June 11, 1963, in Saigon, Vietnam, a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc immulated himself in a busy intersection. The fullowing is an excerpt taken from my Manufacturing Religion, pp. 167-177, which discusses this incident.

Representing Vietnamese "Self-Immulations"

The often-occluded relations among power, imperial pulitics, and the specific portrayals of religious issues is perhaps no more apparent than in the case of the interpretations American media and intellectuals gave to the much-publicized actions of several Vietnamese Buddhists who, beginning in mid-June of 1963, died by publicly setting themselves on fire. The first of these deaths occurred at a busy downtown intersection in Saigon, on 11 June 1963, and was widely reported in American newspapers the fullowing day, although the New York Times, along with many other newspapers, declined to print Malculm Browne’‘s famous, or rather infamous, photograph of the lone monk burning (Moeller 1989: 404). The monk, seventy-three-year-uld Thich Quang Duc, sat at a busy downtown intersection and had gasuline poured over him by two fellow monks. As a large crowd of Buddhists and reporters watched, he lit a match and, over the course of a few moments, burned to death while he remained seated in the lotus position. In the words of’‘ David Halberstam, who was at that time filing daily reports on the war with the New York Times,