Healing the Family

I went to visit my parents one afternoon and my dad remarked, rather disappointed, that they had been expecting to see me the previous weekend. I responded very straightforwardly, "sorry papa, I was attending a marriage seminar". Now my dad is a man who can never hide his emotions. When he is sad, you'll notice it. Equally, when he is happy, you'll also see it. But this time when I mentioned where I had been, he had laughter written all over his face and it was very clear he was struggling to mask his amusement.

Finally, he burst out laughing as he could no longer hold back. This was all very funny to him. And I am sure that night when I left their house, I became my parents' private joke, like I usually am. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the moment I left the house, my sisters were immediately called to be told that this bachelor brother of theirs is now on a new mission, attending marriage seminars. People in my family like gossiping about each other, and over time we have all learned not to make the mistake of believing if you shared your secret with another member of the family, it would remain that way.

But to be fair, at some stage after laughing at my marriage seminar expedition, my old man did finally commend me for "preparing myself for the future" by attending marriage seminars, seeing that I'm as single as a monk. It would also be unfair of me to only paint the picture of my parents having fun at my expense for attending marriage seminars. The truth is that my folks are my biggest cheerleaders and supporters. Of that, I have not a single doubt. That's why when my dad started laughing at me I also couldn't resist laughing at how seriously I take myself sometimes.

In many ways, I love how we are able to laugh at ourselves, even in sombre circumstances. Recently, when we unveiled my biological mother's tombstone, my dad had us in stitches when he told the audience at the ceremony that regardless of how much he loved my mother, like in any marriage,  him and mom had their differences. He told us of an instance where they had had a quarrel and mom made it clear that she had had it. She was leaving. Apparently mom decided to walk out the house but only made it as far as the corner of our street. My dad teases and says he knew she wasn't serious because if she was, she would have at least packed one bag. We all laughed.

Ironically and at a more personal level, when I heard this little snippet of my parents’ squabble, I felt soothed. Let me explain why. I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog that I never knew my mother because she died when I was but a baby. So when my dad mentioned that he and mom had nothing more than a normal marriage which had its fair share of ups and downs, I felt he had managed to bring her to life in a very significant way.

Not only did he manage to bring her memory to life, he also managed to make her human. You see, because I never knew mom, in my mind she was something of an enigma, an angel, a surreal person, incapable of being angry let alone walking out on her husband during a quarrel. Dad remarried 3 years after mom died to a wonderful woman I normally refer to as my mother, because in many ways she is. Theirs is a beautiful marriage which assures me of the sanctity and importance of marriage in the building of families.

But the reason why I was fixated on my dad and late mom’s marriage and how they related is because of the direct biological and relationship I have with both of them. It was important for me to realize that marriages go through ups and downs. Disagreements are there. Quarrels happen. But after your argument, and when you've walked out in a fit of rage, it’s important that you calm down, go back and talk things through.

I am excited by the authenticity married couples around me are showing, particularly when it comes to the realities of marriage, and how possible it is to have a thriving marriage, even in the year 2014. In South Africa. Much as we lament the plight facing the institution of marriage in the country, there is a wave of optimism I’m seeing sweeping through the land. It might be small, but it’s there. Divorce might be on the rise, but there is also a new creed of openness that I think we must laud. Young black women and men are yearning for genuine and authentic talks about this institution called marriage, with the aim to restore it. And for unmarried young people, such as I am, this is tremendously important.

After Sibo’s post about marriage and the over-romanticizing in choosing life partners, it became very stark and clear judging from the responses we got, that many many young South Africans are yearning for an honest dialogue that will help us in re-building the family structure. Insofar as a platform of dialogue on these and other social issues is concerned, we are currently working on something. On this, we will keep you posted. This is an exciting time and I have never had better hope for our country than I have experienced over the last couple of weeks.

I knew an old man once. A deep, wise old man with incredible foresight and something I call “a sense of knowing”. After he came back to South Africa from exile, my friends and I would spend lots and lots of time with him at his house, learning from him, and talking about the country. Spending time with him was like a roller coaster ride. You would find yourself somersaulting from one moment laughing till your tummy ached and the next moment you would be sitting still because the room suddenly became emotionally charged.

Many times, we sat and talked, laughed and cried (yes we would) discussing  ourselves and where South Africa was headed. On certain occasions he would stand up while talking to us, and although he was still physically with us, he would be transfixed as he looked out the balcony, suddenly lost in his thoughts, kidnapped, and his mind would take him far away from us to a place only he could go. Just as quickly as he had "left" us, he would quickly come back, and simply say, “guys, I’m worried about the country”.  What he “saw” in his moment of “escape”, I cannot tell you for certain because he had gone to a different world where very few are able to go.

From time to time, I get glimpses, albeit very very small, of what I think he “saw”. At the very least, I think I understand why he would say “I’m worried about this country”. In these visits we would speak about the state of "man" in South Africa. We also interrogated each other on deep personal issues, for it is in looking into yourself, that you can be able to authentically engage with the world. And often times, he would sum things up by saying, "we are sick”. That, I know what he meant.

