Down with gods and destructive traditions
I find it hard to believe that it is the year 2010. In terms of fundamentalist, traditionalist, sexist and patriarchal behaviour we seem to be going backward: several African countries are passing laws that would enable them to lock up or execute gay people – obviously science hasn’t caught on here; the President of South Africa is exploiting citizens’ superstition and ignorance by threatening that their ancestors will make them sick or kill them if they give up their membership of the ruling ANC, while members of the AWB revert to giving Nazi salutes at their leader’s funeral; a member of parliament in an African country talks about witches as if they are real, navies are deploying warships to curb attacks by Somalia’s pirates and an ox is killed to bless Soccer City in Soweto while 300 sangomas invoke the spirits of their African ancestors.
We are constantly told to respect other cultures and beliefs.
I would rather not become more African, or a little bit more Muslim, or a touch more Christian, or a smidgen more Xhosa, or a mite more Afrikaans or Chinese. Do not expect me to respect any barbaric cultural or religious practices that fly in the face of civilized behaviour. That is simply not sane. As a species we have to advance, not indulge each other’s misery and religious fundamentalism and perpetual victimhood and cultural hellholes and our ancestor’s tribal wars.
There is just so much wrong with the sentimental and hysterical support of behaviour that amplifies tribal difference, or dehumanizes women, or strips land of all that is green without a thought for sustainability because some or other god will provide. We should not be expected to kowtow to harmful practices masquerading as someone’s “cultural inheritance”. We should not have to tolerate those who slaughter albinos for muti, stone witches, murder daughters in the name of “family honour”, rape girls as a patriarchal right or weapon of war, or those who think they have a right to mutilate young girls’ and boys’ genitals. There is no sense in growing our populations according to some or other scripture while my ten children for whom I can’t provide, have a thousand goats they can’t feed because my forefathers and I have stripped the land of all nourishment – we didn’t plant anything and we didn’t dam any water – we just multiplied according to our god’s will or because we’ve done things that way for 300 years.
I would rather not become more like any of “us” or “them” – I’d prefer to be part of a new people: not reliant on what went before, but learning from past mistakes and hoping for a new, truly collective consciousness, maybe by the year 3010. But that might be too soon for us to realize how toxic we are to one another and our environment for as long as we cling to our prideful traditions and destructive social behaviour.
papRika
