NO matter how coarse, brutal and stupid British society becomes ... our belief in showing respect for the dead remains strong.
And I’m glad about that because it is a sign of hope for the chaotic present and our uncertain future.
We are right to expect others to show respect for a dead person, even if those ‘others’ didn’t know the dead person very well.
We know in our bones that it is right to make some gesture of sympathy or solidarity when a member of our community dies.
But to show respect for the dead ought to be a voluntary, instinctive act.
If you attempt to bully people into showing respect – as has happened in Norris Green and Croxteth, Liverpool, in recent days – then you invalidate the gesture totally.

This is the mistake made by friends of the murdered teenage gang member Liam Smith.
Teen gang members have been pressurising local shops and pubs to shut for the day on Monday 25 September when Liam’s funeral will take place. A sign of respect is being demanded, you see.
The police see this as intimidation of traders and are urging them to defy the bullies and stay open.
Chief Insp Mike Cloherty, area commander for the gun crime-blighted Norris Green, is reported as saying: “His (Liam’s) funeral must not impact on the lives of ordinary people. From my perspective in charge of that area it’s business as usual on Monday.”
‘Business as usual’ when someone’s funeral is being held? That surely is not the right thing to say. I think it insensitive.
Nor do I particularly think it a good idea for a senior police officer to state that a funeral should not impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Funerals always impact on the lives of ordinary people. That is in the nature of public lamentation.
Now, I know that 19-year-old Liam Smith was a gang leader, so he did not lead a blameless life. But which of us does manage to lead an entirely blameless life?
The point is that Liam's death is being marked in the traditional way with a funeral service at a church. I expect the impact will certainly be felt away from the confines of the church, as is quite normal.
It is the proper business of the police to try to stop intimidation, of course, but I hope on this occasion they will exercise some tact and, indeed, respect in doing so.
People are grieving, their emotions are raw, and so they are not behaving entirely rationally. You have to make allowances for that.
The fuss about this young man’s funeral, and the issue of what constitutes respect for the dead, set me thinking about when I was a young lad, growing up on a tough, working class housing estate in the early 1960s.
Even as a boy, I was always impressed when suddenly, from time to time, all the houses in our street would draw their curtains in broad daylight and keep them closed for a week or so.
What had happened was that a neighbour had died. The word went around pretty quickly and everyone drew their blinds ‘as a mark of respect’ and they kept them closed until after the funeral.
It was something you did automatically back them, as well as offering other forms of help and comfort to those who grieved, even if you had previously had fallings-out with the family of the dead person.
All that was forgotten as a community came together.
When there was a death around our way when I was a kid it brought out the best in everyone, because all felt it was their duty to express solidarity with those who were suffering loss.
I somehow doubt that sort of thing happens on quite the same scale now.
But whatever else has happened to our society over the past 45 years or so I do hope things have not become so bad that we need to take advice from the cops on whether or not we should show respect for the dead.
We all know, deep down, that all human life has meaning and value. Family and friends will instinctively want to do their best for this young man who had, admittedly, gone off the rails.
So I hope the funeral goes well, though I don’t personally know anyone involved.
Unashamedly, let me say may God bless Liam Smith’s soul. I hope his family and friends find peace and comfort in the difficult months and years ahead.
I also hope God will help the police clear up the ugly gun crime that disfigures Norris Green rather more effectively in the future than they have managed in the past.
After all, when vicious criminality exists on the scale it does in parts of Liverpool then that tells me there's been a massive failure of policing.

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