Talk:Self-immolation

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[edit] Previous discussions without headers

"It is as unconventional as it is long and painful" is a comparative statement and I don't believe that was the original intention of this article's author. I believe that individual meant to say that this is an unconventional method of suicide because it is long and painful, and chose to use "as" instead of "because".Flakeloaf 08:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List

Notable lists are discouraged. KyuuA4 18:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable and recent cases of self-immolation

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  • Four Americans immolated themselves in 1965, in protest of the Vietnam War. The first was Alice Herz, an 82-year-old German immigrant who performed the act in downtown Detroit on March 16, 1965, prior to the University of Michigan teach-in. The second was Norman Morrison, who on November 2, 1965, performed the act outside of the Pentagon office of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara after reading an article by a missionary about the destruction of a Vietnamese village by napalm. The third was Roger Allen LaPorte, in front of the United Nations building in New York City on November 9, 1965. At the time, he was a 22-year-old Catholic Worker Movement member. The fourth was on May 10, 1970, when 23-year-old George Winne Jr. immolated himself on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. He left a sign saying "In the Name of God, stop the war".[1]
  • Five months later, in January 1969, Jan Palach immolated himself in Prague to protest against the recent Soviet military backlash against the reforming "Prague Spring" movement. A month later, another student, Jan Zajíc underwent self-immolation for the same reason.
  • In the 1980s several South Korean students also chose to self-immolate in the waves of mass protests against the country's then authoritarian government.
  • On January 23, 2001 a group of people self-immolated in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China. The group were allegedly practitioners of the Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong; however, this is disputed by Falun Gong supporters, who claim it was a setup by the Chinese government as a part of the ongoing crackdown on the movement.
  • In 2003 six people set themselves on fire in the Czech Republic, with four dying and two suffering severe burns. Most of the cases were in Prague. According to suicide notes the reason was depression due to the contemporary situation of the world.[4] Psychologists in the Czech Republic have warned that the frequent commemoration ceremonies for Jan Palach contributed to this phenomenon.[citation needed]
  • On October 31, 2006, retired minister Roland Weißelberg set himself on fire[6] at a construction site in Erfurt, Germany. He died the next day. A letter written by Weißelberg indicated that he was protesting the spread of Islam, and urged Germany's Protestant Church to take the issue more seriously.
  • On November 3, 2006, Chicago activist, music enthusiast, and sound engineer Malachi Ritscher immolated himself alongside Chicago's Kennedy Expressway, claiming discontent with the United States' occupation of Iraq in his "personal statement", published on his website, SavageSound.com. Next to his body was found a videotape and a small sign, on which the phrase, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" was printed.[7][8][9]
  • On December 22, 2006, a man in Bakersfield, California set himself on fire, along with a Christmas tree, an American flag, and a replica of an American Revolutionary flag, in front of the Kern County courthouse. He had a sign that said "Fuck the religious establishment and KHSD". The previous day, the Kern High School District, the apparent reference to "KHSD", had voted to change the names of their schools' winter and spring breaks back to Christmas and Easter breaks; authorities believe the man was protesting that decision. A sheriff's deputy who was manning security at the courthouse entrance saw the incident and extinguished the flames; the man suffered only first-degree burns.[10]
  • On March 7, 2007, Uddhav Bhandari, a Nepalese asylum-seeker living in Scotland set himself alight outside the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Centre in Glasgow. He had been refused permission to stay in the United Kingdom and was due to face an appeal hearing, which if unsuccessful would have seen him deported to Nepal. He died of his injuries on March 19.


[edit] Dictionary definition

As dictionary.com will tell us, "self-immolation" does not necessarily indicate death by fire. [1] It is implied, perhaps, but is not an absolute criteria. Please stop editing to that effect. Luna Santin 06:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Background for the series of suicides in the Czech Republic (2003)

The sentence: "Psychologists in the Czech Republic have warned that the frequent commemoration ceremonies for Jan Palach contributed to this phenomenon.":

  • One of the suiciders (I think the first one in the wave) set himself on fire on the same place as Palach, leaving farevell notice in similar style.
  • The sentence is from a nightly TV news, from an interview with several of psychologists (at the time it was one of major topics, several such suicides within weeks).
  • The adorations of Palach in early 1990s were really over the top: few streets and squares got named after him, at least one book published, large meetings on the day of his death. I would like to see a psychologist/psychiatrist who would be of different opinion if asked.

