On this day in 1963, an elderly Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc climbed from a car stopped at a busy intersection in Saigon. He sat down and crossed his legs as another monk poured gasoline over him and a third lit him on fire. Quang Duc began praying as flames engulfed his body. As he burned, passersby prostrated themselves before this horrifying spectacle of devotion. Quang Duc’s body finally toppled over, his flesh incinerated, leaving only his heart behind.
Quand Duc chose to immolate himself to protest Ngo Dinh Diem’s — the United States’s handpicked dictator in Vietnam — oppression of the nation’s Buddhist population. A bit more than a month earlier, as Buddhists in Hué readied to celebrate the Buddha’s birthday, a local factotum and Diem loyalist had refused to allow them to gather. Several thousand Buddhists then took to the streets for a peaceful protest. Police fired on the crowd. Nine people were killed in the melee.
Buddhists mounted more protests in the following weeks, demanding that Diem punish the officials responsible for the killings. Arrogant and out of his depth, Diem, a Catholic, vacillated between ignoring their entreaties and blaming the entire controversy on the Vietcong. Buddhists countered Diem’s intransigence with a campaign of demonstrations and propaganda: public rallies, high-profile hunger strikes, and coordinated interviews with foreign journalists. Tri Quang, one of the uprising’s leaders, suggested to American officials that, “The United States must either make Diem reform or get rid of him. If not, the situation will degenerate, and you worthy gentlemen will suffer most. You are responsible for the present trouble because you back Diem and his government of ignoramuses.”
True to form, those ignoramuses ignored pressure from Washington as well. It was against that backdrop that Quang Duc killed himself, generating international outrage. Newspapers worldwide published stories headed by a stark image of the immolation. Buddhists had tipped off an AP photographer, Malcolm Brown, about their plans. At the event itself, they handed out biographical sketches of Quang Duc, revealing that he had been sixty-six years old at the time of his death. His last words were a plea to Diem for compassion and religious toleration.
Instead, the Diem administration replied with scorn and crackdowns. As police raided Buddhist temples, Madame Nhu, Diem’s sister-in-law, referred to Quang Duc’s death as a “barbecue”. Less than six months later, a coup — if not supported by the CIA then certainly tolerated by the Agency — toppled Diem’s government. He and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were killed. Madame Nhu went into exile.
21 comments
June 12, 2008 at 4:23 am
That’s Robert McNamara, right? « More or Less Bunk
[…] Robert McNamara, right? 12 06 2008 Thanks, Ari. I’ve always just used the picture in class, but this is even more […]
June 12, 2008 at 5:38 am
NCProsecutor
Damn. Just, damn.
June 12, 2008 at 5:46 am
Jason B
Great post, as always. This one hit one clanking note of sentimentalism, though, and it only draws my attention because you rarely indulge in it:
“Quang Duc’s body finally toppled over, his flesh incinerated, leaving only his heart behind.”
Yikes.That could appear on the inside of a “So You’ve Chosen Immolation” Hallmark card.
But I’ve always wondered about the story behind that photo. Amazing.
June 12, 2008 at 6:54 am
rickm
Don’t forget this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Against_the_Machine_%28album%29
June 12, 2008 at 8:57 am
Vance Maverick
Finding this photo in an old magazine is one of my formative reading memories. And the heart is no joke.
June 12, 2008 at 9:26 am
Jason B
Whoops. My oversight. I didn’t even suspect that passage might have literal intent. I need to be more careful, I suppose, to interpret people charitably.
Why do I have to learn that so many times?
June 12, 2008 at 9:48 am
ari
Thanks, Vance, for having my back against that meanie, Jason (whose line about the Hallmark card, while totally unfair and probably in very poor taste, is also hilarious). More seriously, I have the same reaction to that photo, which I think is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen. I started to write this post as a rumination on the artifacts or moments that cause individuals to move from an intellectual to a visceral understanding of the past. For me, that photo is such an artifact. But then the post became confused and too personal (touching on family history and my recent trip to see an interment of human remains at the Sand Creek site). So I stuck with the usual This Day format. Still, these issues are very much on my mind, and I may try to write something on the subject later this week.
June 12, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Jason B
I’ll cop to both the unfairness and the tastelessness. The former was unintentional (and I apologize for it), but the latter was on purpose. It’s easier to be original when making jokes that people burdened with consciences wouldn’t touch.
It’s laziness, really.
June 12, 2008 at 1:25 pm
urbino
“Quang Duc’s body finally toppled over, his flesh incinerated, leaving only his heart behind.”
Which was delicious, with a nice chianti and some fava beans.
I didn’t want Jason to feel isolated.
More seriously, stumbling onto this photo in our tiny school library is a memory I’ll not likely forget, too. This, the video of the man being executed in the street, and the picture of the running, napalmed kids were among the first images I ever encountered of Vietnam.
June 12, 2008 at 1:38 pm
The Modesto Kid
As regards the picture of running napalmed kids, this post at SEK’s place is a fine one.
June 12, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Ben Alpers
I hear that they just photoshopped the face of Buddha into the smoke.
June 12, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Cala
I’ve always wondered if he screamed, and if he didn’t, how.
June 12, 2008 at 6:13 pm
ari
He did not scream. Because he was at peace. The former I know to be true. The latter, which I cannot promise is true, is the explanation usually given for the former.
June 12, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Jason B
This will read as stupid, but I don’t care:
I had a moment of nonself about ten years ago that shook me to my core. I had no training in breathing meditation, but I lost my conception of myself within seconds, and didn’t think I existed.
When this man caught fire he didn’t exist. He knew he didn’t exist, so the pain in his consciousness really existed somewhere else.
That takes some hellacious mindfulness.
June 12, 2008 at 9:02 pm
urbino
Indeed. I do breathing meditation and a bit of tai chi. The effects are quite real and, even for a novice like me, startlingly powerful.
June 12, 2008 at 9:04 pm
ari
You’re both stupid.
June 12, 2008 at 9:07 pm
urbino
Antibuddhite.
June 12, 2008 at 9:10 pm
ari
So true.
June 12, 2008 at 9:11 pm
urbino
You know, there’s probably no political/cultural price to be paid for that in America, yet. Well, maybe in California.
June 12, 2008 at 11:18 pm
“The children fell to the floor, as he had taught them to do.” « The Edge of the American West
[…] the case for me better than anything else I used: Anne Moody, Michael Herr, The War at Home, even Thich Quang Duc. Myrlie Evers’s dignity bleeds into tragedy as she describes her husband trying to claw his […]
June 12, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Ben Alpers
You know, there’s probably no political/cultural price to be paid for that in America, yet. Well, maybe in California.
Can non-selves assert their rights as individuals?
MU!