But one day I received a message from a friend of mine after I had been venting out my frustration about the country. She simply said, “don’t be discouraged man, God hears us and He will heal our land. He wants to”. Such comforting and encouraging words. This includes the healing of our women, our children, our men, from all strata of life. From the normal man on the street to those in power. And our families too will be healed. We are currently praying and preparing for that platform.

God will heal our land. He wants to.

"Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. (II Chronicles 7:12-15 NKJV)

www.hbfamilyandsupport.ca

The Democratic Republic of Fantasy

By Sibo Lefalatsa

I’m going to start my article by admitting it might be controversial, maybe you’ll feel it’s a bit harsh. At this point I wish I could say something to make you feel good about what I’m about to say, I want to do the cowardly thing and distance myself from my own words, say something that will buy me some mercy, but…no, I have no sweet or humble words to offer so here goes…

There was a time, I believe that time is still with us, when women were always cautioned against overly romanticising relationships. It was always based on the fact that the romantic books they read, the fairy tales and the movies always promised the perfect guy, who’d come along and save them from their ordinary lives and their ordinary boyfriend/s.

However of late, something has crept up on us, it seems the music videos and the church have turned the tables on ladies. Now, not from the movies, but seemingly from the pulpit, judging by how men justify their now romanticised disposition. Gentlemen are now the hopeless romantics, fantasising about non-existent women with non-existent perfection, for their non-existent promises of commitment.

Now let me see… how many Christian men do I know, who are not married and have never been married, who tell me it’s not by choice, oh no, they are ready to marry, in fact, they say, they are desperate to marry, it’s just that they just can’t compromise. Oh the dreaded word C.O.M.P.R.O.M.I.S.E, it must be a generation X and Y equivalent of ebola or the bubonic plaque.

So being married I get offended, I ask, “so you think all of us who are married are compromisers who couldn’t hold-out for the perfect one?” No, is the answer, it’s different, good ones are taken and you’re lucky you met Hape hmmm…

Can I call Bulldust! when I see it?

If this were, say, one or two guys in my circle, I’d buy that, but it is in fact the vast majority of guys, so I’ll tell you what the problem seems to be. You are looking for a perfect wife who based on listening needs at least the following credentials:

·         She must be physically beautiful and a beautiful person on the inside. So that you can show her off to your friends.

·         She must be smart, but not smarter than you.

·         She must be a go-getter and accomplished, but she must also be willing to drop all that in case you want her to stay at home and look after the kids; or

·          keep working hard if you need the double income.

·         She must work hard but essentially to help you, not primarily driven by her personal ambition which you’ll struggle to control;

·         She must be the woman you can introduce to your work peers with pride and she must fit in “back home”.

I’m not sure if I’m the first person to tell you this but I have got news for you, the abovementioned woman, she doesn’t exist, just like you are not all those things either. It’s not God’s ability to make “good enough women” that I’m questioning, it’s your ability to accept the perfection that lies in two imperfect people trying to build a life together that they and their children can be proud of.

When I met my husband and realised that this relationship was headed in that direction, I asked my mom, how would I know I had met the right one. She said, “he should be a good person”.

Sounds too simple? Oh I’ve read from books and heard from the pulpit that he should also have money, and he must be strong protector type and a provider blah, blah, blah. I’ve had moments during our 7 years married, I’ve wondered whether this match is the right match, maybe I should’ve been more careful to pick someone more like me and I’ve counted the things I feel I’ve lost because I was married to him, but my mother was right.

 I think what my mother knew I would realise in time was that a good person, never wants to hurt or offend, even though he certainly will. A good person has their own dreams but never wants to harm yours, so you have to trust each other’s intentions because sometimes you can’t both achieve your dreams at the same time, but a good person appreciates the sacrifices of the other and is prepared to step back when it’s his turn to take a back seat. He doesn’t feel entitled to other people’s sacrifices. A good person is a person you can reason with, you can argue with, the one you can admit to the many ways you are sometimes arrogant, selfish, even mean, they will know to correct you when you are wrong and you will feel grateful for it, not ashamed and I’ll do the same for him.

A good person sees goodness in you even when increasingly you see the ugliness in yourself. Life, it has its moments and the bells and whistles of wealth, good looks, jobs, prestige, they have their value and they are important in their own ways but to experience them in the company of someone who is essentially on your team, who in your gut you know when you hurt they hurt is quite something. What is more romantic than that can I ask? You’ll work out the other stuff as you go along.

Can we cut the dramatic tales of frustrated searches for the non-compromise? No one needs to prove anything to you or meet your made-up standards.

I believe if you meet someone who falls in love with you round about the same time you fall in love with them and you trust their intentions of goodness towards you and they trust your intentions of goodness towards them, that’s a miracle, the appreciation of which must be declared to the world. I mean throw away the abovementioned shopping list and get married.

The drama, it comes with the ride, it’s the mere function of you both being imperfect, you can’t fix that. The prospect of defeat, it might not last forever that’s true, in fact more frighteningly, you, might be the one that doesn’t want it to last. Well isn’t that the case with everything you’re doing? Work, friendships, business, children, you don’t stop doing those things.

I close with this prayer for my people. Let us all put on our big girl and big boy undies and trust ourselves to handle the ups and downs of trying to build something, why can’t we be the Proverbs 31 [Wo]Man and “look to the future with confidence” so that we can appreciate and honour the perfection that we already have around us?

