Nothing can ever justify why president Jacob Zuma must be called a "boy". Whatever the president is, and however much some of us might not agree with him, it can never be correct that he be called a "boy" because of the historical practices of his tribal affiliation, the Zulu people, who in the past did not subscribe to the belief in foreskin removal and other components of initiation which other tribes believe in. This thing of calling men who did not undergo initiation "boys" is problematic not only because it is disrespectful, but because it manifests itself into deeper tribal politics which are at the heart of continental disunity and fragmentation. Once one tribe thinks of itself as more superior than others, once its practices are used a a yardstick by which to measure correctness, and all other people are regarded as lesser beings, we have a serious problem. It is ethnocentrism at its worst. But more than this, it is a replication of apartheid mentality. Advocates of the apartheid regime used to call our fathers and grandfathers "boys", with the sole intention of emasculating them and presenting them as inferior beings, because boys are undeveloped and thus, not man enough to do certain things (voting, thinking rationally etc) because they are immature. So to refer to a father, a husband, a brother, an uncle and more than that, a president of our country as a "boy" is to apply apartheid thinking and strategy to emasculating and undermining a man. Whatever he is and whatever he has done, president Zuma cannot be called a "boy". And however much we dislike him and have no faith in his capacity to lead, we cannot degenerate to a point where we encourage such colonised, tribalised thinking to find expression in our national discourse. Haikhona!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:30:02 +0000
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