Opinion

Can we learn from political self-sacrifice?

Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his March 1 op-ed, “Don’t confuse self-immolation with martyrdom,” that Aaron Bushnell’s suicide outside the Israeli Embassy in D.C. taught us nothing. I’d be interested to know whether Mr. Ponnuru thinks that Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s decision to go back to Russia after having been poisoned and knowing that Russian President Vladimir Putin would stop at nothing to make his opponents disappear would put him in the same category. Will Mr. Navalny’s sad death change anything in the Kremlin? I don’t think so.