Nowhere is this more evident than in death.
For millennia, we have buried the dead. The act of disposing of a body is ingrained into our nature. It has become so natural that we don't think about it. Only if a body is carrying an infectious disease can we claim that burial is necessary on public health grounds. We do it out of fundamental respect.
Michael Jackson, a great musician, has died. There are vast hordes of people wishing to pay their respects, yet the family has seemingly opted for a private funeral. There will undoubtedly be those who, in the coming days, complain that his funeral should be held in public for all to see and grieve.
Personally, I think Jackson's family should be commended for embodying in his funeral what Michael Jackson was in life: a private man.
More than that, though, we don't need a huge Diana-esque funeral to pay tribute to Michael Jackson. For, as in life, the best tribute we can pay to his is to remember his music: such was the magnitude of his impact that "millions of people yet to be born will sing his songs" (Robin Gibb, of the Bee Gees).
He will live, perhaps forever, in our memories and our stories.
Unfortunately, while all men are created equal, they do not die equal. Four years ago today, fifty-two men and women lost their lives in the deadliest terrorist attack in the UK since the Lockerbie bombing.
I challenge each of you reading this: can you name just one of the victims of 7/7?
No, neither could I. A full list of names with stories and pictures is available here.
Just as we have moved on from the tragedy of 7/7, we will move on from the death of Michael Jackson, and he will fade from our consciousness. The difference, however, is that there is no danger of Michael Jackson fading from our memories.
To jog our memory from time to time, fifty-two giant steel pillars have been unveiled in Hyde Park as a memorial to the victims of 7/7. I think that ought to be enough to make us stop and think. It is a fitting tribute to those who paid the ultimate price for freedom.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Number died in 7/7 bombings: 52
ReplyDeleteNumber died in 9/11 attacks: 2974
Estimated number today died due to HIV/AIDS: 5,500
Estimated number today died of hunger: 25,000
Can you name one person who died of hunger today?
How many pillars are likely to be put up for the AIDS victims today?
People are as unequal in death as in life.
Keep up the blogging though!
Re burial and public health - what about the smell and another nasty microbes a body picks up as it starts to decay? Although, as you righly point out, leaving a decaying body to rot out in the open isn't exactly showing much respect either.
ReplyDeleteMuch routine, and especially religious routine, that has survived for thousands of years has done so simply because it's good survival practice. That a "meaning" is attached to such behaviour is probably significant, but from an evolutionary point of view this is only favourable because a routine is more likely to be carried out be people if they can see there's a reason to do so.
And to briefly explore anther point, perhaps the inequality in life and death is simply a relic of a tribal mentality. The lives and deaths of those closer to us (say within the UK) are of more consequence to us than those millions who die of hunger and of AIDS because that is not particularly relevant to our particular tribe. (I guess deciding who does belong to our tribe is a tricky question; but it's easier to say who doesn't.)
You might even argue that there are people in parts of Britain to whom the 7/7 victims seem distant and not relevant to daily life because London is distant and not particular relevant to those people. Would parts of the country be remembering 7/7 particularly if a London dominated media weren't reminding them to? We seem to forget AIDS/hunger etc when the media's eye is turned elsewhere.
Perhaps this notion of a small world is still as yet a rather elaborate illusion. I apologise now for inserting unhealthy doses of hypothetical cynicism into your blog Dave, but philosophising is a fine way to not be proving something awkward.
Tom.C