Malachi Ritscher

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Malachi Ritscher (Mark David Ritscher; January 13, 1954 - November 3, 2006) was a musician, recording engineer, and anti-war protester.

Ritscher came into the national spotlight after commiting self-immolation on the side of the Kennedy Expressway near downtown Chicago during the morning rush hour of Friday November 3, 2006, as a protest against the Iraq war and more generally against "the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country." Ritscher's suicide is one of only nine reported incidents of self-immolation performed as an act of protest in American history.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Reaction to Death
2 References
3 External links

[edit] Biography

Born Mark David Ritscher, Ritscher was his parents' third child and first son. He was born in Dickinson, North Dakota on January 13, 1954. Ritscher and his family lived in North Dakota until they moved to the Northeast in 1957. At age ten, they moved to South Dakota, eventually settling for a number of years in Nebraska. Ritscher married at age 17, had a son named Malachi, and after almost ten years, divorced.

In 1981 Ritscher moved to Chicago, adopting the name Malachi, a name he had also given his son. Eventually, he became a fixture on Chicago's jazz and experimental music scenes, attending and recording many performances. A Chicago saxophonist, Dave Rempis, said that he would see him at concerts "five nights a week."^[1] Ritscher, after recording a live concert, would offer his high-quality recording to the musicians at little to no cost. Many of these recordings have seen official release.^[2]

Near the end of his life Ritscher traveled extensively. He also developed a strong commitment to anti-war issues and against repressive policies of the U.S. government. Chicago police arrested him twice at anti-war protests. His beliefs finally led him to take the drastic step of self-immolation, sacrificing himself to draw attention to the causes in which he so deeply believed.

A few days after Ritscher's death, Bruno Johnson, the owner of Chicago's OkkaDisk Records, received a package in the mail containing Ritscher's will, the keys to his house, and instructions for dispersal of his belongings. His birth family carried out his last wishes and dispersed his belongings. This included creating a fund to archive his many recordings to preserve his tireless efforts to document the experimental jazz community in Chicago.

[edit] Reaction to Death

Ritscher's shocking self-immolation did not immediately gain wide notice, but over the course of several weeks, the story spread. People across the United States expressed their opinion about his death. Some, such as Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper, thought that his suicide was a pointless act. "With all great respect, if he thought setting himself on fire and ending his life in Chicago would change anyone's mind about the war in Iraq, his last gesture on this planet was his saddest and his most futile."^[3] Others respected the suicide as a legitimate form of protest, lamenting only the lack of attention the press gave it.

Ritscher's own son had an entirely different point of view. He described his father as a recovering alcoholic who had formerly fought with mental illness. The rest of Ritscher's immediate family disagreed with this view, instead believing his actions were taken for the purpose of shocking an apathetic public into concrete action against war and world oppression.^[4] They believed that his final motivations had been constructive rather than destructive. He had hoped that changes could be made at the highest levels of government that would create a global environment that did not force dissidents to take such drastic actions.

Ritscher himself gave detailed reasons for his suicide: "My position is that I only get one death, I want it to be a good one. Wouldn't it be better to stand for something or make a statement, rather than a fiery collision with some drunk driver? Are not smokers choosing death by lung cancer? Where is the dignity there? Are not the people who disregard the environment killing themselves and future generations?" In his self-penned obituary he confessed to feeling guilty for not killing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he had the chance.^[5] He thought that Rumsfeld's death would have saved countless thousands of people's lives and stated that not killing him had been shameful. He wrote in detail about the double-standards in American religion and how God represents love and forgiveness not guilt and spite.

In February of this year a reader from Avant/Chicago.^[6] read his mission statement to a crowd at the Around The Coyote Art Festival. The dramatic reading brought his story to many people.