John Bach’s speech at the Aaron Bushnell memorial service

I am happy to be with you this evening as we gather in solemn tribute to Aaron Bushnell, and remembering the genocide in Gaza and the tragic and gut-wrenching list of victims. Like all of you, I’m sure, I attend many protests and demonstrations in opposition to the Israeli savagery in Gaza. My profound gratitude to the 50 some protesters arrested Thursday at South Station. But this is different. We’re here not just to protest, but to mourn and acknowledge Aaron’s sacrifice and the deaths of over 30,000 Gazans.

Could we therefore, please observe a moment of silence as we gather together as a community that understands the importance of being here this evening?

SILENCE

When I was asked to speak I hesitated knowing I’d have a hard time finding any suitable words for such a troubling action like self-immolation, sympathetic as I am for Aaron’s passion and anguish. Yet, I thought, how hard could it be to fill 3-5 minutes? Very hard, it turned out, to find words big enough.

I keep returning to something Dr. King said. He said that people who have not found something to die for run the risk of never having been fully alive.

I come from a generation that has a head start on dealing with self-immolation, dozens of which were occasioned by the American War in Vietnam. These were seen at the time as suicides and dismissed without much thought or introspection. In the mid 1960’s I was sufficiently “woke” to understand the witness of a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc who immolated himself when not one in fifty Americans could find Vietnam on a map. It was photographed and President Kennedy said “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one.”

I want to mention two others who immolated themselves; to bring them back to life in our memories, the way I hope Aaron’s name will live in ours.

Nhat Chi Mai, a young Buddhist nun who appeared so happy and serene in the month before her immolation her friends though she had become engaged.

And Norman Morrison, an American Quaker, who brought his one-year old daughter to the Pentagon to focus attention on the children of Vietnam, handed her off, and immolated himself.

The Vietnamese who lived in the Land of Burning Children (napalm, white phosphorus, carpet bombing) understood the sacrifices better than most Americans. They didn’t dismiss it as suicide which proceeds from despair and loss of hope. Trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail bringing supplies to the battlefields of South Vietnam carried picture of Norman Morrison on their dashboards.

And I want to add one more name, Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 as she tried to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah.

And now we know the name Aaron Bushnell who said, “I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world, and I will never get the blood off my hands.”

What must have been going through Rachel Corrie’s mind in the split second before it was too late to move? Or in Aaron Bushnell’s mind, in the seconds after dousing himself with gasoline and just before the match was struck?

Maybe something like finding something to die for and being judged to have fully lived in times of pain and horror and freeing themselves from the complicity.

May we ponder the same question and be moved and inspired to respond according to the dictates of our own consciences … and to show up and show up and show up, making certain we do not lose sight of what keeps us truly human and living fully. And may we be nourished by the strength of our community as we continue.

Aaron’s last words were FREE PALESTINE. May we all take up that banner … for Aaron, for the Gazans, for the Israelis, for ourselves.