this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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“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 194 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (44 children)

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.

[–] Lath@kbin.social 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Few people will remember him, but if any are spurred into action by his act, then it won't be a completely wasteful loss of life.

[–] tree@lemmy.zip 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yeah, I've seen some discourse that things like this when done by an individual as opposed to a group effort like the Tibetan monks are primarily to take their own life and the message is secondary/additional, but I would like to think that on some level something positive will come out of someone doing something as drastic and sad as this. Dying or taking your own life is not something positive or to be glorified, but when someone feels so hopeless to the point that they turn to this, I hope it's at least a wake up call for some people to take this seriously and not just ignore/tune out one of the biggest genocides in recent history.

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