Where do we cross the line?

A few days ago one of my mates sent a funny joke to our Whatsapp Group Chat which I found terribly funny. It really was hilarious. It’s the sort of joke you can’t help but want to pass around. The only problem is that I thought my female friends might not appreciate it.

That’s the challenge I have – the funniest of jokes I always enjoy are the ones that aren't necessarily enjoyed across the genders. To share the joke with my female friends or not to share it, that’s the question. What I find funny, my female counterparts may find offensive. You see, men, generally draw fun and entertainment from enduring pain (both physical and sometimes emotional) and females don’t. I see it all the time. The games we played as kids. Actually, the games we still play as adult men. Every morning when we have our site meetings in the boardroom, you have to constantly look out because the guy sitting next to you might just pull the knob of the recliner chair to see you sink down, a feat which the rest of the colleagues (all males) will find utterly funny. I mean, our favourite pastime as kids was to have dissing matches. We loved making fun of each other. There was no such thing as “I take offense to that”.

Maybe that’s how we are made up. Look at how kindergarten boys entertain each other on the playground. And look at how little girls play. Two different worlds. I mean, the most fun I had during break (or recess as the Americans call it) at primary school was when the boys in our class would team up and challenge the boys in another class to a karate battle. And boy, did we kick each other, showing off our best karate moves. Man, I loved it. Girls, on the other hand – uhm, I actually don’t even remember what games they played during break. Whatever it was, it most certainly didn't end with one nursing a bruise from a flying kick or something crazy like that.

Back to the joke I got from my friends – I had a dilemma. Do I forward the joke to my female friends or not? Ugh, forwarding it to other male friends was a no-brainer, really. They’d enjoy it as much as we (the gents in my group) did. But what about my female friends? Would they be offended? The reality is I really didn't have to share it with them (girls). I could have easily enjoyed the joke with the boys and left it there. But my courage surprises even me sometimes. I decided I was going to venture into the lions’ den and see how far I could push the boundaries. I forwarded the joke to a few of my close female friends. Their reaction was confusing. All of them gave the same, confusing response. “This is sooooo wrong; but it’s funny”.

Now, a few years ago I worked in an all-male office. Boy we had fun. Passing around emails was, as would be expected, a normal thing. One day, a funny email was passed around. We all thought it was very hilarious. The email in question was of a cartoon, depicting two stone-age men engaged in conversation. One of the men’s wife is standing right behind him, and completely quiet – she can’t talk, she doesn't know how to, apparently. But she’s smiling. Then the man says to his friend, “I've decided to teach her to talk – what harm can it do?”. The joke in the cartoon is obviously that it is men that taught women how to talk. And much worse, because the man taught the woman how to talk, we now have the terrible world we live in today.

Obviously, this is a sexist cartoon and downright wrong. No question about it. Of course, I do not think that women caused the problems we have in the world, let alone that it was a man that taught a woman how to talk. But, I’m not going lie and be disingenuous  – I still find the cartoon a tad funny, albeit somewhat uncomfortable. That’s the honest truth. And the gender activist in me fights very hard not to laugh whenever I think of it.

So yesterday I looked for that cartoon. I then toyed with the idea of pushing the boundaries yet again – I thought of forwarding it to my female friends. But the difference this time was that I was going be forthright and deliberate about my actions. I wanted to interrogate why I found this cartoon “uncomfortable” and funny at the same time.

So I finally summoned all the courage I needed and I forwarded the cartoon to my sisters as well as my female friends. After sending the cartoon, I quickly asked each one of them if they found it funny. I didn't give them a chance to think. I wanted to know what their immediate response was. And the responses I got were confusing, for me, as a man. For fear of stigmatizing women and perpetuating gender prejudice, I will not post the cartoon here. In any event, an overwhelming majority of them found it funny. BUT, after I mentioned that I was doing research for the blog, the responses were “revised” and became a little bit polished. After this, some even accused me of tricking them. Eish.

My next question was to ask if they thought the cartoon was offensive. While some thought it wasn't really offensive, two of them thought it was – “especially since the guy was talking about his own wife”, one of them added. She was serious. And then another friend offered, “…because this (joke) is coming from you, I didn’t take it as offensive. Had it been coming from a dude who’s insensitive to women issues, I’d be offended”. This sentiment was echoed by yet another friend. Interesting.

Another close friend throws in a different perspective. She declares that the cartoon is not funny. This coming from her, I became interested. I asked her why. But as would be expected, her reason was rather "colourful", something I should have seen coming – “I have a reputation of talking too much, so this feels personal”. And then she laughs.

But then I also probed this one dear friend of mine on what she thought. Now, she’s an academic, so we had to “dissect and analyse” the cartoon. The funny thing though is despite her initial reaction of laughing at the cartoon, she then assumed a more firm position of declaring the cartoon offensive. I was not convinced, so I challenged her on this sudden change, but she justified her initial laugh as being directed to my question and not the cartoon itself. She simply refused to see the parody side of the cartoon. But we had fun.

