Wadi Gaza is Arabic for Babi Yar and Aaron Bushnell is American for Szmuel Zygelboym
The holocaust that is underway in Gaza is being enabled by the US government and denied by the mainstream US press.
When the German Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators massacred their Jewish, Roma, and other victims, they often coaxed them to the site of the massacre by offering them food. For media consumption, they had nicer stories about what they were up to.
81 years ago now, the Nazis’ industrial death machine was already in full motion. So many of those killed died of famine and disease long before ever reaching a gas chamber. One member of the Polish Underground made it into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto during its last weeks of existence, and also made it into and out of a transit camp en route to Auschwitz.
He saw the naked, starved bodies of the dead all over the Warsaw Ghetto, and the naked, starved bodies of the dying being stuffed into cattle cars, often just left in them until they finished dying. He got to London, where he made sure the leaders of the Polish government in exile fully understood what was happening there.
When the operative from the Polish Underground got into the ghetto and saw what was going on, he asked his guides from the Jewish Combat Organization what they thought people on the outside should do to raise attention to what was happening. They responded that they thought people should do extreme things that communicate the extreme nature of what was happening, such as publicly starving themselves to death.
Szmuel Zygelboym was a leader of the Polish Socialist Bund in exile in London. Upon getting news of the scale and horrors of the industrial slaughter of his fellow Polish Jews from this emissary, by the time the last of the Jews of Warsaw had been killed, including much of his own family, Zygelboym left a long communique explaining that he was killing himself in order to call attention to the systematic extermination of the Jews of Poland by the Nazis that was then taking place.
He would have publicly starved himself to death, but he was afraid the British authorities would just have him locked up in a mental institution, so he opted for poison instead.
There are things happening today that it’s really important we all be clear on. I’d break them down into four basic points of understanding.
1) A holocaust is underway.
A holocaust happens when an entire population is targeted for elimination, by means such as famine, disease, and/or various other forms of mass killing, such as carpet-bombing cities, firing machine guns into helpless crowds of people, using various forms of chemical weapons such as poison gas, napalm, white phosphorous, and cluster munitions in order to indiscriminately kill large numbers of people, and doing all these things day in and day out.
Examples of other holocausts include the centuries of persecution of Native Americans — which are perhaps best understood as a whole series of smaller genocides, each bearing a remarkable resemblance to what’s happening right now in Gaza, minus the Air Force element. One of the many examples I’d use to illustrate this series of holocausts with would be the exile and intentional death by famine and disease of most of the Indians of Minnesota in the wake of Little Crow’s uprising of 1862.
Examples of other holocausts would include Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the industrial carnage wrought on the entire populations of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia by the US Air Force in the 1960’s and 1970’s, which was fundamentally genocidal, as it was about targeting the people — with the recognition that when facing a People’s War, your enemy is, in fact, the People.
Committing genocide is nothing new for the US. It doesn’t belittle one holocaust to highlight another — unless you’re one of these people who has managed to convince themselves that some people matter (such as certain Europeans), and others don’t (such as American Indians, Vietnamese, or Palestinians).
2) The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other major countries are directly enabling the Gaza Holocaust.
Unlike the Nazi holocaust, where photographs and video were tightly controlled and operations were kept secret, the holocaust underway in Gaza being perpetrated by Israeli occupation forces is literally being livestreamed by its victims in real time. Millions of people in Gaza are being deprived of food or clean water, and we’re watching them die of dehydration and starvation in real time. Their home is a landscape of rubble, with unknown numbers of people buried underneath it, and we can see them digging with their bare hands through the cement to try to find the bodies of their neighbors.
When thousands of starving Palestinians attempt to get food from supposed aid convoys, they are systematically mowed down with automatic weapons, and this is happening every day. The main reason Israeli leaders have pursued such militaristic solutions to every problem they’ve ever faced, and the main reason Israel is able to continue its military campaign now is because the US, the UK, and Germany supply them with everything they need and more — and the US vetoes the rest of the United Nations calling for an immediate ceasefire, just as the US has been protecting this rogue regime with its veto for decades.
3) The US media and most of the western media is actively denying this holocaust.
What does it mean to be a holocaust denier? The term is usually used to describe people who don’t believe the Nazis systematically exterminated millions of people during the latter years of the Third Reich — using killing fields, forced starvation, forced extended nudity in winter, gas chambers, and other such means.
Many years into Hitler’s reign, the western media treated the German press as a legitimate source of information, despite the increasing censorship there. When the German press ran a story about a nice, tidy detention camp where all the prisoners played classical music, for years the tendency of the western press was to cover these stories like they’d cover other international stories coming from a legitimate source.
When the Israeli press tells us their soldiers fired on starving Palestinians because they were “looting” food from trucks, and that most of them died from trampling each other anyway, this nonsense is treated as legitimate information by most of the western press — if they’re covering Gaza anymore at all. What is actually happening, clearly, verifiably, is every time Palestinians gather in a public place where they think there might be the prospect of food, they are gunned down by Israeli forces, who are waiting for them to come out of the buildings they’ve already destroyed. The food is there to draw them out, it’s a trap.
This is obviously what’s going on, daily, and reports to the contrary are nothing more than a matter of western press and politicians believing a completely unbelievable, verifiably repeatedly dishonest source of information — the Israeli military — and acting on their lies as if they were true. They’re obviously lying, it’s a pattern that’s been going on for months, years, decades. Believing lies when you know they’re lies is known as denial. Holocaust denial, in this horrific nightmare of an instance.
4) The appropriate responses to a holocaust are whatever measures might have an impact on stopping it or raising the alarm about it, regardless of how extreme they might be.
WILL AARON BUSHNELL’S DEATH TRIGGER ANARCHISM WITCH HUNT?
From The Intercept By Ken Klippenstein
Sen. Tom Cotton demands the Pentagon root out leftist extremism.
Aaron Bushnell’s death by self-immolation in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington last month has provoked nationwide soul-searching about the war in Gaza. For the U.S. government though, the airman’s death excites a different kind of search: for so-called extremists, particularly left-wing ones.
