adminAround 10pm on July 28, a Zimbabwean man, Josphat Mutekedza had a dispute with Mirriam Danai Nyazema; a dispute which apparently drew the attention of their neighbourhood in the Greater Manchester area, that should be in the United Kingdom.
Some residents are said to have heard gunshots, and others wailing. Whatever noise came from Nyazema’s flat, it was enough to cause her neighbours to call for help. When paramedics arrived, they found her with stab wounds, to which she would succumb to later on.
Mutekedza has since been arrested on manslaughter allegations. Sad story, indeed.
It is quite regrettable that we continue to be losing precious lives through killings of passion. When will people learn to let go?
But for me that was not the sad part on the passing away of Mirriam Nyazema. It was the other news a week later — when friends and relatives gathered their efforts to raise about £10 000 for the repatriation of Nyazema’s body back to Zimbabwe for burial.
There we go again!
Is dying in the Diaspora becoming a lucrative business? Or the Diaspora isn’t exactly that rosy, that when you die, you cannot get a decent burial?
In fact, there are so many questions surrounding dying in the Diaspora. If someone had forsaken home, that is Zimbabwe, why the fuss in bringing that dead body back home? At what cost? And whose cost? What’s the significance of a burial place? Why not just be buried where you die?
In a society that is fast reneging on such traditional belief systems as “kurova guva”, why the fuss of wanting to transport a body back to Zimbabwe, when at the end of it all, there won’t be any such ceremonies?
First things first. Nyazema had been in the UK for some 13 years and was employed as a nurse. To us laypeople back in the “land of suffering”, nurses are said to be some of the well-paid employees in the Diaspora, particularly in the UK. Especially if their duties involve the wiping of behinds of those who are too old to wipe their own. It is a pound well-earned, we are told.
The inference from being a well-paid employee is that every facet of life is taken care of. From health insurance, life insurance and death insurance. But wait a minute, did we just say death insurance?
Nyazema is not the first to seek crowd funding to bring her home, and most likely she is not going to be the last one. We are going to have a number of them going the begging route, albeit from the mortuary.
This begging culture, to repatriate dead bodies, is it because these dead people would have been so reckless with their lives that they did not have death insurance? Or that they could not afford death insurance?
Or that there could be a new breed of “entrepreneurs” who are taking advantage of the dearly departed to start crowd funding at the slightest hint that there could be an easy pound to be made? Just reading the story of how Nyazema met her death is enough to raise emotions, and it might have been easy to ride on these emotions.
People die everywhere, either here in Zimbabwe or in the Diaspora. Paupers can be found anywhere and everywhere, either here in Zimbabwe or in the Diaspora. But I have a problem when a person who had been gainfully employed in the Diaspora is declared a pauper — it just does not add up.
Probably we have not really refined what we want to achieve by going to the Diaspora. Do we want a new life, with all the basic comforts of a decent life, albeit with a sense of belonging. Belonging to Zimbabwe, in this case?
Or when we migrate to foreign lands we are starting a whole new life, new community, new belief systems?
What becomes of the Nigerians who die in Zimbabwe? Are their bodies repatriated to Nigeria? Or we bury them “Kumbudzi”? What happens to Somalis who die at Tongogara Refugee Camp? Do we repatriate the bodies or we bury them among the Samanyika?
Against this background, what should happen to a Zimbabwean who dies in Australia, a Zimbabwean who would have migrated and settled in Australia? Who should worry and carry the cost of repatriating that body back to Zimbabwe? Shouldn’t the few savings, supposing there had been any, be used to look after the immediate family?
In the case of Nyazema, why raise £10 000 to have her buried in Zimbabwe and then leave her child(ren) without any funds to start off? Bottom line, what is the real significance of a burying place, space? What happens to those who die at sea? To those who are cremated? Can’t we use the same mindset?
What benefit do we derive from seeing the grave of our dear departed? For years the issue of grave sites have been a cause of tension, especially when it comes to moving families from where their ancestors were buried. Are we deriving our sentiments from the same reasoning?
Relating to what people want to achieve by going into the Diaspora, doesn’t it make sense that when people migrate, slowly they should cut ties with their home countries? I suppose that should be the reason why there is that clamour to have bodies repatriated back.
If someone goes to the Diaspora and becomes a resident and citizen thereof, as much as they seek their material comfort there, they should also seek their heavenly comfort from there. I think it is time that people who are in the Diaspora stop living double lives.
There is no point in buying a house in Borrowdale, a spacious and comfortable home for that matter, and living in “squalor” in the United Kingdom, slogging out long and tiring hours. What’s the point? Who is benefitting from the long hours of work that you put in? The mess from the old people that you have to clean? The people back home?
As it is, people are working hard and at times dying in the Diaspora without coming back to enjoy the fruits of their toil back home. Isn’t that a bit stupid? I am asking, what exactly is the point then, in migrating to suffer in a foreign land, with the people you left back home enjoying your sweat and toil. And when you die, your friends crowd-fund to bury you home.
Maybe I am coming from a primitive mindset. Let the debate begin.
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Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter