The Muslim population´s growth rate in Southern Africa has been pretty slow, even though they have been in this part of the African continent for more than a century. With the passage of time, they adapted to the changing socio-political and economic circumstances and saw themselves as an integral part of the populations in this region. As the Muslims were gradually becoming economically mobile, they set up various structures such as mosques and welfare organizations that would serve the interest of their communities and thus achieve their communal goals. Some of them realized the role of the media as one of the most effective instruments to assist in their cause and these groups then established newpapers and radio stations in different parts of the region. In the latter part of the 20th century a fair number of the media have emerged and contributed towards the debates that have taken and are still taking place within in Southern Africa´s civil societies.
Habits are a peculiar component of culture, which currently have more functions in society. The function to identify is among the identification which classifies an individual as a member of “his/her” group, defines him or her and serves as an instrument for differentiation. The functions are an important element in the construction of a feeling of pride on the membership in a given group. The study submits a view of the specific realm of funeral habits and military funeral ceremonies within the military community with focus on the description of the current form of these habits in the environment of the Armed Forces of the Slovakian Republic. It introduces the basic formal means that are used in this environment in the case of a soldier´s death. The author observes how standards and rules are applied. She searches for an answer to the question whether there is a space in this strict environment hampered by norms to undertake spontaneous activities, not defined in the rules, related to funeral ceremonies and farewells, or other specific expressions that are part of life of this
socio-professional group. The study pays attention to specific types of ritual activities, such as ramp ceremony and welcome ceremony, the theme of soldiers - suicides, and the ratio of religious funeral ceremonies in the military environment.
Te study focusses on generational transformations in the perception of military service in the period from 1968 through 2004, as an important social phenomenon. Major attention is paid to oral-historical interviews with four contemporaries, or more precisely to the ways of (re)constructing their narrative reflections associated with military service in particular historical decades beginning with the 1970s with the overlap to the new millennium (meaning from the beginning of “normalization” after 1968 to the abolishment of military service in 2004). Besides the importance
of military service, the text focusses on the identification of potential topics from military everyday life and culture of military service soldiers in the context of the conversion from the socialist army to the democratic one, and at the level of constructing the individual and the group identities.