Last Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., former Army officer and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking why and how the Pentagon could tolerate an airman like Bushnell in its ranks. Calling his death “an act of horrific violence” that was “in support of a terrorist group [Hamas],” Cotton goes on to ask about the Defense Department’s internal efforts to address extremism and whether Bushnell was ever identified as exhibiting extremist views or behaviors.
Cotton’s agitation to find Hamas supporters in uniform twists Bushnell’s political act, which Bushnell said was in support of the Palestinian people. But it also follows a longstanding urging by other members of Congress like Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa — ranking Republican of the Judiciary Committee and former president pro tempore of the Senate — for the military to pursue some kind of similar treatment for leftists.
While studies show that support for extremism is similar or even lower among veterans than the general population, extremism in the active-duty military has become an obsession of the Washington brass since January 6. Soon after taking office, new secretary of defense Austin, a retired Army general, directed the military to conduct an all-hands “stand down” to address extremism in the ranks, commissioning a number of panels and studies to evaluate white nationalism and neo-Nazi support among service members.
Outside of the Defense Department, the FBI is responsible for domestic counterterrorism. Since Israel’s war on Gaza began last October, it has been focused on any foreign blowback on the United States.
“In a year when the [foreign] terrorism threat was already elevated, the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans inside the United States to a whole ‘nother level,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told cadets at West Point on Monday. “We cannot — and do not — discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit the current conflict to conduct attacks here, on our own soil,” Wray told Congress right after the Gaza war began.
Will Bushnell’s death, and congressional pressure, open the door to build some speculative link between domestic supporters of Palestine and the bureau’s foreign-oriented anti-Hamas work?
Though Bushnell’s suicide was intended to demonstrate his anguish over the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, he also embraced anarchism, or at least a present-day articulation of anarchism that is a general rejection of established authority. Bushnell’s posts on Reddit and other social media platforms before his death reflected this embrace of anarchism, and he chose the anarchist symbol as his profile picture for the Twitch account he used to livestream his self-immolation. His Facebook page also followed and liked pages for several anarchist groups. The anarchist collective CrimethInc. also said in a blog post that Bushnell had emailed the group shortly before his death.
Bushnell was also a community activist in San Antonio, Texas, where he was stationed. The Democratic Socialists of America San Antonio chapter issued a statement expressing solidarity with Bushnell and mentioning his work with them on homelessness. “He was an anarchist,” a San Antonio DSA member who interacted with Bushnell told The Intercept, asking that their name not be used. “He had a good nose for recognizing coercive / unhealthy organizing structures and practices; and was very intentional about his relationships with other people.”
Anarchism and the FBI
Since 2019, the FBI has used five “threat categories” to describe domestic terrorism: Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism, Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremism (AGAAVE), Animal Rights or Environmental Violent Extremism, Abortion-Related Violent Extremism, and “All Other Domestic Terrorism Threats,” which is defined as “furtherance of political and/or social agendas which are not otherwise exclusively defined under one of the other threat categories.”
The AGAAVE threat, the FBI says, “includes anarchist violent extremists, militia violent extremists, sovereign citizen violent extremists, and other violent extremists.” FBI data reveals that 31 percent of its investigations relate to AGAAVEs and 60 percent of all investigations include cases categorized as AGAAVE and “civil unrest.” Most of that focus since January 6 has been on groups that participated in the protests at the Capitol and supporters of Donald Trump.
Behind the scenes though, according to congressional testimony reported here for the first time, the FBI maintains a program specifically for combatting anarchists, called the Anarchist Extremism Program. In Senate testimony, the FBI says that it had increased its targeting of anarchist “violent extremists” across the country by using both human and technical sources to spy on them. Since the nationwide protests after the death of George Floyd in 2020, the bureau has tasked field offices to tap confidential informants to develop better intelligence about anarchists. In 2021, the FBI more than doubled its domestic terrorism caseload; and Wray told Congress that arrests of what the bureau calls “anarchist violent extremists” were more numerous in 2020-2021 (the months around January 6) than in the three previous years combined.
An internal FBI threat advisory obtained by The Intercept defines Anarchist Violent Extremists as individuals “who consider capitalism and centralized government to be unnecessary and oppressive,” and “oppose economic globalization; political, economic, and social hierarchies based on class, religion, race, gender, or private ownership of capital; and external forms of authority represented by centralized government, the military, and law enforcement.”
By the FBI’s definition, little of this applies to Bushnell’s own articulation of his political views, despite the anarchist label. But the airman’s protest fulfills the push by many Republicans and conservatives to get the FBI to equally focus on leftists. In a 2021 hearing, Grassley pushed for more investigations of those on the left, alluding to the bureau’s anarchist extremism program.
“Former Attorney General Barr stated that the FBI has robust programs for white supremacy and militia extremism, but a significantly weaker anarchist extremism program,” Grassley said to Wray. “How do you plan to make your left-wing anarchist extremism program as robust as your white supremacy and malicious extremism program?”
At a press briefing last Thursday that discussed Bushnell’s ties to anarchism, the Pentagon appeared to hint that his death might be considered an act of extremism.
“A review of Aaron Bushnell’s social media account indicates that he has some pretty strong anarchist views,” a reporter asked. “Under the Pentagon’s definition of extremists, would he fall under that?”
“I do think it’s fair to say that suicide by self immolation is an extreme act,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder replied, promising a “full investigation.”
On Sunday, February 25, we received an email from a person who signed himself1 Aaron Bushnell.
It read,
Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people. The below links should take you to a livestream and recorded footage of the event, which will be highly disturbing. I ask that you make sure that the footage is preserved and reported on.
We consulted the Twitch account. The username displayed was “LillyAnarKitty,” and the user icon was a circle A, the universal signifier for anarchism—the movement against all forms of domination and oppression.
In the video, Aaron begins by introducing himself. “My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active-duty member of the US Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest—but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
The video shows Aaron continuing to film as he walks to the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, puts down the phone, douses himself in a flammable liquid, and sets himself alight, shouting “Free Palestine” several times. After he collapses, police officers who had been watching the situation unfold run into the frame—one with a fire extinguisher, another2 with a gun. The officer continues pointing the gun at Aaron for over thirty seconds as Aaron lies on the ground, burning.
Afterwards, police announced that they had called in their Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit, though there were no explosives on site.
