Photosensitivity: Self-Immolation, Photography and the Incendiary Image Part I

Burning Monk by Malcolm Browne

Self-immolation is an ancient practice in Buddhism. However, the first time it was used as a call to action, a political tool was during the Buddhist crisis during the early ‘60s. The Geneva conference of 1954 split Vietnam into communist north and non-communist south. The elections that were supposed to occur in 1956 were never carried out because the American government knew the person they were backing, Ngo Dinh Diem, would definitely lose to Ho Chi Minh. Diem knew the Americans would do anything to contain communism and was convinced they would support him if only as a necessary and preferable evil. He proceeded to run a nepotistic, autocratic, corrupt, and oppressive government as a Catholic in a Buddhist majority country. The resistance against his government led to the formation of the National Liberation Front (NFL) composed of communists and also people who weren’t communists but just hated Diem. America pressured the Diem government to reform since their corrupt and oppressive tactics were only turning the people against them and facilitating recruitment for the NLF.

Diem’s fatal and stupid mistake was targeting Buddhist monks in a Buddhist majority country. During the Buddhist crisis of 1963, Diem’s regime engaged in forced conversations to Catholicism, displacement to government camps, imprisonment, torture. and execution of Buddhists. In the aptly titled Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, Thich Nhat Hanh, the prominent Buddhist monk, explains how Buddhism’s lack of dogma enables it to adapt and assimilate to its surroundings. This is why the cause of the Buddhists’ was perceived and indeed was identical with the cause of the people suffering under the Diem regime and who wanted nothing more than to be free of Western imperialists using their country to conduct their proxy war over imported ideologies the people cared less about than independence, self-determination, and peace. It is in this context that Thich Quang Duc self-immolated on Phan-dinh-Phung Street in Saigon. He was surrounded by monks and nuns and journalists had been forewarned of the event. That event and the famous picture of the burning monk by Malcolm Browne focused the whole world’s attention on the suffering of the Buddhists under Diem. The self-immolation and the image of it caused the Americans to abandon Diem.

In the picture itself, Thich Quang Duc is sitting on the ground in the lotus position. Another monk pours gasoline over Quang Duc. The moment when Quang Duc’s body catches fire is forever captured. The only indication of the excruciating pain he must be feeling is the tension in his face, which is slowly being consumed by the flames. The juxtaposition of the modern car and the Buddhist monk engaging in this ancient practice is striking. A picture taken from a different angle shows a traffic light and an Esso sign. The Esso sign and the aviation fuel used in the immolation acquires symbolic significance when we realize that American gasoline powered Vietnam. Thich Nhat Hanh explains how

The Vietnamese army is fed, clothed, and armed from the American budget; its guns, bullets, and planes all come from America. In Vietnam people refer to gasoline as being typical of the American control; the army would be powerless without the use of American gasoline. Without gasoline every army activity would be cut off…Thus everyone knows that the Vietnam policy is made by Americans and that everything that Vietnam does, the United States is responsible for.

Thich Quang Duc’s immolation is a visceral, literal, unavoidable indictment of the destruction of the culture and way of life of Vietnamese Buddhists by the American-backed Diem regime, an inevitable conflagration as a result of the repressive policies that made speaking out impossible.

In the collection of his writings on non-violent social change entitled Love In Action, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of Thich Quang Duc’s immolation and of immolation in general. He characterizes self-burning primarily as a way of awakening and inspiring love and compassion in people:

By burning himself, Thich Quang Duc awakened the world to the suffering of the war and the persecution of the Buddhists. When someone stands up to violence in such a courageous way, a force for change is released. Every action for peace requires someone to exhibit the courage to challenge the violence and inspire love. Love and sacrifice always set up a chain reaction of love and sacrifice. Like the crucifixion of Jesus, Thich Quang Duc’s act expressed the unconditional willingness to suffer for the awakening of others. Accepting the most extreme kind of pain, he lit a fire in the hearts of people around the world. Self-burning was not a technique or program of action. When anyone wished to burn himself or herself, the Buddhist leaders always tried to prevent it. (43)

Thich Nhat Hanh denies self-immolation is suicide or even a protect. He sees it as a statement and “To make a statement while enduring such unspeakable pain is to communicate with tremendous determination, courage, and sincerity”. He compares it to the ordination ceremony of a monk where a monk will burn small parts of his body while taking his vow. The pain lends credence to what is being communicated: “If he were to say this while sitting comfortably in an armchair, it would not be the same. When uttered while kneeling before the community of elders and experiencing this kind of pain, his words express the full seriousness of his heart and mind” (44). Thich Nhat Hanh differentiates between suicide, which is an '“act of self-destruction based on the inability to cope with life’s difficulties” and the act of self-burning since “Those who burned themselves had lost neither courage nor hope, nor did they desire nonexistence. They were extremely courageous and aspired for something good in the future” (45). Thich Nhat Hanh considers Thich Quang Duc a bodhisattva, an enlightened being (quite literally in this case). The act of self-immolation in this instance and viewed from the Buddhist perspective is self-sacrifice and taking on the suffering of others for their awakening and enlightenment. The idea of suffering leading to awakening is an extremely important one we will return to and address in the second part.

