On the morning of June 11, 1963, a startling spectacle of protest occurred in downtown Saigon. Buddhist militants blocked off a busy intersection as an elderly monk sat in the middle of the street. Thich Quang Duc did not so much as blink as compatriots drenched him in gasoline. The robed man sat unflinching in a meditative posture even when a supporter set him alight. Quang Duc burned quickly in orange flame and fell over dead before an ambulance or fire-truck could reach him. Only his heart remained, which was recovered and later enshrined. Spectators included pedestrians and foreign correspondents who had been alerted and directed to the scene by organizers. The incident shocked everyone in attendance.

Such was the outcome of a heated religious dispute between Buddhists and Roman Catholics in South Vietnam. Some sort of conflict with Buddhism has always existed in Vietnam, ever since the rule of ancient, Confucian emperors, who considered the religion a threat to their authority. The French would hold similar sentiments during their occupation of Indochina as they introduced Christianity, which gained a number of followers through the efforts of Catholic missionaries. A statute was soon placed on Buddhism that required worshippers to obtain government permission before organizing in public. This law remained through the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, who took over South Vietnam in the 1950s, and who propagated the rampant Catholic favoritism so resented by his detractors. Then Diem appealed to the Vatican in an effort to have his brother appointed as an archbishop. The Buddhists did not like this.

On May 8, 1963, Buddhist worshippers gathered peacefully in the city of Hue to honor the birthday of their Lord Buddha. Violence erupted when the local deputy chief, Major Dang Xi, ordered the crowd of thousands to disperse. Soldiers opened fire, and nine people were trampled or shot to death in the resulting chaos. Diem proclaimed that the Viet Cong had caused the carnage, and he stifled a report that indicated otherwise. The Buddhist outcry was deafening, and demonstrators instantly mobilized, as America grew more and more reluctant to endorse the Diem regime. The crisis would escalate until the self-sacrifice of June 11. Other monks followed the example set by Thich Quang Duc when attempts to resolve the issue failed.

The infamous photograph snapped by Associated Press correspondent Malcolm Browne drew astonished glances when it first was published. Thirty years later, the picture has been sadly trivialized by popular culture, its significance mostly lost. It often appears these days shamefully out of context. But to those who know the story behind it, the photograph symbolizes the ultimate sacrifice for a desperate cause.

Dunnigan, James F. and Albert A. Nofi.  Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War.  New York: 

               St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Karnow, Stanley.  Vietnam: A History.  New York: The Viking Press, 1983.

McCutcheon, Russell T.  Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and 

               the Politics of Nostalgia.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.