Editorial - Tuesday December 17, 2013

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

STATE funerals used to be sombre affairs. All slow-marching and muffled drums, horse-drawn gun carriages and huge, silent crowds bearing witness to a moment in history. Nelson Mandela's long goodbye wasn't like that.

This funeral was always going to be a little different to what we've become accustomed to. For a start it took place in Africa, where people do not hide their grief. And his passing was neither unexpected nor a tragedy. At the age of 95, death came to Mandela as a release, for the man himself, for his family and his country. It was to be expected that the events that followed would be a mix of mourning and celebration of an extraordinary man who, while perhaps not the saint he is now portrayed as, etched an indelible place in history with his vision, his surmounting of extraordinary odds to survive, let alone to become South Africa's first Black (and democratically-elected) president, and above all the strength of character to spend the last 20-odd years of his life forgiving his former oppressors, and calling on all South Africans to follow his example.

One might have expected then that his funeral would at least be dignified. But it wasn't. For many of the world leaders who just had to be there it was little more than the photo opportunity of a lifetime. Never before have we witnessed such a mass display of crass behaviour from people who said what was expected of them, but behaved like star-struck schoolgirls.

The unedifying argument over who should represent New Zealand at the funeral, which became somewhat academic when it was decreed that only two would be allowed into the stadium, set the tone to some degree. One suspects that if John Minto had taken the place of one of the politicians he could at least have been relied upon to act with some decorum, but in the end we were represented by the Prime Minister (relatively restrained, and not recognised by the paparazzi and sub-editors around the world), the leader of the Labour Party (who graciously gave his ticket away), former Prime Minister Jim Bolger, who didn't seem quite sure where he was, former Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon (who we didn't see much of) and Maori Party co-leader Dr Pita Sharples, for whom the highlight was undoubtedly sharing the back seat of a bus with Naomi Campbell and Bono.

Dr Sharples couldn't disguise his glee at rubbing shoulders with two of the rich and famous. His farewelling Mandela as he lay in state in Pretoria with a poroporoaki was nice, but the remainder of his contribution to this historic occasion, as we saw it courtesy of TVNZ, was a disgrace. If he is so enamoured of supermodels and rock stars he should hang out at the Vector Arena.

What Mana Party leader Hone Harawira contributed isn't known, but while his desire to be there was undoubtedly genuine, his angst over how he was going to get there was disappointing. He finally dipped into the funding taxpayers give him as a party leader, we were told, when he should have simply fronted up at the Flight Centre with his credit card like a lesser mortal. Do politicians ever actually spend their own money?

The only consolation is that our official party didn't seem to behave any worse than others. Perhaps, with the exception of Dr Sharples, they actually did a little better.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has certainly been widely criticised at home for cuddling up to his Danish counterpart as she took a so-called 'selfie' for posterity - 'Look, children, that's me at Nelson Mandela's funeral. And guess who else was there!' - with grinning Barack Obama on her other side, and an obviously deeply unimpressed Michelle Obama far enough away to make her displeasure plain to see.

How extraordinary that those world leaders, for want of a better term, should behave so abominably at the funeral of a man who was everything that they would like to be but are not - thoughtful, dignified, measured in word and deed. Could any of them imagine Nelson Mandela sneaking a selfie at a state funeral? Would he tell a television reporter that he had had the great good fortune to bump into Bono? Could any of us imagine any world leader who has ruled since the camera was invented behaving like this?

Was this a strange aberration, or is this how things are going to be from now on? And couldn't they have been parted from their cell phones altogether for the hour or two it takes to conduct a funeral? George W didn't have his cell phone on him (or perhaps he had turned it off) when the awful events of 9/11 began to unfold. He was reading to a class of school children, and had to be told by one of his staff that his country was 'under attack.' Today's crop of presidents and prime ministers clearly aren't going to be waiting to get news of significance second-hand, even when they rock up to a funeral.

We will know more, perhaps, when the next great figure dies, although that could depend on who it is. It's doubtful that anyone will show up for Robert Mugabe's farewell, and at the other end of the spectrum it's difficult to imagine many selfies being taken when the Queen's time comes. But there must be others in between who might warrant an outing for the autograph book.

Perhaps we should get used to this awful behaviour. Maybe Sharples, Cameron, Obama and co are the outriders for the new self-obsessed generation, those who believe celebrity is the greatest achievement of all, and who know there's nothing like a funeral to bring out the stars.

But some defend the self-obsession that we see so much of these days, and the influence of the ubiquitous cell phone. One such idiot, in America (where else? We might not be able to ask that question for much longer), has refused to condemn those who indulge in selfies at funerals, who he says are expressing an emotion they might not have words for, that they are using a visual language that older people simply don't speak. Stone the crows! An expression of sorrow is conveyed much more eloquently with tears and silence than it can ever be by using a cell phone to record a grinning visage.

That we seem to have bred a generation of narcissists, a generation with the attention span of a billiard ball, is hardly a secret, but until last week we didn't know that the virus had infected that generation's parents and grandparents.

We can safely say the world has changed, and not for the better, when he who is supposedly the most powerful man in the world, another who is arguably in the top half dozen and a bit player from a European backwater amuse themselves at a state funeral by photographing themselves for their digital scrapbooks, and perhaps for name-dropping when friends call in for a barbecue. Although maybe they didn't know how else to express their sorrow.

The world became less dignified last week, as it farewelled a man who was universally recognised for his dignity. And we learned, if we needed to, that the oratory of the great and mighty at occasions like this is just another speech, written by someone else. If you want to see these people as they really are, check their cell phones.