African Funerals. Where Do We Draw The Line?

Is there a line to start with? Who determines what and how things should be done at funerals? Have we stooped to the level where the society dictates on how we should conduct funerals?

Some few decades ago, funerals used to be a dignified, solemn, somber occasion. Families, friends and neighbors would gather together to comfort one another. Sometimes a night vigil would be held and at that occasion, the life of the deceased is remembered. On the funeral day the surrounding area would be quite. No noise of children playing, no sound of music would break the thick gloom over that family. I don't know where things changed. What we have today can make many of the long gone turn in their graves! The black nation has experience a huge revolution in the way funerals are conducted. I can';t even explain where did it all start.

Was it City Funerals, by introducing glamorous limousines as hearses and family cars to the African market? Was it the 80s, at the height of township riots where 100s were dying on a weekly basis, that our weekend were spent mostly at funerals than at home to relax? Was it the increase of deaths from HIV-related diseases that made us callous to the seriousness of death? Was it hunger at home, knowing that the best cuisine will be at the funeral? What went wrong where? Does it matter?

The funeral management industry and insurance companies saw this gap and took advantage of it, unfortunately to the detriment of the living. How so. Poor families cannot afford to pay for funerals because even a basic coffin has been made so expensive that it's unaffordable. Coffin manufacturers make the basic coffin look so ugly that the family is psychologically pushed to upgrade to a 'better', meaning more expensive coffin. In order to meet these rising expenses families are having stokvels or funeral policies which can meet with these expenses. Many families rather go hungry or with less necessities that miss a stokvel payment. It seems we have invested more in death than in life.

And then there comes the part now where we have turned funerals into parties. My goodness! It's shocking, appalling, to name a few. Girls dress and dance semi-naked. DJs are hired to entertain the mourners. The funeral procession has become more of a wedding celebration than a funeral. Booze flows like rivers, to music blaring at every car with the best sound system one can afford. See video on heavy dancing at a funeral in Dance at a funeral Where do we draw the line? Does it matter?

Look at other nations around us, more richer than us. Just take time to observe their practices and compare it with our funerals. We can't even claim that this is how Africans do things. We have been made puppets of funeral commercialization, all in the name that we want to bury our loved on in dignity. Yes, there's nothing wrong with dignity, but at what cost? What legacy and lesson are we leaving behind for the generations to come? Is this how we want to remembered?