The problem in South Africa is not one that is only political and economic, but it is also very spiritual. No doubt all these three are related somehow but when we speak about the problems of this nation the spiritual is often ignored. Here I want to suggest that the spiritual must not only be seen as something that we must attend to after we have dealt with socio-economic or political issues but rather as an inherent part of what drives a nation.
For us death does not mean a cessation to exist but it suggests a particular transcendence moving from one realm to the other. That is why we have ancestors, not just as people who came before us but people who form and inform our existence in the same way we also inform their existence. We communicate with them through the performance of rituals and following traditions. So the ways in which we bury the dead matter so much, the places in which they are buried also plays a very important role.
Let me attempt to paint a picture; think of all the graves, those bones underground that were affected by the floods. What this means is that those above the lands were not the only ones who were displaced. Where land was shifting, moving because of the floods do we not think that the different graves were also mumbled up so much that tomorrow it will be impossible to differentiate a Dlamini grave from a Mbhele one? This is very likely going to be the case.
Let us move on to think about the way we conduct funerals. It is not just a simple procedure of hiding the body underground or cremating it. There is so much more involved. The communities experienced so many deaths in a single instance.
In the same way the economics cannot only be left in the hands of economists, politics in the hands of the politicians, the spiritual cannot be left in the hands of priests or healers only. This is to say that these problems facing South Africa demand that we collectively work together in dealing with them. To tackle the problems that we face, questions about culture, tradition and spirituality must not be relegated to the level of a footnote.
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