dying for a causemdash

aloneby michael biggs

Since 1963 several hundredmdashperhaps as many as 3000mdashindividuals have sacrificed their lives in this kind of protestThey include Vietnamese Buddhists South Korean leftistsIndian students Chinese adherents of Falun Gong and Kurdishnationalists in Western Europe

Protest by self-immolation provides another perspectiveon suicide attacks The comparison undermines some com-mon explanations for suicide attacks like organizational indoc-trination or heavenly rewards Self-immolation is also importantin its own right It takes us to places sociologists in the Westrarely consider and it also poses the theoretical puzzle of whyit makes sense to die without inflicting any tangible cost onthe opponent

the spread of self-sacrificeProtest by self-immolation has become associated with

death by fire but the etymological root of ldquoimmolationrdquo issacrifice All methods of self-killing are included in my defini-tion It also includes attempts where the individualrsquos life wassaved Hunger strikes are excluded because a hunger strikermerely threatens death by starvation whereas self-immolationis unconditional

This act might appear an archaicsurvival from the pre-modern era but itrsquosreally a response to two modern devel-opments One is the mass media whichcan broadcast this dramatic act to a fargreater audience than is physically pres-ent The other is the transformation ofstate repression which put an end toexecutions organized as a public spectacle and involving thedeliberate infliction of pain These were the preconditions forself-immolation as a form of protest

Several examples can be found in the first half of the 20th

century Min Yonghwan a Korean official stabbed himself todeath in 1905 to protest against the annexation of his countryby Japan He addressed letters to the Western powers and theKorean people Newspaper publication ensured his messagehad an enormous effect in stimulating resistance to Japan A Western example is Stefan Lux who shot himself in theLeague of Nations in 1936 to protest against the plight of Jewsin Nazi Germany Again his act was predicated on the mediamdashhis final letters were addressed to British and American news-papers Sadly his act had no effect

Before the 1960s there is no evidence of diffusion acrosscultures Self-immolation was an idiosyncratic individual actThis changed after a Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc set fireto himself in Saigon in 1963 He described this as a ldquodonationto the strugglerdquo against the Catholic dictatorship supportedby the United States Killing oneself in this manner was anestablished though controversial monastic practice inMahayana Buddhism

But Quang Duc wasnrsquot simply reenacting ancient tradition The leaders of the Buddhist movement had a sophis-ticated understanding of Western media and they orchestrat-ed the death for maximum publicity An American reporterphotographed the scene (left) and the resulting image of theburning monk was transmitted around the world Quang Ducrsquosdeath had an immediate effect in South Vietnam galvanizingdemonstrations against the regime and inspiring further actsof self-immolation The US government was particularly troubled by these acts which graphically contradicted propa-ganda about ldquofreedomrdquo in this frontline of the Cold WarWithin five months the United States tacitly approved a coupagainst the dictator

The impact of Quang Ducrsquos sacrifice spread far beyondSoutheast Asia Individuals in other countries began to adoptthis form of protest Many explicitly mentioned VietnameseBuddhists as the model for others the model is implied by thechoice of death by fire rather than another method In somecases self-immolation was adopted because of its connectionwith the Vietnam cause Thus an American Quaker NormanMorrison set himself on fire outside the Pentagon in 1965Most importantly self-immolation became a means of protestin unrelated conflicts The tactic was adopted by diversegroups from Tamils in South India rejecting Hindi as the offi-cial language to East Europeans opposing the Soviet invasionof Czechoslovakia

By 1969 more than 80 individuals in at least 15 countries

23winter 2008 contexts

After September 11 2001 dying for a cause became indelibly asso-

ciated with suicide attacks at least in North America and Europe

Yet another kind of politically motivated suicide doesnrsquot intend to

kill others or cause material damagemdashself-immolation

Quang Ducrsquos death had an immediate effect inSouth Vietnam galvanizing demonstrations against the regime and inspiring further acts of self-immolation

Contexts Vol 7 No 1 pp 22ndash27 ISSN 1536-5042 electronic ISSN 1537-6052 copy 2008 American Sociological AssociationAll rights reserved For permission to photocopy or reproduce see httpwwwucpressjournalscomreprintinfoasp DOI101525ctx20087122

Since 1963 several hundredmdashperhaps as many as 3000mdashindividuals have sacrificed their lives in this kind of protestThey include Vietnamese Buddhists South Korean leftistsIndian students Chinese adherents of Falun Gong and Kurdishnationalists in Western Europe

