The sign of the times – Funerals today

In recent years, the atmosphere surrounding funerals has changed significantly. A funeral is no longer a solemn occasion. The congregation is told upfront that they are gathered to celebrate the life of the deceased. And celebration it really is! At the evangelical churches, in particular, the hymns selected are usually quite up tempo and for those Churches with musical bands the atmosphere for celebration is truly created. In the Leeward area, a steelband from Rose Bank, that is now very much in demand has been making the rounds leading the gathering from Church to burial ground in a real spirit of celebration, in fact in Carnival like fashion.{{more}} And there are always those who look forward to the opportunity to have their last jump up behind the coffin. Funerals are now held anytime between 2 and 3 pm unlike the olden days when 4 or 4:30 was the standard time. I don’t know if this has to do with the length of the funeral service or with climatic changes. For some time now it has become normal to have the funeral at about a week or two weeks after the individual’s death. The explanation for this is easily seen, for with family living now in almost any corner of the globe, the decision about the date of burial has to be influenced by the expected arrival times of those relatives who are scattered far and wide. And the technology today allows this.

At a recent funeral I attended the Priest made the observation that August appears to be a popular time for deaths in Barrouallie and suggested to persons present that it might be best to take a vacation from Barrouallie or SVG in August. This was obviously said in jest but added to the kind of atmosphere that was being created. One other significant feature is one that we seem to have adopted from North America and that is the provision of a feast after the burial. People come expecting this and families of the deceased now feel obliged to do it. There is some logic to this, however, for with people now able to attend a funeral in just about any part of the country, and the fact that the funeral is held early and goes late, provision obviously has to be made for those who have travelled from distant parts of the country. This has somehow taken the place of “Nine Nights” and “Forty Nights” which are not held as often as they used to be, if at all. There was, however, always a festival side to funerals. A significant number of men hardly ever made it to the Church since they disappeared into any rum shops in the area. It is easy for them to do so today because these days the Churches could hardly accommodate the number of persons gathered to pay their respects to the departed. Sad to say there are some who never make it to the funeral but hardly ever miss the post funeral celebration. A funeral has really now become a Grand Community Activity!

Poor Attendance At Emancipation Day Activities: Looking Beyond

In last weekend newspapers, reference was made to the poor turnout at Emancipation Day activities. In fact, the News had as one of its captions “Poor Attendance at Emancipation Rally”. This was accompanied by a photograph showing the sparse crowd. One would have thought that the shift of the holiday from the first Monday in August to August 1 would have put much more focus on what the Day was all about. It appeared that the small numbers applied not only to the Rally at Heritage Square but to activities held by The People’s Movement for Change. Activities held by the PMC were really to commemorate its first year of existence but were held around the Emancipation weekend. It appears to me that there is some lethargy that has taken hold of the Vincentian spirit that forces us to back away from anything that causes us to confront issues in our society. I say so because once there is a “Lime or Block-O”, something to take us away from dealing with our reality we respond enthusiastically to it. But serious issues we avoid it. Is it that we have lost hope? Is it that we feel betrayed and have given up? Disillusionment appears to have set in, and many of us feel unable to confront the forces that are bearing down on us. Much of this has to do with the fact that our lives are governed by politics. Civil Society has gone into a coma and there is nothing to propel us since there is a loss of confidence in the political sphere. Our Civil Society leaders seem to take their direction and guidance from the political Directorate and in doing so has divorced themselves from the people. I am really thinking out aloud and maybe Jomo was right when he wrote in his column last week, “If attendance was taken as a guide, it is clear that the movement and its leaders have serious thinking and lots of work to do.”. Jomo was speaking about the attendance at PMC’s activities, but it goes beyond this for it is a common trend, as though our people have lost hope.

Really, all of us have serious thinking to do because something is indeed rotten in the state of St.Vincent and the Grenadines. There is a lack of involvement by our people. I hope we are still not awaiting that earthly saviour because we have been let down so often in the past. The only way we can be assured of not being let down again is to take control but how do we go about this? The political divisions in this country have been crippling the country and the only way around it is to develop civil society organs that do not feel obligated to the political directorate. At the moment we are embarked on the issue of constitutional reform and the way some people are talking it is as though this is the key to our problems. I maintain my position that constitutions are not ends in themselves. At the heart of all of this are the people. It is the ability of our people to understand and to protect the constitution that would finally matter, not nice sounding words put into a document. So this is where the emphasis should be on developing our people, on mentoring the young. But there is a serious credibility gap and the young people have no confidence in their elders who have not shown them the best examples, who talk but do not walk the talk. It is 171 years since emancipation and while there is much to be proud of, recent trends are pointing to despair.

Maybe Jomo and the PMC could do well over the next few months to concentrate on the state of our people and on the reason for this lethargy in the society. Where does change really start? Kwame Nkrumah had once said that we first seek the Political Kingdom. Maybe that appeared to have been the reality in the dying days of Colonialism but what has happened in Africa and former colonies in the Caribbean point to something more. We are still the darkened theatre audience watching the players on the stage that Gordon Lewis spoke about. It is necessary to stop every so often to reflect on the state of things and in the process shed some of the assumptions we walk along with. There is indeed a lot of work to be done but what is the nature of this work and the process to carry it out? We have to rethink these things.

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.