By Maina Wahome
In most Kenyan cultures, you must die to be loved, vanish to be valued, and rot to be remembered. That’s why many people have become materialistic, striving to be remembered as the richest, the most educated, or the most fertile in their societies. It all depends on their goals.
These words embody a haunting reality of modern Kenyan society, a culture that glorifies the dead while neglecting the living. In a world where affection is delayed until death, life has become a desperate contest for remembrance. People hoard wealth not out of necessity but out of fear of being forgotten. They build monuments to their own egos, mansions, apartments, and castles, desperate to be remembered as wealthy, powerful, or educated, even if they lose their humanity in the process. It is a tragic irony that in our communities, love and honor often arrive only when the recipient can no longer receive them. Wreaths are valued more than heartfelt gestures, shared moments, or the living presence of those we profess to care for.
People should stop canonizing the dead. They are gone. As Ndaba Sibanda wrote, “The dead must be sobbing,” and that is now our reality. Let the departed rest in peace, free from pretentious grief and hollow eulogies. Mourning should be private, sincere, and humane, not performative. No hashtags, no grand feasts, no dark T-shirts emblazoned with faces that were once ignored. Society must abandon this theatre of grief, this ritualized hypocrisy that celebrates corpses more than it ever cherished living souls. Across Kenya and Africa, posthumous sainthood has become a cultural disease, one where the dead are exalted while the living remain invisible. You must die to be celebrated. Being alive is a hindrance to recognition.
That is why many in positions of power plunder public coffers with reckless greed, stealing endlessly and hoarding fortunes their descendants could never exhaust. However, when such figures die, their corruption is whitewashed through eulogies dripping with hypocrisy. If someone dies fleeing justice or engaging in crime, say it plainly: they perished as a consequence of their deeds. Society must stop enabling criminality and glamorizing mediocrity in the name of mourning. Experiencing relief or even happiness at the death of a societal nuisance is not necessarily heartless. It reflects the recognition that the oppressive presence that brought harm and suffering has finally departed.
For how long will we carry this posthumous hypocrisy we call mourning? Why give the dead more adulation than when they were alive? Must people die for the society to don dark T-shirts with their sorrowful faces, binge on endless feasts, and recite lifeless eulogies as if they truly cared? This recalls Ndaba Sibanda’s poetry collection “As If They Minded,” which captures the emptiness of performative grief, reminding us of Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Consider revolutionaries like political activists, freedom fighters, authors, musicians, reformers, and thinkers, men and women who shaped Kenya’s intellectual, moral, and political landscape despite the country’s deep-rooted cultural and systemic problems. In life, they were dismissed, starved, or exiled; in death, they are hailed as visionaries. The same society that ignored them suddenly cries torrents of crocodile tears. Their grief, however, is shorter than the tail of a pig. Ethnicity, jealousy, and social status divide people while they live, but death conveniently transforms even foes into “family.” The hypocrisy is suffocating.
There is an unhealthy obsession with materialism that breeds envy, depression, and moral decay. In life, people are invisible; in death, they become saints. Their ignored calls and dismissed achievements suddenly become sacred memories. Once their hearts stop beating, timelines flood with curated sorrow and pixelated tributes. Suddenly, everyone becomes a poet of grief, a philosopher of loss, a prophet of remembrance. What cruel irony, the living are starved of love and celebration, yet the dead are drowned in it.
Expensive coffins, designer caskets, and golden wreaths are purchased not out of love, but to impress those who never mattered. At requiem masses, faces are carved in counterfeit grief, whispering sweet nothings to the wind. When the casket drops, the tears, if any, are more theatrical than true. Mourning has become a social competition, a stage where vanity masquerades as virtue and sorrow is measured by performance.
This madness of mourning is not only an insult to the living but also a mirror reflecting the moral erosion beneath our traditions. Society has grown obsessed with appearances, a world where grief is rehearsed, and compassion is performed for public applause.
Social media has amplified this moral farce. It has become a digital cathedral of fake sorrow, a portal of pixelated grief and performative empathy. People now compete to prove how deeply they “cared.” Do the dead care about the morgue that preserved their bodies? Why live like a pauper and be embalmed like a president? Then comes the digital resurrection, faces plastered everywhere: WhatsApp statuses, Instagram reels, Facebook tributes, and TikTok slideshows, marketed like adverts. These posts come with captions few believe, hashtags none understand, and scriptures none live by. The internet has become the new altar of guilt, pride, and pretense.
Purported mourners are never short of phrases, the hollow, performative incantations of a grieving culture. “I can’t believe you’re no more.” “Gone too soon.” “We loved you, but RIP.” “Death is cruel.” “Rest easy, soldier,” and countless other pretentious platitudes. These tired refrains repeat like a broken dirge, flooding timelines and reverberating through funerals as if they carried sacred weight. But do they? These are not words of love; they are murmurs of guilt, spilling from hearts weighed down by regret and inadequacy. They are spoken not because the departed were truly cherished, but because the living cannot endure the burden of their own neglect. Each “RIP” transforms into a confessional whisper, a silent plea for absolution from those who withheld their love when it mattered most.
This charade must end. Mourning is not a show, and grief is not a performance. Celebration should not be reserved for the dead. If people are truly loved, they should be shown that love while they can still feel and experience it.
Kenyan society must unlearn this culture of death-centred affection and embrace a tradition of celebrating the living. Write tributes for the breathing. Feed the hungry. Support the struggling. Call those whose voices have been ignored. Love delayed until death is not love; it is guilt disguised as grief.
This culture of posthumous hypocrisy must be dismantled. It is not a virtue. It is vanity shrouded in sorrow, a madness dressed in tradition, and a performance of guilt parading as compassion. Humanity lies not in how we mourn the dead, but in how we treat the living. We must live the essence of Ubuntu, “I am because we are.” Only by cherishing life before it ends can we truly claim our humanity.
Short Bio
Maina Wahome is an author, linguist, and columnist. He also serves as a lecturer of the English language and conducts academic research.
