March 4, 2024 • 46 mins
Robert and Mia start with an overview of self immolation protests in Vietnam and Taiwan.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zone Media. Oh boy, howdy, welcome back to it
could happen here? A podcast about it happening here, and
it is different most episodes. But today the thing that
is happening here is discussion about the growth of self
(00:22):
immolation as a form of protest from the twentieth to
the twenty first century. Obviously, we are recording this less
than a week after Aaron Bushnell, a twenty five year
old serviceman in the United States Air Force, let himself
on fire in front of the Israeli Intimacy in Washington,
d C. And you know, repeatedly stated free Palestine as
(00:46):
he was doing it. He said more than that, obviously,
he wrote, you know, I think very clearly about why
he did what he was doing. This is something that
you'll have heard a lot of debate about. There's a
certain kind of person, particularly in the media, who feels
obligated to say this is mental illness and we shouldn't
discuss it as anything else. I think that's wrong for
(01:09):
the same reasons, by the way that it's wrong to
dismiss you any sort of mass shooter or whatever as
mentally ill not that either of those are similar in
terms of the actions they're not. But that attempt to
dismiss it because it's something it makes you uncomfortable to
consider that somebody could do something so incomprehensible to you
for a logical reason. Now, when I say a logical reason,
(01:29):
that doesn't mean I'm arguing this is something more people
should do. It doesn't mean that I'm arguing that this
was the best thing that Bushnell could do. What I
am saying is that, from everything that is available, this
was a rational act. He understood what he hoped to
accomplish with this, and he took concerted steps to ensure
that he succeeded and that attention was drawn to it.
His reason for doing it was clear. He took actions
(01:52):
like to set up a will and whatnot. This seems
to have been a rational and principled action, and we
are I'm not really primarily going to be discussing what
Bushnell did because I don't really know that there's much
to say. You know, it's it's everyone here's stance that
what's being done to Gaza is a genocide. I don't
know that this will help. I certainly hope that somehow
(02:14):
it does, but we're simply not at a point where
we can say what the impact of this on the
overall you know, situation in Gaza is going to be.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, And I mean I guess like the thing we
can say off the bat is like whether or not
this matters is to a larger scent up to you
because like someone someone like I mean, this is the thing, right,
Like that.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Matters in the sense that it has an impact on
the Obviously, I think it matters because he was a
person well that too, right, Yeah, but like yeah, in
the in the in the in the sense of whether
its accomplishes political objectives, like that's up to.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Us figuring out how we're going to run a political
movement in such a way that the Shannisi gets stopped.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, and that is It's not something I have a
clear answer for you on right now, but I think
there I think so, I think the thing we're going
to try to do that I think can be helpful
in This is a tempt to provide some context on
what is the history of self immolation as a protest tactic,
How does it tend to work in the past and
in the present, and in what sort of situations has
(03:15):
it been more or less effective as an instrument of protest.
That's what we're going to try to cover today. Obviously,
this should not be seen as a totally comprehensive look
at the entire history.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Of goodcast as I'm about to come.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
This is what we can get for you in about
a week, and I think I think it will help
and provide a broader sense of context as to how
this sort of thing has worked in other situations around
the world and throughout time. Self immolation goes back very
far as a protest tactic. There were Christians who are
being persecuted by the Roman government in Nicodemia in three
(03:47):
hundred AD who lit a fire in front of the
Emperor's palace and threw themselves into a bonfire as an
active protest. In Russia, I think in like the sixteen hundreds,
Orthodox I don't know there was an Orthodox sect. I
don't really know much about them, but they they locked
themselves pro in churches as a protest for some of
the czar's reforms and then lit those churches on fire,
(04:11):
so like died inside the churches that they were in.
So this is a kind of thing that goes back
quite a while. I'm sure there are other cases in
you know, ancient history that go well before that, but
it's it's not a new thing. However, when we talk
about kind of twentieth and twenty first century self immolation,
the first sort of really famous case of this and
(04:32):
the one that gets brought up every single time people
talk about self immolation as a protest tactic was one
that occurred during the Vietnam War, and it was the
self immolation of a Buddhist monk named tish Quang Duk.
I believe that's Thhi. I think that's how that's pronounced.
I lestn't do it before we started recording this, but
(04:55):
that kind of stuff slips out of my head, so
I apologize if that is the case. He's an interesting guy.
I think pretty his early life is probably pretty common
for people who become Buddhists, who became Buddhist monks and
kind of Central Vietnam in this period of time. He
left home when he was like seven, he became a
novice at fifteen. By twenty he was a full monk.
(05:16):
And one of the things that's happening during this period
of time is the South Vietnamese government is this guy
he's called a president. The president he is a dictator.
I think everything but name No Din DM and he's
a terrible guy. He's a French educated Catholic. And if
you know anything about the French history and into China
right like that, that does not suggest somebody whose role
(05:40):
before Vietnam got its independence from France was particularly great.
His brother No Din knew what is the head of
the secret police, And they are despite the fact that
Vietnam South Vietnam is a Buddhist majority country, they're passing
a lot of policies that are like actively cracking down
on and reducing the right of a Buddhist people to
(06:00):
worship right. And you know, this is there's a lot
of reasons for this, but they kind of boiled down
to the fact that Dim was was horrible, was just
a fucking dog shit. Yeah, really really trash. Now I've
heard it said online when people bring up this self immolation,
you know, within kind of the context of of what's
happened recently, like this wasn't a you know, people are
(06:22):
wrong when they say this was an act of protest
the Vietnam War. It wasn't. And that is technically true
because like the thing that that duke was was protesting
was not US involvement in Vietnam, but he was protesting
the US backed government of South Vietnam, and that government
is very relevant to why there was a Vietnam War.
So I do kind of think it's it's not entirely
(06:43):
accurate to be like, well, this wasn't a Vietnam War protest, No, no,
it was.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It was. It was just about the fact that, like
the Catholic theocratic, drug dealing fascist government, it was like murdering.
It seems like you're splitting the hair there, bro.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I feel like the murdering Buddhist thing might have been
part of why there was so many people willing to
fight the South Vietnamese government.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Not a zero percent part of that equation.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Maybe, but yeah, So these guys, these Buddhists, I mean
Buddhist religious leaders in the country get increasingly angry about
what's happening. There are debates, I think for several years,
kind of within sort of the more highly ranking kind
of leaders in the faith as to like, what do
we do about this crackdown on our rights and like
(07:29):
should we They were talking for quite some time about
having a self immolation protest, right Like. It was the
kind of thing where there was a decent amount of
like discussion earlier, and Duck is actually the one who
I think suggested it initially to like other leaders in
the church. And yeah, while there was like for a
while they tried to push back against this, eventually the
(07:52):
level of prosecution just became so clear that you know,
they basically said, Okay, let's like you can do this.
And Duck is going to be the guy who is
going to like physically, you know, destroy his body in
order to carry out this active protest, as is always
going to be the case when we talk about these
famous self immolation cases, half of the story is the
(08:13):
guy who does or the individual who lights himself on fire,
and half of the story is the reporter who happens
to be there. And in this case it was a
guy named Malcolm Brown. He is, I believe he's an
American reporter. He's stationed in you know, Saigone, and he's
you know, doing what a lot of journalists were doing
at the time. And in the springtime of nineteen sixty three,
(08:35):
there start being like these kind of messages put out
by the Buddhist Church that are sort of he describes
it as hinting as some kind of spectacular protest. His
guess was that it would quote most likely be a
disembowlment of one of the monks or an immolation, and
either way, it was something we had to pay attention to.
And like a lot of journalists, he's got some sources
(08:55):
within the church. He gets a call one day and
they're like, you should show up at this pagoda at
this specific time. And here is how Malcolm describes what
he saw. By the time I got to the pagoda
where all this was being organized, it was already under way.
The monks and nuns were chanting a type of chant
that's very common at funerals and so forth. At a
signal from the leader, they all started out into the
(09:15):
street and headed toward the central part of Saigon on foot.
When we reached there, the monks quickly formed a circle
around a precise intersection of two main streets in Saigon.
A car drove up, two young monks got out of it.
An older monk, leaning a bit on one of the
younger ones also got out. He headed right for the
center of the intersection. The two young monks brought up
a plastic jerry can, which proved to be gasoline. As
soon as he seated himself, they poured the liquid all
(09:37):
over him. He got out a matchbook, lighted it and
dropped it in his lap and was immediately engulfed in flames.
And yeah, that's you know what happened that day. Malcolm
takes a picture of He takes a bunch of pictures.
You can see all of them. There's a Good Time
article Malcolm Brown, the Story behind the Burning Monk, that
has all of the pictures that he took, or at
(09:59):
least like a long list of them, and they are
worth seeing. They aren't. I shouldn't have to put a
trigger warning in here, right, these are photos of a
burning to death.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Like that shit sucks, say from me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, God,
it doesn't look good. It looks really bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Now obviously one of specifically one of the photos you've
probably seen it where like half of the monk's face
looks okay and the other half is just like wreathed
in fire. This goes like the sixties equivalent of viral right.
President Kennedy said of the photograph. No news picture in
history has generated so much emotion around the world is
that one. And at the time it may have been true,
(10:37):
and it is. It is number one. It does have
a role in the anti war movement because you know,
this is related to a protest against the government we
were backing. But this is also one of the more successful,
maybe the most like directly successful cases of self immolation
I've seen, because this does play a significant role in
the end of Deem's presidency and his life.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
So Duck leaves a note like a lot of these
people do. In his note, again is very clear minded.
