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Thoughts on the sublime martyrdom of Aaron Bushnell
The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins. Soren Kierkegaard
Finally, at long last, a ceasefire has been agreed when it comes to what some continue to describe as a ‘conflict’ in Gaza. What kind of conflict, we are minded to ask, involves one side with a technologically advanced military power in possession of an army, air force, and navy, and the other side who has not? What kind of conflict is that?
It has in truth been the massacre of an indigenous people in Palestine by an alien settler-colonial power in the name of ethno-supremacy and ethno-fascism. One man during the course of this massacre who raised the stakes when it comes to what it means to be human was US airman, Aaron Bushnell.
Whatever was going through the mind of this splendid young man as he walked towards the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC intent on self-immolation, it was not mental illness as his legion of detractors claim.
No, here was someone intent on sending humanity a message not just in our time but for the ages. It was an act of self-sacrifice forged in the crucible of psychosis that has long been presented to us as the best of all possible worlds.
The moral injury inflicted on every right thinking person over the course of Israel’s fifteen…