Protest by self-immolation provides another perspectiveon suicide attacks The comparison undermines some com-mon explanations for suicide attacks like organizational indoc-trination or heavenly rewards Self-immolation is also importantin its own right It takes us to places sociologists in the Westrarely consider and it also poses the theoretical puzzle of whyit makes sense to die without inflicting any tangible cost onthe opponent

the spread of self-sacrificeProtest by self-immolation has become associated with

death by fire but the etymological root of ldquoimmolationrdquo issacrifice All methods of self-killing are included in my defini-tion It also includes attempts where the individualrsquos life wassaved Hunger strikes are excluded because a hunger strikermerely threatens death by starvation whereas self-immolationis unconditional

This act might appear an archaicsurvival from the pre-modern era but itrsquosreally a response to two modern devel-opments One is the mass media whichcan broadcast this dramatic act to a fargreater audience than is physically pres-ent The other is the transformation ofstate repression which put an end toexecutions organized as a public spectacle and involving thedeliberate infliction of pain These were the preconditions forself-immolation as a form of protest

Several examples can be found in the first half of the 20th

century Min Yonghwan a Korean official stabbed himself todeath in 1905 to protest against the annexation of his countryby Japan He addressed letters to the Western powers and theKorean people Newspaper publication ensured his messagehad an enormous effect in stimulating resistance to Japan A Western example is Stefan Lux who shot himself in theLeague of Nations in 1936 to protest against the plight of Jewsin Nazi Germany Again his act was predicated on the mediamdashhis final letters were addressed to British and American news-papers Sadly his act had no effect

Before the 1960s there is no evidence of diffusion acrosscultures Self-immolation was an idiosyncratic individual actThis changed after a Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc set fireto himself in Saigon in 1963 He described this as a ldquodonationto the strugglerdquo against the Catholic dictatorship supportedby the United States Killing oneself in this manner was anestablished though controversial monastic practice inMahayana Buddhism

But Quang Duc wasnrsquot simply reenacting ancient tradition The leaders of the Buddhist movement had a sophis-ticated understanding of Western media and they orchestrat-ed the death for maximum publicity An American reporterphotographed the scene (left) and the resulting image of theburning monk was transmitted around the world Quang Ducrsquosdeath had an immediate effect in South Vietnam galvanizingdemonstrations against the regime and inspiring further actsof self-immolation The US government was particularly troubled by these acts which graphically contradicted propa-ganda about ldquofreedomrdquo in this frontline of the Cold WarWithin five months the United States tacitly approved a coupagainst the dictator

The impact of Quang Ducrsquos sacrifice spread far beyondSoutheast Asia Individuals in other countries began to adoptthis form of protest Many explicitly mentioned VietnameseBuddhists as the model for others the model is implied by thechoice of death by fire rather than another method In somecases self-immolation was adopted because of its connectionwith the Vietnam cause Thus an American Quaker NormanMorrison set himself on fire outside the Pentagon in 1965Most importantly self-immolation became a means of protestin unrelated conflicts The tactic was adopted by diversegroups from Tamils in South India rejecting Hindi as the offi-cial language to East Europeans opposing the Soviet invasionof Czechoslovakia

By 1969 more than 80 individuals in at least 15 countries

23winter 2008 contexts

After September 11 2001 dying for a cause became indelibly asso-

ciated with suicide attacks at least in North America and Europe

Yet another kind of politically motivated suicide doesnrsquot intend to

kill others or cause material damagemdashself-immolation

Quang Ducrsquos death had an immediate effect inSouth Vietnam galvanizing demonstrations against the regime and inspiring further acts of self-immolation

Contexts Vol 7 No 1 pp 22ndash27 ISSN 1536-5042 electronic ISSN 1537-6052 copy 2008 American Sociological AssociationAll rights reserved For permission to photocopy or reproduce see httpwwwucpressjournalscomreprintinfoasp DOI101525ctx20087122

had killed themselves or attempted to do so as an act ofprotest Quang Duc was the progenitor of almost all these actsThey were modeled either directly on his action or indirectlyon anotherrsquos action that can in turn be traced back to himSelf-immolation had become part of the repertoire of protest

gathering numbersIn gathering information about self-immolation it would

be easy to focus on the handful of individuals whose deathsearned them an enduring place in historical memory But thiswould yield a distorted view The standard method of compil-ing data on collective protest is a systematic search of news-papers in a single national state By contrast my search wasglobal in scope extending from 1963 to 2002

