A human being died on February 25. He was just 25 years old. His name was Aaron Bushnell. Until his death, he was an active US military service member.

On Sunday afternoon, Bushnell stood outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC and self-immolated in protest against Israel’s war and genocide in Palestine. Before setting himself on fire, Bushnell declared that he would not be complicit in genocide. He then doused himself in flammable liquid and lit himself on fire, yelling: “Free Palestine!"”

Western analysts and media have already started to shape a narrative that minimises the profundity of Bushnell’s protest by painting him as someone who was battling with mental illness. They want to cement this narrative because it would make it easier to dismiss the power of this story.

The alternative would be to turn the mirror on themselves and reflect on the layered horrors of the unfolding genocide – a genocide which the US, the EU and all Israel’s allies, including those who now want to claim a moral high ground by condemning a genocide they once denied was happening, are complicit in.

The same Western media is also complicit, not only in the pro-Israeli propaganda that it has been feeding the world, but also in the perpetuation of the colonialism and racism that has enabled the genocide to continue. Make no mistake, Palestine is engaged in a colonial struggle. It is a struggle of an indigenous people massacred and displaced by an occupying power that is supported by countries with histories of colonial conquest and imperial devastation.

And let us engage with the idea that Bushnell suffered from mental illness. Would this minimise or negate his moral stance on the genocide? Would his mental illness erode his capacity to be a compassionate human being who recognises that his own government is aiding and abetting a genocidal regime that has slaughtered more than 30,000 people in under four months?

Being mentally ill and being opposed to genocide are not mutually exclusive. One can be mentally ill and still recognise the horrors and injustices that are happening to Palestinian people. These two things can co-exist. They can be true at the same time. But those who shape the narrative in Western newsrooms want to cement the idea that a human being cannot have both mental illness and a strong sense of justice. It is a narrative that we must challenge and reject.

No person with a beating heart can be unaffected by the horrific images that are coming out of Gaza and Rafah daily. I find myself deeply traumatised by haunting images of wounded and dead Palestinian children, and the men and women who, with blood on their emaciated bodies, dig these children out of rubble after yet another Israeli bomb blows yet another building to smithereens.

The Palestinian genocide is traumatic. The death of Bushnell is horrific. And while I am not one of those who celebrate this kind of "bravery", in part because I see it more as heartbreaking desperation than courage, I am thankful that we still have people who are so committed to justice that they would make the ultimate sacrifice as a statement that the struggle of Palestinian people and all oppressed people of the world is worth fighting for. My deepest sympathies to those who knew and loved Aaron Bushnell.

May he rest in eternal peace. And may we never forget or get tired of standing with the people of Palestine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and everywhere else in the world where oppression, persecution and genocide is happening.