He ends it by saying, before closing my eyes and
moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead
to President no d indem to take a mind of
compassion towards the people of the nation and admit implement
religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. Yeah,
(11:23):
when this kind of happens, as I quoted earlier, Kennedy
is like shocked and furious. He yells to his national
security advisor, who the fuck are these people? Like? How
did we not know this was going to happen? He's
he's very angry about all this. Buddhist is like, I
feel like, like that's the kind of big clue I
actually have trouble imagining like JFK, having a significant amount
(11:47):
of context, aest to like what buddhismiss.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
God.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
But maybe maybe I'm wrong. So I want to quote
from this really good medium article the suicide that changed
American policy in Vietnam by a poor Va Tadepali, And
this is for a series they write called near Pot,
which is an interactive classroom tool for students. And I
found this a very readable and concise description of kind
(12:14):
of what happened after Douk's self immolation quote. The publicity
of the incident increased pressure on DIM's government to deal
with the crisis, but he did not take the incident
seriously enough. His response to the death was an announcement
on the radio later that day that wildly missed the point.
The state of affairs was moving forward so smoothly, he said, bizarrely,
when this morning acting under extremist and truth concealing propaganda,
(12:36):
that's so doubt about the goodwill of the government. A
number of people got intoxicated and caused an undeserved death
that made me very sorry.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
OK, I feel a lot of terrible statements. A it
is this guy.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
We need to do the Bastards episode on him because
DM is like he's horrible. He causes a lot of
damage to a lot of people, but he's that's a
fucking scrub, right yeah, like fucking Stalin would never you know,
like the o Geese very sad you like Saddam Hussein
would have gotten caught.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Up in that shit. No, not my man. Listen, this
is like this is bush league shit even by like
fucking like East Asian dictators, like can.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
You get che Shek, Like no way, oh no, Kai
Shek wouldn't have gotten caught up in this shit.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Absolutely, ny Sheck. If someone had tried to do this
specifically in chink she Chanky Sheck would have shot the
guy himself.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Absolutely yeah, oh my god. So anyway, this scrub he makes,
he makes like a promise that they're going to do
reforms and stuff, and like while he's doing this, his family,
including his brother Knew, who's like the head of the
Saigon Secret Police, is basically is saying like like literally says,
if the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I'll be
(13:52):
glad to supply the gasoline. Christ and his wife, who's
like a very merry Antoinette figure. Madam Knew who is.
It's his brother's wife, but she's basically the first lady
right of South Vietnam. She's like, let them burn, We'll
clap our hands. Oh god, So it's pretty it's pretty cool.
(14:12):
Like DM is actually kind of the smart one in
the family because he's trying to like tell his sister
in law and his brother in law like nah, bra Or,
and his brother and his sister in law, like, you
guys don't understand. We have to be a little bit
careful here. This could really go badly.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah. It really seems like like they haven't figured out
the playbook for dealing with this yet. No, because like
the successive governments, like everyone has like the same line
that they say when it happens, and these people, it
looks like they're really kind of scrambling here. They didn't
have any they'd never even considered that something like this
could happen. There would be reactions to their policies like this.
There are a bunch of protests by monks and nuns
(14:46):
of the police arrest a bunch of people. This continues
to draw outrage and make the system a situation worse
new the secret police guy has his goons like ransack
and destroy a bunch of like Buddhist basically a lot
of people, like fourteen hundred people are like rounded up
and arrested. DM accuses the monks of being part of
(15:07):
the Viet Cong, which is again like sure, such a yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
So one of the things that is important to understand
here is that this is at a very different part
stage of the Vietnam War. The US has troops in
the country, but not a lot, like very few compared
to how many are going to be there, And at
this stage, DM actually isn't happy that we have even
though it's got to become very clear that like the
US troops the only thing allowing this regime to stay
(15:35):
propped up. He is like, I don't want them here.
They don't even have passports, right, Like he's he's like
weirdly anti the like. And part of it is because
the US is about to act here finally to take
support away from his regime. So three days after his buddy,
his brother in law or his brother Knu has a
bunch of raids on these Buddhist temples, there's a cable
(15:59):
sent from DC to the US ambassador in Southern Vietnam
that's like, we're not backing this guy anymore. And this
ends with a bunch of South Vietnamese generals who had
already been planning a coup being given the go ahead
from the US basically saying like, we're not our guys
are not going to take any actions to stop you
from overthrowing this guy. And on November two, Dim and
(16:20):
his brother are kidnapped while trying to escape and they
are killed not long after. So this is, you know,
pretty successful self emolation. You have to say, right, yeah, yeah,
works seems like it works about as well as you
could have hoped for that, right, like the at least,
I'm sure aus as well as that monk hoped, because
you know, Dim is not just out of power, but
(16:42):
is fucking killed as a result of this.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So ohough, the problem is the subsequent people he has
put in charge of Yeah, also suck.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
But that's that's also part of a pattern, unfortunately, and
there's like a weirdly there's like a history of self
emolation leading to regime change. We're gonna talk about Tunia
at the end of the episode, and that does tend
to be the story of like, yeah, we got rid
of the dictator and then a guy who sucked that's
as much came into power.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Hey, well, the the tai one one we're gonna talk
about in a second actually gets pretty well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So yeah, and before we go into that, because we're
gonna let you take over from hearing meat or at
least for the next couple of parts of this. But
first let's let our advertisers take over and we're back.
(17:35):
All right, miya, you are on deck. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
So, I think I think people are kind of broadly
aware kind of if you know anything more self immolations,
about the self emilations in Vietnam, and then also the
sort of the ones in the US, like as as
anti Vietnam War protests, the ones that I don't think
most people here know and that I only know about,
(17:58):
like because like my mom was born in Taiwan, Right,
is the Taiwanese self immolationis. Yeah. So this guy's name
is Jian Yong Rong. He is he's also noticed the
thing most people call him is Nylon Jung, for reasons
that I guess will become clear when he lights himself
on fire. So Nylon Jung is a very very influential
(18:25):
Uh well, okay, I don't know, very very influential Quatro.
But he's like a he's a pretty famous and very
influential pro in dependence activist in Taiwan, dring the KMT's
occupation there. And this is something I don't like. Americans
tend to not understand this very well. So okay, So
(18:45):
the the KMT is the Chinese nationalist party. They take
power in Taiwan after just invading it effectively. They when
when when they when they lose the civil war, the
KMTS are cremating forces, and a bunch of their supporters
like flee to Taiwan, and there are there are like
three groups of people who the KMT like spend most
of their time killing, and that is communist, feminists and
(19:06):
Taiwanese independence activists. They also hate Presbyterians for reasons that are.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Hey, hey, we all hate Presbyterians, Am I right?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Okay to look look, I am not normally at Presbyterian
like er. The Taiwanese Presbyterians like legitimately do good work
in the sense that they are like one of the
groups that's like pretty important in bringing down the KMT
one party dictatorship. But okay, so Taiwan has this like
really appalling like One Party dictatorship. Nylon Jung is actually
(19:35):
born I think I'm remembering is right. He's born like
during the February twenty eighth incident, which is this thing
in nineteen forty seven. Actually we're we are two days.
I think when this goes out will be two days
after the seventy seventh anniversary of it, where there's there's
a giant uprising in Taiwan because like people in Taiwan
fucking hate the KMT because they suck and they murder people,
(19:56):
and there's this giant uprising and the KMT eventually like
their military forces get reorganized and they so the initial
uprising takes most of the islands, and then the KMG
just come back and kill everyone. They kill about twenty
thousand people in a week. It's one of the sort
of like I don't know, one of the kind of
like defining incidents and what becomes sort of Talentese national culture.
(20:17):
It's just this like massacre and then you know, it's
basically it's legal to talk about afterwards. This is this
is the beginning of the sort of white terror in China,
and they're gonna you know, and this is the start
of the KMT kidnapping and torturing like tens of thousands
of people. One of the things that happens in this
this is actually so this is this was my family's
experience of it. Is that. Okay, so there's there's this
up there's the uprising, right, but one of the things
(20:39):
that starts happening pretty quickly is these like retaliatory killings
against like against Chinese nationals, And that was stuff my
family was like, yeah, we like couldn't go outside because
if you leave your house, like you're gonna get killed
by mobs and that stuff. That stuff like sucked.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, that that does sound like it sucked.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, it's not good because it's the thing because it's
weird because it's like that uprising like broadly good, but
it turns into like parts of it turn into race
riots or like why it's weird, Like I don't know,
it turns into these like like anti Chinese national like
riots and that stuff. You know. So Jong is from
a Chinese like like just from like a sort of
(21:19):
like Chinese national family that like fled to Taiwan after
the war, and his family is protected by other Taiwanese
like like uprising people who are like no, like we're
not going to fucking just kill these random Chinese people,
Like what are you guys talking about? And that's this
really formative thing for him where this is one of
the things that caused him to grow up to become
(21:40):
like the kind of Chinese like Taiwanese independence activist that
he is, where he's one of these people who is
really big on Taiwan as like like liberating Taiwan as
a nation, but having it be like a nation of
ideals and not a nation of blood because his you know,
because he sees how badly this kind of like ulternational
bloodline like shit can go. And so he becomes like
(22:07):
a pretty prominent independence activist. He runs one of the
anti party newspapers, like anti Canteen newspapers, and he's mostly
doing a lot of this stuff in the eighties where
so basically like you have two consecutive like like the
Shanki check and then you have like more guys from
that family. By the eighties, you're like democratization is kind
(22:28):
of like slowly moving forward because the time when he's
ruling class, he's losing American backing, they're losing backing overseas.
