When I first
read that the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left plans to have him embalmed,
presumably for permanent display purposes, I was intrigued with why someone would
do that, or what type of person would do that.
When learning the history of Russia in grade school, I was impacted when
I learned that Lenin was embalmed and on display in the Red Square Mausoleum in
Moscow. People would stand in line for
hours to have a chance to see his corpse.
Embalming is
common, but usually not for displaying the corpse long term. During the U.S. civil war, the dead were often
embalmed to be shipped back to families for burial. The trip often took many weeks, making short
term preservation important. Today many
cultures embalm to allow open casket viewing to take place, days after the
death. It is the permanent display
aspect that makes me wonder. Occasionally
I read about someone that has their pet animal taxidermy, which I consider very
wrong.
When the
Hugo Chavez embalming plans emerged, I read more on the subject. A number of other world leaders are embalmed
and displayed: Russia’s Stalin, China's Mao Zedong, Vietnam's
Ho Chi Minh, North Korea's founding leader, Kim Il Sung and Argentina’s Eva Peron are the
most prominent. All of these people led
during tumultuous times in their country’s history, requiring a personality of
considerable ego. I guess if you have a
significant ego, you want people to admire you for as long as possible.
The problem
with embalming is that it doesn’t work forever.
Lenin’s body is deteriorating after 90 years and pictures show evidence
that it looks far less “lifelike” than earlier.
Mummification actually preserves the body much better than either
embalming or taxidermy. Early civilizations
caught on, and thousands of years later we have their well-preserved corpses to
admire.
Kim Il Sung
had the biggest ego, before his death.
Kim claimed to have shot a round of golf at 38 under par, including 11
holes in one. The funniest thing is the
North Korean people believed it. Russian President Putin is the biggest
egomaniac running a big show right now. He could be described as a megamaniac. The man tries to convey the image of a leader
that is world class at everything he tries, and he believes he looks very good
without a shirt doing these activities.
A man with this ego should be mummified and preserved for many millennium.