Thích Quảng Đức: Self-Immolation

When I came across the photo of Emmett Till in "Images, Power, and Politics" and the section regarding the power of photography and visual images in making a statement, I immediately thought of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself in the middle of a busy intersection in Saigon in 1963.

Thích Quảng Đức's self-immolation was an act of protest against the Diệm administration's persecution of Buddhists in South Vietnam at the time. Photographers and stories about the self-immolation were printed in newspapers (including the New York Times) and broadcasted on television across the world by the very next day, informing millions of readers worldwide of Thích Quảng Đức's act of protest, bringing international attention to the South Vietnamese government. Photographer Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk. This uproar in the media even moved many nations, including the United States, to intervene with the Diệm, warning the government to change their reforms and essentially stop persecuting the Buddhists (and they eventually complied).

Without the media and photographic documentation of Thích Quảng Đức's selfless act, the Vietnamese government probably could've easily covered it up...which would've sucked. Similar to the example of Emmett Till's brutal killing, the media attention received by Thích Quảng Đức's self-immolation demonstrates "the power of the photograph to provide evidence of violence and injustice is coupled with the photograph's power to shock and horrify" (Sturken & Cartwright 11).

Link to Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize photograph: [[click!]]