Saving into the grave
The most valued people in the Ghanaian society are the dead. The dead are more important than the living. The dead have all the virtues. We revere them. We lavish on them all the praises and treat them as though they never existed!
Advertisement
In Ghana, the dead is king. We adore them more than any other people… literally! Welcome to Ghana… where we spend a chunk of the time/money of the living planning for the dead. We paint our homes anew because of the dead.
Ironically, we treat the living differently. Is it not amazing how we forget that the living today will be the dead tomorrow?
In Ghana, death is a good omen. Funerals are on the wish list of others. We spend our all investing into the grave. Funerals impoverish Ghanaians more than malaria or even HIV does. Funerals make us poorer than even corruption.
We spend days, months and even years mourning dead people whom we didn’t even give a hoot about when they were alive. It is only in Ghana that we can give the dead a burial worth thousands of Ghana cedis when indeed the deceased died of hunger. What a wonder!
Funerals are more of celebrations. We are excited at the death of others, whichever way it is looked at. We spend, and even borrow just to create an impression of a great funeral. Everyone is poor until they have a funeral to organise. We would rather borrow to send the dead into the grave than borrow to make the living safe. What a generation!
Everything about our funerals is drama…all in the name of culture.
In the absence of priorities, our needs have become our wants and our wants, our needs. Others care for funeral attires more than their ward’s school attires.
They care much about showing off their ‘funeral pride’ than any other thing.
We pretend to mourn but, fact is, every funeral is a new dawn of making profits, tasting new alcoholic brands, showing off new styles, name them.!
We will do everything to make a funeral grand even if it means hiring mourners as though our tears are not enough!
Relatives of the deceased sew same style using the same print of cloth. Soon, they would wear the same type and brand of footwear and even walk same during funerals… to show their supposed respect for the dead!
As though all of these are not enough waste of time/money, we further make special coffins to aid in telling the story of the funeral drama.
Some of such coffins come in the shape of a fish, for instance, for fishermen. The last time I saw one which was in the shape of a house supposedly for a dead real estate man, I could only imagine how that of our politicians would look like.
If we could give our businesses or careers as much attention as we give funerals, most of us would have been filthy rich by now. If we had regarded our national interest as dear as we held our funerals, we would have been a super power, believe you me.
And oh… I forgot to make mention of the convoy of pallbearers today’s funerals come with. Trust me, if I would want to consider another profession aside writing, I think I would opt for one as a pallbearer. All I may need to have a successful career is the strength to carry a coffin and some good dancing skills.
Pallbearers add their own taste to the funeral as they juggle the coffin around with skills and finesse… all at the expense of the deceased relatives.
We can’t pay our last respect to the dead when we didn’t even pay them our first. Our departed friends won’t see our last respect so we can’t afford to let them miss their first by respecting them for who they are; whether rich or not; whether mighty or not.
The flood of tears we drown during our loved ones funerals can’t even be seen by them. So why don’t we pay our first respect by loving them as much as possible so we can, at least, spend less on the supposed last respect which only we can see?
Everyone invests into one thing or another in this world. Others invest into safes and others into graves. Death will come when it shall come. I would rather invest into the living’s safe to make them safe as my first respect… rather than into the dead’s grave in the name of last respect.
Keep your treasure with life, not death. Life is supposed to be celebrated… not death. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The writer is the Chief Scribe of Scribe Communications, Accra.
Website: www.scribecommltd.com
