On February 25, Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC as an act of protest against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Hostile critics have attempted to shrug off Aaron’s action as the consequence of mental illness. On the contrary, Aaron’s choice was a political action arising from his deeply held anarchist convictions. In the following collection, we share Aaron’s own summary of his politics, followed by testimony from three of Aaron’s close friends.
The more I read and hear about this man, the more I see a reflection of myself. While our lives went in different directions, the descriptions of his upbringing and of how his beliefs changed over time mirror my own so closely that I feel like I’ve lost a brother I never had the pleasure of meeting. Even his friends’ accounts of his mannerisms remind me a lot of myself, and I feel the same guilt at how little I am able to do in the face of so much injustice.
It makes me incredibly sad and angry at the system that drove Aaron Bushnell to such an extreme act. That his life and body burned in order to inspire this feeling in me is devastating, but highlights that burning one’s life and body as well as the life and body of others is the routine and cold logic the state uses to maintain its hegemony.
He’s me on a good day, maybe my best day. One thing is for sure, I never met him but he’s our people.