We have since confirmed the identity of Aaron Bushnell. He served in the United States Air Force for almost four years. One of his loved ones described Aaron to us as “a force of joy in our community.” An online post described him as “an amazingly gentle, kind, compassionate person who spends every minute and penny he has helping others. He is silly, makes anyone laugh, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. He is a principled anarchist who lives out his values in everything he does.”
Aaron’s friends tell us that he has passed away as a consequence of his injuries.
All afternoon, while other journalists were breaking the news, we discussed how we should speak about this. Some subjects are too complex to address in a hasty social media post.
The scale of the tragedy that is taking place in Gaza is heartrending. It exceeds anything we can understand from the vantage point of the United States. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 12,000 children. More than half of all inhabitable buildings in all of Gaza have been destroyed, along with the majority of hospitals. The vast majority of the population are living as refugees with little access to water, food, or shelter.
The Israeli military is now planning a ground invasion of Rafah that will add untold numbers of casualties to this toll. It is not hyperbole to say that we are witnessing the deliberate commission of genocide. All available evidence indicates that the Israeli military will continue killing Palestinians by the thousand until they are forced to stop. And the longer this bloodshed goes on, the more people will die in the future, as other governments and groups imitate the precedent set by the Israeli government.
The United States government bears equal responsibility in this tragedy, having armed and financed Israel and provided it with impunity in the sphere of international relations. Within Israel, the authorities have effectively suppressed protest movements in solidarity with Gaza. If protests are going to exert leverage towards stopping the genocide, it is up to people in the United States to figure out how to accomplish that.
But what will it take? Thousands across the country have engaged in brave acts of protest without yet succeeding in putting a halt to Israel’s assault.
Aaron Bushnell was one of those who empathized with the Palestinians suffering and dying in Gaza, one of those haunted by the question of what our responsibilities are when we are confronted with such a tragedy. In this regard, he was exemplary. We honor his desire not to stand by passively in the face of atrocity.
The death of a person in the United States should not be considered any more tragic—or more newsworthy—than the death of a single Palestinian. Still, there is more to say about his decision.
Aaron was the second person to self-immolate at an Israeli diplomatic institution in the United States. Another demonstrator did the same thing at the Israeli consulate in Atlanta on December 1, 2023. It is not easy for us to know how to speak about their deaths.
Some journalists see themselves as engaged in the neutral activity of spreading information as an end in itself—as if the process of selecting what to spread and how to frame it could ever be neutral. For our part, when we speak, we presume that we are speaking to people of action, people like ourselves who are aware of their agency and are in the process of deciding what to do, people who may be wrestling with heartache and despair.
Human beings influence each other both through rational argument and through the infectiousness of action. As Peter Kropotkin put it, “Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic.”
Just as we have a responsibility not to show cowardice, we also have a responsibility not to promote sacrifice casually. We must not speak carelessly about taking risks, even risks that we have taken ourselves. It is one thing to expose oneself to risk; it is another thing to invite others to run risks, not knowing what the consequences might be for them.
And here, we are not speaking about a risk, but about the worst of all certainties.
Let’s not glamorize the decision to end one’s life, nor celebrate anything with such permanent repercussions. Rather than exalting Aaron as a martyr and encouraging others to emulate him, we honor his memory, but we exhort you to take a different path.
“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
These words of Aaron’s haunt us.
He is right. We are rapidly entering an era in which human life is treated as worthless. This is obvious in Gaza, but we can see it elsewhere around the world, as well. With wars proliferating around the Mideast and North Africa, we are poised on the threshold of a new age of genocides. Even inside the United States, mass casualty incidents have become routine, while an entire segment of the underclass is consigned to addiction, homelessness, and death.
As a tactic, self-immolation expresses a logic similar to the premise of the hunger strike. The protester treats himself or herself as a hostage, attempting to use his or her willingness to die to pressure the authorities. This strategy presumes that the authorities are concerned with the protester’s well-being in the first place. Today, however, as we wrote in regards to the hunger strike of Alfredo Cospito,
No one should have any illusions about how governments view the sanctity of life in the age of COVID-19, when the United States government can countenance the deaths of a million people without blushing while the Russian government explicitly employs convicts as cannon fodder. The newly-elected fascist politicians who govern Italy have no scruples about consigning whole populations to death, let alone permitting a single anarchist to die.
In this case, Aaron was not an imprisoned anarchist, but an active-duty member of the US military. His linkedin profile specifies that he graduated from basic training “top of flight and top of class.” Will this make any difference to the US government?
If nothing else, Aaron’s action shows that genocide cannot take place overseas without collateral damage on this side of the ocean. Unfortunately, the authorities have never been especially moved by the deaths of US military personnel. Countless US veterans have struggled with addiction and homelessness since returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans commit suicide at a much higher rate than all other adults. The US military continues to use weapons that expose US troops to permanent brain injuries.
Members of the military are taught to understand their willingness to die as the chief resource they have to put at the service of the things they believe in. In many cases, this way of thinking is passed down intergenerationally. At the same time, the ruling class takes the deaths of soldiers in stride. This is what they have decided will be normal.
It is not willingness to die that will sway our rulers. They really fear our lives, not our deaths—they fear our willingness to act collectively according to a different logic, actively interrupting their order.
Many things that are worth doing entail risks, but choosing to intentionally end your life means foreclosing years or decades of possibility, denying the rest of us a future with you. If such a decision is ever appropriate, it is only when every other possible course of action has been exhausted.
Uncertainty is one of the most difficult things for human beings to bear. There is a tendency to seek to resolve it as quickly as possible, even by imposing the worst-case scenario in advance—even if that means choosing death. There is a sort of relief in knowing how things will turn out. Too often, despair and self-sacrifice mingle and blur together, offering an all-too-simple escape from tragedies that appear unsolvable.
If your heart is broken by the horrors in Gaza and you are prepared to bear significant consequences to try to stop them, we urge you to do everything in your power to find comrades and make plans collectively. Lay the foundations for a full life of resistance to colonialism and all forms of oppression. Prepare to take risks as your conscience demands, but don’t hurry towards self-destruction. We desperately need you alive, at our side, for all that is to come.