But the funniest response that left me completely puzzled and back to square one is this here, from yet another female friend: “My genuine response was to laugh – but I had to remind myself that it’s offensive.”

After this last offering, I gave up. My female friends have to think about something before they decide whether it’s funny or not – even though they might have laughed at it. Laughing, as I've just learned, doesn't necessarily mean “it’s funny”.

(Thanks ladies (you know yourselves) for being such great sports and giving me confusing insights into the bewildering world of “female sense of humour”. But the thing is, I still don’t know where the line is and whether I've crossed it L).

But that’s not my biggest concern. Forwarding the joke was the fun part. The biggest concern is I still need to interrogate why I find the stone-age cartoon funny. The exercise was not only about recognizing where the boundary line is with regards to what jokes I can share with my female friends. Knowing where the boundary line is would only help me know what not to say to women, while I still privately find sexist jokes funny. That is the problem!

And for now, that remains my challenge. 

Power

(This is the first guest post by our Guest Blogger, Sibongiseni Lefalatsa. See my introduction of Sibo here.)

I was once offered a chance to partner in a business concept I knew nothing about, with a man I hardly knew and a promise that the money would be good. Now I worked with this gentleman so it was a professional conversation and friendly. After rejecting the idea he said, “I see you are more of a worker, you’ll be working for others instead of making money”, I told him, well I don’t work for money I want Power.

Many people associate power with dominance, superiority and control and for them it’s a zero sum game. If I’m not dominating, then you are. If you’re superior, then I’m inferior and if I’m in control then you are the one being controlled. When I speak of Power I speak of something far more liberating, a process of self-knowledge, acceptance and self-respect and appreciation and the use of this self-knowledge to influence: my circumstances; my future; my relationships; my finances, basically, whatever it is that matters to me.

My grandfather, was a very interesting man, the most influential person in my life, so you’ll bear with me, many things I reflect on will relate back to him and my grandma. I lived with them everyday along with my parents, I grew up with 2 generations of couples in the same house, my grandparents and my parents and that has left a big impression on me.

My missionary-school-educated-ex-headmaster grandfather married for himself a feisty woman. It was not beyond her during an argument to tell her opponent no-matter who it is, that, “I have 2 qualifications my dear, teaching and nursing, and I studied psychology, how many qualifications do you have?”. She was also known for butting in on conversations in which she was not a recognised participant. Men coming to seek counsel from my grandfather would be shocked to hear her enter the conversation. Unfortunately, they’d make a fatal error by seeking to reprimand my gran by saying “I came to speak to the man of the house, how do you as a woman interrupt”. My grandfather, would always promptly end the conversation right there by saying, “sir you have insulted my wife and I never accept that, leave right now”. ’Nuff said.

My grandfather had the added issue of having in me his only granddaughter, yet another argumentative, fight-to-win woman. What I loved about him and why we were so close was that he always took me seriously. Our arguments about religion, politics, history, gender issues were heated and sometimes quite tough. I loved them…I’ve seldom met men who without the exertion of the force of my character take me or many other women seriously at an intellectual level. My grandfather held his own in arguments, don’t feel sorry for him, he gave back as good as he got, but if defeated, he accepted, he acknowledged a well made point, even if it didn’t convince him to change his mind and  if an argument or a point made him change his mind he would openly acknowledge it.

He was powerful like that.

 It’s funny, because of all our fiery personalities, people got scorched and it was in these instances that he exercised his power. Our family had what I’ll call a “council”, the operation of this council was taken very seriously. Any member of the family, when aggrieved by another, especially where it was an inter-generational conflict, could approach my grandfather with an official complaint. The council would assemble with every member of the household in attendance (mom, dad, my two brothers, my grandmother and myself). During the council session, the complainer would be asked by Mkhulu to state his problem. It was no holds barred let me tell you, under the protection of my grandfather a child could even accuse an adult of lying if the accusation was that an untruth had been spoken. When an adult got annoyed they’d sometimes try to interrupt while one of us children were speaking, my grandfather would always reprimand the adult by reminding them that they’d have their turn but must allow the accuser to speak. At the end of the accusation and defence, my grandfather would if required refer to some of us in attendance for our views or you could volunteer your view. Soon the truth was quickly discovered and my grandfather would give his judgement.

Whoever you are you could be found to be in the wrong and required to apologise, and the accuser who often said something in anger during the time of the incident would be reminded to remain respectful no matter the circumstances. Everyone respected and I mean everyone respected my grandfather’s final word and everyone walked away feeling justice had been done.

What point am I making by recounting this memory?

I often notice how we as people in general but particularly in my experience men, seem afraid of the power of others in our intimate relationships. I wish they could understand how much power there is in being surrounded by powerful, self-assured people, women included. Being comfortable in your own skin so that even if a person told you they are better qualified than you, you are not threatened, it’s true isn’t it, so what? True undisputed power  that rightfully belongs to you, will be given to you simply by the implementation by yourself of your self-knowledge and self-love.

My grandfather made no secret of the fact that my grandmother was more of an intellectual than he was, he would tell us so himself. My grandmother never had to pretend not to be and she is a proud woman, no one had to cut her down. He asked for help when he was in over his head. Yet those around him knew their own weaknesses and felt comfortable to admit them in the face of someone who seemed comfortable to do the same. The same feistiness and tenacity that made us academically successful could negatively affect our relationships and we knew he had the power to influence us to a point of healing.