But you know, even even by sort of nineteen eighty nine,
which is in the period in which people are talking
about like well democratization's happening, like it's gonna go forward,
the country still has likes they haven't had like real
(22:51):
national elections, and they still have these really really intense
what are called anti sedition laws and so one of
the things that the pro independence activist and this is
the period in which like Taiwan's like modern ruling party,
the Democratic Progressive Party like comes into existence or like
they're coming to existence as the anti KMT party. And
(23:13):
this is the sort of milieu kind of in which
Dylon Jung is sort of mobilizing, right, But he's also
I don't know, he's like he's the kind of guy
that doesn't exist anymore, which is like he's kind of
like a like like liberal progressive national liberation supporter. So
(23:34):
I actually I found a really interesting thing translated by
jenhan Chan on this guy I kind of am aware
of from Twitter, who translated this thing that he read
about Palestine, where he is a pro Palestine guy. But
it's interesting because he sees Palestine as like another nation
that's been like subjugated in like a similar way to
Taiwan has and you know, and he's like an anti
(23:56):
armed struggle guy, but he's also very sort of he's
very committed to Taiwanese independence as a national liberation movement
and specifically, like the thing that you're liberating it from
is the KMT, and so, you know, he he gets
in the trouble constantly with like the KMT government. They
(24:19):
arrest in a bunch of times, and eventually, in nineteen
eighty nine, he gets charged with these by these anti
sisition laws. He gets charged with insurrection for like spreading
drafts of a potential new Taiwanese constitution, and so he
barricades himself in his office, refuses to show up to code.
He gives this giant speech about how like you'll never
(24:39):
take me alive, and the police kind of take him serious.
He's barricaded himself in like his newspaper offices, and he's
there for like two months, and at the end of
month two, a cop who is the current mayor of
New Taipei City tries to burst down his door.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
That doesn't save my a job that you should be
able to have.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
No, No, this is one of these things where it's like, okay,
so like the KMT, this is one of these things
about sort of Tony's politics. That's weird that the KMT
is the modern sort of pro China promunification faction. Right,
those guys suck like like they're they're not they're not
the same sort of like just desk squad party they
were in the sort of late in like the twentieth century.
But they're also like yeah, no, it's literally they're mayor.
(25:24):
They're mayor of PIPEI, which is okay, I'm not going
to go into what the difference between Uchaipe and I
pay is here. That's that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I'm guessing. It's like the difference between you know, New
York and Old York.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Right, it's it's it's closer to the difference between New
York City and New York.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Okay, okay, but that makes sense. Yeah that works.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Like this guy, this guy who again like was elected
like two years ago, tries to kick down his door
and Nylon jungl likes himself on fire. And this has
a enormous impact on the sort of subsequent course of
Tiwan these politics, because this is a this is a like,
this is a pr disaster for the like for for
(26:07):
the ruling for like for for the current government, which
had been trying to sort of like do its like ah,
we're doing moderate reforms, blah blah blah, we're doing you
have local elections. Now you're we're doing democratization. And suddenly,
like their cops break down this guy's door and he
lights himself on fire, and you know that the cop
(26:28):
later says like, oh, yeah, we break down the door
because we were trying to save his life. It's like, no,
you didn't. What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Like, I love things that have never happened, That's my
favorite kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, and you know, so there this is one of
these things that and this is actually think that that's
become that's a very very common thing at protests like now,
So no Alan Jung has he has this massive funeral,
I mean, this is an absolutely enormous funeral march and
the police attack it. And when the police attack it,
another pro independence active also lights himself on fire like
(27:02):
in front of the cops when they refuse to do it.
And this that second guy is like a lot less
remembered than Nlan Jung but this becomes a massive sort
of rallying cry around, like you know, for the pro
dependence people, but also for the sort of broader fight
for like an actual like actual free democratic elections. Like
the big thing these people were protesting like specifically was
(27:25):
free speech because the thing about the sedition laws is
if you you know, again, if you start passing around
copies of the constitution, they try to arrest you and
throw your in prison.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, I mean nothing says sedition like the constitution of
the country you're in.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, and like you're changing it, I guess is sedition.
It's like the KMD really suck, like cannot emphasize that
it off. But the sort of the results of this
is that, you know, okay, Like, so this is one
of these actions that's kind of complicated because the the
arc of Taiwanese politics was bending towards Democrats in some
(28:00):
kind of like actual electoral system, and it probably would
have happened even without this, but this supercharges the whole process.
Within about two years, two or three years, all the
position laws are appealed, and within well, it takes a
while before you get I think I think it's like
two thousand I think it's like really when you can
what you can call like the first really free like
(28:22):
Taiwanese national election, when when there's actually like a transition
of power between the KMT and the Democratic Party. Sure,
but yeah, it was to a large extent very successful.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Like it.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I don't know, Okay, so it accomplished the goal of
knocking off the KMT sort of one party state. It
knocked off the edition laws. The kind of Taiwanese independence
like that's very very sort of national liberation driven is
kind of not the same one that exists in Taiwan now.
(28:59):
It's a bit different. But on the other hand, like, yeah,
they they did it. It was it was really it
was pretty effective, and yeah, I don't know, like this
is this is I of the ones that I've seen.
I think this was the most clear he won. Melan
Jung's like is sort of to this day a pro
dependence hero. There's there's a there's a statue of him.
(29:24):
Uh so they they I think that I think I'm
pretty sure they turned the office re lit himself on
fire like into a into a like into a museum,
and there's there's a there's a very famous sort of
like pictures of these the statue of his burned corpse,
that's just horrowing. It's one of the symbols of the
sort of Taiwanese democratic movements, and it's also it's also
(29:44):
a sort of it matters a lot. This is also
happening in the same year as Tianneman, Like, yeah, so
there's that kind of like it's in the air, right yeah. Yeah,
and his his widow goes on to be DPP politician
and it's one of it's one of the things that
it's it's like his memories invoked dream like. So in
(30:06):
twenty fourteen, Taiwan had their own version of occupy that's
like shittier called the Sunflower Movement. I'm sorry, this is
this is where we're getting into the MIA has a
bunch of political beefs with people in Taiwan where I
think they're all libs, but it's yeah, like they have
their own sort of they have like this this large
series of the street protests and this like he's one
of the figures that's you know, one of like brought
(30:27):
up in as.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, that's gonna be the same thing with uh, the
guy in Tunisia. We're about to talk about the two
where where they become even to people that they would
not you know, certainly we're not like expressing similar views,
they still become this like icon that gets sided. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, And I think I think the last thing too
is he's the fact that the cop who kicked at it,
who kicked his door down, is now the fucking mayor
of New type A city is just like, oh, appalling stuff. Yeah,
the KMG absolutely suck. And those are the people who
want Taiwan to be unified with China. So if that
(31:06):
understands who you're making your bed with, if that's the
kind of politics that you you want to be engaged in, Yeah,
So that's that's that's that's that's the time we want
self emulations. I guess kind of I don't know, not
enough bad things happen to the cops who trigger this
kind of stuff, which they also don't although I guess
(31:27):
I guess the cops is Sofia nom didn't do great.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
No no, no, I mean, ultimately right, that doesn't immediately
really cause them any problems. One of secret Police a bit.
Speaking of secret police, this podcast is sponsored entirely by
the Secret Police, so you know, check that out. And
(31:57):
we're back. Yeah, we just got beaten by phone books
because they don't leave any bruises by our sponsors at
the Secret Police, So you know, the secret police like
the police, but Secret Mia. Did you have another one
you wanted to get into before we talk about Tunisia.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Do we want to do Tibet first or do we
want to do Tuenisia first?
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Why don't we do Tibet?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, So I think other than Tunisia, I think the
most famous wave of self immolations was the ones in
Tibet that started in about two thousand and nine. There
is actually a guy into better light stelf On fire
in the late nineties, but that doesn't have the same
kind of sort of doesn't have the same effect as
(32:44):
two thousand and nine ones. So one of the things
that's been periodically happening, I guess over the sort of
course of the history of sort of occupied Tibet is
the Dalai Lama. So the Dalai Lama, like Flees, there's
(33:04):
this whole giant drama nineteen fifty nine. So so okay,
I guess, I guess I should go back to the beginning.
So Tibet is just like straight up invaded by China.
When when the after the Communists win the civil war,
this causes an enormous amount of shit to happen. One
of the things that the Communist Party is trying to
do is they are trying to gain control of the
(33:27):
Tibetan religious system so that they can eliminate the religious
system like they can they can eliminate like the Buddhist
clergy is effectively, like they can eliminate Buddhist monks. They
can eliminate like the religious institutions as a source of
resistance to them. They're kind of foiled in this when
the Dalai Lama makes this break and escapes to India.
And this is one of the things that triggers eventually
(33:48):
in the in the sixties China's war with India. But
one of the things that I've been happening for a
while was these kind of negotiations between the Dalai Lama
and the Chinese government to try to like find a
kind of resolution to like how bad things were in
Ti Bet. And in two thousand and nine, Di Lama goes, yeah,
(34:09):
none of this is fucking working, Like it's not nothing,
Like we're not we're not getting anything. The Chinese government
is not offering us any like any actual deal that
we can live with, and pretty quickly this so, okay,
you get this giant wave of self in relations. The
first guy, this guy named Tape, he is a monk.
(34:31):
He lights himself on fire in two thousand and nine.