As we wrote in 2011 in reference to the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi,
Nothing is more terrifying than departing from what we know. It may take more courage to do this without killing oneself than it does to light oneself on fire. Such courage is easier to find in company; there is so much we can do together that we cannot do as individuals. If he had been able to participate in a powerful social movement, perhaps Bouazizi would never have committed suicide; but paradoxically, for such a thing to be possible, each of us has to take a step analogous to the one he took into the void.
Let’s admit that the kind of protest activity that has taken place thus far in the United States has not served to compel the US government to compel a halt to the genocide in Gaza. It is an open question what could accomplish that. Aaron’s action challenges us to answer this question—and to answer it differently than he did.
We mourn his passing.
On February 25, Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC as an act of protest against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Hostile critics have attempted to shrug off Aaron’s action as the consequence of mental illness. On the contrary, Aaron’s choice was a political action arising from his deeply held anarchist convictions. In the following collection, we share Aaron’s own summary of his politics, followed by testimony from three of Aaron’s close friends.
An altar honoring Aaron’s life, at a vigil his friends held in remembrance of him on February 27.
As Aaron recounted to his comrades in a mutual aid group in San Antonio, he grew up in a very Christian conservative white enclave in Cape Cod. He was 18 years old when Donald Trump was elected; he joined the Air Force in 2019. While in the Air Force, he arrived at anarchist politics through a process of self-education.
In February 2023, Aaron prepared a document aimed at helping this group to become more cohesive. As another participant in the group told us, “Aaron sought to formalize and mature some of our organizing methods, and he felt that having deep and open discussion was a crucial first step for building long-term trust. He created a list of questions as a way for our ragtag group of lefties doing mutual aid to start a conversation with each other.”
In his own answers to these questions, Aaron states:
I am an anarchist, which means I believe in the abolition of all hierarchical power structures, especially capitalism and the state… I view the work we do as fighting back in the class war which the capitalist class wages on the rest of humanity. This also informs the way in which I want to organize, as I believe that any hierarchical power structure is bound to reproduce class dynamics and oppression. Thus, I want to engage in egalitarian forms of organizing that produce horizontal power structures based on mutual aid and solidarity, which are capable of liberating humans…
I favor consensus-based decision-making over “democratic” or voting-based governance.
In the same document, Aaron explained why he was committed to doing mutual aid work in solidarity with the unhoused:
I’ve always been bothered by the reality of homelessness, even back when I was growing up in a conservative community. I have come to believe in the importance of solidarity politics and I view the enforcement of homelessness as a major front in the class war which must be challenged for all our sakes. I view helping my houseless neighbors as a moral obligation, a matter of social justice, and a matter of good politics. If I don’t stand with those more marginalized than me today then who will be left to stand with me tomorrow.
I view enforced homelessness as a societal failing and a crime against humanity. I believe that no one deserves to be deprived of basic human necessities. I believe that homelessness as an involuntary condition must be abolished.
In the following three accounts, Aaron’s friends share their memories of who he was and how his life touched their lives.
If you wish to do something in Aaron’s memory, one option is to donate to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which he mentioned in his will.
Aaron and friends watching a solar eclipse.
“Aaron Will Live Forever”
Lupe
Aaron will live forever. I know this, because everyone who was loved by Aaron will carry a bit of him in their soul, and everyone who witnessed his sacrifice will carry him in their minds. Aaron cherished life. He knew that in giving up his own, he could give the people of Palestine a chance to keep theirs. Aaron has permanently changed the fabric of your being. You know this because for the rest of your life, you will wrestle with the thought of what you will sacrifice for the liberation of others.
My friend said that everywhere Aaron went, he planted trees. I imagine these seeds planted in our hearts and minds. They will sprout, and they will grow into giant strong trees with deep roots built to weather the many battles that lie ahead on this burning planet. They will remain upright, like Aaron did, until they no longer can, but by then their own seeds will have been planted in the hearts of our loved ones, and they will grow into trees as well. They will continue this struggle until the beautiful world that Aaron knew we deserved is born.
Aaron Bushnell.
“He Was Someone We Really Needed”
T Bear
It seems a lot of people just saw Aaron as someone in the military. Online lefties and liberal media alike were quick to dispose of his words and actions, and choose instead to judge him based on puritanical ideals just as bad as the ones he’s been trying to escape his entire adult life.
I write this knowing it will be read by comrades. I want to say something profound that can make us reflect on why we have such a tendency to be so quick to treat others as disposable, but I don’t think I can. I hope that instead, you will carry the burden of finding an answer to that with me.
After a lifetime of engaging with anarchists, it was this recently radicalized, 25-year-old active-duty airman I spent two years with who showed me my chains—long before his decision to leave this earth. Aaron had this effect on every single person he met. He was incredibly committed to developing relationships based on deep trust and understanding—and would be the first to give you the raised brows for a snarky answer to an important question. He never let a potential harm go unaddressed. He embodied more than anyone I know the anarchist spirit, “that deeply human sentiment, which aims at the good of all, freedom and justice for all, solidarity and love among the people.”1
He was someone we really needed here. I encourage you remember Aaron’s words and actions the next time you’re about to flatten someone’s lived experiences. I encourage you to reflect on your relationships, and how you can reduce control and coercive power dynamics. I encourage you to build deeper, and ever deeper, bonds with your comrades. Honor them now. It’s not worth losing them.
An altar honoring Aaron’s life, at a vigil his friends held in remembrance of him on February 27.
“Do Not Forget His Message”
Moon
I am speaking to you as a friend and comrade of Aaron‘s, but I want to first acknowledge his last message to the world about the genocide in Gaza of Palestinians by Israel. The daily horror inflicted by the Israeli occupation forces on Palestinians is unconscionable and morally reprehensible, but it is normalized in our society by our government and all the other imperialist nations. We must acknowledge that this occupation in Israel must end, and everyone in Palestine must be free to live on their land and prosper without the threat of colonization.
Aaron himself was a principled, strong-willed man. He was keenly aware of hierarchical relationships due to his experiences growing up, and consistently pushed back on any potential hierarchies in our day-to-day organizing. He was steadfast, and I respected that greatly. He taught me so much about how to build my position, and the importance of building your own positions—because it does inform the work that you do and the organizing that you do.
