Gibson writes: "If the man did indeed douse himself in gasoline and light himself ablaze over the disenfranchisement of millions of black voters like himself due to the Supreme Court's actions, his sacrifice can and must be a rallying cry for all Americans."
Joggers who passed by took their own shirts off and tried to put the flames out. (photo: Clifton Santiago/Photobucket)
09 October 13
hen Mohamed Bouazizi was slapped by a Tunisian police officer after they told him he couldn't sell products from his food cart without getting a permit, he set himself on fire in front of a government building, setting off the eventual overthrow of Ben Ali's government and the Arab Spring, which spread all over the Middle East. When Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese monk, set himself on fire to protest the Diem regime's treatment of Buddhists, the image of his self-immolation affected the international conversation over the conflict in Vietnam. Self-immolation is a traditionally political form of suicide, done as a way to make one final point before death. So why are news networks in the US all but silent in the aftermath of an October 4th self-immolation on the National Mall?
According to eyewitness accounts cited in this Al-Jazeera report, a man set up a camera and a tripod on the National Mall, and made a speech about voting rights before dousing himself in gasoline and setting himself on fire in full view of the public. Joggers who passed by took their own shirts off and tried to put the flames out, as seen in this chilling photo (trigger warning: photo of man on fire), but the man still eventually died from his injuries. According to DC metro police, he was so badly burned that his identity can only be determined through DNA and dental records. Police also confiscated his video and have yet to release it to the public.
This man's self-immolation is not the only one that's been mysteriously unreported in the American news media. Since February of 2009, 122 Tibetan monks have self-immolated in protest of the Chinese government's colonial occupation of their country. Perhaps the corporate media believes that, by acknowledging this fact, it might endanger the US government's profitable trade relationship with China if enough Americans became outraged at the treatment of Tibetans. But the fact that the media has done very little reporting on a man setting himself on fire out of protest in the nation's capital, all while surrounded by monuments and museums and tourists at the national mall, should raise lots of eyebrows. People are accustomed to thinking politically-motivated self-immolation only happens in third-world countries with autocratic regimes, not in the good old US of A.
Another thing the US shares with third-world, autocratic regimes is an election system that enables and encourages the rigging of elections and the disenfranchisement of voters of a certain demographic. When nearly 40 percent of all voting is done on electronic voting machines that can be very easily hacked with minimal tools and experience, that's a welcome mat to corruption. And when states are actively setting up laws that systematically make it harder to cast a ballot for millions of people, most of whom tend to vote a certain way, that's corruption in its purest form. When the Supreme Court gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act this past summer, ridiculously declaring racial discrimination a thing of the past, state governments wasted no time before re-establishing laws that would have previously been struck down under those very same voter protections the Supreme Court eliminated.
If the man did indeed douse himself in gasoline and light himself ablaze over the disenfranchisement of millions of black voters like himself due to the Supreme Court's actions, his sacrifice can and must be a rallying cry for all Americans to demand the right to vote without going through the burdensome, costly, unconstitutional process of getting a photo ID as a human right, guaranteed for all Americans. We have the right to know this man's name and his motives, just as much as we have the right to be able to have access to the vote and to have our votes counted in a transparent, democratic process.
Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
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