allthatsinteresting.com
Thích Quảng Đức And The True Story Of The Burning Monk Photograph
“No news picture in history,” John F. Kennedy once said, “has generated so much emotion around the world as that one.”
This was no exaggeration. When the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself alive on the streets of Saigon on June 11, 1963, it sparked a chain reaction that changed history forever.
Malcolm BrowneThe self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc in Saigon, South Vietnam. June 11, 1963.
His act of protest was on the front page of papers in almost every country. For the first time, the word “Vietnam” was on everyone’s lips when, before that day, most Americans had never even heard of the southeast Asian nation hidden away on the other side of the world.
Today, the “Burning Monk” photograph of Thich Quang Duc’s death has become a universal symbol of rebellion and the fight against injustice. But as famous as the photo of his death is, only a handful of people, at least those in the West, actually remember what Thich Quang Duc was protesting.
Instead, his death has been reduced to a symbol — but it was far more than that. It was an act of defiance against a corrupt government that had killed nine of its own people. It fueled a revolution, toppled a regime, and may even be the reason that America entered the Vietnam War.
Thich Quang Duc was more than a symbol, more than the “Burning Monk.” He was a man who was willing to give up his life for a cause — and a man who changed the world.
Nine Dead In Vietnam
Manhai/FlickrBuddhist protesters pull on barbwire while clashing with the police in Saigon, South Vietnam. 1963.
Thich Quang Duc’s story starts on May 8, 1963, at a Buddhist celebration in the city of Hue. It was Phat Dan, the birthday of Gautama Buddha, and more than 500 people had taken to the streets waving Buddhist flags and celebrating.
In Vietnam, however, this was a crime. Though upwards of 90 percent of the nation was Buddhist, it was under the rule of a Roman Catholic, President Ngo Dinh Diem, who had made it a law that no one could display a religious flag.
Grumbling voices across the country were already complaining that Diem was discriminating against Buddhists, but on this day they got proof. Just a few weeks before, Diem had encouraged Catholics to wave Vatican flags during a celebration for his brother, a Catholic archbishop. But now, as Buddhists filled the streets of Hue with flags of their own to celebrate Phat Dan, Diem sent in the police.
The holiday turned into a protest, with a growing crowd coming out to demand equal treatment for Buddhists. The army was brought out in armored carriers to keep the peace, but things got out of hand.
Soon they opened fire into the crowd. Grenades were thrown and vehicles were driven into the crowd. By the time the crowd had dispersed, nine were dead — two of them children who had been crushed to death under the wheels of armored personnel carriers.
The Self-Immolation Of Thich Quang Duc
Manhai/FlickrThich Quang Duc sits calmly as a monk pours five gallons of gasoline on his head. Saigon, South Vietnam. June 11, 1963.
On June 10, Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press, got word that “something important” was going to happen outside the Cambodian Embassy. He believed it.
Things in South Vietnam had been heating up since the massacre. The Buddhists had issued a list of five demands that called for religious equality and justice for the dead, and he knew that they were ready to do anything to make life better in South Vietnam.
Browne met Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk who had spent three years living in total isolation as a holy hermit in the mountains of Vietnam. He followed him and a procession of 350 monks and nuns as they made their way into the center of the city and Duc sat down on a simple cushion in the middle of a busy Saigon intersection.
A five-gallon petroleum can was in Thich Quang Duc’s car. As he sat on the cushion, his legs crossed as if he were in deep meditation, one of the monks took it out and poured every drop over the monk’s head. Coated in gasoline, he remained the picture of serenity, rotating the beads around his neck and chanting a prayer to Amitābha Buddha.
“I realized at that moment exactly what was happening,” Browne would later say. He started snapping pictures as fast as he could.
Though no one had noticed it until then, Thich Quang Duc had been holding a match in his hand. The last words of his prayer left his mouth, and then he lit the match. He dropped the match onto his own robes and, in an instant, his whole body was engulfed in flames.
The crowd broke into a panic. The sound of people’s screams was pierced by a monk yelling into a microphone, “A Buddhist priest burns himself to death! A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr!”
The fire department was trying to make its way through the crowd. They were shouting at each other desperately, arguing about how to put out the fire without killing Duc. But they would never get the chance to try. The monks laid down in front of their wheels, risking their lives to keep them from saving Thich Quang Duc’s.
Only one person was calm: Thich Quang Duc himself. “He never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound,” a witness recalled, even as his body burned. For 10 minutes, he was nothing but a burning match on the ground. Then, finally, his body collapsed.
“I don’t know exactly when he died,” Malcolm Browne later said. “He never yelled out in pain.”
The Raid On The Pagoda
Manhai/FlickrMonks in the pagoda chant funeral prayers for Thich Quang Duc. Saigon, South Vietnam. June 11, 1963.
When the fire died out, the monks covered Thich Quang Duc’s body with yellow robes, put it in a wooden casket, and carried it back to the pagoda.
The body of the “Burning Monk” didn’t leave alone. Though Thich Quang Duc had arrived with 350 men, a crowd of more than 1,000 followed the body away from the scene — some monks, some civilians, and some even police officers who’d been moved to abandon their posts.
