The American Way of Death*

In the news...Wal-Mart launches an online funeral range.

Death is an $11 billion industry in America. With the ever-evolving brutal weapons, funky viruses and random cataclysms, dying seems to be easier than ever. And so does grief - with the multitude of creative, innovative ways to show how much we care for our dead. If shooting your beloved's ashes out of a canon or using them as fertiliser for endangered coral reefs isn’t quite your style, then you can always opt for the traditional mood-setting flower arrangements and status-appropriate caskets, complete with blood drainage and macabre theatrical make-up (also knows as embalming) for that special someone. In the attempt to parade our mourning appropriately, the funeral industry has gone to great lengths - using such props as the Successful Mortuary Operation Service Manual or the basics of sales psychology - to lead us into a false comfort that we are paying exactly for what our loved ones would have wanted on their last day on earth. And now, in a whole new strike of cynical genius, Wal-Wart has decided to make things easier for everybody and launched its online coffin line.

The world’s largest retailer, with its 3,600 stores and over one million employees in the US alone, already caters to such basic human consumer needs as childbirth and marriage, so death was only a natural progression. The memory of entering an American supermarket for the first time and thinking ‘God, do they really sell everything?!’ is still very fresh from my Soviet teenage years. And now indeed the dream that you can have it all, nay - buy it all, and yea! - in one place - has finally become reality. An American dream or a nightmare - that is not for my foreign self to decide. But the remarkable opportunity to buy a bicycle, baby clothes, an engagement ring, a coffin and some bubble gum with a few swift clicks has been granted to our laziness. Life, which has for long resisted postmodern consumerism prophesies, has finally caved in and become one large supermarket, to the sound of Foucault turning in his grave.

Now, Wal-Mart has not broken the cynicism barrier on its own. Costco.com has been selling a range of grief-paraphernalia for some time now, offering charming products such as the ‘sympathy wreath (patriotic)’ and the ‘In God’s Care’ casket, as well as pet urns. It delivers to a larger number of zip codes than does Wal-Mart, but it has a somewhat smaller, more pricey range and you must have someone die by 12 p.m. so that you can place your coffin-order on time. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, prides on its 14-piece collection of quality American-made caskets that are available for less. For example, Costco’s ‘Mother Casket’ is $924.99, while Wal-Mart’s ‘Mom Remembered’ is only $895. Now, if your mother has taught you well, you’d know the sense of good economy. Also, Wal-Mart’s Bill Me Later! policy secures interest-free 12-months credit. Unfortunately, the offer is only valid until Dec. 31, 2009. So if someone you know and love is looking frail, you could take the chance and pay in advance. But you won’t be able to return the product. Sensitive issue, this.

The BBC has quoted Pat Lynch, of the National Funeral Home Directors Association, saying that ‘There's no question in my mind as a funeral director for nearly 40 years that the most critical element is the human contact.’ Surely, if you prefer, you might dig up your NFDA membership and login and peruse the Grief Resources section to find ‘information about the various aspects of grief and suggestions for coping with the death of a loved one’. It is strange that there is no semantic section that explains the retailers’ preference for the word ‘casket’. For surely someone attempting to buy an appropriate death receptacle on Walmart.com wondered why the search for ‘coffin’ produces a selection of Steven Seagal DVDs, a guitar case and an inflatable vampire available in-store only. For me, at least, that was slightly misleading. Much as the 4.5 star customer rating on the ‘Lady de Guadelupe’ steel casket, where the link still implores for someone to be ‘the first to review this product’. Someone should tell them.

‘To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;/For in this sleep of death what dreams may come...?’ asked Hamlet. In the philosophical abstraction of one of life’s most chilling unknowns, the Prince of Denmark could hardly have envisaged such developments - dark and broody as he was. Four hundred years on, the world spins faster on the hardened axis of healthy cynicism. But just because we like to simplify things (again, thank you postmodernism), doesn’t necessarily mean that we stopped caring. We are just harder to shock, and ever more shocking.

* In 1963 Jessica Mitford published The American Way of Death - a journalistic investigation into the American funeral industry that disclosed the unimaginable cynicism with which our deaths are sold to us. After the publication of Mitford’s book, cremations rose by 8% in the US, as did membership in non-profit funeral agencies. I have dared to borrow her brilliant title.

Crimes and Misdemeanours

In the news...Commander in Chief of the Russian airborne troops orders special forces units to hinder a police investigation into his private affairs.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and particularly Boris Yeltsin’s tipsy years in power, Russia’s young government has been trying to rough-hew the country’s tattered international image. The project may as well have been entitled ‘Keeping Up Appearances’, for the words ‘lawlessness’ and ‘impunity’ are still prevalent in Russia’s discourse. While President Medvedev’s smiling eyes may have lured part of the audience into a false sense of well-being and security, the events off camera leave one shuddering at the state of play. On September 21, 2009 it became public knowledge that the commander in chief of the Russian elite airborne troops, Lieutenant General Vladimir Shamanov, had ordered two paratrooper squads to interfere in an active police investigation for personal reasons.

Novaya Gazeta - Russia’s leading investigative newspaper, which lost four journalists to political assassinations since 2001 (including, famously, Anna Politkovskya) - published the complete audio files of phone conversations from August 18, 2009 between the general and a group of his subordinates in which he ordered two special forces units to dispatch to the Moscow factory of his son-in-law to prevent a police detective from entering the premises. The communications are full of urgency and impatience on the general’s behalf and - to their credit - nervousness and tension from his subordinates, spiced with outrageous swearing on both sides. It makes for an obscene soundtrack to Russia's injustice system.