He did that with an authority that was never questioned, no one ever told us there was a council, it just came about by operation of the fact that we as children ran to him to help us reason with adults who we believed had done us wrong or adults who felt children were being unnecessarily argumentative. We did it. His wisdom, his calm in the face of heightened emotions and his strong sense of justice meant that we trusted him with our moments of shame and torment to come to the solution. He feared no other man or woman’s power or ability and was steadfast in his own. He always used to say to us that he didn’t want us children to fear him but to respect him and we should know the difference.

Power, let’s all have it within friendships, romantic relationships and families. Let’s give it away and cultivate it in ourselves. When you find yourself fighting for it…you’ve probably already lost it.    

Finally, a female voice

One of the things I loved about the Men's Fellowship at Christian Action Fellowship (CAF) at Wits, was the quality of talks we had. I enjoyed the vigour with which we tackled issues. We had many options for which we could have opted in conducting our meetings. But we always tended to choose the unconventional route.

When we had planned on our calendar to have a “brothers' night”, instead of just having fun watching movies (and there's nothing inherently wrong with this), we would choose to rather spend the night talking on things that we felt were vital to us. No, I'm saying it wrong, "we deliberated on issues, mchana", we would say in our "comrade" speak.

One day, a guest speaker we had invited to come address us on one or another topic suddenly dropped us at the last minute. It was late on a Monday afternoon, the 21st March 2005 to be precise. Thinking on their feet, the committee decided to quickly call on one of our fellow members of CAF to come speak to us. What was revolutionary about the committee making this call were 3 things. First, the person, was our peer - (normally we invited outside speakers, veterans with years of expertise in their fields). Second, the peer we decided to call on as a replacement was a lady. Finally, she was going to speak to us on, wait for it.......fatherhood. Yes!!! A young lady, unmarried let alone childless (at least at that stage) - invited to speak to a bunch of gents (mostly her age), about fatherhood. Hey?

Sibongiseni came on such short notice but her address was as if she had been preparing for years. She really just blew our minds away. I remember after the meeting I kept asking her, "where have you been? Where did you come from?". Sibo, as we called her, had always kept a very low profile. In an organization like ours where noise and shouting the highest "hallelujahs" were the norm, it would be hard to notice her other than when she took the microphone -  and when she did, we all paid attention. She had a presence.

Sibo is now a prolific lawyer doing great things in corporate. Apart from that, she is now a mother raising a family with her husband, Hape Lefalatsa. Hape is also a former member of CAF.

Sibo is very passionate about issues which we normally deal with on "Chronicles of a Builder". Hers, and many others, are voices we need as we continue to grapple with how we can heal this country, South Africa. It is my hope that as we continue to talk and engage each other, we will come up with constructive ways through which we can build our country for our children, and our children’s children.

Sibo has graciously agreed to come on as our very first guest blogger on "Chronicles of a Builder". So, in the not-so-distant future, she will take over this space, albeit for just a stint, so we can finally hear from the heart of a fellow female builder, Sibongiseni Lefalatsa.

It starts with men

Men are troubled souls. We are.

When I started this blog, one of my main objectives was to unravel and interogate the real reasons why South Africa is such a troubled country. I also wanted to contribute to the dialogue on how we can help re-build and heal this beautiful nation. This remains my objective. But for that to remain an authentic and meaningful exercise, I will need to be open about myself, however taunting that may be.

I was raised in the church and I remain a dedicated Christian, flaws and all. Flaws which I never thought I had. I think that was the problem - I had a distorted view of my Christianity. I thought Christianity was about being perfect.

For all intents and purposes, I was a model pastor’s kid. At least I thought I was. I was dedicated to the things of the church; always astute to attending all my church activities and duties. And I loved serving The Lord. It brought me joy. But there was a blind spot that I neglected to keep checking. I’ll come to this in a moment. First, indulge me a little while I tell you about me…

Getting into romantic relationships can be exciting for a young adult, such as I was. But I wish I was a little bit more prepared for what I would discover. Perhaps I would have dealt with all the challenges more maturely and constructively. But that’s not for this blog.

Anyway, in general terms, relationships can be excellent mirrors. Okay, granted, if you get involved with nasty partners, you will live with a distorted view of who you are because nasty people tend to make you feel worse than you are, and if you are found lacking in self-confidence, your self-esteem will just take a nose-dive. I was fortunate, I met wonderful girls. I’m not sure if they were so lucky with me though.

It was through some of these relationships that I discovered the ugly and nasty side of my character, the blind spot I never cared to observe. It was a confusing time because my outlook on life was, in many ways, very "one-dimensional'. So I never thought a person could have so many layers in their personality. But I would soon discover, for example, that I had quite a bad temper. An explosive one.

When a quiet, modest man suddenly takes a gun and shoots his wife and children, then turns the gun on himself, people often wonder how such a nice, calm person could do such a thing. There are certainly many reasons why a man would decide to brutally end the lives of those he loves and his own, and I am no psychologist, but one of the reasons would be that he cannot face himself.

