To Shoot Or Not,
An Ethical Dilemma!
Cold war era
Back in 1963 in Vietnam, where the regime led by "Dinh Diem" First President
of the Republic of Vietnam, who was a Catholic of which he adopted a
harsh discriminatory policies against Buddhist and things were getting worse for
them. Even more, the United States was supporting the government to stop
the communism tide.
In this year there were Buddhist street demonstrations that were going on all that
summer against the aggression of the government and its anti-Buddhist policies.
A tip had been passed to all foreign photojournalists and correspondents that "Thich
Quang Duc" (67 years old), who was a leading and devoted monk would burn
himself alive as a protest against the regime discrimination.
The dilemma
All photojournalists decided not to show up in order to force the monk to change
his mind if he would miss the benefit of the media.
Yet the only photographer who thought otherwise was "Malcolm Browne" of
Associated Press. What if the monk decided to go on with his suicidal plan after all, Malcolm
thought!
He went to interview the spokesman of the protesting Buddhist monk in Saigon, in
June 1963, which Malcolm had a good relations with them all.
"Quang", the monk had prepared himself for his self-immolation
through several weeks of meditation and had explained his motivation in letters to
members of his Buddhist community as well as to the government of South Vietnam in the
weeks prior to his self-immolation. In these letters he described his desire to bring
attention to the repressive policies of the Catholic regime that controlled the South
Vietnamese government at the time. Prior to the self-immolation, the South Vietnamese
Buddhists had made the following requests to the Diem regime, asking it to:
1 Lift its ban on flying the traditional Buddhist flag.
2 Grant Buddhism the same rights as Catholicism.
3 Stop detaining Buddhists.
4 Give Buddhist monks and nuns the right to practice and spread their religion.
5 Pay fair compensations to the victims' families and punish those responsible for
their deaths.
When the government did nothing about the requests, "Quang" carried
out his self-immolation.
"Quang" the monk, scarifying himself without a single movement!
In the morning of June 11th, 1963, "Quang" opened the hood of the car
and withdrew a plastic, five-gallon container of pink gasoline. The others led the
oldest and most venerable monk, "Thich Quang Duc", to the center of the
intersection where he seated himself on a small brown cushion, his hands folded in
prayer, his legs crossed in a lotus. He lit a match and burned himself to death at a
busy intersection in downtown Saigon, Vietnam. He didn't scream or move an inch for whole
5 minutes.
"Malcolm Browne", the photographer of Associated Press, was the only one
on earth to record in photos what happened that day.
The photos swept across the world’s front pages. The photos seemed everywhere, and
everywhere they seemed to symbolize what was wrong with American involvement, if not in
Vietnam, at least with Ngo Dinh Diem. In Europe the photos were hawked on back streets
along with pornographic postcards. American clergyman reprinted them in full-page New
York Times and Washington Post advertisements proclaiming, "We, Too, Protest."
China distributed millions of copies throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of
"U.S. imperialism.
The photo was on President John F. Kennedy’s Oval Office desk the next morning..
The whole world was shocked.
As a result of publishing the photo,
1- It accelerated the spread of engaged Buddhism.
2- Helped in changing the public opinion against USA backing South
Vietnamese government and its war against communism.
3- Led to the overthrow of the Diem regime in South Vietnam in November of 1963 (after
only 4 months the same year).
Nevertheless, the burning monk became a symbol for self scarifying for man's own
beliefs as well as a myth and legend.
The image had transformed to paintings, posters and statues. A temple has been built for
"Quang"
The "Burning Monk" paintings and statue
The temple of "Quang"
However, on the other hand, some had criticized the photographer for shooting the monk
instead of helping him. They even put a blame on him for other self-immolation
attempts.
But would the impact of the monk scarifying himself that way have been that strong all
over the world if the photographer hadn't captured the scene?
Wouldn't the monk's life have gone in vain if the photographer hadn't recorded
what happened?
Few monks and nuns did the same afterwards, but no photographer recorded any of
them no more.
What would you do if you were the photographer?
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