What adds extra salt to the story is the fact that this was not just an ill-judged misdemeanour but a grave obstruction of justice. Alexei Hramushin, the young man in question, has been a member of a Moscow mafia ring and has recently become a fugitive wanted internationally for conspiracy to murder of a former business partner. When Gen. Shamanov found out that police investigators were headed towards Hramushin’s offices, he did what every family man would do - he placed a phone call. Clearly, the fact that being under oath to his country surpasses all other affiliations did not cross the good man’s mind when he shouted the ‘Fuck, go ahead!’ command.

Overriding federal law might seem a small offence to a man who has disregarded much more reputable parameters of international jurisdiction. In 2005, the European Court for Human Rights convicted the former commander of the Russian federal forces in Chechnya for the ‘massive use of indiscriminate weapons’. In 1999 Gen. Shamanov ordered heavy bombing of the Katyr-Yurt village, which was being used as a ‘safe zone’ for refugees without either warning or allowing for an exit route for civilians. His order to prevent refugees from leaving zones of conflict has been infamously disobeyed by other commanders in the region. Allegations of Shamanov’s troops both carrying out extra-judicial killings and failing to prevent them are also abundant. A close personal friend of the General - Colonel Yuri Budanov - was the first high-ranking Russian officer to be convicted for a brutal murder of a Chechen girl. Shamanov protested against all allegations and is suspected to have been instrumental - as Governor of the region where the trial was held - in Budanov’s premature release after only 8.5 years in prison. For all these extraordinary achievements, Gen. Shamanov was awarded the Hero of Russia - the country’s most honoured medal.

As if becoming Chechnya’s very own bogeyman was not enough Shamanov, as head of Ministry of Defence’s combat training command, made headlines last year when he expressed the need for Russian soldiers to be prepared to fight for territorial acquisitions in the oil-rich Arctic. His public persona wavering from the inhuman to the grotesque, in May 2009 he was, nevertheless, named commander in chief of the airborne troops - the pride and glory of the Russian army - an equivalent to the US Marines. One only has to imagine what tricks Gen. Shamanov turned for the government during the controversial counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya, and what cards he holds against Russia’s Commander in Chief to get his alcohol-swollen, monosyllabic self appointed to this position.

It is superfluous to mention that Russian authorities have closed the investigation into the Shamanov’s war crimes allegations, ‘having found no evidence of a crime’. It hardly comes as a surprise that after two shorts weeks the Ministry of Defence investigation committee announced that all charges against Shamanov’s abuse of power will be dropped due to the lack of corpus dilecti - or constituent elements of offence. According to the committee, Shamanov recalled the operation after he realised he had made a mistake. Due to the information ban placed on this story, there is no confirmation that it was indeed the case or of what exactly happened at the factory when, and if, the swat teams arrived.

It has been just over a year since President Medvedev stressed the ‘particular importance on the fundamental role of the law,’ stating that Russia ‘must ensure true respect for the law and overcome the legal nihilism that is such a serious hindrance to modern development’ (Time, Jun. 04, 2009). In the meantime, Gen. Shamanov has been reprimanded and apologised, but still remains in office, clearly not embarrassing the image-conscious government enough to be replaced. After all, having war criminals present at conference tables is a long-standing political perk. Thus, foreign leaders will have the opportunity - on the next visit to Moscow - to shake hands with the devil.

Suit Up

In the news...Japan creates a suit to ward off swine flu.

When it comes to trends, the Japanese do it best. Whether it is Luis Vuitton handbags or vitamin IV-drips, the children of the rising sun like being swept away. And what more than a global pandemic to create a new hype? It seems like the enthusiasts at the Haruyama Trading Co. thought just that and gave the world the very first anti-swine flu suit.

Whether it is our well-developed cynicism or pathological fear of ridicule, but it is difficult to imagine westerners going to such lengths to avoid infections as do the Japanese. Could you imagine businessmen walking into meetings with a medical mask on? Or queueing up in front of the office for a splash of disinfectant? Or paying $500 for a suit that allegedly kills bacteria? Even the doctor at the Tokyo British Clinic, who is surely used to idiosyncrasies, gave CNN a nervous laugh at the idea.

But we are still just a bit curious about how this miracle cure. Well, 40% protection, rather, but nevertheless. The active agent is titanium dioxide. For the chemically challenged among us this is far from a Eureka moment, and not that the manufacturers are eager to explain the details. Apparently, TiO2 is a white pigment used mostly in food colouring, toothpaste and paints. Evading technical details, it has been widely used, for example, in self-cleaning glass and sunscreen. My immediate reaction was the image of viruses being blinded by the unsurpassed brightness and whiteness - much like a 32-tooth smile in a Colgate ad. But although the suit is black and its workings are much more scientific, in essence that I wasn’t too far off.

Compared with Australia and the United States, Japan remained relatively spared by swine flu. Perhaps if things had been more serious, no one would have had the time to spice up the dress code. Like in South Africa, for instance, where over 5m - or 10% of the population - are living with AIDS, a flu outbreak doesn’t seem to send shivers down too many spines. Although it probably should, given what a common flu can do to someone with HIV AIDS. But every nation seems to deal with a crisis differently. Americans queue up for vaccinations. Egyptians do not know what to do with all the waste downtown Cairo, now that they have slaughtered the pigs that used to feed on it. The Japanese are suiting up. It may be one world, but each bit spins off in its very own fashion.