(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Earlier this month, the psychiatry department of the University of California Los Angeles Medical School hosted a talk that glorified self-immolation as a form of “revolutionary suicide.”
Two psychiatry residents at UCLA, Drs. Ragda Izar and Afaf Moustafa, delivered the talk, “Depathologizing Resistance,” on Apr. 2, 2024, slides and emails that were obtained by the Washington Free Beacon revealed.
Izar and Moustafa talked about the suicide of Aaron Bushnell, the U.S. serviceman who set himself on fire in February 2024 to protest U.S. support for Israel, since he was a Hamas supporter. During their presentation, two leftists argued that Bushnell could also be considered a “martyr,” a man in full control of his mental faculties who had responded rationally to a “genocide” unfolding in the Middle East.
“Yes, he carried a lot of distress. But does that mean the actions he engaged in are any less valid? [Isn’t it normal] to be distressed when you’re seeing this level of carnage [in Gaza]?” Izar said in the leaked audio of the talk.
The news source reported that the talk reflects the erosion of what was until recently a bedrock medical norm, arguing that leftists in the medical field would start normalizing suicide, despite organizations like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, stating that doctors must not glorify it since it could inspire others to harm themselves.
At UCLA, both Izar and Moustafa, who happen to be practicing psychiatrists, argued that self-immolation is a reasonable response to geopolitical events and that the taboo against it serves “the interests of power,” the news source added.
They said that by “perpetuating the stigma of self-immolation,” psychiatrists “discredit” resistance to “power structures” like “colonization,” “homophobia” and “white supremacy,” framing legitimate acts of protest as signs of psychiatric dysfunction.