Hence I removed the {{Fact|date=January 2008}}. That would need to be reference to a specialised monography. Pavel Vozenilek

What you need is to reference an article by a Czech Psychologist who said that it was the commemoration ceremonies, not, for example, continuing social pressures that lead people to copy something in the public mind? It may be obvious to you, but this article doesn't have enough information. I'm putting the {{Fact|date=January 2008}} back, it doesn't harm anything. You have to admit that this article could be cleaned up. - BalthCat 23:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  • In [2] (copy of an article from MF Dnes, in Czech) says that physicians from a clinic specialised on healing of burns remember that similar wave occured after Palach in 1969 (totally 26 attempts of to burn self from January to the end of April, 7 people died [3]). Jaroslav Šturma, a psychologist (I know know someone who works with him) warns against media attention given to such suicides as it pushed these people into feeling of being in the center of events. Jaroslava Moserová, a physician and politician who personally treated Palach directly compares current (2003) wave to the events in 1969.
  • In article [4] (Czech Radio, in Czech) psychologist Petr Goldman said in an interview: "I think we can compare it [the current suicides] to the Palach's cri de coeur - a way to make sure that one's voice is heard". He also mentions The Sorrows of Young Werther as an historical example of emulating suicidal behaviour.
  • In [5] (a Christian website, in Czech) Jiří Šípek, a psychologist from Charles University in Prague talks about the wave, indirectly comparing it with Palach (he says that this kind of suicide "doesn't work anymore" after Palach, it just turned into a TV show). Slávka Fránková, another psychologist from the university says: "Possibly there's certain influence [of Palach] as it got widely publicised".
  • Pavel Tauterman, a psychiatrist, says "that he would look for the root of the suicide wave in 1968 events, specifically in religious admiration of Palach's suicide, back then on the edge and not suited for current society" - an article from a specialised journal for teachers [6].
  • This guy, Petr Adamec (18) [7], put himself of fire on exactly same place in Prague as Palach. He was the first from the wave. His last letter is modeled after Palach's.
  • This link [8] (newspaper Právo) says that there were totally 10 sucessful suicides by putting oneself on fire in 2003 in the Czech Republic, 6 within month after the first one. This number includes at least three students and one mentally sick. Two people (independently) suicided during a single day.
  • Examples of Palach's worship after 1989 are many. It was one of favourite activities of president Vaclav Havel back in 1990s. Words as "martyr", "sacrifice for the nation", "example for all of us" [sic] ... were freely thrown by the media and politicians. It was also vogue topic among some "intelectuals". There were huge commemorations in 1999 (30 years after) including, for example, a ceremony at the Czech embassy in London with Havel and Roger Scruton [9].
The influence of Palach's glorification on 2003 suicides was very clear whenever a specialist talked about it in media. That they warned against such glorification feels obvious, at least to me.
After 2003 the worshipping quietly died off, partly because of the suicides, partly because Havel left position of president and dissapeared from the media. Pavel Vozenilek 22:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Puppet Regime

The article states:

"A number of Buddhist monks, including Thích Quảng Đức in 1963, self-immolated in protest of the discriminatory treatment endured by Buddhists under the American puppet regime of the Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam".

Although this is probably accurate, the neutrality of the term "American puppet regime" in this context might be a bit debatable. Therefore I will replace it with the following text:

"A number of Buddhist monks, including Thích Quảng Đức in 1963, self-immolated in protest of the discriminatory treatment endured by Buddhists under the authoritarian administration of President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam".

Is this good?

24.238.170.154 21:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Better chuck out the phrase "discriminatory treatment endured..." because that's POV, too. Perhaps, to be perfectly NPOV, it should be stripped of all words that might be construed as "loaded", causing it to read:

"A number of Buddhist monks, including Thích Quảng Đức in 1963, self-immolated in response to the administration of President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam".

I haven't actually changed the text-- this is only a suggestion, or perhaps a reductio ad absurdum that the phrase "American puppet règime" should be restored.

216.23.105.17 02:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article X Discussion

This talk page seems to be lot more useful than the article itself. I have also tried to edit it, I added some information about self-immolations of Czech students but it has been reverted by Alejrb. How typical. 89.176.252.135 (talk) 00:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)