In June of 1963, Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk Thích Quang Duc burned himself to death at a busy intersection in Saigon. He was attempting to show that to fight all forms of oppression on equal terms, Buddhism too, needed to have its martyrs. John F. Kennedy personally said in reference to a photograph of Duc on fire: “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one”. Photographer Malcolm Browne captured the scene in Saigon for the Associated Press, and the stark black and white image quickly became an iconic visual of the turbulent 1960's. The self-immolation was done in protest to the South Vietnamese Diem regime’s pro-catholic policies and discriminatory Buddhist laws.
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that “something important” would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press. Duc arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched carrying denouncing the Diem government and its policy towards Buddhists.
David Halberstam wrote:
“I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think… As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him”.
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. It was a horrible incident, it is a embarrassment on us as humans. English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: “A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr”.
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Buddhist monks were always peaceful. What they did to themselves is both shocking and horrifying. This highlights how horrible the war in Vietnam was and it certainly shocked the press. How effective was it? How big of a spike in interest did it generate?
ReplyDeleteWhat were these monks fighting back from I get that they were being oppressed but what was the reasoning behind the fact that some was walking on fire in a movement still doesn’t make sense to me
ReplyDeleteBuddhist monks among all monks are generally considered to be the most peaceful. For one of them to catch himself on fire goes to show how strong they felt about what was going on. But in reality how big of an impact did it make? Other than just by shocking people and saying whoa that is crazy. Was this also to best way to go about this issue or was there a different option that would have worked?
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