nothing to say if this was not addressed by the Biden adminstration and Harris. I’m shaken by these two incidents. what more should it take?
For those who want to know why, what purpose, this article addresses it in the hero’s own words.
Suicide ideation is never good. There are always better alternatives than taking your own life.
Having thoughts of suicide is not the same thing as committing to an act of protest that may take your life.
This isn’t suicide in the sense that the word “suicide” implies. It was a deliberate political statement. Calling it suicide misrepresents and diminishes the intent behind Matt Nelson’s actions
People make plenty of excuses for why they kill themselves. Plenty of scared and lonely people have complete manifestos on why they are actually winning by ending their own lives.
The end result is still someone killed themselves and left a hole in the lives of everyone who cared about them. And it should not be celebrated.
How is ensuring his message is heard celebrating suicide? Are you saying it’s better if we ignore this message that he felt so strongly about as to literally end his life? What in God’s name are you trying to say? He ended his life in an act of protest against the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The idea that we should not respond to that is genuinely offensive. Your description of him as scared and lonely without even knowing him is also genuinely offensive.
I have lost friends to suicide. I myself have been suicidal. I don’t know anyone who ended their lives by committing acts of self immolation in front of a genocidal colonial nation’s consulate.
What about the Vietnamese monks who self immolated in protest of the persecution of buddhists in South Vietnam? Thích Quảng Đức was one of them. His action is regarded as heroic. It would be offensive to suggest that his message in death not be remembered. It would also be offensive to suggest that he killed himself for some other reason. As though there’s no conceivable motivation someone could have for taking their own life other than mental health problems.
Apparently since US is endorsing Israel, what Israel govt is doing is fully right and any opposition can be reduced to meaningless squabbles, smh (/s)
So that means we need to rent a billboard to make sure everyone knows Little Johnny Smith killed himself because Amy Jo wouldn’t go to the prom with him?
There is a reason that news outlets have increasingly made it a point to not publish suicide letters. Whether they be individuals slitting their own throats or kids committing suicide by cop. It just leads to people who can find a political use for their death glorifying it… as we are seeing in this thread.
As for people who have commit suicide to advance a political or military agenda of an organization: We glorify Thích Quảng Đức even though, to quote wikipedia
Quảng Đức’s act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute
Do we also glorify Japanese Kamikaze pilots in World War 2? What about child soldiers so manipulated that they are willing to die for a warlord?
Suicide is NEVER the answer*. And all glorifying it and calling people “heroes” for killing themselves does is give scared and lonely people an excuse. They aren’t ending their own lives, they are dying for something more important, yeah…
And anyone whose immediate reaction is “how can I use this death to my own advantage”… they are a fucking monster.
*: Well, outside of euthanasia for medical reasons but that is a much more complicated topic that requires a lot of discussion on the proper way to ensure someone is ending it because of quality of life and not because they are lonely or angry.
So that means we need to rent a billboard to make sure everyone knows Little Johnny Smith killed himself because Amy Jo wouldn’t go to the prom with him?
He’s protesting genocide in the loudest way he could imagine. Degrading his action as something so shallow is disgusting.
This is offensively uninformed and misguided. Giving your very life to protest the way your people are being oppressed, how your people are being slaughtered, is maybe one of the most heroic things you can do. It’s wrong that these people felt they had to give their lives. Not that they did. If we lived in a just world, people wouldn’t have to martyr themselves to draw attention to genocide.
The suicide letter you’re referencing in the first paragraph has literally nothing to do with the subject of this post or my previous comment. You’re trying to conflate suicidal attempts and ideation from mental health problems with martyrdom. They’re not the same thing. And I know that you know that, and you conflating self-immolation to protest genocide with suicide over peer rejection is disgusting on both sides.
“To advance a political or military agenda of an organization” is such a wild misunderstanding of why Thích Quảng Đức died that I’m almost convinced you skimmed the article just to find out if what he did was effective without even glancing at why he did it. If you’re going to look him up, I gave his name so you could do, have the decency to learn why he died.
His self-immolation was actually a defining moment at the end of the Diệm government. Him and his peers were absolutely successful in drawing international attention to what was being done to buddhists in South Vietnam, and the picture taken of him burning is one of the most famous pictures ever taken.
Nobody is saying that you should necessarily CELEBRATE his suicide. However. In a society and a government system that is failing to respond to its public on nearly every level. You have 2 options for what to do to stop something that needs to be stopped in the here and now not in 10-15 years. You can commit acts of terror and use force of arks to disrupt your government internally. Maybe get a gang together with firearms and disrupt arms shipments by attacking manufacturing plants or sabotaging arms convoys. Or kill yourself in an act of protest to get more public attention and pressure to the issue. Or you can bitch and whine and make noise like many of us do. Do I recommend anybody else engage in what that man just did? No. But I’m not going to dishonor and disrespect the entire life of a human being for desperately trying to draw attention to a noble cause. Its tragic what he did. But do not discredit and dismiss the life of another so callously.
