BY IDUH ONAH
THERE is, in much of Africa, an almost sacred injunction against speaking ill of the dead. A man may have spent his lifetime breaking hearts, abusing power, looting public resources, crumbling institutions or generally playing the villain at every given opportunity, including committing murder or even orchestrating massacres. However, once that person breathes his or her last, a strange transformation begins. His or her sins are buried and some virtues, real or imagined, suddenly sprout out of the imagination of the living. The obituary becomes a rehabilitation programme.
“Do not speak ill of the dead,” we are told. “Let the dead rest.” Of course, this is a sentiment that sounds not only humane but also noble. After all, the dead cannot answer allegations made against them, defend themselves, clarify disputed claims or correct records. While there is something undeniably decent about refusing to turn a funeral into a courtroom, there is also a question we ought to ask: Is respect for the dead sufficient immunity against telling the truth about them?
Before I am misunderstood; the point being made is not that every dead person should be dragged posthumously before a court of public opinion; rather, the fact is that death should not acquire the magical power to turn falsehood into truth or wickedness into virtue. In other words, a society that refuses to speak about the evils committed by its dead eventually teaches the living the wrong lesson. If every notorious person receives a sanitised obituary, young people may reasonably conclude that society has a peculiar reward system: behave badly for seventy years, die, and wait for the eulogists to arrive.
Perhaps this cultural instinct has its roots in the African reverence for ancestry and the belief that death marks a passage into another spiritual condition. To speak harshly of the dead can therefore appear not merely rude but dangerous, a disturbance of the relationship between the living and those who have crossed the great divide. There is also the understandable desire to preserve communal harmony. Funerals are occasions for grief, reconciliation and closure, not necessarily occasions for investigations into a man’s past. All of that is understandable.
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But there is a crucial distinction between speaking maliciously of the dead and speaking truthfully about their deeds. The former may be spite or resentment; the latter may be history. Indeed, the Holy Bible, which speaks frankly and with discernment about human frailty, offers no general instruction that death should erase moral accountability.
Interestingly, this tension between the virtues and vices of the dead is not restricted to Africa. William Shakespeare captured it brilliantly in Julius Caesar, when Mark Antony, during his funeral oration for the assassinated Roman leader, declared:
“The evil that men do lives after them;
“The good is oft interred with their bones.”
On the surface, Antony appears to be respecting the conspirators’ position and even accommodating their justification for Caesar’s assassination. He repeatedly refers to Brutus and the other conspirators as “honourable men.” But beneath this apparent deference lies a masterful exercise in irony and political persuasion. By ostensibly praising the conspirators while recalling Caesar’s generosity and virtues, Antony gradually turns the Roman crowd against them. His speech demonstrates how public memory can become a battleground between competing narratives and how the selective remembrance of a person’s deeds can be manipulated for political ends.
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Beyond its dramatic brilliance, Antony’s speech raises a question that remains relevant to our own societies: Should the death of a person become an invitation to remember only what was good about him/her, or should posterity retain the freedom to examine the full record of hi/hers life? Neither praise nor condemnation should be determined by the convenience of the moment.
Take, for instance, Bible’s account of Cain’s murder of Abel. It does not become less instructive because Cain eventually disappears from the narrative. His crime remains permanently attached to his name. Also in the Bible, Saul is remembered not merely as Israel’s first king but also for his disobedience, his violent persecution of David and, tragically, his resort to a medium before his death. The biblical account does not say, in effect, “Saul has died; please concentrate on his good qualities.”
Then there are Ananias and Sapphira. Their story in the Acts of the Apostles is spiritually tragic because their deaths follow their deception. The early Christian community did not suppress the account out of sensitivity to the deceased nor the fact that they were members of a community of believers who ought to be pious and pure. It preserved it precisely because the story contained a moral warning: dishonesty, even when dressed in piety, has consequences.
The dead do not need our lies, and neither do they need our hatred. What the living need is memory. A society that remembers only the virtues of its dead risks producing generations that imitate their vices without knowing the price. A society that remembers both the virtues and the evils of its dead gives its children something more valuable than eulogies: moral instruction.
Before I am misunderstood; the point being made is not that every dead person should be dragged posthumously before a court of public opinion; rather, the fact is that death should not acquire the magical power to turn falsehood into truth or wickedness into virtue. In other words, a society that refuses to speak about the evils committed by its dead eventually teaches the living the wrong lesson. If every notorious person receives a sanitised obituary, young people may reasonably conclude that society has a peculiar reward system: behave badly for seventy years, die, and wait for the eulogists to arrive.
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Both young and old Nigerians have repeatedly seen this contradiction. Perhaps with the exception of the late General Sani Abacha, virtually every Nigerian political figure who died had been canonised one way or another with praises, real or imagined. When some of these leaders – men and women of means – who had caused so much pain in their lifetimes, die, we are bombarded with glowing expressions of their goodness. The corrupt politician becomes “a statesman,” the authoritarian becomes “a great democrat,” and the deeply compromised public official becomes “a patriot.” Before long, the eulogies become so lavish that one begins to wonder whether sainthood is not even a belittling endowment.
We prefer the departed to leave us with comforting memories rather than difficult questions. But nations cannot build serious moral cultures on comforting memories alone.
There is an important difference between honouring the dead and canonising them. We can mourn a man without approving everything he did, acknowledge his contributions without concealing his crimes, or recognise his patriotism in one area and condemn his wrongdoing in another. Human beings are rarely one-dimensional, and historical truth becomes distorted when we insist that the dead must be either angels or demons.
That is why, when some Nigerians speak, with good reason and considerable historical anger, about the allegations of repression, corruption and human-rights abuses by General Sani Abacha, they are right to insist that these matters should not be forgotten. In discussing Abacha, intellectual honesty requires that we should not pretend that every action of his government was evil or that every Nigerian remembers his era in precisely the same way. His admirers point to actions and policies they regarded as expressions of patriotism and national interest. Those claims, too, belong to history and should be examined rather than conveniently erased.
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The larger irony is that some Nigerian leaders who came after Abacha have been accused of conduct that, in the eyes of many citizens, was every bit as damaging, or worse, in particular respects but none has been so villified as General Abacha. Indeed, honest remembrance is often the highest form of respect we can give both the dead and the living. If a powerful man abused his office, say so. If he also built something worthwhile, say that too. If a leader defended the country in one moment and damaged its institutions in another, history should have the courage to hold both facts in the same hand.
The dead do not need our lies, and neither do they need our hatred. What the living need is memory. A society that remembers only the virtues of its dead risks producing generations that imitate their vices without knowing the price. A society that remembers both the virtues and the evils of its dead gives its children something more valuable than eulogies: moral instruction.
Perhaps, then, the better African injunction should not be: “Do not speak ill of the dead,” but rather: “Speak the truth about the dead, and speak it fairly.” We should allow the grave to provide rest to the dead while history provides accountability. The two realities can operate side by side.
Onah is the Editor-in-Chief of NATIONAL RECORD and writes this column every Wednesday. Send reactions via email to: nationalrecordng@gmail.com, onahiduh@yahoo.co.uk. WhatsApp: +234 8033209749