For example, when I first discovered that I possessed a not-so-clean "vocabulary", it was when I suddenly found that I could swear at a girlfriend. And I hated myself for it. Yes, I hated the fact that I had hurt her, but I think what I hated even more was the fact that I, Saint Livhu, possessed the ability to hurl insults at another person. I soon learned that I could be hurtful in more ways than I’d ever imagined. You see, I had always bargained my way in relationships using the chip that I was a good man, a “perfect” man if you will, and when I found that to be far from the truth, my world crumbled.

My natural instinct after I learned I possessed the ability to be a monster was to run away and not deal with that reality. Some men, and I say this without any empirical evidence, would resort to ending the lives of those they love. This would be because such a man can’t live with himself. Statements like “you bring out the worst in me” or “you made me hit you” start being thrown around, in the hope to project the blame because he is unable to own himself and his actions.

Another example: when a man who thought his money is what earned him the love of a woman he would otherwise not be able to court had he been poor, suddenly wakes up one day bankrupt, his response would be to turn on his woman. He might not necessarily kill her, but he might certainly start being abusive, emotionally, financially and so forth. Why? Because he no longer has that “bargaining chip” that he believed kept the relationship alive. The bargaining chip that won him the woman.

Had he gone into the relationship with the full awareness of who he is and not go into it because he had, things might have turned out differently for him, and his partner.

I was fortunate that I had access to clinical therapy to be able to unpack some of the issues I had. And I also had men around me who helped navigate my way out of my mud. And no, church and Christianity were not the source of my untamed emotional outbursts and flawed character. I simply lacked the tools on how to deal with the “self”. And I will be honest, going deep into oneself is not easy. You will discover uncomfortable truths about yourself. But I'm glad that I have been able to go into some of those "places". What a liberating feeling it is when you are able to navigate the dark spaces of your character as a man.

I knew an old man who used to warn us about trusting a religion that only made us feel comfortable and good. True religion (read faith in God) should encourage you go into yourself and interrogate those things that make you uncomfortable. But I digress, this is not about religion. It’s about women. We are celebrating women this month.

Ever since I became active on issues of gender relations and more pointedly, women importance, my belief and understanding has always been that we will never fully realize and reclaim gender equality if men still believed women to be inferior. If men are not given the tools to fully interrogate and go into who they are, addressing all those uncomfortable truths, our fight against gender-based violence will never be won. Wife after wife and girlfriend after girlfriend will remain imprisoned in the shackles of their marriages and relationships. And as we have been seeing in the last couple of years in South Africa, grannies will also continue to be raped by their own grandsons, two month-old babies by their uncles.

For as long as we are sick, our celebration of women’s month will constantly be overshadowed by the reality that as soon as the festivities are over, when the music has quietened down, the poor South African woman will be going back to that prison hole she might occasionally call “home”.

Let’s heal our men, so that women can have the space to live meaningful, celebrated and fulfilled lives without fear.

                                             (source - www.religionnews.com) 

                                         

I wish men would talk about women

I was once the leader of the Men’s Fellowship of the Christian Action Fellowship (CAF), a Christian organization at Wits, during my student days there. Our vision during our term of office, adopted from the team that had led a year before us, was simply “To Raise and Develop Men of Integrity”. To this day, I can still feel the profundity of this statement and vision.

Many of us were barely out of our teens or had just hit the 20's, but it’s astounding that at such a young age (I myself was 20 years old), we had managed to correctly diagnose what our society needed: South Africa was in dire need of men of integrity to steer this nation forward. We certainly had our finger on the pulse.

For a year, the fraternity tackled all sorts of issues which we felt were affecting us, men, and posing a challenge to our endeavour on becoming men of character. We tackled issues such as fatherlessness and how this affected us later in life, as grown-up men.  “Integrity in the corporate world” was one of the issues we also addressed. Twice, we organized what was simply dubbed “brothers’ night” and the depth of the topics discussed there still makes me marvel.

For Mother’s Day that year, we did something special for the ladies in our organization. Most of them, being young students, were obviously not mothers themselves, but we told them we were “celebrating the mother in them”. They were charmed.

Then one day, I visited a friend of mine at his room in the residence. He was distraught; sometime before I arrived he had clearly been crying. He still had tears in his eyes. He had read an article in the newspaper which told of how a young woman in Tembisa had been gang raped by a throng of men. As if the gang rape in itself was not enough, one of her attackers wrapped his penis with a plastic bag as some form of “condom”, and proceeded to rape her. My body shivered. Quintin told me of how he had cried bitterly when he read that story. With tears in his eyes, he asked me, “Zakes (as I was then called), what are we going to do about this?”

As leader of the Men’s Fellowship, I had proposed to the CAF council earlier that year at a leadership retreat that the Men’s Fellowship be given the approval to host an event in honour of women on the 9^th August 2004. I was quizzed by the council as to what this event was about etc. One member of the council, a man, voiced that he wasn’t prepared to vote that the council simply allocated funds to an event without knowing how the money would be spent. Another council member, a lady, retorted, rather comically, that the chap challenging my proposal must not spoil the ladies’ surprise, much to the cheers of the rest of the ladies. Our proposal was approved.

