NEWS of a noteworthy address to the National Assembly by ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga on the tragic deaths in the current initiation season reaches us here at the Mahogany Ridge.
Motshekga had called for a debate on what is obviously a persistent catastrophe. In 2010, for example, it was reported that 145 youths had died as a result of complications due to botched circumcision procedures in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, and that a further 1 200 were hospitalised. This season's toll now stands at 36 fatalities.
"Initiation schools are supposed to prepare young men for manhood and not to serve as death camps," Motshekga explained. "We are dismayed by the blatant abuse of our cultural and traditional practices by individuals who have turned them into lucrative business enterprises with no regard for human life."
More dismaying, I'd suggest, was the charge from the office of Mabhoko III, the Ndebele king, that witchcraft was responsible for the deaths of 28 initiates in Mpumalanga.
Mabhoko appears to be in trouble as a number of illegal initiation schools have been operating in the province with his approval. With an "unusually high" number of fatalities, it would then seem that blaming meddlesome supernatural forces for the mess was naturally the way to go.
Not everyone's buying this rubbish. The health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, addressing Wednesday's debate, has instead blamed "culture-preneurship" for the deaths: "I wish to state unequivocally, we are mostly dealing with commercial interests here . . . with individuals who have decided to hijack certain African cultures to amass wealth, make huge amounts of money in as short a time as possible, under the cloak of culture and tradition."
Something clearly needed to be done, and there was much talk about legislation that provided for "norms and standards" with regard to the age limitations of initiates, health requirements, the participation of parents, the prohibition of harmful practices, and so on.
Motshekga, quoting Nelson Mandela, made the interesting point that circumcision provoked a fair amount of debate among political prisoners on Robben Island, with a significant number of ANC members arguing that the practice was not only an unnecessary mutilation but a "reversion to the type of tribalism" that the ANC opposed.
It was, in the words of the former president, "not an unreasonable argument, but the prevailing view . . . was that circumcision was a cultural ritual that had not only a salutary health benefit but an important psychological effect. It was a rite that strengthened group identification and inculcated positive values."
Motshekga went on at some length about these values. He is no stranger to verbosity, and there came great swathes of guff about how the "transformation of African initiation schools cannot be separated from the broad social transformation that includes the revival, mainstreaming and harnessing of African religion for moral, cultural, social and economic development".
He spoke of gods who lived on the earth, who left their footprints here, how they introduced initiation schools. There were regiments and brotherhoods, there were mysteries of fire, and there were kings and queens and there were strange birds. It was all very much like an episode of Game of Thrones.
Initiates were taught "a number of secret formulas and songs and instructed in the physiology of sexual relations, the dangers of intercourse with a woman in a state of pollution and in the absolute necessity for obedience to the political authorities. These were accompanied by inter alia, ordeals and food taboos or abstinences to drive the lessons home. These painful forms of discipline ended with a military raid, or lion hunt."
Women in a state of pollution? Obedience to political authorities? Curiouser and curiouser. Were they still taught such things? According to Motshekga, initiates are urged to "put away all childish things" when the circumcision rites began, and to "henceforth speak and act with the dignity of men".
Most of us honkies here at the Ridge know little of such things. True, we had our own rites of passage. Some of us went on military raids, some of us didn't. But we became men and were duly permitted to take our places around the braai and speak in a dignified manner of rugby matches and magazine centrefolds.
None of us, though, had to face a babbling mystic with a rusty razor blade. Little wonder, then, that the deputy sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, had to be kidnapped and dragged kicking and screaming to his circumcision in 2008. He clearly was terrified at the prospect. It was criminal, I believe, to force him to undergo the experience.
Bottom line, I guess, is that it's culture. By all means go up the mountain - but do so willingly, and don't come down in a body bag.
This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.
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