How about you mind just your own bodily autonomy.
They provided a statement. Seeing as you’re alive and commenting, I think it’s safe to assume you aren’t them and, therefore, aren’t able to speak on what was happening in their head leading up to this. So how about we take this person at their word and stop making ignorant ass comments that disrespect someone who showed more bravery and resolve than anybody in this thread ever will? People can do with their lives as they please. You don’t have to agree with it but you also shouldn’t be a dick about it
I think Matt Nelson is a hero. His death was not one of fear and loneliness. It was the ultimate act of empathy, compassion, and humanity.
I’m going to celebrate his heroic deed, and I encourage everyone to do the same.
No. His death is something you can take advantage of.
Think about that
I will take advantage of his death to spread understanding, empathy, and a hopeful end to the genocide.
He tried to die for a purpose, why are you so intent on stripping his death of that purpose? You are the one who dishonors the dead.
Got it. he died for your righteous cause so it is all good. Nobody has EVER said that in human history.
Self-immolation as a form of protest has millennia of history behind it, especially in Buddhism and Hinduism. Ancient Greeks have records of it. The Indus Valley have records of it. Ancient Chinese have records of it. Tibetan monks set themselves on fire in order to protest for an independent Tibet. Norman Morris set himself on fire at the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War.
Please don’t reduce an active form of protest against someone’s oppression as someone simply “killing themselves” and “shouldn’t be celebrated”. It’s a pretty narrow and callous world view that may reflect your experience, but not of wider human history.
I mean, taking the conquered as slaves also has a lot of history behind it. So does ritualistic sacrifice to get your way (hmmm).
But hey, that is a good enough reason. So please let me know who I should cheer for and call a hero for making the world a better place by killing themselves. Just like I need to know who should be property of others and who shouldn’t
Or maybe, just maybe, we can realize that it is massively fucked up to celebrate suicide just because it might be politically advantageous even though, time and time again, it isn’t even that?
Yeah, this is a pretty westernized and infantilizing view. Way to take someone’s autonomy and compare it to -checks notes- slavery and involuntary human sacrifice.
Please read some eastern philosophy and history before making comments like this. Suicide isn’t stigmatized outside of Abrahamic viewpoints.
I genuinely don’t care if someone’s holy book or ancient traditions say killing yourself is fine.
I very much do care about the family and friends that are left behind to process the deaths of loved ones. As well as the lives that are cut short because someone decided the world would be a better place with them dead.
Suicidal people seek painless and quick ways to die. This is the opposite because it isn’t suicide. It’s a revolutionary act.
That said? I also don’t think we should be killing ourselves to protest this war. It isn’t we who deserve to die for this genocide.
It’s not a revolutionary act, it’s suicide. He killed himself. And it changed nothing.
Individual revolutionary actions never change anything until suddenly they do. The Arab Spring is an obvious example.
I want to be clear, this is a tragedy. A person opposed to genocide just died and that’s terrible, and furthermore, it’s our fault because we didn’t give him any options to oppose genocide. If we were organized he’d have options. We aren’t, and he was alone.
The Arab Spring is an obvious example.
And how did that one, specifically, turn out in the long run? I’m not an expert, but it is my understanding that the Arab Spring is considered by most to have been a failure.
Well, it successfully overthrew several governments and collapsed several countries. It accomplished something.
The problem, of course, is that there wasn’t an organized revolutionary movement behind it. Spontaneous uprisings almost never work out for the better, we can’t just overthrow the government and then expect things to naturally work themselves out.
He had a lot of options, but because the genocide is imaginary, the solutions are, too
Genocide denial.
Tens of thousands of children blown to pieces and buried under rubble. Systematically starving and depriving the population of sanitation, clean water, soap, antibiotics, or literally any means of surviving a severe wound. There’s no anesthesia in the entire strip, and Israel prevents aid workers from bringing any inside, so they have to do all treatment and amputations without it. Israeli soldiers round up children into prisons and torture them. They target aid workers, reporters, doctors for sniping. They rape and torture prisoners, cut their limbs off, and then they brag about it.
And it’s why we shouldn’t kill ourselves. We aren’t the ones that deserve to die.
Genocide denial
I mean, yes, I deny that fighting a defensive war while taking reasonable precautions against civilian loss of life is a “genocide”, that’s correct.
Israel is not “systematically starving” Gazans; Gazans receive more food aid from Israel than any population in the world receives from anyone.
And it changed nothing.
By that metric no human effort has any ultimate meaning, and choosing to live over choosing to die is just as tedious.
His comment is nihilism incarnate. Nihilists are people IMO that should largely be outright dismissed.
Nihilists are people IMO that should largely be outright dismissed.