For practical reasons I searched English-language sourcesFor reports before 1977 my research assistants and I scannedthe New York Times and (London) Times For reports after thisdate we had access to the full text of articles circulated bynewswires like Associated Press

These sources wonrsquot provide comprehensive coverage ofcourse Totalitarian states can prevent reporters from gather-ing information For example in 1980 tourists in Moscow sawsomeone on fire in Red Square Attempting to take photo-graphs they immediately had their film exposed by securityagents The authorities insisted absurdly it was merely a burn-ing cigarette or garbage fire Itrsquos impossible to know whetherthis was an act of protest or a personal suicide But even whereinformation is freely available the space for news is limitedmdasha newspaper has only so many pages to fillmdashand events in far-away places are less likely to attract editorial attentionHowever self-immolation is so rare itrsquos far more newsworthythan routine protests such as demonstrations

My systematic search gathered information on 533 indi-vidual acts in the four decades since 1963 This number is like-ly the tip of the iceberg More comprehensive numbers areavailable for particular times and places which makes it pos-sible to guess what fraction of cases get reported by thesources I use The real total could hardly be less than 800 itseems unlikely to exceed 3000 By far the largest waveoccurred in India in 1990 after the government proposedincreasing affirmative action quotas for lower castes in univer-sities and government employment Within 10 weeks at least220 peoplemdashpredominantly students from privileged castesmdashcommitted self-immolation

For perspective on the overall scale of the phenomenonconsider the number of suicide attacks A truck laden withexplosives was driven into the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut in 1981This was the progenitor akin to Quang Ducrsquos immolation ofthe modern suicide attack The most comprehensive enumer-ation for the period from 1981 to 2005 yields a total of 1100suicide attacks (remarkably nearly half of these occurred inIraq in the last three years) Some of these attacks involved

more than one individual of course Nevertheless we can seethe numbers are of similar magnitude

Compared with suicide attacks self-immolation has spreadwidely around the world My search revealed cases from threedozen countries Table 1 provides a summary by countryKurdish refugees living in Europe are counted separately astheir acts were part of a struggle against the Turkish stateThree-quarters of the total are concentrated in just three coun-tries A valid cross-national comparison requires adjustmentfor urban population The Kurdish diaspora had by far the high-est rate followed by Vietnam (South Vietnam until 1975)South Korea and India

Protest by self-immolation 1963ndash2002

Country Number of Rate per millionself-immolations urban population

India 255 14

South VietnamVietnam 92 80

South Korea 43 16

USA 29 02

USSRex-USSR 17 01

Kurds outside Turkey 14 140

Romania 14 12

China 9 00

Pakistan 9 03

France 5 05

Japan 5 01

Czechoslovakia 4 05

EastWest Germany 4 01

Turkey 4 02

Bulgaria 3 05

Chile 3 00

Taiwan 3 02

UK 3 01

Malaysia 2 03

Thailand 2 02

Other countries 13 00

Total 533 03

cultural prevalenceWhy is self-immolation prevalent in some countries rather

than others Therersquos no association with the frequency ofprotest nor with the overall suicide rate Emile Durkheim arguedthat different types of suicide are produced by different typesof society Excessive social integration when people interactintensively and identify with society as a whole leads to whathe called altruistic suicide Although social integration is noto-

24 contextsorg

riously difficult to measure some measures of attitudes can bederived from the World Values Survey These measures how-ever arenrsquot associated with self-immolation

The only significant association is with religion The pro-portions of Hindus and Buddhists in a country are positivelycorrelated with the rate of self-immolation whereas the pro-portions of Christians and Muslims are not These relationshipspertain to society as a whole rather than the particular indi-viduals who sacrifice themselves The leftists in South Korea forexample were guided by Marxism rather than BuddhismMoreover even those with religious vocations didnrsquot act forspecifically religious reasons (as will be discussed below)Nevertheless religious traditions were clearly significant in shap-ing the cultural background for individualsrsquo actions

Looking to the religious valuation of self-inflicted deathin sacred literatures neither Christianity nor Islam reveal promi-nent exemplars Jesus and Husayn were martyred by their ene-mies By contrast Hindu Puranas extol the karmic benefits thatmay be derived by killing oneself in aplace of pilgrimage Tales of theBuddharsquos past lives include instancesof self-sacrifice for example aMahayana sutra describes him killinghimself to feed a hungry tiger Withinboth traditions the legitimacy of reli-gious suicide was disputed nevertheless such acts continuedinto the 20th century There may also be a more mundane cultural explanation the method of disposing of corpsesCremation is deeply rooted in Indic religions By extensiondeath by fire seems sacred in a way thatrsquos still repugnant in theWest despite the recent importation of cremation