From Aaron’s sacrifice, I would like to bring attention to the risk that many of us face in the imperial core: complacency. We organize in the streets, get ignored, and then become complacent and further complicit. Let us not forget that we live in a settler-colonial society here as well—many of us are settlers—and we are also complicit in the genocide of our colonized neighbors, native Indigenous and Black people. We need to organize for long-term community building, long-term action, and sustainable radical action. The purpose of building social institutions is to keep momentum going so that no one ever feels the need to make a sacrifice like this again.
I love Aaron. He was my friend and comrade and I miss him a lot. Do not forget his message.
“My Friend Aaron”
E
My friend Aaron was kind, compassionate, and principled, sometimes to the point of being annoying, and he was incredibly reflective and willing to change to meet my needs in our relationship. He was one of my quickest and best friends.
I loved Aaron deeply. I have few regrets from my relationship with him. I was consistently vulnerable and open, which he returned in kind. I told him all the things I felt for him and often. I spent as much time with him as I possibly could and I am very grateful that I did. What I am most afraid of in this moment is that our relationship, our friendship, the deep, deep love I had for him, all of the little intimate moments, the bits, the laughs, the facts about his takes, all of it—I am afraid to be the only person holding that knowledge. I don’t want it to disappear, I don’t want it to be held only by me and my fallible memory. I just want people to know that I loved him.
An altar honoring Aaron’s life at the vigil at which Aaron’s friend read this text aloud.
Cult
I want to provide some background context on Aaron’s life. He shared this with me in confidence, but I feel OK sharing it with you all now because he is gone and I want to help contextualize him for you all. The press has also reached out to people from his past so it will be coming out regardless and I think it’s better y’all learn from a comrade.
Aaron was raised in a cult. A Christian sect and self-styled monastery called the Community of Jesus. In this cult, as is a quality of many cults, Aaron was kept busy constantly from a very young age. Through working as unpaid labor, engaging in intensive training for performance arts programs organized by the community, or engaging in worship. This traumatized him deeply, partially because he had to maintain that while grappling with his neurodivergence that interfered with his ability to perform tasks well. He had to learn to mask very young and felt that his childhood was stolen from him. As a teenager, he had to work every day at multiple jobs one summer in order to make enough money to pay superfluous fees for a performance arts program he was required to be in. Everything at the Community of Jesus was motivated by shame and guilt and the threat of ostracization. This affected him deeply and fundamentally shaped how he could and could not engage in building relationships with people. It is the reason he left SACC [San Antonio Collective Care], for his own protection. I was incredibly lucky to have been able to forge the relationship I did with him.
Being raised in a cult, essentially a small society with different cultural norms than ours, gave Aaron the ability to see and better identify the norms and qualities of our society that are harder for us to see because we have been conditioned within it. He could see the latent fascist logic and cult-like tendencies that we swim through every day. He could see and feel them in ways that I struggle to feel and understand beyond an intellectual level. He was always very cagey about his past and did his best not to lie. You may recall him saying things like “sort of” or “something like that” whenever he was asked questions about being in theatre or band.
When Aaron lived there, he was a full believer, engaging in all of the shaming rituals and cycles of harm. He was completely invested in that reality. The fact that he was able to escape that ideology and the visceral experience of the shattering of that worldview was one of the things that made him so incredibly principled and dedicated to the abolition of hierarchy.
Times He Changed and Reflected
We would text and I would accuse him of texting like a straight man (which he was). He would never use reaction emojis or punctuation or expressions of laughter like lol. It was incredibly annoying. And he made such an active effort to do those things after I asked him to, very quickly and consistently.
Once, Aaron and I were having a discussion, a political one about the ethics of eating and producing meat. As a former vegan, I had many takes, as did he. At one point, the conversation got to plants and Aaron expressed that he thought of plants as nothing more than biological machines completely devoid of life or at least the essence that makes something morally valuable and worth protecting, like sentient animals. I was honestly very shocked. I told him he was wrong, in more words than that, and told him to read Braiding Sweetgrass, kind of in the way you tell people to read books but never actually expect them to. Our conversation seemed to weigh heavy on him, it came up a few more times over the following weeks. On his drive up to Ohio, he listened to Braiding Sweetgrass and he was texting me about it. He really, really liked it. I think it reshaped some of his worldview.
Aaron with his beloved cat, Sugar.
Principled
Aaron saw hierarchy and injustice and his role in those systems and hated it. He felt a lot of guilt because of the situation he was raised in; guilt was the primary emotion through which he engaged with most things. I feel very sad that he was not able to heal from that fully before this.
He had so much love for his cats. The contradictions of owning someone you love weighed on him heavily. He was constantly thinking of how to best accommodate them and navigate this relationship of domination, complete control of their agency. I saw how it genuinely distressed him.
Aaron refused to say words like crazy, insane, or lame due to their roots in ableism and he got on me for my use of the word lame constantly. He wouldn’t say the word fuck because he saw its roots in misogyny and hetero-patriarchy.
Aaron also didn’t like the word democracy for reasons that are too long to explain; we would argue about it a lot, it was kind of a recurring bit.
Aaron deleted Signal before he self-immolated. A last act of security and love for his comrades.
Aaron serving food in Ohio as part of the mutual aid organization Serve the People Akron. “Aaron was a valued member of our organization and the community who immediately jumped in to help the unhoused and any project that came up. He was dependable and persistent with the mutual aid work he did in a city that was still new to him. We will be forever grateful for the effort he put in to make Akron a better place.”
Excerpts
I was very vulnerable and open with Aaron and I am proud of that. Vulnerability builds trust and deepens our bonds with each other; it is something that I actively work to cultivate in myself. To that end, I would like to share excerpts from two things I wrote to Aaron.
All of our relationships change us, shape us. When I look at the people, the friends, who I love the most, the people who I have the most secure loving relationships with, I can mark the ways that they have changed me. The mannerisms, habits, forms of speech, or worldviews that I adopted from them. It makes me feel so proud and thankful. There is no doubt that you have already changed me in ways that I will be proud of and thankful for, but I feel that one of the things that hurts most is mourning the loss of the ways that you could change me…
I wish I could know you more. There are so many other things I want to know about you and so many other things I want you to know about me. I wish I could get to see firsthand your continuing political development and I wish we could have closer impacts on each other’s development. I wish you could see mine, to change it and make me into a better revolutionary. I want to see you in struggle, to learn how to struggle next to you and to struggle with you. I want you to be here.
