Initiation ceremony gone wrong. Young boys died have died in past years at initiation schools. The writer says it is time that circumcision, which is part of culture, is seriously reviewed. Picture: File/Independent Newspapers
By Dr Vusi Shongwe
THE Japanese once asked themselves: “Can we economically modernise without culturally Westernising?” After some serious deliberations, the Japanese confidently declared: “Yes, we can economically modernise without culturally Westernising. We just choose. We are going for Western technique, and we shall retain Japanese spirit.”
Professor Ali Mazrui, an African political scientist and historian, in his article, “Is Africa Decaying?”, cogently argues that the trouble with Africa is that it has been, at best, culturally Westernising without traditionally modernising.
Nothing better exemplifies the anomaly more disconcertingly than the botched circumcisions that result in the deaths of countless initiates, which could be easily prevented by using today’s advanced, scientific, and hygienically validated operating tools when the annual circumcisions are performed.
Indeed, in the age of advanced technology, represented by the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), it makes a mockery that unhygienic Okapi knives are reportedly utilised to execute circumcision when advanced and sterilised operating gadgets are available.
Those initiates risk being bitten by black mambas in the wild bushes while supposedly holding empowering sessions symbolising the transition from boyhood to manhood. There are plenty of clinical rooms and medical amenities available where such sessions could be held.
Why must our dear sons and grandsons compete with animals when they want to answer nature’s call in the bushes, and risk being excruciatingly injected with most venomous toxins of snakes? Buttocks, surely, deserve to be pampered by the toilet seats of flushing toilets than to subject them being laughed at by animals when we answer to nature’s call.
There is a wrongly held view that African culture is static, fixed and linked to a particular ethnic or racial group. This view negates the fact that a person or a group can change. It wants to ascribe a coin behaviour and characteristics to a certain group.
Culture is used as a yardstick from the past to justify actions and defend particular practices. In this way criticism is limited. The use of the statement “that’s our culture” often serves to close any inquiries and subsequent argument. Although it seeks to express unity and to assert purity of motive, the statement is often used to justify and maintain power over people.
As pointed out by LE Berk in his “Child Development” article in various cultures where initiation is practiced, physical suffering is included. Through suffering the person proves his or her ability to withstand future difficult circumstances. For instance, to become a man means that a boy will act courageously and boldly and that he is able to bear suffering.
An ideology can be used to justify physical suffering and put it in a favourable light. An example is when physical or emotional trauma and even the loss of life are explained as being for the greater.
Among amaXhosa people, for example, character and identity are not determined by a boy’s special nature and potential, but by proving that he can endure physical and emotional suffering. Apart from being circumcised with the same spear, blade or knife—which could have serious medical consequences—boys may be beaten or subjected to hunger, thirst, extreme cold and negligence. Moreover, they may not scream or show pain during the circumcision process.
The spear with which the circumcision is performed may be blunt, possibly leading to incomplete circumcisions, lacerations of the glans, injury to the urethra, and partial amputation. Some amaXhosa believe that complications and death during male initiation are a normal course of life. Prof JS Maphalala formerly referred to the death of initiates in the bush as follows: “If someone died, it was one of those things and the family found out much later.”
One Xhosa respondent stated: “It has been an accepted fact that often out of a group of boys who go to the mountain, one in ten would not return.” One headman stated in the House of Traditional Leaders that many women die while giving birth as do initiates at circumcision schools—no problem.
After all, circumcision is a custom that introduces boys. If a boy dies during initiation, little or nothing is said and his family is not given full details on how he died. In some cases his plate is brought home. His body is not returned to his family. All the Machado and bravado sketched in the foregoing are not only unnecessary, but they also vitiate the essence of male circumcision.
It was taboo at some stage for an initiate to consult a medical practitioner before undergoing circumcision. It was even unheard of for initiates to seek medical care during the initiation process. However, things have changed.
Besides the continued tragic and unnecessary loss of life among the initiates, it just does not make sense to continue to be stuck with an antediluvian (prehistoric) cultural practice that wreaks havoc to the very people it is supposed to help.
The modifications like the initiates’ consultation with the medical practitioner is something to be expected in this day and age of modernity, characterised by a high level of technological advancement.
What is even more disconcerting, is what appears to be the parents complicit in the continued tragic loss of lives of the initiates. Zolile Williams, MEC of co-operative governance and traditional affairs in the Eastern Cape where the deaths of initiates are commonplace, decried the parents’ addiction of responsibility when he poignantly said: “These deaths should not be happening if parents and communities were serious about the safety of their children when they are in traditional schools.”
It is time that circumcision, which is part of culture, is seriously reviewed. It is interesting that in almost all parts of the world, culture is viewed as a major driving force behind human behaviour.
This concept has become the context in which to explain politics, economics, progress and even failure. In his celebrated piece, “The Clash of Civilizations” and the Remaking of the World Order, the world-renowned historian, Samuel Huntington, makes the following statement:
“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of human conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be culture.
Culture and cultural identities … are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-cold war. Global politics is being reconfigured along cultural lines … peoples and countries with similar culture are coming together.
There is an urgent need for strong oversight and regulations for circumcision practitioners. It is not right that charlatans and village bullies are allowed to perform circumcision. This sacred cultural practice must also not be allowed to be made a money generating scheme.
The celebrated champion of the preservation of cultural values and practices, the late Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, propagated painstakingly until his last days for the indigenous land of black South Africans to be managed according to the native laws. Surely, in doing so, he was not further advocating for treatment of the sacrosanct circumcision practice with the current media-reported disdain.
If the removal of the foreskin is as important as to normalise the death of our sons and grandsons as “cultural casualties”, then this clumsy practice must itself have its dangerously stereotype foreskin removed urgently to usher in modernised and healthy cultural practices for the love of our sons and grandsons!
* Dr Vusi Shongwe works for the KZN Department of Sport, Arts and Culture. The contribution is written in his personal capacity. The views expressed here are his own.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.