These enduring cultural differences are important butshouldnrsquot be overstated After all protest by self-immolationhas occurred in the West and the rate has been highest amongKurds in Europe

theoretical puzzleThe logic of suicide attacks seems clearmdashby not preserv-

ing their own lives attackers can inflict greater harm on theenemy The mass carnage of September 11 was possible onlybecause the attackers planned to die

However this logic doesnrsquot apply where the perpetrator isthe sole victim This theoretical puzzle recurs when self-immo-lation is compared to other kinds of protest Strikes boycottsand sit-ins are effective in large measure because they inflict aneconomic cost on the opponent Self-immolation imposes noapparent cost on anyone but the individual Why then did somany people choose to sacrifice themselves

To answer this question we must understand the individ-ualrsquos own reasons for choosing such an extreme act Evidencecomes from written declarations of intent and comments fromsurvivors as well as from those who considered the act butdidnrsquot carry it out A few cases are obviously personal suicidedisguised as protest A few others suggest psychiatric disor-

der For the most part however the reasons for self-immola-tion make sense

Two are most common One is to appeal to bystandersnot directly involved in the conflict Many Buddhists in Vietnamovertly appealed to American public opinion because the USgovernment ultimately determined their own governmentrsquospolicy At the age of 14 Nejla Coskun set herself on fire inLondon in 1999 to protest against the capture of a Kurdishleader She was appealing to the British public who wereunaware of her peoplersquos plight ldquoI wanted someone to stopand think about usrdquo she explained afterward Implicitly the

25winter 2008 contexts

Although religious belief and discipline undoubtedlyprepare an individual for self-sacrifice the promise ofsupernatural rewards isnrsquot a significant motivation

Norman R Morrison who burned himself to death at thePentagon to climax months of concern and protest overthe war in Vietnam is shown in happier days with his wifeAnne and two of their three children in a 1961 photo AP Photo

appeal derives its potency from sacrifice Self-immolation isnrsquotmerely symbolic The fact that someone is willing to pay theultimate price for a collective cause provides a real signal aboutthe extent of injusticemdashunless the act is interpreted as mani-festing psychiatric disorder As Lux declared in 1936 ldquoWhen aman dies deliberately after serious reflection he can ask to beheardrdquo

The second common reason for self-immolation is toexhort greater commitment from others who share the collec-tive cause This is not a matter of altering their beliefs butrather galvanizing them to engage in protest An example wasJan Palach who set himself alight in1969 to protest against the Soviet occu-pation of Czechoslovakia ldquoBecause ournations are on the brink of despairrdquowent his note ldquowe have decided toexpress our protest and wake up thepeople of this landrdquo He concocted anelaborate threat based on the fictionthat he was the first in a group of volunteers ldquoIf our demandsare not fulfilled within five days and if the people do notsupport us sufficiently through a strike of indefinite durationmore torches will burnrdquo Implicitly this was calculated to induceguilt among his fellow citizens If they remained passive thenthey would be responsible for further deaths

One might expect desire for a more exalted existence afterdeath would be prominent as is often suggested for Muslimswho volunteer for ldquomartyrdom operationsrdquo This motivationis notably absent for self-immolation even among those withreligious vocations In Vietnam many embraced Buddhism asa means of attaining national liberation and social justice ratherthan as a quest for spiritual perfection Moreover religiousbeliefs donrsquot invariably promise eternal reward Coskun as a

Muslim actually expected punishment afterdeath for defiling the body God gave herAlthough religious belief and discipline undoubt-edly prepare an individual for self-sacrifice thepromise of supernatural rewards isnrsquot a signifi-cant motivation

mixed successItrsquos difficult to say how often self-immola-

tion succeeds in exhorting fellow adherents orappealing to bystanders Protest by self-immo-lation is never the main tactic of any social move-ment it is combined with routine forms ofprotest like demonstrations and strikes There-fore itrsquos impossible to attribute the success of anymovement which itself is difficult to evaluateto this one form of protest