I keep imagining you here. Upon reflecting I am imagining you here but not as I know you, I am imagining you here and free. Free of your military indenturement. It brings me so much joy to imagine you free and in struggle, to imagine your joy.
Conclusion
I think it will be hard to grieve this loss without being able to be with his body. To not get to experience the physical and psychological effects of being with his body after he is gone.
I am feeling tiny and crushed by the magnitude and inertia of the systems we are fighting against. I feel tiny and helpless in the face of these systems that have existed for hundreds of years and will likely exist for hundreds more. I normally feel quite the opposite but right now I feel so small. How in this world do we find peace that is not complicity? I hope Aaron found his.
But the outpouring of support and parallel grief from you all and my comrades around the country has been immense and I am truly in awe. I used to tell Aaron about how sometimes I would get overcome with awe and love to the point of crying while thinking about my comrades. Y’all’s support has moved me to tears many times in the past few days. I don’t have words to express how much I love you all. I am just in constant and pure awe.
Aaron and his friends.
I want to end with two things, some words from Aaron’s will and a poem that he had been practicing to recite once he was out of the military.
From Aaron’s will:
“I am sorry to my brother and my friends for leaving you like this. Of course, if I was truly sorry, I wouldn’t be doing it. But the machine demands blood. None of this is fair.”
“I wish for my remains to be cremated. I do not wish for my ashes to be scattered or my remains to be buried as my body does not belong anywhere in this world. If a time comes when Palestinians regain control of their land, and if the people native to the land would be open to the possibility, I would love for my ashes to be scattered in a free Palestine.”
The Empire Raised Me
A Poem from Anansi’s Library
I was a soldier for her before I knew her name
Raised to die before I fully knew mine
Crafted by hand for eternal war
Raised for combat as the empire’s ward
I was raised a soldier
I was built for bowing down
To drop to my knees and worship at the sound of
Blood money capital and oil king’s crown
Obey our enforcers, pray to our flag
Our god is the state and war is her ballad
And you were raised a soldier
Stay your tongue child keep silent I beg
Don’t you know that our god can look into your head
See thoughts and images
Fears and dread and shape it all into will
Ask too many questions
Look through the fog
Set truth to deception and raise up the mob
Fight for real justice and soon you will see
The beauty of our weapons pointed straight at you and me
In the end this state knows no loyalty
For we were both raised soldiers
Peer through the windows and watch every street
Heed George Jackson’s words
Watch the pigs and never sleep
A muzzle in tall grass
A flashbang in the dark
Bombs for the masses
Soon the fires will start
A stalker in the nighttime
A predator
A drone
Tear gas and flames
Jack boots in your home
Door-to-door searches
To your knees dropping atone
Fearful and wordless we all look on
Toward the burning of Rome this can only progress
Toward panic in the streets
Police violence and unrest
Desperate riots to escape the cruelty
While the guilt is placed square on the shoulders of those in need
Fighting for justice is the greatest of sins
Punished by death since the empire began
And I was raised a soldier
Now the muzzle is at my back
The boots are at my door
The guns are all racked
And like my ancestors before
A hail of bullets will set me free
Express one day delivery
From your state god to thee
Expect from your lord no loyalty
For I was raised a soldier
“By anarchist spirit I mean that deeply human sentiment, which aims at the good of all, freedom and justice for all, solidarity and love among the people; which is not an exclusive characteristic only of self-declared anarchists, but inspires all people who have a generous heart and an open mind.” Errico Malatesta, Umanita Nova, April 13, 1922 ↩
If you or your family members are currently serving in the US military, please contact the GI Rights Hotline at 1-877-447-4487.
OR JUST SAY NOTHING
A Response to CrimethInc.'s Initial Statement on Aaron Bushnell
"Revolutionary suicide does not mean that I and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. When reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death."
- Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide
"It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them."
- James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
Aaron Bushnell, before self-immolating in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., sent notice to a few radical platforms including CrimethInc. (henceforth: the Outlet) informing them of his decision to commit "an extreme act of protest" against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. He asked simply that they preserve the footage of his action and report on it. Most complied, but in the face of such a humble request, the Outlet was confused: "All afternoon, while other journalists were breaking the news, we discussed how we should speak about this. Some subjects are too complex to address in a hasty social media post." It's telling that they self-identify as journalists.
Still, the white man's burden of "anarchist" journalism demanded that they not ponder too long before releasing a statement , even if half-formed. Within hours, they hastily published their garbage take. Putting Aaron's actions in the context of another self-immolation that occurred on December 1st by a woman in Atlanta, (who, despite the Outlet's misinformation, is still alive) they said: "It is not easy for us to know how to speak about their deaths." Such dis-ease surely disquieted the spin-doctors and self-appointed spokespeople of revolution. For a project which only contributes to struggle by knowing what to say, the imperative to speak is paramount. In light of what they wrote, it would have been better for them to contemplate a little longer, or just say nothing at all.
After grossly overestimating their importance as journalists "speaking to people of action," they ultimately write:
"Just as we have a responsibility not to show cowardice, we also have a responsibility not to promote sacrifice casually. We must not speak carelessly about taking risks, even risks that we have taken ourselves. It is one thing to expose oneself to risk; it is another thing to invite others to run risks, not knowing what the consequences might be for them. And here, we are not speaking about a risk, but about the worst of all certainties. Let’s not glamorize the decision to end one’s life, nor celebrate anything with such permanent repercussions. Rather than exalting Aaron as a martyr and encouraging others to emulate him, we honor his memory, but we exhort you to take a different path."