There's conflicting reports. Okay. So one of the one of
the problems with talking about this is that in this period,
the Internet is not as widespread as it is today,
and there is a there is a giant like there
was a Chinese like media cord and effectively on on
Tibet in a very similar way to like West Papua
(34:53):
with it like they won't let journalists in. It is
very hard to get information out. So the thing that
I'm about to say is something that is reported law
on the time by people who try who are trying
to smoke all messages out. And the thing they report
is that as this guy is self immolating, the Chinese
police shoot him like multiple times.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Well, I mean, as we've as we've seen recently, that
is how cops tend to look at somebody like, yeah,
someone has let themselves on fire. Clearly, what this situation
needs is a gun.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
And you know, okay, so like the Chinese police, they
I don't I don't have any evidence of them shooting
people after that. They absolutely One of the things that
so what happens after this is this wave of self
immolations is protests across the bed. The thing that they
absolutely do a lot is start beating the person who's
on fire with a stick, like using like riot sticks
(35:41):
sometimes they have these, They have riot sticks with like
spikes on them, and they are absolutely beating people to
death while they are burning to death. The Chinese police
are like as psychotical, maybe not quite as like absolutely
murderous as the American police, but they are like they
are beating a burning man to death. Right, that is.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Oh god, I will say that that is definitely I
haven't that certainly. I can't think of anything I've ever
seen US police do that is more violent than beat
a man to death while he's on fire.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, that's not there. That makes the cut. It's really bad.
And this is the kind of thing that you know,
I mean, this is the kind of thing that that
sets off these self immlations in the first place, which
is that Tibet has you know, like has has a
colonial occupation, right, it has you know, the Chinese government
has been attempting to suppress to Bet and Buddhism. There's
(36:35):
been a massive, way, like systemic, massive ecological instruction of
the Tibetan plateau so that the Chinese government can like
mine gold and shit and in a way that's very
similar to sort of like the ecological demonstation you get
in places like the Amazon there are you know, they
are intense police crack downs all the time. There's another
very famous incident that's like kind of one of the
things that leads to this, where in nineteen eighty nine,
(36:58):
there's there's a bunch of protests in Tibet and the
cops just start shooting them. They kill a bunch of people,
and so, you know, and people had been like Upu
Twi two thousand and nine, people that kind of had
this promise that things were going to get better because
you know, you have these negotiations between the Chinese government
and the Dalai Lama, and then the Dollai Lama turns
(37:19):
around and goes, yeah, I no, they're not giving us anything.
Like they're giving us nothing. The Chinese states policy on
Tibet is that effectively we're going to like we're we're going,
we're going, we're going to like we're going to try
to make these people Han effectively. One of the things
they spend they do this in Changhan too, is they
spend a lot of there's a lot of resources invested
in getting like Han settlers from other parts of China
(37:40):
to booth to bet, you know, and you know, as
as issue also in change on like the like the
cadre jobs are basically all like government cadre jobs are
basically all Hawn people, and so you know, you start
getting you start getting attempts at sell disobedience. There are
these giant protests in two thousand and eight, like attempting
to make us sort of like a giant have a
giant thing happened right before the Olympics in order to
(38:02):
get international support. And those turn into riots and those
are brutally suppressed. And once that happens, people are really
kind of they're running out of options for civil disobedience
because you know, this is one of these things about
this kind of Buddhism is that it's it's very much
(38:23):
a like the resistance tradition is nonviolence, right, like these
people sometimes like very very rarely you get riots but
they're not like they're not going to try or arm struggle,
and so what they have is non violence civil disobedience.
But the problem is that if you try to do
non violence w disobedience in China, what happens to you
is just the cops show up at arrest you all,
(38:44):
and then they rest your families. And this is something
that happens to the people who self emilate, is that
there are like one hundred and sixty of them from
two thousand and nine until now. And when someone lights
themself on fire, what the Chinese government does is, well,
a they beat the person to death while they're on fire.
By they start arresting the people's family, they start arresting
(39:04):
their friends, they start arresting people in the monasteries that
they're at. They start doing these purges to like stop
like to remove the sort of Buddhist monks that they
think are going to be problems. And this this fuels
this kind of cyclical wave of this because on the
one hand, you know, there's this incredible repression going on.
On the other hand, it's not possible to like wage
(39:27):
really like wage other kinds of mass so it dis
obedience campaigns and The thing about lighting yourself on fire
is that the government can't stop it, right, Like in
theory you could maybe train police to stop people from
blighting people on fire. But the thing is, the actual
thing that happens when you light when someone lights themself
on fire, is the cop goes and beats them. And
(39:48):
so it becomes this sort of it becomes the sort
of like the cycle of self in relations. And also,
I mean the other thing that's worth mentioning too is people.
There are a few other cases of Tibetan Buddhists, like
outside of outside of to bet you do it, there's
(40:09):
a few people in India and you let themselves on fire.
And I don't know, I think the Tibetan example is
really bleak because it doesn't work. Like they lose. And
this is one of these situations where I don't know,
like I legitimately don't know how they could have won,
because they were dealing with a enormous, a very very
(40:33):
powerful state apparatus that was very invested in using all
of its state capacity to oppress them, and it it fails,
and it it like the thing that it mostly accomplishes
is a bunch of is like just a generation of well,
(40:55):
I mean some like the youngest kid who self Inlins
is fifteen, right, and it mostly ACCOMPLI whish is a
bunch of these kids like themselves on fire and die
and everything is worse now than it was in two
thousand and nine. Yep, I think, you know. So they're
very recently they're been big. They've been protesting to bed
(41:15):
again because the CCP is trying to build a damn
that's going to flood and destroy a bunch of monasteries.
And I don't think anyone's let themselves on fire over it,
but the police just arrested everyone, and so I don't know.
It's really bleak, and I think the the Fruz to
Bat movement has become much weaker as the sort of
(41:38):
like twenty tens went on to the point where now
I think like most America, like most of the sort
of like broad American far left basically just takes the
Chinese line on it, which is that like the Dalai
Lama was a slave owner and the Chinese occupation was
a gift.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, Like I want to take like two, like a
couple like a minute to talk about this, because like
that a lot, yeah, and it's this thing where, like,
you know, it's really interesting looking at a lot of
these people who are who are anti Tibet but pro Palestine,
because you know, if you look at the originators oft
CETA colonial studies, like people like Patrick Wolfe, right, who
was like the godfather of Cetera colonialism studies, Tibet is
(42:15):
one of the states that he holds up like as
the paradigmatic example of what ceda colonialism is. It's Palestine
and Tibet, right, And you know, I like the thing
about oh it was because they were trying to like
free the Tibetan search really pisses me off because if
that was the actual thing the CCP wanted to do,
(42:35):
they could have done a thing that happened all over
the fucking world in communist countries, which is they could
have moved in, they could have knocked off the government,
and they could have set up a communist Tibetan state.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
This happens all over the fucking Eastern Bloc. There's precedents
for it in East Asia, which you know, there's a
president of Mongolia, which was also i mean a very
different Buddhist society but also a largely Buddhist society where
the Soviet Union went in knocked off the government and
set off set up an independent at Mongolian state, right
And I'm not going to say things like went great
for Mongolia. But the thing is if if if your
(43:06):
actual objective is just knock off a theocratic government that
you don't like, you could have done that, and they don't,
they don't.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Do it, and pretty China, it's also worth like stating like, yeah,
things maybe not like didn't work out great in the
immediate term for Mongolia, but Mongolia is a state right now,
is not like the worst. It's not doing as badly
as like Tibet is doing, you know, like it's it's
an independent country that functions more or less. Yeah, and
(43:33):
who does better than functioning more or less?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Really yeah, like and this I don't know and this
is this is the sort of that's and that's one
of the things that like Chinese nationalists tend not to
really use that line. I mean, they use it a
bit when when they're when they're personally like when they
have to like specifically make arguments about Dalai Lama, that's
something they do. But most of the arguments that the
(43:56):
that the actual like supporters of the Chinese government in China,
the arguments they make is like, oh, well, these people
are like, these people are shitty barbarians and we have
to like we have to civilize them, and like our
invasion was a gift to them because we're going to
civilize these people. And like it's it's literally it's like
identical to the shit that like that the Israeli say
about Palastinians. We should also very briefly mention that a
(44:16):
lot of the surveillance technology that's used in Tibet, like
our cameras, that the Chinese government sells to Palestine. So
keep that shit in mind. Yeah, And I don't know,
but it's it's this. This is one of the really
bleak examples because the thing about self immolation as of
politics is that, like it functions by mobilizing someone else, right,
(44:41):
and in some cases that's that's you know, that's another government,
in some cases that's your own government, in some cases
that's the people around you. But if you're in a
state where the government does not give a shit about you,
and they have the ability to ruthlessly repress anyone who's
inspe fired by your actions, it just it leads to
(45:03):
a lot of people dying. And I don't know what
this sort of lesson from that is other than it's
really hard for and this is this was the thing
with Hong Kong too, is it's it's really hard for
any one, any one part of China to try to
go into revolt against the government because there's so much
(45:26):
more of the rest of fucking China and if if you,
if you, if you alone are pitted against the entire
miny of Chinese state that has broad popular backing your
fucked yeah, and it's it's really bleak.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't have anything positive to
say there. Hey, everybody, Robert here. Our discussion ran very long,
so this is going to be a two parter. You'll
be hearing about Tunisia and more in the next episode,
but for now, please continue listening to our podcasts and
not other podcasts because how would you do that? Who
(46:03):
would do that? Nobody? I like.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can
find sources for It could happen here. Updated monthly at
coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Thanks for listening,
Al Zone Media. Oh boy, howdy, welcome back to it
could happen here? A podcast about it happening here, and
it is different most episodes. But today the thing that
is happening here is discussion about the growth of self
(00:22):
immolation as a form of protest from the twentieth to
the twenty first century. Obviously, we are recording this less
than a week after Aaron Bushnell, a twenty five year
old serviceman in the United States Air Force, let himself
on fire in front of the Israeli Intimacy in Washington,
d C. And you know, repeatedly stated free Palestine as
(00:46):
he was doing it. He said more than that, obviously,
he wrote, you know, I think very clearly about why
he did what he was doing. This is something that
you'll have heard a lot of debate about. There's a
certain kind of person, particularly in the media, who feels
obligated to say this is mental illness and we shouldn't
discuss it as anything else. I think that's wrong for
(01:09):
the same reasons, by the way that it's wrong to
dismiss you any sort of mass shooter or whatever as
mentally ill not that either of those are similar in
terms of the actions they're not. But that attempt to
dismiss it because it's something it makes you uncomfortable to
consider that somebody could do something so incomprehensible to you
for a logical reason. Now, when I say a logical reason,
(01:29):
that doesn't mean I'm arguing this is something more people
should do. It doesn't mean that I'm arguing that this
was the best thing that Bushnell could do. What I
am saying is that, from everything that is available, this
was a rational act. He understood what he hoped to
accomplish with this, and he took concerted steps to ensure
that he succeeded and that attention was drawn to it.
