Watching the MSM journalist self-immolate at the 1-year Gaza rally in Washington

I was around the corner - next to the Hay-Adams five-star hotel, which is right in front of the completely barricaded north end of the White House.

The North Lawn is a far cry from the calm, gated South Lawn, which is the shot you see on the news. The real entrance to the White House has been completely barricaded recently, and not just for the important - but not exceptionally well-attended (1,000 people) - protest on October 5 against Washington’s complicity in one full year of attempted genocide in Gaza. Given the dozens of billions of dollars of weapons sent to Israel, we should be calling this the “Israeli-US Gaza genocide” because the complicity is total and beyond question.

The North Lawn is barricaded because - per the signs - construction for the inauguration is underway. There are construction trailers parked there, but the 2025 inauguration isn’t until January 20. It’s preposterous that they would need this much time to build whatever is necessary. They do it every four years, after all. It’s not like they are constructing the French Revolution’s incredible and overlooked Festival of the Supreme Being of 1794, which marked the beginning of the end of Robespierre.

The South Lawn is, I imagine, more surreptitiously watched and guarded than a Gaza wall prior to October 7th. The North Lawn shows an American executive branch which is bunkered down, fearful of its own people and seems to display a rather guilty conscience.

So, the pro-Gaza march planned to be at the White House was actually rather far from the White House - you can see it in the distance, behind the cops and barricades, in this report I did on the day for PressTV, at the 2:45 mark.

I was around the corner. My work was finished - it was an ok rally.

Washington DC has far less street activism than I expected. There aren’t many protests and they’re sparsely attended, compared to New York City and Chicago. I think it’s a combination of a lot of “controlled opposition” - groups who are too tied to the seat of power to push taking it to the streets -, too many people who foolishly believe in Western Liberal Democracy’s capability to reform away frmo the 1%, and obvious fears of reprisal from the local security forces.

I was talking to a colleague and getting ready to leave. I heard the cry of “medic”, and there was a commotion. As is my job, I rushed to the site of the commotion.

There wasn’t much - I had missed it. Police were forming a line. There was some pushing and insults. A cop kicked a journalist colleague, he said. I assumed some protesters had tried to march out of the protest area and that the cops had prevented them. I didn’t understand the cry for a medic? I left.

When I got home a colleague sent me this video. It’s of a young man named Sam Mena, a photojournalist for a local CBS-affiliated media in Arizona. The commotion was because he had set his left arm on fire in protest. Stunning. Adding to the this was the fact that he was screaming,  “We spread the misinformation.”

This wasn’t just a protest of Washington’s complicity in the Gaza genocide - it was also a protest against the US mainstream media’s coverage of it by a US mainstream media journalist.

It’s a shocking scene, and it’s not easy to watch. This is probably the best video of it out there.

Mena filmed his act, and the person in a suit in handcuffs was reportedly his assistant. In a blog post written before the incident Mena wrote, “To the 10 thousand children in Gaza that have lost a limb in this conflict, I give my left arm to you.”

Of course I included that video in my report. PressTV is not like the Western MSM, whose disturbed war hawks demand war after war after war and then insist that the images of these wars are too disturbing to be published. (A hypocritical practice used by YouTube, for example, to bar materials that expose the Empire's criminality.—Ed)

Of course I included it: this young man made quite a sacrifice, and it would have been rendered pointless if the media didn’t publish it. It had to be published.

The media has mostly already forgotten about the incident, a week later, and after mostly denigration his action.

I have asked Mena for an interview - I hope he gives it to us. It seems pointless of him to set his arm on fire and then refuse to do interviews. For his act to have effect and to have meaning - he has to talk about it, no?

It was considerate of Mena to go about 20 meters from the protest’s center to set his arm on fire, as it would have surely disturbed many people and children.

I know that I didn’t like it.

In putting together the report, which is something of a meticulous process, I had to rewatch this young man screaming in agony over and over. War and suffering is not something totally foreign to me - I don’t like to see or hear people in pain, being of a normal mind and body. But, to get the report right, I had to hear and watch him screaming in horrendous pain over and over and over.

That’s my job, and I did it, because I tried to honor what I thought were Mena’s wishes, and I tried to honor his obvious sacrifice. You can see his arm - grey, like any half-cooked piece of meat.

What I didn’t like - and I’m happy to read your comments and opinions - is setting yourself on fire as a political tactic. I don’t think it’s effective.

But even before thinking of this type of a protest as a political tactic, I started from here: I don’t think one child - one person in Gaza - would have asked Sam Mena to sacrifice his left arm for them. It seems to add pain to an already painful situation, and from a person who is not guilty.

Mena obviously feels guilty, however - how else can we interpret the “we” in his, “We spread the misinformation.” But I doubt very much that this 26-year old was given any voice at all in setting his media’s editorial policy on Palestine. It’s reported that he’s already been fired. Mena’s decision is incredibly profound, and I don’t blame him for being upset how the MSM, CBS and local media have handled the attempted ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but Mena is not guilty.

If Mena doesn’t give as many interviews as possible, then this seems to go from being a political tactic - with a goal for society’s progress - to a personal tactic aimed at… something we can’t possibly know, only guess. The last thing I want is for Mena’s sacrifice to be in vain, so as a journalist I’ve reached out to him to try and help him have the impact he wants. If Mena thinks that him doing interviews cheapens his act and is in some way self-serving - he’s entirely wrong: there cannot be anything self-serving in an act like this.

We’d like to know the “why” behind this act, but what’s far more important is the “what”. What happened on the October 5 pro-Gaza protest in Washington DC was significant, and it should be remembered.

I can report that at pro-Palestine demonstrations halfway around the world - in France - I have regularly seen pictures of Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year old Air Force serviceman who died in February after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. If Bushnell’s goal was to make an impact - he did. He is remembered and honoured. I would prefer that Bushnell was alive, just as I would prefer that Mena’s left arm is healthy, but people make their own decisions.

Mena is now the fourth American to set himself on fire over America’s total complicity in the attempted genocide of Gaza. Like Bushnell, he deserves to be remembered and honoured, thus this article and thus that footage, but Mena can actually be understood… if he makes even more efforts, which are perhaps difficult. He has already done plenty, all would concede.

As a political tactic self-immolation would have to be practiced on a gruesomely large scale to get pro-Zionist Washington to reduce by one iota their always-unconditional support for Tel Aviv. But we are talking about the brave Sam Mena - broad political tactics are quite secondary here.

Mena - the human being and his self-immolation - is more important, and I have nothing but love and well-wishes for the man. I hope he spreads his message, and that he fully heals, and that his act speeds us closer to peace in Palestine.

Blessed are the peacemakers, even when they are in flames - like Sam Mena and the people of Gaza.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, Tunisia and elsewhere. His latest book is France's Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West's Best Values. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese. Any reposting or republication of any of these articles is approved and appreciated. He tweets at @RaminMazaheri2 and writes at substack.com/@raminmazaheri