There is an interesting parallel between the Buddhist monks acting and self-sacrificing for their people and the journalists and war photographers who used light and photographs to get the truth and awaken their people about the reality of the war which the American government was lying about.

In the two part documentary Reporting America At War, Malcolm Browne gives his perspective, a Western perspective, on the immolation. He expresses concern that perhaps his presence and having access to the eyes of the world may have contributed to the act or strengthened the resolve of the Buddhists. He also says that he couldn’t stop the suicide because there were monks and nuns ready to block him. He compares it to political “theater of the horrible so striking that the reasons for the demonstrations would become apparent for everyone”(Reporting America At War, episode two, “Which Side Are You On?”, directed by Stephen Ives, written by Michelle Ferrari, (2003; New York: Insignia Films; Washington D.C.: WETA Washington D.C., 2003.). Browne explains how the picture meant different things and was used in different ways by the Chinese and North Vietnamese and the U.S. The former two labeled the picture “A Buddhist priest dies to oppose U.S. imperialism and its influence in Vietnam”. In the U.S. Quang Duc was seen as a martyr and the picture, along with all the other protests associated with the Buddhist crisis, provided incontrovertible proof that the American government’s claims that Diem was respected and capable of leading were simply not true, which was a recurrent pattern during the Vietnam war. Unfortunately and ironically, after the coup that resulted in the death of Diem and the Kennedy assassination, there was an escalation in American presence and involvement in Vietnam. There are two things to highlight here: (1) how in the West and in the rest of the world it was the shock value of the image that was focused upon and (2) how the image was manipulated and became its own, separate entity that people employed for their own agendas. An interesting question to consider is whether shock is awakening. Well, the image and the act did focus the world’s attention on the plight of the Buddhists under Diem and belied the narrative that the American government was trying to advance to its own people.

The two most important and unique aspects of the Vietnam War (the first televised war) that this documentary reveals are the almost unlimited access the press had to the action on the ground, and relatedly, the antagonistic relationship between the press, the government, and the military. The reason the antagonistic relationship between the press and the government was related to the access the press had to the actual war is because the reports and briefings given by the military were inaccurate and unbelievable. So the correspondents had to go out into the field themselves. Ward Just, the Vietnam correspondent for The Washington Post, explains:

You felt that you should not sit on the sidelines, you really belonged at the front no less than war correspondents of earlier generations went to the front. You had to see how the thing was done actually. And how the captains were doing and how the Lt. Colonels were doing it and the coordination, and what happened at the end of the day. The end of the day when you looked at this plot of land and added up our dead and their dead, what did that mean? I was with a reconnaissance platoon Deep into the highlands of South Vietnam, we ran into a lot of enemy soldiers. We were bunched in very close with the enemy really all around us…Uhh, I sor--really what I wanted to do, I wanted to disappear. you can talk about the public's right to know, the First Amendment all you want but this is, this is serious business. People are dying. I think we had, within the space of an hour, we had 12 dead and over 20 wounded, and I thought a lot about that. It's essential for things of that kind to be described for, for people at home. they have a right to know that. But as a supernumerary on one of these missions, you know, you really can't help but wonder if your presence is somehow changing the action and not in a favorable way. Yet it must be done. It can't not be done. (Reporting America At War, episode two, “Which Side Are You On?”, directed by Stephen Ives, written by Michelle Ferrari, (2003; New York: Insignia Films; Washington D.C.: WETA Washington D.C., 2003.)

The inaccuracy and misrepresentation of the facts of the war forced the war correspondents to go out into the field themselves and experience the war side by side with the soldiers, not as passive spectators. It’s interesting that Just raises the same concern Browne did about the presence of a photographer, someone with access to the eyes of the world changing and affecting what was happening. Just’s testimony also highlights a commitment to the American people whose government was lying to them and misrepresenting the progress of the war. During and after the war, the press was criticized for being too “negative” and “unpatriotic” and blamed for the loss by some in the military. Mitchell Stephens, another reporter, rebuts “If the military wanted a chance to fight this war without criticism in the American press, it had it. The American press turned against the war fairly late, when I think the war was clearly being lost.” The war reporters, like Quang Duc, were willing to suffer and imperil themselves for the awakening of others and used incendiary images that by shedding light start fires.