In 2003, I visited the War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon). It was very sobering. Of course, the main exhibits in the museum centred on the war that defined the 1960s and much of the mid-1970s. The United States called it the Vietnam War but the Vietnamese naturally referred to it as the American War. Which is correct? You tell me.
I was only 10 when this photograph by Malcolm W Browne was circulated around the world in Jun 1963. The picture won Browne the 1963 World Press Photo of the Year. I remember seeing in in the newspapers or magazines. It left a deep impression on me that anyone would go to the extent of self-imolation to make a point.
Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk in this picture, did make a point. It contributed to the overthrow of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam but it also indirectly accelerated the entry of the United States into the war in Vietnam one year later.
Eye witnesses said that after Thich arrived by car at the busy Saigon intersection, he assumed the traditional lotus position and the accompanying monks poured gasoline over him. Thich lit a match and burned to death in a matter of minutes.
David Halberstam, a New York Times reporter wrote: "I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him."
Halberstam won the George Polk Award for his reports from Vietnam and later, also won the Pulitzer Prize. He died three months ago in Menlo Park, California from a traffic accident.
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