“We are all culpable,” Matt Nelson said before lighting himself on fire. This is the third such incident in a year.
It was not immediately clear why the man did what he did.
I think it might be the Israeli genocide in gaza?
You mean the case which convinced the ICJ that Israel was committing war crimes and made them order Israel to halt operations?
Just because they haven’t proven genocide in the full legal sense doesn’t mean what’s happening there is right.
For those who want to know why, what purpose, this article addresses it in the hero’s own words.
Suicide ideation is never good. There are always better alternatives than taking your own life.
This isn’t suicide in the sense that the word “suicide” implies. It was a deliberate political statement. Calling it suicide misrepresents and diminishes the intent behind Matt Nelson’s actions
People make plenty of excuses for why they kill themselves. Plenty of scared and lonely people have complete manifestos on why they are actually winning by ending their own lives.
The end result is still someone killed themselves and left a hole in the lives of everyone who cared about them. And it should not be celebrated.
Suicidal people seek painless and quick ways to die. This is the opposite because it isn’t suicide. It’s a revolutionary act.
That said? I also don’t think we should be killing ourselves to protest this war. It isn’t we who deserve to die for this genocide.
It’s not a revolutionary act, it’s suicide. He killed himself. And it changed nothing.
There are always better alternatives than taking your own life.
You are not entitled to me choosing to live just because you emotionally prefer that outcome.
When someone takes the time to die for you to listen, you listen. Not belittlement.
So if someone set themselves on fire to protest immigration or against gay rights you’d say ‘let’s sir down and work out how to ban homosexuality because it’s obviously a valid issue if someone killed themselves over it’
Of course not, how would you respond if 50 kkk members killed themselves to protest in favor of segregation? Or if a Facebook group full of flat earthers burned themselves to protest? Would that make their cause valid?
I have a strong desire to go to Gaza to support people there. That would be a kind of suicide, like suicide by cop, but instead suicide by regular bombing of areas designated by the military force doing the bombing as a zone that they wouldn’t bomb and I knew that when I went to that area.
Sadly, me being killed as a non-Palestinian by a military force which is killing indiscriminately would change nothing. It is apparent that many people think it is okay for a military force to kill indiscriminately. No number of deaths of Western people would be shocking, because ‘they shouldn’t be there’. Where is ‘there’? A place where Palestinians are trapped, in order to be killed. The infrahumanisation of Palestinians has been there from the very start, it was assumed from the conception of the opinion, and from the conception of the children.
OK… But setting yourself on fire in a country on the other side of the world is better how?
If you’re willing to give up your life to help Palestinians, then actually help them. It’s pretty simple.
If you feel so strongly about it - do it. The likelihood of you being killed is pretty low compared to the amount of people you’d actually help by helping distribute food, etc. If it’s too far away, then you can always start small - volunteer at your local food pantry, soup kitchen, etc.
Exactly. All this person has accomplished is making those opposed to genocide seem like extremists while taking someone away from all the people who care about him.
And it should not need to be pointed out why calling him a “hero” and cheering for his death is maybe the wrong takeaway from this.
It stopped being a debate for me once the ICJ literally ruled that Israel’s actions in Gaza are illegal. It’s not antisemitic to call out legitimate war crimes…
Because it apparently needs to be said:
There are always better options than taking your own life
If you are in crisis, please talk to someone who can help - if you don’t feel comfortable talking with close friends or family - you can either call 988 in the United States or Canada, or find a relevant local resource via IASP
It seems to me you are missing the point.
This is a political suicide. I cannot say that I am for this approach but what I see is a form of protest (and maybe what I think about it is another topic). What is striking to me is that this US-backed Genocide is taking place for almost a year, and due to despair americans are even killing themselves as a form of protest.
And of course there are other forms of protesting. People try to influence politicians in so many ways so the US stops providing guns and arguments attempting to justify it.
Missing the point, a political suicide…
so sad, too bad…
What was this about again?
Did the genocide end?
Thoughts and flames.
Did someone say september 11?
This is a mentally ill person who was driven to an extreme and felt there was nothing better to do than take his own life.
There is no message that should be said other than to urge anyone who is feeling similar distress needs to know that there are people who love them and no matter what there is always a better alternative.
By condoning it for political purposes you give an out for the mentally ill to commit “legitimate” suicide, or worse to being manipulated into doing so. This is not a slippert slope, it is a hard line that many in these comments have crossed - which is why it needs to be said that there is a better path and there are resources.
This isn’t true.
I am a rape survivor who hasn’t dated anyone in a very long time. The person who hurt me was not prosecuted. I don’t like being touched anymore. I am probably going to kill myself within a few years. I don’t think this is a mental health issue that I want to die; I think this is a valid choice, and no, I don’t want big pharma drugs, religion, or people talking to me to try to make me feel better. I just ultimately want to die and just meed to get my affairs in order.
The person who lit himself on fire and me are not the same. He wasn’t someone who wanted to die, he was someone who wanted people to realize the level of suffering that Palestinians are experiencing.
He didn’t want to kill other people to make his point because he wasn’t violent. He was willing to die himself however. That’s self-sacrifice. More people are noticing what is going on because of what he did. It was not pointless or meaningless.
There are people who commit suicide because of temporary mental health issues, those that end things due to persistent despair, which are not a mental health issues but valid feelings, and neither of these things are the same as self-immolation as political protest.
I know it makes people in society FEEL better to say that people who choose actions that lead to their own death are all mental and just should have called a hotline so they could be locked up by police and force fed or injected with psychiatric medication until big pharma made everything better, but reality isn’t always fairy tales and happy endings. Gross simplifications that push drugs and involuntary hospitalization are an extreme illogical form of reductionism like flat-earthers who deny climate change but feel better as a result.
Well, at least he didn’t hurt anyone else.