While it would be easy to dismiss this as the Outlet cautiously mitigating any potential liability if self-immolation generalizes, the rejection of the framework of martyrdom demands attention. The question is not whether Aaron qualifies as a shahid within the Palestinian context, although demonstrators in Yemen have proclaimed Aaron a "martyr of humanity" and an argument can be made for him having become an anarchist martyr in the lineage of Louis Lingg, Avalon, and Mikhail Vasilievich Zhlobitsky. The bigger issue: the Outlet's assertion that an individual's death, particularly in the context of the US, is the "worst of all possible certainties" reveals a deep disconnect with the context of this entire decolonial struggle. In the days following October 7th, anti-colonial anarchist thinkers such as Zoé Samudzi argued that the figure of the martyr marked a fundamental contradiction for the secular left's ability to fully comprehend and act in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. The martyrs constitute a force in the present for all who live and continue to struggle. Aaron framed his self-immolation as "not that extreme" compared to the ascension to martyrdom of tens of thousands in Gaza. By implying that Aaron's choice was too extreme, the Outlet dishonors the reality of the struggle within Palestine and undercuts the potential of Aaron's sacrifice.
In denouncing any action taken with "such permanent repercussions," the Outlet reproduces the anti-death paradigm of capitalism itself. The philosopher Byung Chul-Han, commenting on an exchange between the filmmaker Werner Schroeter and Michel Foucault, says:
"Schroeter describes the freedom unto death as an anarchist feeling: 'I have no fear of death. It's perhaps arrogant to say but it's the truth... To look death in the face is an anarchist feeling dangerous to established society.' Sovereignty, the freedom unto death, is threatening to a society that is organized around work and production, that tries to increase human capital by biopolitical means. That utopia is anarchist insofar as it represents a radical break with a form of life that declares pure life, continued existence, sacred. Suicide is the most radical rejection imaginable of the society of production. It challenges the system of production. It represents the symbolic exchange with death which undoes the separation of death from life brought about by capitalist production."
The fact that an anarchist media syndicate cannot recognize the anarchic nature of a sovereign death, or the symbolic exchange of a uniformed US airman's self-immolation (which cannot be simply reduced to suicide) is in and of itself a disgrace. Even worse, this conforms to a long established pattern where every time a comrade's actions pass a certain threshold of intensity, the Outlet is first in line to call for restraint. While Michael Reinoehl was still on the run after shooting a fascist, they wasted no time issuing a hasty social media post denouncing his action and urging their followers to "reject the logic of the guillotine." The Outlet preferred to remain palatable for liberal eyes, ears, and politicians, rather than express solidarity with a comrade on the run for his life.
In his "Letter to Michael Reinoehl," Idris Robinson exposes the logic at the heart of the contradiction of those who chose to parse Reinoehl's actions as nonstrategic:
"What the double-standard with regards to your situation reveals is how violence in America will always necessarily have a profoundly racial dimension. And it is precisely this—the terrifying core of racialized violence—that they are trying to repress when they lie to both themselves and others that their issue with what you did is a question of strategy or tactics. I mean, give me a break: in a country that is literally saturated in violence, from blind mass shooters to murderous police, no one can honestly claim that the few shots that you let off could in some way be construed as an escalation. There is simply no way to avoid the spiral of violence that began at the very moment when the first wooden ships reached the shores of the Atlantic."
While the Outlet has no problem sanctioning enlistment in the fascist-dominated Armed Forces of Ukraine or calling for the US to keep troops in northern Syria, it seems even a single white death in the United States is a red-line they refuse to cross. For them, the self-sacrifice of a white person in the US military (a fact they fail to ever mention in their response but that was, without question, important to Aaron's action) in solidarity with colonized people might be even worse. Rather than a liberatory or truly life-affirming position, this timidity betrays a fundamental discomfort with anything that challenges the fragile unity of whiteness and the American racial order. Neoconarchists at it again!
The Outlet quotes Kropotkin (who broke with anarchist internationalism by supporting the Allied imperialists in World War I and is therefore a fitting predecessor to their brand of pro-NATO anarcho-liberalism) on the contagious nature of courage, yet their analysis downplays Aaron's courage again and again. They call death "the worst of all certainties," showing that they share Western civilization's pathological fear of death, yet feel confident in making pronouncements about the impact and efficacy of Aaron's offering mere hours after it happened. Those who are truly comfortable with uncertainty know that it remains to be seen what the full repercussions will be. The Outlet assumes the universality of a rationalist teleological perspective in the context of a gesture that is best understood deontologically: its essence, independent of outcome, is of distinct and ineffable value.
It's clear that the Outlet fears any form of struggle that challenges the sanctity of liberal democracy that they feel comfortable operating within. Echoing a line they have often used in the past, they frame themselves as protestors and militant lobbyists, not insurgents or practitioners of direct action (which is not about influencing government policy, but rather creating direct results of destruction and ungovernability.) They say: "The kind of protest activity that has taken place thus far in the United States has not served to compel the US government to halt the genocide in Gaza." While Aaron did call his self-immolation an "extreme act of protest [within U.S solidarity with Palestine]," the resulting question for anarchists should not be what more effective forms of protest might be, but rather how to honor Aaron's act of personal refusal through our own deeds. His action was directed towards the rest of us. He looks us in the eye and asks: "What will you do?"
While the authors of the Outlet have called Aaron’s decision “self destruction” and “sacrifice,” we read little in their text of the long tradition of self-immolation as an ultimate form of self-expression against repression and war. They make only a diminishing reference to Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation to protest police bribery, which lead to the Sidi Bouzid Revolt and impelled the Arab Spring. In 1965, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote to Rev. Martin Luther King:
"The self-burning of Vietnamese Buddhist monks in 1963 is somehow difficult for the Western Christian conscience to understand. The Press spoke then of suicide, but in the essence, it is not. It is not even a protest. What the monks said in the letters they left before burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at moving the hearts of the oppressors and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese. To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with the utmost of courage, frankness, determination and sincerity…
The monk who burns himself has lost neither courage nor hope; nor does he desire non-existence. On the contrary, he is very courageous and hopeful and aspires for something good in the future. He does not think that he is destroying himself; he believes in the good fruition of his act of self-sacrifice for the sake of others…"
The Outlet claims that Bushnell, in the rhetorical tradition of the notion of the selfishness of suicide, was “denying the rest of us a future with [him].” But the monks who self immolated in the sixties teach us that perhaps that is the pain we must bear as witness, just as those who chose fire bore the pain of their death or injury for the expression of their will.
"But why does he have to burn himself to death? The difference between burning oneself and burning oneself to death is only a difference in degree, not in nature. A man who burns himself too much must die. The importance is not to take one’s life, but to burn. What he really aims at is the expression of his will and determination, not death."