Most cases of self-immolation had little or no effect Anexample is the first American to die in protest against Americanpolicy in Vietnam in 1965 Alice Herz She set herself on fire ona street corner in Detroit a place of no symbolic relevance forthe cause and far from the nationrsquos media centers At the otherextreme a handful of individualsmdashincluding Quang Duc andPalachmdashhad a tremendous impact Mourners at their funeralsnumbered in the tens of thousands Their memories are stillrevered decades later Palachrsquos grave in Prague remained sucha place of pilgrimage that the pro-Soviet regime eventuallymoved his remains to a less accessible location On the 20th

anniversary of his death in 1989 police had to use tear gasand water cannons to break up a demonstration in the square

where he had set fire to himselfSelf-immolation can be so potent because it provokes pity

for a victim whose unjust death is attributed to the opponentand at the same time admiration for a hero who willingly diedfor the cause Sociologist Hyojoung Kim has analyzed testimo-nials by pilgrims to a memorial for Park Sung Hee a leftist stu-dent who set herself on fire in South Korea in 1991 Visitorswho experienced a feeling of shame comparing their ownmodest contribution to the cause with Parkrsquos ultimate sacri-fice were most likely to express renewed commitment As onewrote ldquoI resolve that I will become a fighter [metaphorically]who will not be ashamed to stand before yourdquo

26 contextsorg

Strikes boycotts and sit-ins inflict an economiccost on the opponent Self-immolation imposes no apparent cost on anyone but the individual

Quang Duc a Buddhist monk burns himself to death on a Saigon streetJune 11 1963 to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by the SouthVietnamese government AP PhotoMalcolm Browne

appeal derives its potency from sacrifice Self-immolation isnrsquotmerely symbolic The fact that someone is willing to pay theultimate price for a collective cause provides a real signal aboutthe extent of injusticemdashunless the act is interpreted as mani-festing psychiatric disorder As Lux declared in 1936 ldquoWhen aman dies deliberately after serious reflection he can ask to beheardrdquo

The second common reason for self-immolation is toexhort greater commitment from others who share the collec-tive cause This is not a matter of altering their beliefs butrather galvanizing them to engage in protest An example wasJan Palach who set himself alight in1969 to protest against the Soviet occu-pation of Czechoslovakia ldquoBecause ournations are on the brink of despairrdquowent his note ldquowe have decided toexpress our protest and wake up thepeople of this landrdquo He concocted anelaborate threat based on the fictionthat he was the first in a group of volunteers ldquoIf our demandsare not fulfilled within five days and if the people do notsupport us sufficiently through a strike of indefinite durationmore torches will burnrdquo Implicitly this was calculated to induceguilt among his fellow citizens If they remained passive thenthey would be responsible for further deaths

One might expect desire for a more exalted existence afterdeath would be prominent as is often suggested for Muslimswho volunteer for ldquomartyrdom operationsrdquo This motivationis notably absent for self-immolation even among those withreligious vocations In Vietnam many embraced Buddhism asa means of attaining national liberation and social justice ratherthan as a quest for spiritual perfection Moreover religiousbeliefs donrsquot invariably promise eternal reward Coskun as a

Muslim actually expected punishment afterdeath for defiling the body God gave herAlthough religious belief and discipline undoubt-edly prepare an individual for self-sacrifice thepromise of supernatural rewards isnrsquot a signifi-cant motivation

mixed successItrsquos difficult to say how often self-immola-

tion succeeds in exhorting fellow adherents orappealing to bystanders Protest by self-immo-lation is never the main tactic of any social move-ment it is combined with routine forms ofprotest like demonstrations and strikes There-fore itrsquos impossible to attribute the success of anymovement which itself is difficult to evaluateto this one form of protest

Most cases of self-immolation had little or no effect Anexample is the first American to die in protest against Americanpolicy in Vietnam in 1965 Alice Herz She set herself on fire ona street corner in Detroit a place of no symbolic relevance forthe cause and far from the nationrsquos media centers At the otherextreme a handful of individualsmdashincluding Quang Duc andPalachmdashhad a tremendous impact Mourners at their funeralsnumbered in the tens of thousands Their memories are stillrevered decades later Palachrsquos grave in Prague remained sucha place of pilgrimage that the pro-Soviet regime eventuallymoved his remains to a less accessible location On the 20th

anniversary of his death in 1989 police had to use tear gasand water cannons to break up a demonstration in the square

where he had set fire to himselfSelf-immolation can be so potent because it provokes pity

for a victim whose unjust death is attributed to the opponentand at the same time admiration for a hero who willingly diedfor the cause Sociologist Hyojoung Kim has analyzed testimo-nials by pilgrims to a memorial for Park Sung Hee a leftist stu-dent who set herself on fire in South Korea in 1991 Visitorswho experienced a feeling of shame comparing their ownmodest contribution to the cause with Parkrsquos ultimate sacri-fice were most likely to express renewed commitment As onewrote ldquoI resolve that I will become a fighter [metaphorically]who will not be ashamed to stand before yourdquo

