N Botha: Gender Justice Working Retreat dinner

27 September 2006

Greetings

Firstly, I would like to thank the organisers of this retreat for the
privilege to address you tonight and to share with you some of our thoughts
with regard to the issues of gender violence, culture and gender inequality. I
am saying "our thoughts" because what I am going to say tonight is not solely
about my brilliant ideas and wisdom. These are ideas that have come out of many
discussions that we have been having with a number of people, women and men,
who are grappling with these issues. I would like to acknowledge with thanks
all those people (and of course they know who they are) who have made a
contribution to this, my speech and who have made me to appear wiser today. So
I am just the spokesperson.

I am also very conscious of the fact that I am tonight addressing an
audience that has much more knowledge and experience than I have, but I hope
that this input will enrich your deliberations during this retreat.

Perhaps I should begin by looking at "culture", what it is and what it
means. The safest definition that I have been applying in recent times is
simply that "culture is a way of life."

South Africa is a nation of diverse cultures, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu
puts it, "We are a rainbow nation". But if we were to put this "rainbow" under
a microscope we would find that although the majority of the people of this
country are African, the dominant culture today is less African, more European
or Western.

The legacy of colonialism and apartheid is still evident today in the way we
live (our lifestyle) and in the way our society is structured. Colonialism and
apartheid neglected, distorted and suppressed the culture of the majority of
the people of this country. The creativity of our people was systematically
stifled and communities were denied the opportunity and resources to develop
their own cultural expressions unless you were going to satisfy the wishes of
the settlers. My thoughts flash back to the way Sarah Bartmann was treated by
her colonial "masters" with grave contempt and humiliation.

So the culture of the colonial and apartheid became the dominant culture
that lured many of our people.

Very often when people talk about culture they think it is only about music,
dance, traditional dress, circumcision or mshini-wam. Those things that we can
see, hear and touch. Not at all! Culture is the totality of knowledge, beliefs,
values, norms, attitudes, gender-relations, parenting, governance and whatever
else you can think of. It is about the total or holistic existence of a people.
So obviously this would incorporate the social, political, economic,
environmental and spiritual life of a nation.

I am not entirely convinced that when we celebrate our national days we are
conveying this message effectively. Instead the meaning of culture is fast
becoming lost in the frenzy. In fact the erosion and self-serving manipulation
of our culture has done us a lot of harm to the extent that I believe it has
contributed greatly to the gender violence that is endemic in our country. The
quote from an address by the first President of a democratic Botswana, Seretse
Khama, is still true today. He said, "A nation without a past is a lost nation
and people without a past is a people without a soul."

Sadly, what we experience today is the marginalisation of the culture of the
indigenous people of this country which is regarded by some people as backwards
and their practices antiquated. The Khoi and the San people who still do not
have any qualms about their traditional customs and semi-nudity lifestyle are
probably the only community where gender-based violence such as rape, sexual
assault and sexual abuse of little girls and other traditional practices
harmful to women are less prevalent occurrences, or occur with less frequency
or not at all.

This culture of the Khoi and the San communities is not only frowned upon
but it is made to appear inferior, you see they are not like us, we often say.
Same applies in the case of Muslim women who wear the parda. They are seen as
still holding on to repressive traditions.

This morning I listened to Xolani Gwala's morning talk. In the discussions
about crime and crime statistics he raised an issue about anger that there
seems to be a lot of anger in our society, especially among blacks. The
criminal element is black and predominantly African, that's the sense I got as
the calls kept coming in; violence is attributed to a particular cultural
group. I don't remember anything being said about the issue of gender-based
violence (violence against women and children) or just male violence which is
one of our biggest challenges.

But be that as it may we just cannot run away from the fact that colonialism
and apartheid brutally almost destroyed our soul. It destroyed our indigenous
knowledge systems, our wealth, our belief systems and our traditional justice
system.

During the colonial and apartheid era, the majority of the people of this
country, the indigenous people, the African people were on the receiving end of
violence perpetrated by the immigrants or colonisers. All forms of resistance
were successfully suppressed by these regimes. Wars were fought, our people
were robbed of their land, cattle were stolen or destroyed, girls and women
were forcefully taken as sex slaves. This era was about power and control. The
boers had power and control over us as a people.

