Reflections on Dzhokhar

Hate begets hate. Fear begets fear. Anger begets anger, and war begets war. These are the things I have seen, and the things I believe.

As I said on Facebook, when I first heard about the bombings, the more productive response is to "listen and love to those who need it - this is how we survive, and how we carry on together". Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), this isn't what I've seen. Instead, there has been the senseless hate, the reactionary stereotyping and anger not only against those who committed these heinous crimes, but against fellow countrymen and the innocent who are only trying to express the complex emotions they experience in the ways they know.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his late brother are (as all evidence indicates) criminals and terrorists, and thus the former absolutely deserves the consequences and punishments that the American justice system will bestow upon him. (The latter, of course, is beyond our mortal judgement now). However... as with everyone, they are human. They had families and friends, and grew up in normal schools. I say this not to evoke sympathy -- they made their choices consciously and intending of the pain they would cause -- but to propose the question of why? Why would people be driven to this? And what can we do to prevent this from happening again?

Hate begets hate, fear begets fear.

Amanda Palmer, about whom I have written in the past, authored a free-verse stream-of-conscious poem entitled "Poem for Dzhokhar", that she allegedly spent about 10 minutes writing in a moment of strong emotion. "art is how i deal," she says, and I identify strongly with that. In this poem, Amanda addresses herself, Dzhokhar, and the city of Boston, exploring their tumultuous thoughts throughout this chaotic week.

Predictably, it generated substantial controversy. People accused her of attention-mongering, of using the tragic events to further herself, of sympathizing with terrorists. They suggested she have her legs blown off, that she has no place to say anything for it was not her daughter or her friends who were killed. (It's worth noting that Amanda is a longtime resident of Boston). People hated her, people were angry, people insulted her -- but still others realized that she was really saying, humans are humans, we are all connected through these tragedies. I don't know how I feel about her poem itself, but I know this:

Hate begets hate.

And hate solves nothing.

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This was the poem I was putting together for the poet laureate competition. I was never happy enough with it to submit, but I figured I may as post it here, so the effort doesn't go completely to waste!