The tragic death of 21 teenagers at an East London tavern at the weekend has reignited a national debate about the crisis of underage drinking in SA. The bodies of the young patrons, aged between 13 and 17 years old were found in the Enyobeni Tavern in Scenery Park in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The horrific incident has brought into sharp focus the underbelly of SA’s nightlife and the young people enticed by it, at times with devastating consequences.
In particular, it has prompted heated discourse about the role and responsibility of parents to protect, guide and hold the line in providing discipline to their children.
Some place the blame on what they say is irresponsible parenting, that which allows children as young as 13 to go out drinking until the wee hours of the morning. Indeed, this may be a hard truth to swallow in some instances.
However, placing the blame for wayward teenager behaviour solely on parents also demonstrates a limited and one-dimensional analysis of the problem. First, it assumes that every teenager who displays misguided behaviour comes from a relatively stable home where at least one or more parents are present.
It also assumes that in homes where parents do exist, they are inherently passive spectators who allow delinquent behaviour to go on unabated.
The reality, however, is often a different one and the problem is broader than the individual choices of families – important as they may be. There is something fundamentally broken about our society.
Many black communities in SA face structural and economic crises that have led to the complete breakdown of the family unit.
Furthermore, the abuse of drugs and alcohol across the board has eroded power dynamics in the home so much that, despite their best efforts, many parents have lost influence and control over their children.
Many young people do not believe they have a future to aspire to and thus have no personal conviction to break through beyond the limitations of their current circumstances. With little social support and constructive intervention, the vicious cycle of lawlessness, violence and moral decay continues to spiral out of control.
As a society we must have a deeper introspection and ask ourselves how to reverse the degeneration.
In doing so we must also recognise that the problems we face are multilayered, complex and, most of all, structural.
Our discourse, therefore, cannot be simplistic in nature. We ought to reflect soberly on our different realities to, hopefully, shape the nation we aspire to be.
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