10 Securitization of COVID-19 and the Imagination of Post-COVID-19 Burial Ceremonies in Kenya and Zimbabwe

Abstract

The years 2020 and 2021 will go down in history as the most tragic period in the second decade of the new millennium as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in death and untold suffering the world over (Sibanda et al. 2022: 1). Through this pandemic, the world “stood still,” instilled fear, caused trauma, and suffered unexpected losses in diverse ways. Initially perceived as a health emergency, COVID-19 pandemic revealed itself to be a multifaceted crisis, which raised questions that could not be answered in a mono-dimensional way (Hampton & Thiesen 2021: 1; Michaud 2021: 66). The virus was non-discriminatory as it affected people across varied groups regardless of one’s ethnic, racial, religious, gender, or sexual orientations in different geographical regions. Emerging in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, COVID-19 quickly spread across the world such that by March 2020, it was recognized as a global pandemic (Pentaris 2022). As it spread across the globe, individuals and communities faced the tragic loss of human life and affected the ways of grieving and mourning according to tradition handed over from one generation to the next. Therefore, death, loss, grief, and related burials experienced in the context of COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, with particular reference to Kenya and Zimbabwe, evoke many unanswered questions from a religious perspective. Apparently, governments imposed restrictions in order to tackle the spread of the virus, but placed those affected in a quandary.