A minute silence for the late Vice-President, the departed Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.

What we have done to Matilda with our words is heart-breaking. The biblical generation heard of a bleeding, wounded man beaten by robbers and left on the street but passers-by felt too busy to help and so walked away.

But this generation would see this same assaulted man and assault him with words perhaps because they did not see why a wounded man should also be angry at his robbers.

Whether what she said was appropriate or not is a matter we are free to post about but we are not free to make a conclusion. For in this matter, we must be generous in giving her the benefit of the doubt for the details of her allegations are deep inside her own bosom.

Matilda charged, 'did they really know my husband?' but E-Lab fears her critics will end up guilty of 'did they really know his wife', if they condemn her demeanours at the funeral. For there is a reason why some African women in labour shout, scream and insult their husbands.

But imagine the husband who replies his wife in labour that she is being insensitive? For clearly there can be nothing more insensitive than a man who criticises his wife in labour for her choice of words in the moment of incomparable pain.

Well, that is exactly who we are and that's exactly what we have done to Matilda Amissah-Arthur if we lifted a word at her.

It appears our former Second Lady does not have a thick skin for politics judging from the soft skin pomade she uses. But what do you expect a dutiful wife whose husband has accepted to be Vice-President to do? Take advice from the so-called Pepperdem ministries and file for divorce?

If you really want to analyse the propriety of her words, the proper thing is to wait for your husband or wife to die. If you are impatient to know the results of this experiment, you can accelerate your husband or wife's death by making sure you have great fun. For time flies when you are having fun.

And then, there is the other matter of those who use every death of prominent persons to hunt for 'hypocrites' on Facebook. We did the same when Ebony Reigns died.

There are many things we would want to change in this country but English words cannot be one of them otherwise E-Lab fears mothers could soon be charged with hypocrisy for chiding their children in private and praising them in public.

Of course, in this tragic passing of Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, there are those for whom the charge is right. But what has become popular is that people would call a man a hypocrite because he was an avowed critic of a live man only to appear a repentant lover to a dead one.

E-Lab is yet to understand why we call critical people hypocrites for saying good things about a dead man. A teacher can mark a bad script and still call his student a good boy.

The reason why people say good things about dead men is the same reason why people say bad things about live men.

It is because, that it is the most natural things to do.

Death brings out our common humanity. But, life brings out our separate personality.  Personality makes us different, different makes us divergent, divergence makes us critical, critical makes us..... well, critics.

Death makes us humans which is why everybody loses their names at death and simply assumes a new but terribly common name of body.

The body has been sent to the morgue. Not Amissah-Arthur has been sent to the morgue. It is this commonness that makes critics lose their verbal machetes and prefer verbal flowers.

This is the same reason why someone with a social media account can criticise loosely, another man he can't unloose his sandals. Facebook brings out our common faces. It is CVs that bring out our separate qualifications.

It is too much to ask that we should say good things about you when you are alive because we naturally suspect a live person to have bad traits (weaknesses) or to have done, is doing, can do, will do something bad or nothing good about something bad.

Who can survive the claws of all these clauses? Only the dead.

 

Previously on Edwinology's Lab

Edwinology's Lab: Those who want us to give Charlotte a carrot but not a stick

Edwinology’s Lab: The people who love weeds because they hate food”‹

Edwinology's Lab: When sweepers clean the streets, they are simply sweeping the wrong place