Abdullahi Derow
From Tehran to Ramallah, from Dodoma to Nairobi: history has shown that some leaders are not mourned quietly. Their funerals become movements of the heart: raw, chaotic, and unstoppable.
Some funerals are not ceremonies. They are uprisings of emotion, the kind where nations stand still and crowds turn into rivers that no barrier can stop.
In 1989, Tehran drowned in tears as Ayatollah Khomeini’s body was brought for burial. More than ten million Iranians filled every street and rooftop. They tore through barricades, climbed walls, and broke police lines, desperate to touch the man they called their spiritual father. His shroud was ripped apart by mourners seeking blessings from his cloth. Soldiers fired into the air, but nothing could restrain the flood of humanity. At least eight people were killed in the crush. The coffin had to be airlifted twice as people clung to it with their bare hands.
In 1970, Cairo came to a standstill for Gamal Abdel Nasser. The air was thick with wailing. Women fainted, soldiers wept, and millions marched through the streets carrying his portrait: the man who had given Egypt its pride and voice. The crowd was so immense that panic turned deadly. Dozens were injured and several died as the army struggled to clear a path for the hearse. Egypt mourned not just a man, but a dream.
In 2004, when Yasser Arafat’s coffin descended over Ramallah, the scene resembled an uprising more than a funeral. Tens of thousands of Palestinians surged forward, men climbed walls waving flags and firing into the air. When the helicopter touched down, the crowd broke through the gates of the Muqata compound and swarmed the aircraft. The coffin was lifted by bare hands, carried by the people through chaos and prayer. Palestinians weren’t simply burying their leader — they were mourning the soul of their struggle.
In 2020, millions in the Iranian city of Kerman gathered to bid farewell to Qassem Soleimani, killed by an American drone strike. His funeral turned into a storm of anger and devotion. Streets overflowed with mourners chanting his name, waving flags. The crush became deadly, more than fifty people died, hundreds were injured. Yet the grief ran deeper than tragedy. People refused to leave until his body disappeared into the ground.
In 2021, Tanzania experienced its own surge of emotion. When President John Pombe Magufuli’s body was transported from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, thousands lined the roads, singing and crying. Stadiums overflowed as people came to see him one last time. The crush became fatal: forty-six people died, dozens were injured. The state struggled to contain what love had unleashed.
And now, in 2025, Kenya has lived its own version of this story.
The death of former Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Raila Amollo Odinga: Baba, has unleashed a storm of emotion that has shaken the nation.
At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, mourners broke past security to reach the aircraft carrying his body. Roads were blocked as convoys moved through Nairobi into the city centre. In Kisumu, thousands camped in the streets, singing freedom songs deep into the night.
At Kasarani Stadium, four people lost their lives when police fired tear gas to contain the surging crowd. In a rare move, the government was forced to relocate the state viewing from Parliament to stadiums to accommodate the masses.
What binds all these moments: from Tehran to Nairobi, is not disorder, but devotion.
When a leader becomes part of a people’s soul, their death becomes a public ritual of belonging. The crowd does not wait for permission. It arrives uninvited, unstoppable, united by memory and love.
When a man belongs to the people, even death cannot separate him from them.
About The Author:
Abdullahi Derow is a political commentator and governance analyst based in Kenya.