Ugandans Must Say the Truth at Burials
It has now become a culture in Uganda and perhaps in other parts of Africa that when a person dies, only the good side of him is mentioned during eulogies – and for some, who barely have anything to say about the deceased, they simply concoct niceties. One wonders why people really do not want to face the truth and whether they do not understand the dangers inherent in painting dead people white.
In an attempt to give this practice a twist, during one public function, President Museveni said that he would write his own burial speech to avoid people spreading rumors about him when he is gone. While I appreciate this suggestion for starters, it can only be equated to writing modern-day curriculum vitae. Everyone would want to paint himself as white as possible to secure a job, but unfortunately what matters ultimately is either what one has done, or perhaps what others practically see in him. So, taking this perspective, the President would still have to let people talk about him, but they had better say the real truth!
To make matters worse, even Doctors who have commanded a high respect from the public from time immemorial have also been caught up in this deceptive white painting of the dead. Even when doctors always carryout postmortems after someone has died, they tend to use clandestine terminologies usually only interpreted by themselves even when the general public clearly knows the real sickness that killed a person. Going by Doctors’ postmortem reports, one would think that no one had ever died of HIV/AIDS. You will never hear anyone mentioning that so and so died of the disease especially if they are highly placed people in society.
Is it even surprising that some people jump out with infected widows and widowers within days after burial? Yes, if the truth is not said, then we are bound to bury more and more people simply because they were not warned in good time.
Recently when our dear State Minister for Agriculture Dr. Israel Kibirige Ssebunya passed away (RIP), he was said to have died of throat cancer. Later as the journalists were trying to extrapolate the causes of such a disease, some of the issues that came up were; heavy drinking of alcohol and smoking. These two causative aspects are the real problem and speakers at the burial should have clearly highlighted them as a stern warning to the mourners to avoid falling in a similar situation (that is if it’s true that the deceased took a little too many glasses of alcohol). The fact that this was not highlighted must be reason why mourners keep demanding more and more crates of beers and cans of local brew apparently to “pass time!” No lesson learnt.
What I find interesting though is that when it comes to issues related to money, relatives are always quick to clear their deceased by clearing the debts. In fact at one funeral a relative stood up and asked anyone who demanded any money from the deceased to come up and say the amount so it could be paid back. This same boldness like was the case during Ebola victims’ burials, should be extended to all other aspects if only to save the lives of those left behind. The truth, and nothing but the truth must always be said.
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