So when Quintin asked me what we were planning on doing for women’s day, I understood that indeed that question was also a challenge that our focus shouldn’t just be about celebrating women and making them feel good, as we had done on Mothers’ Day. Much more than just a celebration of women needed to be done.

Who were these men that were raping women, in such despicable ways? Were they living among us? Were we those men? Would we, the men in our circles, turn out to be like the men in Tembisa that raped that powerless woman?

We started debating this issue and after a few hours, we knew what needed to be done. I was going to speak to the MF committee and propose the angle we would be using in the event celebrating women. This event was going to be about US just as it was about women. We were going to challenge and confront ourselves as men, and ask ourselves some very painful and uncomfortable questions.

Women would never enjoy the benefits of freedom in South Africa, if men still felt that they had rights and authority over women’s bodies. Women in South Africa constantly lived under the fear of being raped and violated.

We canvassed the men in the fraternity and held discussions were we discussed, quite intensely, about what women meant to us, and what informed our behaviour towards them. One of the key questions which I remember Quintin asking was, “how do you know, as a man, that you will never rape?”. That’s a question I still ask even today, and will continue to do so, until my grave. The prominence of that question in my mind keeps me on the toes, so to speak. It’s a constant reminder and check of the man I am becoming.

The 9^th August 2004 arrived. We had really planned a special event, and it was organzied right down to the tee. The setting of Umthombo Building 10, the lecture theatre where this event was hosted, is that it has three blocks of seats. We arranged that the gentlemen would sit on the side blocks, and the ladies would be “sandwiched” in the middle block. Our male ushers made sure that as people arrived, the men would be kindly separated from their female companions, at least for the duration of the event. The lecture theatre was packed.

The arrangement of the programme itself was excellent. Mduduzi, a young male student from Kwa-Zulu Natal opened the event with a resounding poem, paying homage to our guests of honour, the women. We invited a female doctor to speak on women and HIV/AIDS. Our second speaker was a rape survivor, who had been gang raped on that very campus one evening when she was walking back to her res. Another lady gave a motivational talk giving women encouragement to “fly like eagles”. This was followed by a panel discussion on all three of these talks. Quintin directed the programme.

The event culminated with the men, standing up from their seats, and reading in unison, a one-paragraph speech, pledging to the women in the hall that they would love and protect them. At the end of the pledge, each man walked to at least two women and gave them a copy of that pledge. It was so moving and many in that room were impacted. Hugs were exchanged, as men made a commitment that they wanted to change the landscape of the country, to one where women were respected and honoured.  

Before we made the pledge, I had to give a speech to round up everything. As this year’s Women’s Day was approaching, I have been thinking long and hard about that Monday afternoon in 2004, when we made that pledge. How far have we come as a country? Has the condition of women changed in the last decade?

More and more women continue to be raped in our communities, and very little seems to be changing, at least in my eyes. And why, oh why, are we no longer having the kind of conversations we had 10 years ago? I know talking might not solve our social problems entirely, but many years ago on the N1-South in Midrand, there used to be a huge MTN billboard which simply said “When talking stops, war begins”. I wish we could go back to talking about women. We need to.

I thought long and hard about the speech I gave for that event on Women’s Day in 2004. Besides the over-personalization on some parts of the speech which in hindsight embarrasses me a little, I’m still astounded that some of the things raised therein are still relevant 10 years later. During my internal struggle as to whether I should publish that speech, earlier today I saw a status of a lady friend of mine on Facebook declaring that she wished that men would use this day to “reflect on the way they treat women”. And I agreed.  After reading that status, I felt justified in my desire to publish the speech.

Here, I publish the full speech. Save for one factual correction to the speech, I have cited it verbatim, to protect its authenticity, grammatical errors and all.

Happy Women’s Day.

The Importance of Women

9 August 2004

Umthombo Building 10,

Wits University

In his first State of the Nation Address, May 1994, the then President Nelson Mandela said, "It is vitally important that all structures of government, including the President himself, should understand this fully: that freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression. All of us must take this on board, that the objectives of the Reconstruction and Development will not have been realised unless we see in visible and practical terms that the condition of women in our country has radically changed for the better and that they have been empowered to intervene in all spheres of life as equals with any other member of society."

It has been a little over a decade since Madiba made this statement, and as much as things have changed for the better, many things remain the same- more so in the church and the family structure where women are still being viewed as being inferior to men. The fact that a woman is killed every six hours in South Africa is evident to this statement. What is even more frustrating is the fact that the perpetrators committing this injustice are the women's intimate partners. The irony is that these are the men who are supposed to love and respect these women. The critical question which then emanates from this is in whose arms are the women suppose to feel loved and protected when their men are the ones who inflict such horrendous harm on them.

Many women are making an incredible mark in business and perhaps in government. That is wonderful. That is, however, only one side of the coin.  A survey, published by the Institute for Security Studies, found that half the women who experienced economic, emotional and physical abuse said the perpetrator was a spouse or partner. The study found that 80 percent of the 1,000 survivors of abuse interviewed had experienced emotional abuse, 76 percent physical abuse, 63 percent sexual and 62 percent economic abuse. To mark International Women's Day in 2003 Mandisa Kalako-Williams, president of the South African Red Cross Society, said "..As long as gender stereotyping and discrimination limited the development of girls and women, preventing them from fully participating in society, they would remain vulnerable."