His reason for doing it was clear. He took actions
(01:52):
like to set up a will and whatnot. This seems
to have been a rational and principled action, and we
are I'm not really primarily going to be discussing what
Bushnell did because I don't really know that there's much
to say. You know, it's it's everyone here's stance that
what's being done to Gaza is a genocide. I don't
know that this will help. I certainly hope that somehow
(02:14):
it does, but we're simply not at a point where
we can say what the impact of this on the
overall you know, situation in Gaza is going to be.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, And I mean I guess like the thing we
can say off the bat is like whether or not
this matters is to a larger scent up to you
because like someone someone like I mean, this is the thing, right,
Like that.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Matters in the sense that it has an impact on
the Obviously, I think it matters because he was a
person well that too, right, Yeah, but like yeah, in
the in the in the in the sense of whether
its accomplishes political objectives, like that's up to.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Us figuring out how we're going to run a political
movement in such a way that the Shannisi gets stopped.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, and that is It's not something I have a
clear answer for you on right now, but I think
there I think so, I think the thing we're going
to try to do that I think can be helpful
in This is a tempt to provide some context on
what is the history of self immolation as a protest tactic,
How does it tend to work in the past and
in the present, and in what sort of situations has
(03:15):
it been more or less effective as an instrument of protest.
That's what we're going to try to cover today. Obviously,
this should not be seen as a totally comprehensive look
at the entire history.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Of goodcast as I'm about to come.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
This is what we can get for you in about
a week, and I think I think it will help
and provide a broader sense of context as to how
this sort of thing has worked in other situations around
the world and throughout time. Self immolation goes back very
far as a protest tactic. There were Christians who are
being persecuted by the Roman government in Nicodemia in three
(03:47):
hundred AD who lit a fire in front of the
Emperor's palace and threw themselves into a bonfire as an
active protest. In Russia, I think in like the sixteen hundreds,
Orthodox I don't know there was an Orthodox sect. I
don't really know much about them, but they they locked
themselves pro in churches as a protest for some of
the czar's reforms and then lit those churches on fire,
(04:11):
so like died inside the churches that they were in.
So this is a kind of thing that goes back
quite a while. I'm sure there are other cases in
you know, ancient history that go well before that, but
it's it's not a new thing. However, when we talk
about kind of twentieth and twenty first century self immolation,
the first sort of really famous case of this and
(04:32):
the one that gets brought up every single time people
talk about self immolation as a protest tactic was one
that occurred during the Vietnam War, and it was the
self immolation of a Buddhist monk named tish Quang Duk.
I believe that's Thhi. I think that's how that's pronounced.
I lestn't do it before we started recording this, but
(04:55):
that kind of stuff slips out of my head, so
I apologize if that is the case. He's an interesting guy.
I think pretty his early life is probably pretty common
for people who become Buddhists, who became Buddhist monks and
kind of Central Vietnam in this period of time. He
left home when he was like seven, he became a
novice at fifteen. By twenty he was a full monk.
(05:16):
And one of the things that's happening during this period
of time is the South Vietnamese government is this guy
he's called a president. The president he is a dictator.
I think everything but name No Din DM and he's
a terrible guy. He's a French educated Catholic. And if
you know anything about the French history and into China
right like that, that does not suggest somebody whose role
(05:40):
before Vietnam got its independence from France was particularly great.
His brother No Din knew what is the head of
the secret police, And they are despite the fact that
Vietnam South Vietnam is a Buddhist majority country, they're passing
a lot of policies that are like actively cracking down
on and reducing the right of a Buddhist people to
(06:00):
worship right. And you know, this is there's a lot
of reasons for this, but they kind of boiled down
to the fact that Dim was was horrible, was just
a fucking dog shit. Yeah, really really trash. Now I've
heard it said online when people bring up this self immolation,
you know, within kind of the context of of what's
happened recently, like this wasn't a you know, people are
(06:22):
wrong when they say this was an act of protest
the Vietnam War. It wasn't. And that is technically true
because like the thing that that duke was was protesting
was not US involvement in Vietnam, but he was protesting
the US backed government of South Vietnam, and that government
is very relevant to why there was a Vietnam War.
So I do kind of think it's it's not entirely
(06:43):
accurate to be like, well, this wasn't a Vietnam War protest, No, no,
it was.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It was. It was just about the fact that, like
the Catholic theocratic, drug dealing fascist government, it was like murdering.
It seems like you're splitting the hair there, bro.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I feel like the murdering Buddhist thing might have been
part of why there was so many people willing to
fight the South Vietnamese government.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Not a zero percent part of that equation.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Maybe, but yeah, So these guys, these Buddhists, I mean
Buddhist religious leaders in the country get increasingly angry about
what's happening. There are debates, I think for several years,
kind of within sort of the more highly ranking kind
of leaders in the faith as to like, what do
we do about this crackdown on our rights and like
(07:29):
should we They were talking for quite some time about
having a self immolation protest, right Like. It was the
kind of thing where there was a decent amount of
like discussion earlier, and Duck is actually the one who
I think suggested it initially to like other leaders in
the church. And yeah, while there was like for a
while they tried to push back against this, eventually the
(07:52):
level of prosecution just became so clear that you know,
they basically said, Okay, let's like you can do this.
And Duck is going to be the guy who is
going to like physically, you know, destroy his body in
order to carry out this active protest, as is always
going to be the case when we talk about these
famous self immolation cases, half of the story is the
(08:13):
guy who does or the individual who lights himself on fire,
and half of the story is the reporter who happens
to be there. And in this case it was a
guy named Malcolm Brown. He is, I believe he's an
American reporter. He's stationed in you know, Saigone, and he's
you know, doing what a lot of journalists were doing
at the time. And in the springtime of nineteen sixty three,
(08:35):
there start being like these kind of messages put out
by the Buddhist Church that are sort of he describes
it as hinting as some kind of spectacular protest. His
guess was that it would quote most likely be a
disembowlment of one of the monks or an immolation, and
either way, it was something we had to pay attention to.
And like a lot of journalists, he's got some sources
(08:55):
within the church. He gets a call one day and
they're like, you should show up at this pagoda at
this specific time. And here is how Malcolm describes what
he saw. By the time I got to the pagoda
where all this was being organized, it was already under way.
The monks and nuns were chanting a type of chant
that's very common at funerals and so forth. At a
signal from the leader, they all started out into the
(09:15):
street and headed toward the central part of Saigon on foot.
When we reached there, the monks quickly formed a circle
around a precise intersection of two main streets in Saigon.
A car drove up, two young monks got out of it.
An older monk, leaning a bit on one of the
younger ones also got out. He headed right for the
center of the intersection. The two young monks brought up
a plastic jerry can, which proved to be gasoline. As
soon as he seated himself, they poured the liquid all
(09:37):
over him. He got out a matchbook, lighted it and
dropped it in his lap and was immediately engulfed in flames.
And yeah, that's you know what happened that day. Malcolm
takes a picture of He takes a bunch of pictures.
You can see all of them. There's a Good Time
article Malcolm Brown, the Story behind the Burning Monk, that
has all of the pictures that he took, or at
(09:59):
least like a long list of them, and they are
worth seeing. They aren't. I shouldn't have to put a
trigger warning in here, right, these are photos of a
burning to death.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Like that shit sucks, say from me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, God,
it doesn't look good. It looks really bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Now obviously one of specifically one of the photos you've
probably seen it where like half of the monk's face
looks okay and the other half is just like wreathed
in fire. This goes like the sixties equivalent of viral right.
President Kennedy said of the photograph. No news picture in
history has generated so much emotion around the world is
that one. And at the time it may have been true,
(10:37):
and it is. It is number one. It does have
a role in the anti war movement because you know,
this is related to a protest against the government we
were backing. But this is also one of the more successful,
maybe the most like directly successful cases of self immolation
I've seen, because this does play a significant role in
the end of Deem's presidency and his life.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
So Duck leaves a note like a lot of these
people do. In his note, again is very clear minded.