You clearly do not know what that word means. I would urge you to educate yourself before dismissing an entire group of people.
We’re talking about it. I am think about Palestinian kids being unhappy and not havijg clean water instead of eating snacks and doing other things. Saying it changed nothing is factually incorrect.
There are some people who do not have the view that Israel is commiting genocide or that Israel is justified in killing Palestinians because of the original attack. Some people think the issue is complicated and may not be sure of what to think and may rethink their opinion of this. You’re just wrong.
You’re right about this. When everything with Isreal first happened I thought they were justified since they were attacked first.
Now… now not so much. As much as I hate that people are killing themselves, I probably wouldn’t have looked closer at what’s going on and changed my mind.We’re people who were talking about it anyway, my dude.
There are always better alternatives than taking your own life.
You are not entitled to me choosing to live just because you emotionally prefer that outcome.
Upvoted by imbeciles. Don’t hurt yourself.
I will hurt myself if I decide to. It’s not like I enjoy being around humans. Many humans hurt themselves and each other as a matter of course, and it is not edifying to see.
Extremely weird and unhealthy response.
Thank you! Being judged negatively by a member of species which fails to feed children, and instead seems to prefer giving money to people who preach hatred against groups based on their identity (or just funding endless pieces of media which are all broadly similar) instead, I will take that as a compliment.
Please know that, when I die - whether that is by my own hand or not - I suspect I will not think ‘wow I wish I’d been here for longer’. I’ve been here for 42 years. It’s not great. People do not live up to my lofty moral ideals of supporting each other to make a better world.
When someone takes the time to die for you to listen, you listen. Not belittlement.
So if someone set themselves on fire to protest immigration or against gay rights you’d say ‘let’s sir down and work out how to ban homosexuality because it’s obviously a valid issue if someone killed themselves over it’
Of course not, how would you respond if 50 kkk members killed themselves to protest in favor of segregation? Or if a Facebook group full of flat earthers burned themselves to protest? Would that make their cause valid?
Find me one self immolation for those things and I’ll concede the point. Otherwise the fact you can’t find one proves no one would ever self immolate something so stupid.
what a naive, closed-minded, and belittling opinion.
I have a strong desire to go to Gaza to support people there. That would be a kind of suicide, like suicide by cop, but instead suicide by regular bombing of areas designated by the military force doing the bombing as a zone that they wouldn’t bomb and I knew that when I went to that area.
Sadly, me being killed as a non-Palestinian by a military force which is killing indiscriminately would change nothing. It is apparent that many people think it is okay for a military force to kill indiscriminately. No number of deaths of Western people would be shocking, because ‘they shouldn’t be there’. Where is ‘there’? A place where Palestinians are trapped, in order to be killed. The infrahumanisation of Palestinians has been there from the very start, it was assumed from the conception of the opinion, and from the conception of the children.
OK… But setting yourself on fire in a country on the other side of the world is better how?
If you’re willing to give up your life to help Palestinians, then actually help them. It’s pretty simple.
OK… But setting yourself on fire in a country on the other side of the world is better how?
It’s what they wanted to do. If you believe in people having free will, then you have to accept that this is reasonable.
If you feel so strongly about it - do it. The likelihood of you being killed is pretty low compared to the amount of people you’d actually help by helping distribute food, etc. If it’s too far away, then you can always start small - volunteer at your local food pantry, soup kitchen, etc.
Don’t spend your time with terrorists yall have lost your minds. Too much compassionate eurothink
Exactly. All this person has accomplished is making those opposed to genocide seem like extremists while taking someone away from all the people who care about him.
And it should not need to be pointed out why calling him a “hero” and cheering for his death is maybe the wrong takeaway from this.
Absolutely not.
I said it when the first person did it, glorifying such actions only leads to copycats and tragedy - it won’t chance anyone’s mind about anything
It stopped being a debate for me once the ICJ literally ruled that Israel’s actions in Gaza are illegal. It’s not antisemitic to call out legitimate war crimes…
Because it apparently needs to be said:
There are always better options than taking your own life
If you are in crisis, please talk to someone who can help - if you don’t feel comfortable talking with close friends or family - you can either call 988 in the United States or Canada, or find a relevant local resource via IASP
It seems to me you are missing the point.
This is a political suicide. I cannot say that I am for this approach but what I see is a form of protest (and maybe what I think about it is another topic). What is striking to me is that this US-backed Genocide is taking place for almost a year, and due to despair americans are even killing themselves as a form of protest.
And of course there are other forms of protesting. People try to influence politicians in so many ways so the US stops providing guns and arguments attempting to justify it.
Missing the point, a political suicide… so sad, too bad… What was this about again?
Did the genocide end?
Thoughts and flames.
Did someone say september 11?Are you a bad person or just a troll?
No, they’re making a point and they are absolutely correct.
