Salon.com > ruslan tsarni

I am not the Tsarnaevs

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:19:00 +0000

So, the Boston bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are Muslim.

When the news broke, snarky Twitter trolls – are there any other kind? – launched the rhetorical gauntlet of questions, those predictably designed to confirm a biased, flawed narrative that casts “Islam” as the quintessential anti-American antagonist in the endless "War on Terror."

First, I was asked how I felt knowing “Islam” was behind the bombing?

I felt the same way I did before the suspects were identified: devastated and saddened at the needless loss of life and the chaos that paralyzed a nation for a week. I prayed that the capture of the alleged suspects brings much needed peace and catharsis to the victims, their families and the entire city of Boston.

As far as Islam goes, I’ve never met Islam.

Islam has never asked me out on a date.

Tsarnaevs’ uncle experiences an immigrant’s shame

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:42:00 +0000

To angry, anguished Ruslan Tsarni, his nephews Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had a simple motive for allegedly bombing the Boston Marathon: “Being losers. Being unable to settle.”

Tsarni’s rant wasn’t exactly what law enforcement might have advised: A soothing person giving young Dzhokhar a reason to come out of his hiding place alive, and to cooperate with officials in revealing whether there may be more hidden bombs as well as what his and his late brother Tamerlan’s motives were.

But it was a window on an ancient American story: the anguish of immigrants when one of their own becomes notorious, and shames not only his family, but his entire ethnic group.

“He put a shame on the Tsarni family. He put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity,” the uncle raged. “It has nothing to do with Chechnya.” To reporters questions, he answered: “We’re Muslims, we’re ethnic Chechens,” and he went on: “Of course we’re ashamed. They’re children of my brother. Who had little influence of them.”

This wasn’t the classic testimony of a family member, declaring love for the accused and shock at the accusation. Although he hadn't seen his nephews since 2009, Tsarni declared flatly:

Uncle of Boston bombing suspects: “They do not deserve to exist on this Earth”

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:14:00 +0000

In a telephone interview with WBZ-TV this morning, the uncle of Boston bombing suspects Tamerlan Tszarnaev, 26, now dead, and Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, said of his nephews: "They do not deserve to exist on this Earth."

In the subsequent televised press conference, he called his nephews "losers" who did not want to assimilate. "Somebody radicalized them," he said, saying their father had little influence on them. “It is a fraud, a fake to say that this had anything to do with the Islamic religion," he said.

"They have never been to Chechnya," said Tsarni. "Chechnyans are peaceful people." He asked his nephew to turn himself in and "ask for forgiveness ... from these people."

Tsarni said that he has not been in touch with his brother's family in years, though he said that he spoke with his brother about three months ago.