Burial or cremation?

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 11:10:11 +0000

Debate rages as reality of  land shortage versus cultural, religious beliefs

By Mailesi Banda

THE toughest time for a bereaved family during a Zambian funeral is the body viewing and the committal of the body into the grave.

It is hard to understand that a person they once shared a lifetime with is now subject to a limited space of a coffin and later on buried into the ground and left behind without anyone to talk or listen to them. Sooner than later the grave disappears among the hundreds others looking the same.

Despite the wailing at the funeral, the end of their union with the living has come at last.

At this stage it matters less the love and connection you had with the departed because once they are buried that is the end of any association with them, only memories remain.

And now if witnessing someone being buried is painful then imagine watching a relative go up in flames as she or he is being cremated.

Cremation is the act of burning the body of a person as a way of disposing the dead.

This act is performed especially in Muslim and Western countries due to traditional beliefs, preferences and or in some cases due to limited land to spare for a cemetery.

Recently, a debate has been raging whether Zambia was ready to embrace the practice of cremation due to shortage of land in Lusaka or whether there was a possibility of getting more land for burial.

Different people had different perceptions based on beliefs and environmental protection concerns.

A research carried out by local authorities revealed that with the increase in population in Lusaka, about 30 hectares of land was needed for burial space annually.

This led to the Mayor of the City of Lusaka, Wilson Kalumba, suggesting that the residents should be flexible and consider cremation as a means of disposing their dead.

According to the mayor, while the challenge of looking for land for a new cemetery was a Government responsibility, Lusaka currently had no land for a new cemetery.

The mayor said cremation was being practiced in most parts of Europe where families were having their relatives cremated, adding that he saw nothing wrong with the practice being introduced in Zambia.

He wondered why people insisted on burying their relatives when the graves were not even properly maintained.

“The state of the graves in Lusaka is regrettable; people do not maintain their relatives’ graves and the grave yards are not even presentable. In fact some people cannot locate where they buried their relatives, hence the introduction of cremation will improve the outlook of the city,“ he said.

Mr Kalumba said if Government found land for a cemetery it would be in another district outside Lusaka, which would be a cost to families of the deceased.

“Currently there is no land in Lusaka, hence if we have to have another cemetery it will be in another district. And families will spend a lot of money on transport, bearing in mind the crowds Zambian funerals pull to the grave, funerals will not be manageable by most families,“ he said

The mayor’s observation sounds like the most logical approach to the matter but does it put in mind the impact this would have on the relatives of the people that are cremated?

The last memory they would have of their relative would be her or him going up in flames and the only reference of their existence would be the ashes stored up somewhere.

Is this something Zambians are ready to embrace? Are we a strong enough to adopt a new culture than what we are used to?

A population that requires about 30 hectares of land means a lot of people die and are buried every day. With cremation and the number of people that die annually in the city, how much of the emissions are we going to be subjecting our environment to?

Minister of Water Development, Sanitation and Environmental Protection Lloyd Kaziya opposes cremation because it would affect the environment negatively.

He said while the ministry was making efforts to ensure that emissions were reduced, the introduction of cremation would be a draw back in their campaign.

As an option to cremation, Mr Kaziya suggested mass graves or the adoption of a system of burying 10 bodies in one grave and just have a list of the people buried in a particular grave for identification purposes. He argued that the system of burying more than one person in a grave has been adopted in South Africa and was helping in the preservation of land.

“We could bury over the weekend and push about 10 bodies in one grave because if we continue with the six feet, one body type of burying the land challenge will still be with us forever,’’ he said.

Mass burial is the solution, according to the Minister of Environmental Protection.

The mass burial arrangement raises a lot of questions, such as: Whose church pastor would conduct the burial service? Who takes what slot in the grave? How do you conduct a memorial and erect a tombstone?

Simple a solution as it may sound, it is more complicated than that.

Cremation, too, stirs religious emotions. Bible Gospel Church in Africa (BIGOCA) bishop Peter Ndlhovu says cremation is not part of the Christian faith.

The bishop says the dead are supposed to be buried and not burned since the Bible says when Jesus returns, Christians would resurrect from the dead.

The book of Matthew 27 v 59 and 60 (NIV) says, ‘‘Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and placed it in his own tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the grave and went away.’’

This scripture is in relation to the body of Jesus Christ, it was placed in a tomb because during that era bodies were disposed in tombs that were carved from rocks and not burnt.

But Zambia Republican Party president Wright Musoma feels people should stop spiritualizing cremation.

Mr. Musoma said the country, being a Christian nation, was not a basis for fighting a move that was meant to preserve land.

He appealed to Zambians to look at the suggestion of cremation critically as it was currently the only solution to the scarcity of burial land.

“Cremation  may seem weird but we need to be real and realistic; whichever route we get Lusaka needs 30 hectares of land per year to bury our dead and the population is growing, meaning the demand for land will increase,’’ he said.

He said cremation had nothing to do with the background of people but rather with the challenge of land.

He explained that his support for cremation was not meant to dismiss the importance of people’s culture and beliefs, adding that regardless of how somebody’s body was disposed of they would still rise from the dead during resurrection.

“The reasons being brought up over the matters of resurrection are baseless as people die differently.

How about those that are devoured by lions?’’ he asked.

So regardless of the side of the argument one supports, the reality still remains that the three public grave sites in Lusaka are currently full and there is no more land in the capital city to bury the dead.

The only graves available in Lusaka are privately owned and require a lot of money for one to be buried there – ranging from K4,000 to K40,000 per grave.

With most Zambians living on less than a US dollar a day, one wonders how many could afford these burial spaces to put their loved ones to rest.

As burial land runs out in Lusaka, and some of the major towns in Zambia, finding a place to bury our people has become a challenge. No wonder so many options are being floated as a solution.

What is a fact is that hard choices have to be made. In the process some cultural or religious practices, which Zambians hold dear today, may be discarded. They say adversity is the mother of invention.