26 contextsorg

Strikes boycotts and sit-ins inflict an economiccost on the opponent Self-immolation imposes no apparent cost on anyone but the individual

Quang Duc a Buddhist monk burns himself to death on a Saigon streetJune 11 1963 to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by the SouthVietnamese government AP PhotoMalcolm Browne

comparing sacrificesSelf-immolation may shed light on suicide attacks In a

fundamental sense the two phenomena are disconnectedActors do not treat the two methods as alternatives Itrsquos not asif an individual resolves to die for the cause and then chooseswhether or not to kill The fundamental decision is whether thesituation is war (in the broadest sense) or protest Within thehorizon of that situation the decision is then whether to makethe supreme sacrifice instead of engaging in a less costly formof action

Many scholars who study suicide attacks emphasize thesupreme importance of organization By implication self-sac-rifice is only conceivable after an individual has been subject-ed to ideological indoctrination and social pressure In the vastmajority of cases of self-immolation however individuals actedalone Quang Ducrsquos action was exceptional in being orches-trated and endorsed by a movement organization Even thenthe initiative came from him The comparison proves an orga-nizational context isnrsquot necessary to induce someone to die fora cause

Comparison can also alert us to unexpected similaritiesAlthough the logic of suicide attacks treats death as a meansto the end of killing the enemy in some cases death seems tobe sought as an end in itself This is most apparent whereescape is feasible The two successive terrorist attacks byJihadists in London in July 2005 didnrsquot really require a suicidemission After all the bombers in Madrid the year before hadkilled nearly 200 passengers without dying and the secondset of attackers in London were able to flee after their explo-sives failed to detonate In such cases the willingness to dieseems as important as the killing

A suicide attack isnrsquot likely to win sympathy from neutralbystanders But the example of self-sacrifice may inspire peo-ple who already have some identification with the causemdashjustlike protest by self-immolation

recommended resourcesYoung-rae Cho A Single Spark A Biography of Chun Tae-il (HanChul-hee 2003) A fascinating biography of the trade unionistwhose self-immolation in 1970 left an enduring legacy in SouthKorea

Diego Gambetta (ed) Making Sense of Suicide Missions (OxfordUniversity Press 2005) A comprehensive volume focusing on sui-cide attacks including a chapter on protest by self-immolation bythe author

Hyojoung Kim ldquoShame Anger and Love in Collective ActionEmotional Consequences of Suicide Protest in South Korea 1991rdquoMobilization 7 (2002) 159ndash76 An analysis of testimonials left byvisitors to the memorial of a student who committed self-immo-lation

B C Ben Park ldquoSociopolitical Contexts of Self-Immolations in Viet-nam and South Koreardquo Archives of Suicide Research 8 (2004)81ndash97 Examines self-immolation from the perspective of theoriesof suicide

Michael Biggs is lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of

Oxford He has published on the dynamics of protest waves as well as on self-

inflicted suffering as protest

27winter 2008 contexts

what the literature saysFew have studied self-immolation or suicide as aform of protest but their studies do aid ourunderstanding of the act

Those who commit protest suicide understandthe act to be an exchange between themselvesand those around them scholars have theorizedThese suicides demand a response from thoseaffected by them according to studies by KarinAndriolo as well as Pamela Stewart and AndrewStrathern

Self-immolation specifically relies on the publicrsquosunderstanding of their obligation to respondmdashifthe public sees the suicide as an isolated actrather than an exchange it fails as a call toaction

Other scholars have shed light on why somechoose to protest through an act of self-immola-tion rather than a homicidal act like a suicidebombing In many cases the act serves as both anescape and a protest Sang-Hwan Jang wroteabout Korean laborers who felt forced to commitprotest suicide because their survival was threat-ened by government forces Similarly RobertTopmiller found some Buddhist women in SouthVietnam used self-immolation as a way of simul-taneously protesting while escaping patriarchyand reincarnation

Ryan Alaniz and Meghan Krausch