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It's always interesting to see the Western argument around 'dignity' surface, in things like this, and how one-sided we are in terms of who we afford that dignity to.
Like, this is the same country that bombs civilians in other nations, without ever having gone to war.
Like, this is the same country that bombs civilians in other nations, without ever having gone to war.
Pipelines across burial grounds sacred to people who are not us, cages for children who are not ours, camps for people who cross our lines on a map without a badge that we approve of. https://twitter.com/sindarina/status/926336870908383232
But when they are OUR dead, woo boy, SACRED. https://twitter.com/sindarina/status/1148439811205865472
Do you ever consider where it is that this "WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS" sentiment originates from? Why we want to blame China for this, and not our own incompetence in preparing for it?
Watch for it, including in the Western media. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/coronavirus-iran-mass-graves-qom
Watch for it, including in the Western media. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/coronavirus-iran-mass-graves-qom
This is one of the '20 photographs of the week' in the Guardian right now, depicting New York City's potter's ground on Hart Island, with trenches dug to inter bodies victims in plain wooden caskets. No further explanation is provided, but 'victims of the pandemic' is insinuated.
Possible, as this article in USA Today suggests that the city is considering temporary burial on the island as it runs out of space in its morgues, the refrigerated trucks parked outside of its hospitals, and temporary space already in use in its parks. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/10/new-york-coronavirus-deaths-see-images-hart-island-potters-field/5129614002/
But the "potter's ground" is also where the city has buried the dead who couldn't afford a marked grave, the unclaimed, the unknown, and so forth. Hart Island basically just the last in a long line of such sites all across the city, and has a long history; https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/15/nyregion/new-york-mass-graves-hart-island.html
It is, in other words, the place where the city sends its unwanted, when they aren't used as cadavers for medical schools and the like. Sometimes buried extra deeply, like the earliest AIDS victims.
Which brings us back to 'dignity', again. https://untappedcities.com/2016/05/16/the-top-10-secrets-of-hart-island-nycs-mass-cemetery/?displayall=true
Which brings us back to 'dignity', again. https://untappedcities.com/2016/05/16/the-top-10-secrets-of-hart-island-nycs-mass-cemetery/?displayall=true
As in, the reluctance is not so much a practical thing, as it's about the perception of what being buried there means. Being made aware of the city's potter's grounds history at a time like this is what's "tough for NYers to take" 
https://untappedcities.com/2013/07/12/surprise-what-nyc-former-cemeteries-are-now/12/?displayall=true
https://untappedcities.com/2013/07/12/surprise-what-nyc-former-cemeteries-are-now/12/?displayall=true
I mean, if you saw these side by side, with the claim the first is Iran, and the second was somewhere in the not-West, proof that some ex-Soviet Bloc country was hiding the true scope of their deaths during this pandemic, would you believe it?
But no, that's New York City.
But no, that's New York City.