Pain can be a motivating factor towards life, just as the witnessing of an autonomous death can inspire us to live deeper into our convictions now.
The question remains: what is the "different path" the Outlet urges readers to take? They admit that no act of solidarity in the US, however massive or targetedly destructive, has been able to slow the war machine. And yet they claim what the ruling class fears most is "collective action." They give no examples of what said action might be. It doesn't take too much creativity to imagine how disenchanted members of the US military could strike against the war machine, especially if they've overcome the fear of death. We could list those actions of desertion, sabotage, and fragging (and their long history in the anti-war movements of generations past) and theorize on their efficacy. However, we have no desire to reduce ourselves to the indignity of the anarcho-commentariat, issuing self-serving hot-takes about the grave actions of someone more courageous. We can only imagine what they will say when (not if) the war is brought home in even more escalated ways. What are they to do when a revolution based on summering in squats in European social democracies and engaging in ritualized playfights with police is no longer intelligible? Their greatest fear is not of state or economy but of an epochal shift that will render them incoherent.
The Outlet's pontification on the inappropriateness of Aaron's action is beyond disrespectful. Faced with such acts of self-sacrifice, the appropriate responses are pause, prayer, contemplation, remembrance, and solidarity. Instead, the Outlet doesn't fail to make the selfless about themselves: "Choosing to intentionally end your life means foreclosing years or decades of possibility, denying the rest of us a future with you." Lacking any real other direction, this future seems to amount to years of patient readership and faithfully following the lead of well-platformed self-declared strategists. Their obnoxious tendency to quote their own past texts illustrates their narcissism and self-importance. This self-reference demonstrates a deepening dogmatism on their part, a commitment to stay the course on a sinking ideological ship.
The ill-timed call for recruitment is made explicit in the closing paragraphs: "Prepare to take risks as your conscience demands, but don’t hurry towards self-destruction. We desperately need you alive, at our side, for all that is to come." Just as in recent weeks they celebrated those who fight side-by-side with the Azov Battalion in the Ukraine, they would prefer active US military personnel alive and well, ready to fight for Western interests at home and abroad.
The time has long passed to dispense with these bloggers who, through their appeals for restraint and moderation, stand in the way of the resistance movements they imagine themselves to lead. The Outlet's inadequacy was already evident in the "both sides" narrative of their initial coverage of Al-Aqsa Flood. Instead, we choose to act out of affinity and solidarity with the resistance axis of the Palestinian struggle itself. Compare the milquetoast equivocations of the Outlet to the statement of unconditional solidarity with Aaron Bushnell and his loved ones issued immediately by the PFLP:
"The act of an American soldier sacrificing himself for Palestine is the highest sacrifice and a medal, and a poignant message to the American administration to stop its involvement in the aggression.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine affirms that the act of the American soldier Aaron Bushnell from the U.S. Air Force by setting himself on fire in front of the zionist embassy in Washington, D.C., in protest against the war on Gaza, which he called for the “liberation of Palestine,” confirms the state of anger among the American people due to the official American involvement in the zionist genocide war being waged on the Gaza Strip. It also indicates that the status of the Palestinian cause, especially in American circles, is becoming more deeply entrenched in the global conscience, and reveals the truth of the zionist entity as a cheap colonial tool in the hands of savage imperialism.
The Front expresses its full solidarity with the soldier’s family and all the American sympathizers who took a honorable stance and whose struggle and pressure to stop the genocide on the Strip have not ceased, confirming that the act of an American soldier sacrificing his life to draw the attention of the American people and the world to the plight of the Palestinian people, despite its tragic nature and the great pain it involves, is considered the highest sacrifice and medal, and the most important poignant message directed to the American administration, that it is involved in the war crime in Gaza and that the American people have awakened and are rejecting this American involvement, calling on the American administration to stop this support and bias for the zionist entity.
The Front sends a message to the Arab soldier to take this American soldier who sacrificed his life for a noble cause like the Palestinian cause as an example and role model, and to leave the trenches of waiting, incapacity, and move to the trench of confrontation in support of Palestine and its people who are being slaughtered, besieged, and starved in full view and hearing of the world and just a few kilometers from Arab lands and meters from the borders.
Palestine will be victorious as long as it has deeply engraved itself in the conscience and consciences of the world, and history will record in golden letters the names of all the sympathizers and free people of the world who stood with it and sacrificed their lives for its sake.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department
26-2-2024"
Those golden letters of history will not record the name CrimethInc., whose version of anarchism cannot hold, comprehend, or move with the young militants taking increasingly bold and dire action. While the pro-Ukraine anarchists continue to stumble again and again over the question of militarism, Aaron's act of self-negation resolved the contradiction. This is not to say his was the only way to resolve the contradiction, but it was a powerful way that threatens the worldview the Outlet desperately clings to: a view inextricably affixed to Western epistemological hegemony. The decline of the neoliberal consensus indicates the inevitable illegibility of their explanation of the world. The coming days and years will surely see a proliferation of increasingly drastic actions, marked by an intensity which surpasses what the Outlet can accept or condone, positioned as it is. For the Outlet, the death of this world conjures the existential anxiety of dissociation. For others, ourselves included, the end of this world is essential for the legibility of our perspective.
Aaron left us a will. That will, in the many senses of that term, is our inheritance. It reads: “I wish for my remains to be cremated. I do not wish for my ashes to be scattered or my remains to be buried as my body does not belong anywhere in this world. If a time comes when Palestinians regain control of their land, and if the people native to the land would be open to the possibility, I would love for my ashes to be scattered in a free Palestine.”
Whatever Aaron was in the preceding years of his life, he died as an anarchist, and will be remembered as one. His action points to a new organic anarchism emerging out of the present moment, one disconnected from the scenes, subcultures, and cults-of-personality that constitute the anarcho-mainstream. This development threatens the hegemony of the anarchist talking heads as much as the rest. His death is already drawing unprecedented attention, at new levels, to the cause of Palestinian liberation, and likely to anarchism as well. Those who cannot adapt to the changing tides will be washed into historic oblivion, toward which they're already careening. The rest of us must act within the unsayable. Deeds must speak where words fail.