In the light of the challenges facing the SA youth, it is worth pondering the question whether initiation schools are a boon or a bane to our society. There have been many stories, mostly horrifying, about the experiences of the initiates at these “schools”, which include botched circumcisions which condemn young boys to childless futures.
What is clear is that boys who attend these schools return with altered characters and personalities. Stories abound of respectful and obedient boys who after graduation from these schools, return as rogues who lose these virtues in the false belief that the “manhood” they acquire at these obsolete centres entitle them to be disrespectful and disobedient.
Such altered personalities are manifesting in heightened aggression where they engage in fights and are most likely to be part of gangs. The truth is that promising lives of young boys are ruined through these backward and antediluvian practices.
The initial question is therefore answered that initiation schools are a bane to South African society and the sooner we get rid of them, the better it will be for our progress and prosperity. Having answered the initial question, the next one would be: what needs to be done to guide and nurture our children and youth to the right paths?
The key to this lies with the agents of socialisation in the form of the home, the school, the church and the community. The adage it takes a village to raise a child should be enlivened with the parents having to play a key initial role in the raising of their offspring.
To this end, the role of effective parenting cannot be over-emphasised through its definition as the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood.
Psychologists such as Erik Erikson postulated theories on personality development and emphasised the role of parenting in enabling the success of children from infancy through adolescence until old age. He also pointed out that success in a previous stage determines success in the later stages.
Advising on child-rearing, the American writer and orator Frederick Douglass argued that “it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”. In my language, we say “thupa e kojwa e sale metsi”. Loosely translated, this means you can only bend a rod while it is wet because when it is dry it will break.
It is never too early for children to learn and the first teacher in the life of a child should and must be a parent. Anything less than this is failing our children, hence they will seek affirmation from obscure practice which can only lead them astray. It is important that both boys and girls be taught good values from home as “charity begins at home”.
African adages such as “monna ke nku, ha a lle", which means a man is a sheep, he does not cry, should be discarded as they encourage boys and men to bottle up their feelings as expression of emotion is viewed as a mark of weakness. As the first teachers of their children, parents should also be the role models of good behaviour.
The other agents of socialisation, such as the school and the church, can also play a positive role in the lives of children. However, their influence can only build on the foundation laid at home by the parents and other close relatives.
In the end, manhood or womanhood is not to be found at some remote bush, but is a product of a consistent and conscious process that starts in the home where the parents exercise a positive role on their children.
As for initiation schools, they are just obsolete relics of a backward past and should be discarded before they can wreak further damage than they already have.
• Lee is a Sowetan reader, social commentator and regular contributor to our opinion pages
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