Honour the dead

Since we have made funerals the perfect forums for political rallies and slurs, I have a modest proposal, like Jonathan Swift (1667–1745). You remember Swift? The gentleman who told us about Lilliput in Gulliver’s Travels (1726)?

 Swift’s proposal of 1729 was about how the poor could defeat poverty. He suggested that they should sell their children as food for the rich. My proposal is about the beauty of funerals in Kenya.

 You see, we have resolved the ancient problem of death, with very admirable elegance. Death is no longer a disturbing private family misfortune. It is a glamorous public utility. In this spirit, I humbly submit that we continue to refine funerals.

 Our burials have evolved into remarkable civic occasions. Here, hierarchy is clarified without bitterness. Public resources are mobilised without legislation. Those who are not yet dead turn up in huge numbers. Not even the National Bureau of Statistics could count them. 

 But first, let me express my profound gratitude to the dead. They have been very good exemplars during their funerals. It is admirable how they exercise total restraint. Throughout the proceedings of their burial, they remain very silent. Most admirable is their decision to say nothing, even when people tell blatant lies about them.

 These good people spare us the embarrassment of contradiction. They allow the programme to flow with commendable order, even as their quiet departure gives us the pretext for assembly. For, unlike Shakespeare’s Mark Antony, we gather not to bury Caesar, but to praise him.

 More importantly, we come here to annoy people. To say things that have nothing to do with the chap in the coffin. We are grateful that they have died. For without their death, and patience in the coffin, our public spirit might regrettably lack occasion for expression. But the dead must also be happy that we are here. When did they ever witness such heavy royalty?

 It follows, quite naturally, that bereaved families should consider themselves fortunate beyond ordinary measure, to have us around. It is no small honour to them, to host such distinguished congregations. See how we arrive in style, frequently by air! We land from the heavens in flying objects, like the gods.

 The very fact that we come from the skies should comfort and assure bereaved families that there exists, somewhere above us, a properly organised Hereafter society. It is populated, one must assume, by many more of these metallic flying objects. They must feel grateful, too, that our arrival confirms good stuff about where their departed one has gone.

 It is also administratively in order to recommend a modest increase in the frequency of death. It would be good for people to die more frequently, so that we have more assemblies and objects landing from the skies, bringing us very important people.

 But, also,  those who die must die in an orderly manner. They must programme their death. We don’t want random deaths to inconvenience those whose presence is required for the successful execution of these burial ceremonies. You see, nothing is more annoying than undermining the dignity of mourning with a congested calendar; or insufficient notice. If people die in a disorganised manner, they risk the regrettable absence of senior persons, whose loud attendance is essential to proper expression of grief.

 Indeed, the importance of funerals to our national life is now so well established that we can even reasonably propose the suspension of all other activities, once any one death occurs. Those who are familiar with the poetry of life understand what I am saying. Stop everything, even time itself, so that we can go to the funeral.

 Like the poet WH Auden famously said in 1936, we must truly immerse ourselves in funeral blues. Let’s stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Let the dog not bark with a juicy bone, silence the pianos. Let aero planes circle, moaning overhead, scribbling on the sky the message, “He is dead”.

 “The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; for nothing now can ever come to any good.” That is to say nothing, except high-level stentorian dramas, and testimonial rhetoric.

 The clergy have adapted admirably. They do well to persist in their current discipline. Attentive listening, resisting any undue temptation to monopolise the proceedings with theological stuff; that’s their portion. Moral  instruction of the living is best achieved not through churchly threats of hell’s fires, but through the quiet example of the gods from the skies.