This person wasted their life for nothing. There are a million other things they could have done to directly help Palestinians while putting their life on the line (or even giving it up if they were ready to do that). Yet instead they do this, and 2 days later everyone forgets about it and nothing changes.
This is a mentally ill person who was driven to an extreme and felt there was nothing better to do than take his own life.
There is no message that should be said other than to urge anyone who is feeling similar distress needs to know that there are people who love them and no matter what there is always a better alternative.
By condoning it for political purposes you give an out for the mentally ill to commit “legitimate” suicide, or worse to being manipulated into doing so. This is not a slippert slope, it is a hard line that many in these comments have crossed - which is why it needs to be said that there is a better path and there are resources.
This isn’t true.
I am a rape survivor who hasn’t dated anyone in a very long time. The person who hurt me was not prosecuted. I don’t like being touched anymore. I am probably going to kill myself within a few years. I don’t think this is a mental health issue that I want to die; I think this is a valid choice, and no, I don’t want big pharma drugs, religion, or people talking to me to try to make me feel better. I just ultimately want to die and just meed to get my affairs in order.
The person who lit himself on fire and me are not the same. He wasn’t someone who wanted to die, he was someone who wanted people to realize the level of suffering that Palestinians are experiencing.
He didn’t want to kill other people to make his point because he wasn’t violent. He was willing to die himself however. That’s self-sacrifice. More people are noticing what is going on because of what he did. It was not pointless or meaningless.
There are people who commit suicide because of temporary mental health issues, those that end things due to persistent despair, which are not a mental health issues but valid feelings, and neither of these things are the same as self-immolation as political protest.
I know it makes people in society FEEL better to say that people who choose actions that lead to their own death are all mental and just should have called a hotline so they could be locked up by police and force fed or injected with psychiatric medication until big pharma made everything better, but reality isn’t always fairy tales and happy endings. Gross simplifications that push drugs and involuntary hospitalization are an extreme illogical form of reductionism like flat-earthers who deny climate change but feel better as a result.
Gross simplifications that push drugs and involuntary hospitalization are an extreme
Yes agreed. We have mental illness due to fascism and authoritarianism, it doesn’t help to then dial that up to 100000 via forced institutionalization
You can be in your right mind and kill yourself, I truly believe this. Whether he was in particular, idk. But we allow 18 year olds to sign up for the military and don’t medicalize them, so society has some concept of this.
Personally, I have deep respect for people who protest in this way.
I think the only counter argument really is that if you protest like that, you can’t protest again in the future, usually.
I would hope that he could have done more net good with the remaining 80 years of his life if he had dedicated it to the causes he believes in.
They also run the risk of there being zero coverage when it happens, which makes it a regrettable decision. I didnt hear about the second person who did this, just the first and third.
I think self inmolation protests tend to linger for a while. While you personally may not know every person to do it, I do think it gets attention and I remember them. I dont think i couod ever forget the videos ive seen. Certainly the witnesses and people who cleaned up the remains will remember forever.
None of us have a guarantee of life. We aren’t entitled to life. There’s nothing saying he wouldn’t have died of cancer in 3 years anyways. This is similar to people saying “what if you aborted the future scoentist to cure cancer?” It’s nonsense based on an intangible future.
None of us are entitled to work from another person. I mean this really sincerely, the state believes we belong to them and forces work out of us because we live in a giant work camp. So that’s the legal basis for why the state stops us from self harm - denying them the economic advantages of my labor.
He did dedicate the rest of his life to causes he believed in.
Okay sure, thats likely the perspective he had. Its not the only one that exists though.
I know you specifically said you did not want people talking to you to make you feel better, but what kind of rotten society would we live in if everyone just turned a blind eye? isn’t precisely that behaviour what drove this man to self-immolate?
I can’t really be of much help to you beyond maybe chatting, and I have not been in your shoes, but if some rando on the internet can care about you, definitely someone from a closer circle will too. And maybe you don’t need someone actively trying to make you feel better, but someone with whom you can be honest and sincere about how you feel. You don’t have to carry that burden alone, even if it sometimes feels like its the only way.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that choices and opinions tend to change with time… if you let them, and you, as well as people around you, nudge them in the right direction.
About the self-sacrifice, I find the situation that drove him to do that utterly horrific and unacceptable, but the act itself I can not bring myself to support. Yes, it worked and it had an impact, but at what cost? was it really worth the price he paid? couldn’t he have made a huge impact (even if lesser) without paying such a heavy price? We can’t really tell, but the saddest part is that, now, we will never be able to.
Forming bonds with others, relying on them, supporting others and getting help is what makes us a community, and that is a core aspect of being human. Sharing our lives with others is nothing to be ashamed of, quite the contrary, it is something that defines us.
Well, at least he didn’t hurt anyone else.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Very demure of you
Wut
The gen z language identity is stronk
