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Burning for a Cause: Four Factors in Successful Political (and Religious) Self-Immolation Examined in Relation to Alleged Falun Gong “Fanatics” in Tiananmen Square

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2015

Paul Hedges
Paul Hedges*
Affiliation:
RSIS, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Paul Hedges, Studies in Interreligious Relations in Plural Societies Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article theorizes the self-immolation of alleged Falun Gong practitioners in Tiananmen Square in 2001 in relation to literature on martyrdom, self-immolation, and political protest. It explores the cultural context in relation to Buddhist traditions of self-immolation, Chinese political protest, and other uses of self-immolation as political protest. It will seek to expand the analysis of why these self-immolations may be said to have “failed” as a form of protest, and present a set of four key factors. Issues of legitimation and authority in the events and their representation will be raised, especially the contested nature of whether the self-immolations were “religious,” looking at the different meanings of this term in Chinese and Western contexts. It is argued that both secular and religious self-immolation can be seen as legitimate in the public sphere.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 797 - 817
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

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