He ends it by saying, before closing my eyes and
moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead
to President no d indem to take a mind of
compassion towards the people of the nation and admit implement
religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. Yeah,
(11:23):
when this kind of happens, as I quoted earlier, Kennedy
is like shocked and furious. He yells to his national
security advisor, who the fuck are these people? Like? How
did we not know this was going to happen? He's
he's very angry about all this. Buddhist is like, I
feel like, like that's the kind of big clue I
actually have trouble imagining like JFK, having a significant amount
(11:47):
of context, aest to like what buddhismiss.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
God.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
But maybe maybe I'm wrong. So I want to quote
from this really good medium article the suicide that changed
American policy in Vietnam by a poor Va Tadepali, And
this is for a series they write called near Pot,
which is an interactive classroom tool for students. And I
found this a very readable and concise description of kind
(12:14):
of what happened after Douk's self immolation quote. The publicity
of the incident increased pressure on DIM's government to deal
with the crisis, but he did not take the incident
seriously enough. His response to the death was an announcement
on the radio later that day that wildly missed the point.
The state of affairs was moving forward so smoothly, he said, bizarrely,
when this morning acting under extremist and truth concealing propaganda,
(12:36):
that's so doubt about the goodwill of the government. A
number of people got intoxicated and caused an undeserved death
that made me very sorry.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
OK, I feel a lot of terrible statements. A it
is this guy.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
We need to do the Bastards episode on him because
DM is like he's horrible. He causes a lot of
damage to a lot of people, but he's that's a
fucking scrub, right yeah, like fucking Stalin would never you know,
like the o Geese very sad you like Saddam Hussein
would have gotten caught.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Up in that shit. No, not my man. Listen, this
is like this is bush league shit even by like
fucking like East Asian dictators, like can.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
You get che Shek, Like no way, oh no, Kai
Shek wouldn't have gotten caught up in this shit.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Absolutely, ny Sheck. If someone had tried to do this
specifically in chink she Chanky Sheck would have shot the
guy himself.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Absolutely yeah, oh my god. So anyway, this scrub he makes,
he makes like a promise that they're going to do
reforms and stuff, and like while he's doing this, his family,
including his brother Knew, who's like the head of the
Saigon Secret Police, is basically is saying like like literally says,
if the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I'll be
(13:52):
glad to supply the gasoline. Christ and his wife, who's
like a very merry Antoinette figure. Madam Knew who is.
It's his brother's wife, but she's basically the first lady
right of South Vietnam. She's like, let them burn, We'll
clap our hands. Oh god, So it's pretty it's pretty cool.
(14:12):
Like DM is actually kind of the smart one in
the family because he's trying to like tell his sister
in law and his brother in law like nah, bra Or,
and his brother and his sister in law, like, you
guys don't understand. We have to be a little bit
careful here. This could really go badly.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah. It really seems like like they haven't figured out
the playbook for dealing with this yet. No, because like
the successive governments, like everyone has like the same line
that they say when it happens, and these people, it
looks like they're really kind of scrambling here. They didn't
have any they'd never even considered that something like this
could happen. There would be reactions to their policies like this.
There are a bunch of protests by monks and nuns
(14:46):
of the police arrest a bunch of people. This continues
to draw outrage and make the system a situation worse
new the secret police guy has his goons like ransack
and destroy a bunch of like Buddhist basically a lot
of people, like fourteen hundred people are like rounded up
and arrested. DM accuses the monks of being part of
(15:07):
the Viet Cong, which is again like sure, such a yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
So one of the things that is important to understand
here is that this is at a very different part
stage of the Vietnam War. The US has troops in
the country, but not a lot, like very few compared
to how many are going to be there, And at
this stage, DM actually isn't happy that we have even
though it's got to become very clear that like the
US troops the only thing allowing this regime to stay
(15:35):
propped up. He is like, I don't want them here.
They don't even have passports, right, Like he's he's like
weirdly anti the like. And part of it is because
the US is about to act here finally to take
support away from his regime. So three days after his buddy,
his brother in law or his brother Knu has a
bunch of raids on these Buddhist temples, there's a cable
(15:59):
sent from DC to the US ambassador in Southern Vietnam
that's like, we're not backing this guy anymore. And this
ends with a bunch of South Vietnamese generals who had
already been planning a coup being given the go ahead
from the US basically saying like, we're not our guys
are not going to take any actions to stop you
from overthrowing this guy. And on November two, Dim and
(16:20):
his brother are kidnapped while trying to escape and they
are killed not long after. So this is, you know,
pretty successful self emolation. You have to say, right, yeah, yeah,
works seems like it works about as well as you
could have hoped for that, right, like the at least,
I'm sure aus as well as that monk hoped, because
you know, Dim is not just out of power, but
(16:42):
is fucking killed as a result of this.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So ohough, the problem is the subsequent people he has
put in charge of Yeah, also suck.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
But that's that's also part of a pattern, unfortunately, and
there's like a weirdly there's like a history of self
emolation leading to regime change. We're gonna talk about Tunia
at the end of the episode, and that does tend
to be the story of like, yeah, we got rid
of the dictator and then a guy who sucked that's
as much came into power.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Hey, well, the the tai one one we're gonna talk
about in a second actually gets pretty well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So yeah, and before we go into that, because we're
gonna let you take over from hearing meat or at
least for the next couple of parts of this. But
first let's let our advertisers take over and we're back.
(17:35):
All right, miya, you are on deck. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
So, I think I think people are kind of broadly
aware kind of if you know anything more self immolations,
about the self emilations in Vietnam, and then also the
sort of the ones in the US, like as as
anti Vietnam War protests, the ones that I don't think
most people here know and that I only know about,
(17:58):
like because like my mom was born in Taiwan, Right,
is the Taiwanese self immolationis. Yeah. So this guy's name
is Jian Yong Rong. He is he's also noticed the
thing most people call him is Nylon Jung, for reasons
that I guess will become clear when he lights himself
on fire. So Nylon Jung is a very very influential
(18:25):
Uh well, okay, I don't know, very very influential Quatro.
But he's like a he's a pretty famous and very
influential pro in dependence activist in Taiwan, dring the KMT's
occupation there. And this is something I don't like. Americans
tend to not understand this very well. So okay, So
(18:45):
the the KMT is the Chinese nationalist party. They take
power in Taiwan after just invading it effectively. They when
when when they when they lose the civil war, the
KMTS are cremating forces, and a bunch of their supporters
like flee to Taiwan, and there are there are like
three groups of people who the KMT like spend most
of their time killing, and that is communist, feminists and
(19:06):
Taiwanese independence activists. They also hate Presbyterians for reasons that are.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Hey, hey, we all hate Presbyterians, Am I right?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Okay to look look, I am not normally at Presbyterian
like er. The Taiwanese Presbyterians like legitimately do good work
in the sense that they are like one of the
groups that's like pretty important in bringing down the KMT
one party dictatorship. But okay, so Taiwan has this like
really appalling like One Party dictatorship. Nylon Jung is actually
(19:35):
born I think I'm remembering is right. He's born like
during the February twenty eighth incident, which is this thing
in nineteen forty seven. Actually we're we are two days.
I think when this goes out will be two days
after the seventy seventh anniversary of it, where there's there's
a giant uprising in Taiwan because like people in Taiwan
fucking hate the KMT because they suck and they murder people,
(19:56):
and there's this giant uprising and the KMT eventually like
their military forces get reorganized and they so the initial
uprising takes most of the islands, and then the KMG
just come back and kill everyone. They kill about twenty
thousand people in a week. It's one of the sort
of like I don't know, one of the kind of
like defining incidents and what becomes sort of Talentese national culture.
(20:17):
It's just this like massacre and then you know, it's
basically it's legal to talk about afterwards. This is this
is the beginning of the sort of white terror in China,
and they're gonna you know, and this is the start
of the KMT kidnapping and torturing like tens of thousands
of people. One of the things that happens in this
this is actually so this is this was my family's
experience of it. Is that. Okay, so there's there's this
up there's the uprising, right, but one of the things
(20:39):
that starts happening pretty quickly is these like retaliatory killings
against like against Chinese nationals, And that was stuff my
family was like, yeah, we like couldn't go outside because
if you leave your house, like you're gonna get killed
by mobs and that stuff. That stuff like sucked.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, that that does sound like it sucked.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, it's not good because it's the thing because it's
weird because it's like that uprising like broadly good, but
it turns into like parts of it turn into race
riots or like why it's weird, Like I don't know,
it turns into these like like anti Chinese national like
riots and that stuff. You know. So Jong is from
a Chinese like like just from like a sort of
(21:19):
like Chinese national family that like fled to Taiwan after
the war, and his family is protected by other Taiwanese
like like uprising people who are like no, like we're
not going to fucking just kill these random Chinese people,
Like what are you guys talking about? And that's this
really formative thing for him where this is one of
the things that caused him to grow up to become
(21:40):
like the kind of Chinese like Taiwanese independence activist that
he is, where he's one of these people who is
really big on Taiwan as like like liberating Taiwan as
a nation, but having it be like a nation of
ideals and not a nation of blood because his you know,
because he sees how badly this kind of like ulternational
bloodline like shit can go. And so he becomes like
(22:07):
a pretty prominent independence activist. He runs one of the
anti party newspapers, like anti Canteen newspapers, and he's mostly
doing a lot of this stuff in the eighties where
so basically like you have two consecutive like like the
Shanki check and then you have like more guys from
that family. By the eighties, you're like democratization is kind
(22:28):
of like slowly moving forward because the time when he's
ruling class, he's losing American backing, they're losing backing overseas.