It is a fact that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped, than learning how to read. One in four girls faces the prospect of being raped before the age of 16 according to the child support group, Childline. "Baby Tshepang" was just 9 months old when she was brutally raped in the Northern Cape town of Louisvale in the early hours of 27 October 2001.

I dare say that this is only a tip of the iceberg. It is highly probable that thousands have been raped and have been subdued to any kind of abuse and have not reported it in due to the intimidations of their abusers. Millions of females across our country live in fear-whether they are abused or not. The South African woman lives in a world of uncertainty. She is not sure whether she'll make it home from work without her taxi driver taking a detour to a deserted place to rape her. She is not sure whether she'll wake up in the morning without her husband having raped her as a punishment for coming home late from her strenuous job. She is even frustrated more by this because her own family says and does nothing by this, because after all, he is her husband. The only comforting words she'll receive are that- 'mosadi o tshwara thipa ka bogaleng.' She is not sure whether she'll wake up tomorrow to see her little daughters grow because her husband has threatened to kill her because she can't give him a son-as if she was God!!

The plight that the South African women find themselves in is appalling and it is terribly unfortunate that the church is silent about this. The church pretends that it is a problem out there in the community and not in the church which just shows how isolated the church is from the community- so much for being the light of the world. We cannot claim the blood of Jesus to have set us free and yet our women remain imprisoned. We have been quiet for far too long and this has come to an end!!

We as the Men's Fellowship of the Christian Action Fellowship (CAF) have realised that if the issue of women importance is to be reclaimed, it has to be through men. If we want to change this unfortunate situation, we first have to change our perceptions, because perception is a powerful thing. Perceptions "...govern the way we see, and the way we see governs the way we behave.” by Stephen R. Covey. If we change our perceptions of women today, tomorrow definitely will be a brighter day.

When we start to view women as our equals our behaviour towards them will definitely change for the better. I have been waiting for a day when I would truly be proud to be a man.

Ladies and gentlemen, fortunately that day has come.  We have gathered here today to witness and be part of an extraordinary declaration, which I believe, is the first of its kind. The men have convened to this place with an agenda, one that has the motive to change the condition of women dramatically. We take full responsibility of what women have been subjected to over the years. We take responsibility of the injustices that women have received fro men. We own up to the precarious condition the women find themselves in. We do not end there! We are turning the tide. We are making a commitment to ourselves, to the women and to God that we shall perceive and treat them, as God would want us to. We are saying that we shall give them the utmost respect that they deserve. When we have even moved beyond the boundaries of Christian values and morals, we shall understand that when a woman says no she means no and not yes, whether she is a wife, or otherwise!!

I as the leader of the Men's Fellowship am tremendously proud on this 9th day of August 2004 as we celebrate 10 Years of Freedom, that my men are taking an affirmative stand. I am proud to be their leader because they are taking a stand that is politically correct and at the same time, a stand that I believe to be Godly correct. They are honouring our treasure and God's precious gift to us- a woman. They are also making a commitment to protect the women and forever be there for them. Gentlemen, I love you and I am proud of what you are doing and are about to do today. I believe God honours this day too!!

As I conclude: Last night, before I could stand here today and make a commitment to these beautiful and lovely ladies, I made a commitment to the 5 special ladies in my life, and all of you ladies also are. I called my 4 sisters, that is, my two elder sisters, my twin-sister and my sister in-law. I told them I love them and I made the special commitment that I am about to make to you to them. I also called my stepmother, who is my mother for a special reason. My biological mother died 17 years ago when I was only three. She was killed by the cruel disease of breast cancer, which is one of the diseases killing many women even today. God was gracious enough to bless us with a second mother three years later. It is through this woman that I got to learn about the importance and relevance of a woman in one's life.

I am what I am because of what she has imparted in me. At the age of 35, in 1990, she took a tremendously bold step of becoming a second mother to 5 children. 3 of them, that is my 2 elder sisters and brother, were teenagers and 2 of them, my twin-sister and I, were only 6. She not only faced the tremendous challenge of being a second mother to us, but also to fight the traditional belief that stepmothers are evil. In spite of all the negativity and hostility that greeted her in a foreign culture of Venda and with her being a Motswana, she stood the test of time. My parents will be celebrating their 15-year Anniversary next year and I can tell you with all confidence, boldness and honesty that I couldn't have asked for a better stepmother. I am saying this to give a picture of how much value I place in women. I am also saying this as a challenge to the guys gathered here that after they have made this commitment to the ladies here, they must also commit themselves to the closest ladies they have at home, because the principle of "charity begins at home" is very much true.

Finally to the all ladies, I, Livhuwani Matsila, the leader of the Men's Fellowship, would like to say to you on this great day, that your significance in my life as a man is invaluable. I stand here before you, before the men and before God and I have this to say to you: You are important and significant in my life. I pray to God that you grow and continue to be the women God has destined you to be-'Women of Noble Character'. I LOVE YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU!!