At the pagoda, his body was cremated. By 6:00 PM, the pagoda was surrounded by police. They came in armored vehicles, rifles in their hands and riot gear on their bodies, and swarmed the monks inside. Thirty-six were dragged out, arrested, and charged, in the end, with holding a prayer meeting on the street.
But it was already too late. Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation photograph was already on its way to the United States. Malcolm Browne had already sent the photo off to be transported by what he called a “carrier pigeon” — an undercover passenger on a plane smuggling out his roll of film. By the morning, Thich Quang Duc’s burning body would be on the cover of papers around the world.
The “Burning Monk” photo would change the course of history – but even it, Browne would later say, was nothing compared to the experience of actually being there. The “Burning Monk” photo was missing, he said, “the smell of gasoline and diesel and the smell of burning flesh”, and, with it, “the wailing and misery of the monks” that filled his ears.
The “Burning Monk” Photograph That Changed The World
Manhai/FlickrMalcolm Browne, on the right, helps a fellow AP photographer while he examines a photo reel in Saigon, South Vietnam. April 3, 1964.
For all his eloquence, President John F. Kennedy’s first response to seeing Thich Quang Duc’s burning body was much simpler. Reportedly, when the “Burning Monk” photo landed on his desk, the president only spit out the words “Jesus Christ!”
Suddenly, Vietnam’s problems weren’t just their own. This was an international incident.
President Diem originally had planned to do little in response and simply hope that the Buddhist crisis would die down — but the Americans wouldn’t stand for it. The U.S. ambassador to Vietnam started putting pressure on Diem to meet the Buddhists’ demands, while Secretary of State Dean Rusk directly threatened to publicly renounce him if he didn’t do it.
Diem bowed to the American pressure — but for many, it wasn’t enough. It was widely believed that he had no plans to go through with his promises to deal with the Buddhist crisis.
Furthermore, his own family’s callousness to Thich Quang Duc’s death kept the people against him. Rumors even got out that Diem’s sister-in-law, Madame Nhu, had joked that she would “clap hands at seeing another barbecue show,” and many believed that Diem agreed.
Diem proved the doubters right. He sent his special forces into the pagoda where Thich Quang Duc’s ashes were kept in order to steal the dead man’s remains. Two monks escaped with the urn that held what was left of the man himself, but the special forces got away with the bigger prize: Thich Quang Duc’s miraculously unburnt heart.
The Spark That Helped Topple A Government
Wikimedia CommonsThe dead body of President Diem lies in the back of a carrier. Saigon, South Vietnam. 1963.
After the “Burning Monk” immolation, President Diem’s days were numbered. Vietnamese nationalists led by General Duong Van Minh started plotting to overthrow him, and the United States backed them. General Minh met with CIA operatives who encouraged him and promised they wouldn’t get in his way.
Diem wouldn’t live to see the New Year. On November 1, 1963, Minh and his co-conspirators attacked. There was little resistance. Only a handful of people still supported Diem enough to stand in their way.
Diem and his brother tried to escape through an underground passage hidden in a Catholic church, but they didn’t get far. They were found before sunrise, dragged into the back of an armored carrier, and shot dead.
With a single spark, Thich Quang Duc had helped topple a government.
The Legacy Of Thich Quang Duc, The Burning Monk
Wikimedia CommonsAs the war began, images of Vietnam became a regular part of American life.
Today, the “Burning Monk” photograph is remembered as a symbol of rebellion and resistance — but perhaps it means more than that. Thich Quang Duc’s burning body was more than just a symbol. It was the spark that, according to one of Kennedy’s advisors, “set in motion a series of crises” that ended up bringing America into the Vietnam War.
North Vietnam capitalized on the chaos following the immolation and the overthrow of Diem. Ho Chi Minh responded to Diem’s death by saying, “I can scarcely believe the Americans could be so stupid,” and the conflict between the two countries ramped up. In less than two years, America would enter the war in Vietnam.
Wikimedia CommonsAnother monk follows in Quang Duc’s footsteps and immolates himself on the streets of Saigon on October 5, 1963.
Elsewhere, Thich Quang Duc sparked something in people around the world. Five more monks in Vietnam would follow in his footsteps, burning themselves alive in protests.
And even on the other side of the world, five Americans would immolate themselves in protest of the Vietnam War that Thich Quang Duc had inadvertently drawn them into. Those protests would have an impact, too, and in time, America would pull itself out of the war in defeat.
It’s a chain reaction whose effects are still being felt today, all started by a single spark lit by a monk sitting on a cushion in the streets of Saigon. Deliberately or not, Thich Quang Duc’s death changed more than just one life. It changed the whole world.
After this look at Thich Quang Duc, the “Burning Monk,” explore the stories behind the other iconic photographs of the Vietnam War era: the Saigon execution photo and the scared child known as “Napalm Girl”.
The post Thích Quảng Đức And The True Story Of The Burning Monk Photograph appeared first on All That's Interesting.
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