But you know, even even by sort of nineteen eighty nine,
which is in the period in which people are talking
about like well democratization's happening, like it's gonna go forward,
the country still has likes they haven't had like real
(22:51):
national elections, and they still have these really really intense
what are called anti sedition laws and so one of
the things that the pro independence activist and this is
the period in which like Taiwan's like modern ruling party,
the Democratic Progressive Party like comes into existence or like
they're coming to existence as the anti KMT party. And
(23:13):
this is the sort of milieu kind of in which
Dylon Jung is sort of mobilizing, right, But he's also
I don't know, he's like he's the kind of guy
that doesn't exist anymore, which is like he's kind of
like a like like liberal progressive national liberation supporter. So
(23:34):
I actually I found a really interesting thing translated by
jenhan Chan on this guy I kind of am aware
of from Twitter, who translated this thing that he read
about Palestine, where he is a pro Palestine guy. But
it's interesting because he sees Palestine as like another nation
that's been like subjugated in like a similar way to
Taiwan has and you know, and he's like an anti
(23:56):
armed struggle guy, but he's also very sort of he's
very committed to Taiwanese independence as a national liberation movement
and specifically, like the thing that you're liberating it from
is the KMT, and so, you know, he he gets
in the trouble constantly with like the KMT government. They
(24:19):
arrest in a bunch of times, and eventually, in nineteen
eighty nine, he gets charged with these by these anti
sisition laws. He gets charged with insurrection for like spreading
drafts of a potential new Taiwanese constitution, and so he
barricades himself in his office, refuses to show up to code.
He gives this giant speech about how like you'll never
(24:39):
take me alive, and the police kind of take him serious.
He's barricaded himself in like his newspaper offices, and he's
there for like two months, and at the end of
month two, a cop who is the current mayor of
New Taipei City tries to burst down his door.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
That doesn't save my a job that you should be
able to have.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
No, No, this is one of these things where it's like, okay,
so like the KMT, this is one of these things
about sort of Tony's politics. That's weird that the KMT
is the modern sort of pro China promunification faction. Right,
those guys suck like like they're they're not they're not
the same sort of like just desk squad party they
were in the sort of late in like the twentieth century.
But they're also like yeah, no, it's literally they're mayor.
(25:24):
They're mayor of PIPEI, which is okay, I'm not going
to go into what the difference between Uchaipe and I
pay is here. That's that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I'm guessing. It's like the difference between you know, New
York and Old York.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Right, it's it's it's closer to the difference between New
York City and New York.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Okay, okay, but that makes sense. Yeah that works.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Like this guy, this guy who again like was elected
like two years ago, tries to kick down his door
and Nylon jungl likes himself on fire. And this has
a enormous impact on the sort of subsequent course of
Tiwan these politics, because this is a this is a like,
this is a pr disaster for the like for for
(26:07):
the ruling for like for for the current government, which
had been trying to sort of like do its like ah,
we're doing moderate reforms, blah blah blah, we're doing you
have local elections. Now you're we're doing democratization. And suddenly,
like their cops break down this guy's door and he
lights himself on fire, and you know that the cop
(26:28):
later says like, oh, yeah, we break down the door
because we were trying to save his life. It's like, no,
you didn't. What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Like, I love things that have never happened, That's my
favorite kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, and you know, so there this is one of
these things that and this is actually think that that's
become that's a very very common thing at protests like now,
So no Alan Jung has he has this massive funeral,
I mean, this is an absolutely enormous funeral march and
the police attack it. And when the police attack it,
another pro independence active also lights himself on fire like
(27:02):
in front of the cops when they refuse to do it.
And this that second guy is like a lot less
remembered than Nlan Jung but this becomes a massive sort
of rallying cry around, like you know, for the pro
dependence people, but also for the sort of broader fight
for like an actual like actual free democratic elections. Like
the big thing these people were protesting like specifically was
(27:25):
free speech because the thing about the sedition laws is
if you you know, again, if you start passing around
copies of the constitution, they try to arrest you and
throw your in prison.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, I mean nothing says sedition like the constitution of
the country you're in.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, and like you're changing it, I guess is sedition.
It's like the KMD really suck, like cannot emphasize that
it off. But the sort of the results of this
is that, you know, okay, Like, so this is one
of these actions that's kind of complicated because the the
arc of Taiwanese politics was bending towards Democrats in some
(28:00):
kind of like actual electoral system, and it probably would
have happened even without this, but this supercharges the whole process.
Within about two years, two or three years, all the
position laws are appealed, and within well, it takes a
while before you get I think I think it's like
two thousand I think it's like really when you can
what you can call like the first really free like
(28:22):
Taiwanese national election, when when there's actually like a transition
of power between the KMT and the Democratic Party. Sure,
but yeah, it was to a large extent very successful.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Like it.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I don't know, Okay, so it accomplished the goal of
knocking off the KMT sort of one party state. It
knocked off the edition laws. The kind of Taiwanese independence
like that's very very sort of national liberation driven is
kind of not the same one that exists in Taiwan now.
(28:59):
It's a bit different. But on the other hand, like, yeah,
they they did it. It was it was really it
was pretty effective, and yeah, I don't know, like this
is this is I of the ones that I've seen.
I think this was the most clear he won. Melan
Jung's like is sort of to this day a pro
dependence hero. There's there's a there's a statue of him.
(29:24):
Uh so they they I think that I think I'm
pretty sure they turned the office re lit himself on
fire like into a into a like into a museum,
and there's there's a there's a very famous sort of
like pictures of these the statue of his burned corpse,
that's just horrowing. It's one of the symbols of the
sort of Taiwanese democratic movements, and it's also it's also
(29:44):
a sort of it matters a lot. This is also
happening in the same year as Tianneman, Like, yeah, so
there's that kind of like it's in the air, right yeah. Yeah,
and his his widow goes on to be DPP politician
and it's one of it's one of the things that
it's it's like his memories invoked dream like. So in
(30:06):
twenty fourteen, Taiwan had their own version of occupy that's
like shittier called the Sunflower Movement. I'm sorry, this is
this is where we're getting into the MIA has a
bunch of political beefs with people in Taiwan where I
think they're all libs, but it's yeah, like they have
their own sort of they have like this this large
series of the street protests and this like he's one
of the figures that's you know, one of like brought
(30:27):
up in as.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, that's gonna be the same thing with uh, the
guy in Tunisia. We're about to talk about the two
where where they become even to people that they would
not you know, certainly we're not like expressing similar views,
they still become this like icon that gets sided. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, And I think I think the last thing too
is he's the fact that the cop who kicked at it,
who kicked his door down, is now the fucking mayor
of New type A city is just like, oh, appalling stuff. Yeah,
the KMG absolutely suck. And those are the people who
want Taiwan to be unified with China. So if that
(31:06):
understands who you're making your bed with, if that's the
kind of politics that you you want to be engaged in, Yeah,
So that's that's that's that's that's the time we want
self emulations. I guess kind of I don't know, not
enough bad things happen to the cops who trigger this
kind of stuff, which they also don't although I guess
(31:27):
I guess the cops is Sofia nom didn't do great.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
No no, no, I mean, ultimately right, that doesn't immediately
really cause them any problems. One of secret Police a bit.
Speaking of secret police, this podcast is sponsored entirely by
the Secret Police, so you know, check that out. And
(31:57):
we're back. Yeah, we just got beaten by phone books
because they don't leave any bruises by our sponsors at
the Secret Police, So you know, the secret police like
the police, but Secret Mia. Did you have another one
you wanted to get into before we talk about Tunisia.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Do we want to do Tibet first or do we
want to do Tuenisia first?
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Why don't we do Tibet?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, So I think other than Tunisia, I think the
most famous wave of self immolations was the ones in
Tibet that started in about two thousand and nine. There
is actually a guy into better light stelf On fire
in the late nineties, but that doesn't have the same
kind of sort of doesn't have the same effect as
(32:44):
two thousand and nine ones. So one of the things
that's been periodically happening, I guess over the sort of
course of the history of sort of occupied Tibet is
the Dalai Lama. So the Dalai Lama, like Flees, there's
(33:04):
this whole giant drama nineteen fifty nine. So so okay,
I guess, I guess I should go back to the beginning.
So Tibet is just like straight up invaded by China.
When when the after the Communists win the civil war,
this causes an enormous amount of shit to happen. One
of the things that the Communist Party is trying to
do is they are trying to gain control of the
(33:27):
Tibetan religious system so that they can eliminate the religious
system like they can they can eliminate like the Buddhist
clergy is effectively, like they can eliminate Buddhist monks. They
can eliminate like the religious institutions as a source of
resistance to them. They're kind of foiled in this when
the Dalai Lama makes this break and escapes to India.
And this is one of the things that triggers eventually
(33:48):
in the in the sixties China's war with India. But
one of the things that I've been happening for a
while was these kind of negotiations between the Dalai Lama
and the Chinese government to try to like find a
kind of resolution to like how bad things were in
Ti Bet. And in two thousand and nine, Di Lama goes, yeah,
(34:09):
none of this is fucking working, Like it's not nothing,
Like we're not we're not getting anything. The Chinese government
is not offering us any like any actual deal that
we can live with, and pretty quickly this so, okay,
you get this giant wave of self in relations. The
first guy, this guy named Tape, he is a monk.
(34:31):
He lights himself on fire in two thousand and nine.
