Abba Kyari: Pitying ourselves before death

Islam addresses those who lost their lives in the course of epidemics as “Ash shuhada’u”. Beside that, Abba Kyari’s death also interpreted the word ‘life’ as temporary. The state of been in possession of wealth or power cannot serve as immunity to death. The prime lesson is, One has to ask himself, last 3 weeks […]

Islam addresses those who lost their lives in the course of epidemics as “Ash shuhada’u”. Beside that, Abba Kyari’s death also interpreted the word ‘life’ as temporary. The state of been in possession of wealth or power cannot serve as immunity to death.

The prime lesson is, One has to ask himself, last 3 weeks ago, if I wanted to pay a homage to Kyari I would have to arrange a long connection, although not necessarily to get the appointment, because of power. Today, if I want to pay same homage to kyari, all I have to do is to locate the Gudu cemetery with no need of any appointment, fear of security screening. You see, permanent power belongs to almighty Allah. Those with privilege of temporary power should be in alert to loose it whether they like it or not, sooner or later. May Allah forgive the shortcomings of departed Muslims.

As I write this, there was, and has been, a deluge of information on the death and funeral of Abba Kyari. My WhatsApp account was full of such material. So, perhaps to break the boredom and monotony of it all,  I went to my study and picked up Jacques Derrida’s book, “The Work of Mourning” (The Chicago University Press,  2003) and began to re-read it for the third time. The book contains Derrida’s letters of condolence, memorial essays, eulogies, and funeral orations written on the occasion of the death of his best-known colleagues, friends and philosophers whose work influenced his own work and personal life. In this book,  Derrida shows,  by implication,  that you cannot mourn the death of someone you have never met,  you did not know first hand,  or that had had no immediate impact on your “welstanchauung”. Yet the bulk of the pieces sent to me or those that read about the death of Kyari were written by people who had never met the man, have never had any personal encounter with him, but had only heard about him or saw his image on the screen or on a printed page. These dare I say are/were not mourning the man. Rather,  they were speculative pieces that Freud (and Derrida)  would regard as the secret fear and dread of their own future or incoming death. People have an instinctive fear of death. Thus someone else’s death is an occasion for one to pity themselves well before their own death. To this extent, such people were not mourning the death of Kyari but lamenting their own future or incoming death. So, one can truly mourn someone only if they eulogise or memorialise about the death of a close friend, relative, wife,  husband, companion, or someone you have encountered in life and in person. All else is nothing but a sentimental apogee for one’s own future death—which is not what “mourning” truly and efficaciously means.”

Abubakar Bakori   [email protected]