Weeks after his death, Boston Marathon Bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s corpse is still homeless. Where will he end up?
Dead and Homeless
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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I will not say anything nice about Mr Rall, because he’s still alive, and I was brought up to save all praise for the eulogy lest it go to the head of the person being praised.
Mr Rall seems to be alone among the many editorial cartoonists in calling for the burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Once, that would have been basic, human decency. But that was then. As Mr Rall points out, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. doesn’t care. But still, there is vehement opposition to his burial.
A vet entitled to a plot in Arlington offered her plot, but was told the plots are NOT transferable. Still, a large number protested at the idea that Tamerlan Tsarnaev MIGHT be buried anywhere near Arlington.
Obviously, a normal cartoonist would just show Tamerlan Tsarnaev in hell, which would be wildly popular with editors and readers, and, if all Mr Rall’s cartoons were in that vein, he’d be much better off financially.
Of course, a cartoon of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in hell would rightly go among the cartoons Mr Rall despises, even though such cartoons are far more marketable than Mr Rall’s cartoons, since TRVTH, and even basic decency, have little economic value in this age.
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I am reminded of one of my mother’s stories, a story that dates from the ’20s: A profligate man spent every cent he had, and was asked, ‘You have nothing for your burial. What will happen when you die?’ His answer, ‘I’ll start to stink.’
It really is an eye-opener, isn’t it? I can recall all those westerns from the 1950s where a Christian burial was obligate. No matter how evil you were. Whether you rustled cattle or went to Yale, you were still not only entitled to a quiet, respectful burial, it was also understood that if the other guys didn’t do it for you, they had somehow failed. The code of conduct was not only reactive, but proactive.
Maybe the human race should go extinct.
Alex: Yes, that’s exactly it, that’s why I find the subject so interesting. It doesn’t really mean much in and of itself, but the burial/non-burial of the Boston marathon suspect tells us so much about what kind of society the United States has become. What is truly interesting to me is how not even so-called liberal Democrats are willing to speak up for something as basic as the need to plant a rotting corpse into the Earth.
Vengeance on the dead! Welcome to America, where the death penalty is defended on the grounds that relatives of a murder victim deserve to watch someone die, even a wrongfully convicted someone, it’s important to their therapy so the execution should go ahead.
Hell, you can’t bring up any aspect of crime and punishment here without some vengeance enthusiast insisting that nothing is more important than making someone suffer on behalf of the victims.
America, where 9-11 spawned madness without end. Wars against totally uninvolved countries and “truther” theories that make blaming it on Bigfoot in a flying saucer sound reasonable, all because we can’t face the fact that the people who did it died along with their victims and are beyond the reach of our sacred right to revenge.
What odd about this ? The United States is very publicly – «God bless America» and all that sort of thing – a religious society, and the notion of not burying the bad guys in hallowed ground is one of the hallmarks of such theocracies. Here the concept of hallowed ground has simply been extended to the whole of the territory of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, if not of the United States as a whole. It is perhaps instructive to compare the crime Tsarnaev is alleged to have commited – exploding a pressure cooker, thereby killing three people and injuring about 200 others, with other deadly incidents in US history. The US Civil War is thought to have killed some 750000 soldiers and an unspecified number of civilians ; consider the fate of Jefferson Finis Davis, placed in irons for three days after the collapse of the Confederacy, thereafter two years of house arrest together with his family, and then released. He was buried in hallowed ground, then reburied in even more hallowed ground and a statue raised to his memory. No wonder Mr Tsarnaev is denied burial !…
Henri
Not burying a rotting corpse as a form of punishment is in perfect keeping with the kind of society we seem to be becoming.
First, there was the decades long process of repealing the Bill of Rights (only necessary because the commie Warren court put forward the seditious idea that the thing should actually be enforced — the nerve of some people!) Then came the repeal of the Magna Carta (right to basic due process of law.) Then the Treaty of Westphalia (wars based on religion, disregard for national borders and sovereignty.)
It’s even getting to where a person needs to be from one of a handful of anointed families to be considered for the office of President, so we’re creeping back towards the age of kings.
It really seems at times like we’re on a course straight for the middle ages. I picked this screen name as a tribute to a mostly forgotten revolutionary leader from that era, not because I thought we would have to fight those wars all over again, but I may have been mistaken.
Leaving the body to rot? That could be the new normal soon. We could be going back to drawing and quartering and heads on pikes all too soon.
OK, that’s a bit pessimistic. I’ll log off and go find something beautiful to enjoy.