There's conflicting reports. Okay. So one of the one of
the problems with talking about this is that in this period,
the Internet is not as widespread as it is today,
and there is a there is a giant like there
was a Chinese like media cord and effectively on on
Tibet in a very similar way to like West Papua
(34:53):
with it like they won't let journalists in. It is
very hard to get information out. So the thing that
I'm about to say is something that is reported law
on the time by people who try who are trying
to smoke all messages out. And the thing they report
is that as this guy is self immolating, the Chinese
police shoot him like multiple times.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Well, I mean, as we've as we've seen recently, that
is how cops tend to look at somebody like, yeah,
someone has let themselves on fire. Clearly, what this situation
needs is a gun.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
And you know, okay, so like the Chinese police, they
I don't I don't have any evidence of them shooting
people after that. They absolutely One of the things that
so what happens after this is this wave of self
immolations is protests across the bed. The thing that they
absolutely do a lot is start beating the person who's
on fire with a stick, like using like riot sticks
(35:41):
sometimes they have these, They have riot sticks with like
spikes on them, and they are absolutely beating people to
death while they are burning to death. The Chinese police
are like as psychotical, maybe not quite as like absolutely
murderous as the American police, but they are like they
are beating a burning man to death. Right, that is.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Oh god, I will say that that is definitely I
haven't that certainly. I can't think of anything I've ever
seen US police do that is more violent than beat
a man to death while he's on fire.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, that's not there. That makes the cut. It's really bad.
And this is the kind of thing that you know,
I mean, this is the kind of thing that that
sets off these self immlations in the first place, which
is that Tibet has you know, like has has a
colonial occupation, right, it has you know, the Chinese government
has been attempting to suppress to Bet and Buddhism. There's
(36:35):
been a massive, way, like systemic, massive ecological instruction of
the Tibetan plateau so that the Chinese government can like
mine gold and shit and in a way that's very
similar to sort of like the ecological demonstation you get
in places like the Amazon there are you know, they
are intense police crack downs all the time. There's another
very famous incident that's like kind of one of the
things that leads to this, where in nineteen eighty nine,
(36:58):
there's there's a bunch of protests in Tibet and the
cops just start shooting them. They kill a bunch of people,
and so, you know, and people had been like Upu
Twi two thousand and nine, people that kind of had
this promise that things were going to get better because
you know, you have these negotiations between the Chinese government
and the Dalai Lama, and then the Dollai Lama turns
(37:19):
around and goes, yeah, I no, they're not giving us anything.
Like they're giving us nothing. The Chinese states policy on
Tibet is that effectively we're going to like we're we're going,
we're going, we're going to like we're going to try
to make these people Han effectively. One of the things
they spend they do this in Changhan too, is they
spend a lot of there's a lot of resources invested
in getting like Han settlers from other parts of China
(37:40):
to booth to bet, you know, and you know, as
as issue also in change on like the like the
cadre jobs are basically all like government cadre jobs are
basically all Hawn people, and so you know, you start
getting you start getting attempts at sell disobedience. There are
these giant protests in two thousand and eight, like attempting
to make us sort of like a giant have a
giant thing happened right before the Olympics in order to
(38:02):
get international support. And those turn into riots and those
are brutally suppressed. And once that happens, people are really
kind of they're running out of options for civil disobedience
because you know, this is one of these things about
this kind of Buddhism is that it's it's very much
(38:23):
a like the resistance tradition is nonviolence, right, like these
people sometimes like very very rarely you get riots but
they're not like they're not going to try or arm struggle,
and so what they have is non violence civil disobedience.
But the problem is that if you try to do
non violence w disobedience in China, what happens to you
is just the cops show up at arrest you all,
(38:44):
and then they rest your families. And this is something
that happens to the people who self emilate, is that
there are like one hundred and sixty of them from
two thousand and nine until now. And when someone lights
themself on fire, what the Chinese government does is, well,
a they beat the person to death while they're on fire.
By they start arresting the people's family, they start arresting
(39:04):
their friends, they start arresting people in the monasteries that
they're at. They start doing these purges to like stop
like to remove the sort of Buddhist monks that they
think are going to be problems. And this this fuels
this kind of cyclical wave of this because on the
one hand, you know, there's this incredible repression going on.
On the other hand, it's not possible to like wage
(39:27):
really like wage other kinds of mass so it dis
obedience campaigns and The thing about lighting yourself on fire
is that the government can't stop it, right, Like in
theory you could maybe train police to stop people from
blighting people on fire. But the thing is, the actual
thing that happens when you light when someone lights themself
on fire, is the cop goes and beats them. And
(39:48):
so it becomes this sort of it becomes the sort
of like the cycle of self in relations. And also,
I mean the other thing that's worth mentioning too is people.
There are a few other cases of Tibetan Buddhists, like
outside of outside of to bet you do it, there's
(40:09):
a few people in India and you let themselves on fire.
And I don't know, I think the Tibetan example is
really bleak because it doesn't work. Like they lose. And
this is one of these situations where I don't know,
like I legitimately don't know how they could have won,
because they were dealing with a enormous, a very very
(40:33):
powerful state apparatus that was very invested in using all
of its state capacity to oppress them, and it it fails,
and it it like the thing that it mostly accomplishes
is a bunch of is like just a generation of well,
(40:55):
I mean some like the youngest kid who self Inlins
is fifteen, right, and it mostly ACCOMPLI whish is a
bunch of these kids like themselves on fire and die
and everything is worse now than it was in two
thousand and nine. Yep, I think, you know. So they're
very recently they're been big. They've been protesting to bed
(41:15):
again because the CCP is trying to build a damn
that's going to flood and destroy a bunch of monasteries.
And I don't think anyone's let themselves on fire over it,
but the police just arrested everyone, and so I don't know.
It's really bleak, and I think the the Fruz to
Bat movement has become much weaker as the sort of
(41:38):
like twenty tens went on to the point where now
I think like most America, like most of the sort
of like broad American far left basically just takes the
Chinese line on it, which is that like the Dalai
Lama was a slave owner and the Chinese occupation was
a gift.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, Like I want to take like two, like a
couple like a minute to talk about this, because like
that a lot, yeah, and it's this thing where, like,
you know, it's really interesting looking at a lot of
these people who are who are anti Tibet but pro Palestine,
because you know, if you look at the originators oft
CETA colonial studies, like people like Patrick Wolfe, right, who
was like the godfather of Cetera colonialism studies, Tibet is
(42:15):
one of the states that he holds up like as
the paradigmatic example of what ceda colonialism is. It's Palestine
and Tibet, right, And you know, I like the thing
about oh it was because they were trying to like
free the Tibetan search really pisses me off because if
that was the actual thing the CCP wanted to do,
(42:35):
they could have done a thing that happened all over
the fucking world in communist countries, which is they could
have moved in, they could have knocked off the government,
and they could have set up a communist Tibetan state.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
This happens all over the fucking Eastern Bloc. There's precedents
for it in East Asia, which you know, there's a
president of Mongolia, which was also i mean a very
different Buddhist society but also a largely Buddhist society where
the Soviet Union went in knocked off the government and
set off set up an independent at Mongolian state, right
And I'm not going to say things like went great
for Mongolia. But the thing is if if if your
(43:06):
actual objective is just knock off a theocratic government that
you don't like, you could have done that, and they don't,
they don't.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Do it, and pretty China, it's also worth like stating like, yeah,
things maybe not like didn't work out great in the
immediate term for Mongolia, but Mongolia is a state right now,
is not like the worst. It's not doing as badly
as like Tibet is doing, you know, like it's it's
an independent country that functions more or less. Yeah, and
(43:33):
who does better than functioning more or less?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Really yeah, like and this I don't know and this
is this is the sort of that's and that's one
of the things that like Chinese nationalists tend not to
really use that line. I mean, they use it a
bit when when they're when they're personally like when they
have to like specifically make arguments about Dalai Lama, that's
something they do. But most of the arguments that the
(43:56):
that the actual like supporters of the Chinese government in China,
the arguments they make is like, oh, well, these people
are like, these people are shitty barbarians and we have
to like we have to civilize them, and like our
invasion was a gift to them because we're going to
civilize these people. And like it's it's literally it's like
identical to the shit that like that the Israeli say
about Palastinians. We should also very briefly mention that a
(44:16):
lot of the surveillance technology that's used in Tibet, like
our cameras, that the Chinese government sells to Palestine. So
keep that shit in mind. Yeah, And I don't know,
but it's it's this. This is one of the really
bleak examples because the thing about self immolation as of
politics is that, like it functions by mobilizing someone else, right,
(44:41):
and in some cases that's that's you know, that's another government,
in some cases that's your own government, in some cases
that's the people around you. But if you're in a
state where the government does not give a shit about you,
and they have the ability to ruthlessly repress anyone who's
inspe fired by your actions, it just it leads to
(45:03):
a lot of people dying. And I don't know what
this sort of lesson from that is other than it's
really hard for and this is this was the thing
with Hong Kong too, is it's it's really hard for
any one, any one part of China to try to
go into revolt against the government because there's so much
(45:26):
more of the rest of fucking China and if if you,
if you, if you alone are pitted against the entire
miny of Chinese state that has broad popular backing your
fucked yeah, and it's it's really bleak.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't have anything positive to
say there. Hey, everybody, Robert here. Our discussion ran very long,
so this is going to be a two parter. You'll
be hearing about Tunisia and more in the next episode,
but for now, please continue listening to our podcasts and
not other podcasts because how would you do that? Who
(46:03):
would do that? Nobody? I like.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can
find sources for It could happen here. Updated monthly at
coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.