Tuesday Obituary: Aaron Bushnell

by Sahar Tavakoli

Aaron Bushnell has died, aged 25. Born on the last day of June in 1998, he exchanged his life in protest one year ago today, on February 25, 2024.

Fire signifies many things. In Christian imagery, fire indicates the presence of God Himself: a flame over one’s head or an engulfed heart implies righteousness, enlightenment, and Grace. 

The Persian poet Ferdowsi wrote his epic poem Shahnameh in the 11th century. Drawing on pre-Islamic traditions, he described a prince who, shielded by Truth, rode horseback through fire without coming to harm. 

In the 7th century BCE Ramayana, Sita stepped willingly on to her own burning pyre, and the flames around her divine form dissolved to ash.

Aaron Bushnell, engulfed in flames while ordered at gunpoint to drop to the ground, was not theophany or prince or a revelation of the heart of Ram. He was not a metaphor or symbol. He was someone: a person. Like 47,000 other such people and counting, a genocidal machine brought his life to an end.

His words:

“My name is Aaron Bushnell. I’m an active-duty member of the United States 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. Free Palestine.”