Is this not what is happening today? Whether it is on the global level
George Bush invading Iraq, Afghanistan or threatening to invade Iran or in our
own localities where physical, sexual or psychological violence occurs so
frequently in the family and in the community. Those who are most vulnerable to
violence are those who are less powerful either physically, economically or
otherwise.

Gender-based violence too is about power and control. The United Nations
(UN) Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) defines gender-based violence very broadly as "any act that results in
or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering
to women including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of
liberty whether occurring in private or public life. Violence against women
shall be understood to encompass but not limited to physical, sexual and
psychological violence occurring in the family, the community including
battery, sexual abuse of female children, dowry-related violence, marital rape,
female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women,
non-spousal violence, violence related to exploitation, sexual harassment and
intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in
women, forced prostitution and violence against women perpetrated and condoned
by the state."

Gender-based violence should be understood in this broader sense and not
just in terms of physical violence as was the case before or as is apparently
the perception of police officers whenever a female victim of gender-based
violence appeals to them for intervention. Or is it a case of just turning a
blind eye or collusion with the male perpetrator. This definition encompasses
all these issues of power and control.

There is no culture that promotes violence against women and children. What
has happened though is that individuals in their quest to assert their
authority/power have deliberately chosen to distort or manipulate certain
aspects of culture to justify such violence. Some socialisation and parenting
patterns have sought to promote a certain pecking order from a gender point of
view. This order would dictate gender roles by suggesting that the boy child is
a provider and the girl-child's existence is defined in terms of how she is
going to provide sexually for her husband in her life of servitude.

Currently, the traditional practice of lobola is not appreciated as it was
originally intended. It was initially done to bring together and unite families
and did not have the commercial dimension that it has now assumed. It has been
reduced to a mere financial transaction that forces women to be compliant
because of the belief by some members of the community that they have been
bought to perform certain duties in the marriage setting.

Culture has often been distorted in the process of being transmitted from
one generation to another, as it comes into contact with foreign cultures and
self-serving interests. Culture has sometimes undergone changes without the
necessary refinement or education which would enable people to adapt.

How to use culture to end gender-based violence

It is also important to acknowledge the positive aspects of culture such as
the value of ubuntu and respect for one another. These are some of the values
that should be retained and inculcated through, for example, the rite of
passage from boyhood to manhood (in the case of boys) and from girlhood to
womanhood (in the case of girls).

We need to recognise the diversity of our cultures and understand the
cultural basis of these groups. It would be important to analyse cultural
groups where violence is prevalent in order to package messages for them that
affirm positive aspects of a particular culture and those that highlight the
leadership role of women.

Legislation that has been promulgated recognises the role of traditional
leaders (amakhosi and headmen) in communities and acknowledges that they are
the custodians of indigenous culture. Traditionally, tribal authorities used
their indigenous justice system to address problems of gender-based violence,
e.g. a perpetrator would be fined if found guilty of any transgression. This
did not only happen at the level of amakhosi but also at an inter-family level
where elders would meet to discuss matters of gender violence and decide on the
appropriate punitive measures.

The rite of passage could be used in a positive way to transform
gender-biases and stereotypes. In other words, the rite of passage should be
used as a transformative tool where good values and practices are inculcated.
In other countries this has been done through programmes such as military
service, service in the kibbutz in Israel and in South Africa, it could be
introduced in the National Youth Service programme.

Secondly, it is also important that collectively we revisit/interrogate
child-rearing and socialisation patterns as they occur within the family
setting. Clearly one of the reasons why rape has become a serious challenge is
because of parenting that that promoted certain stereotypes early in the lives
of both the perpetrator and the victim. Revisiting these socialisation patterns
entails amongst others asking fundamental questions around power and gender;
for instance, on what basis can we justifiably say a girl child is actually
inferior to a boy child?

The issues of power and control have resulted in the dominance of the male
members of society. Despite our very progressive Constitution which entrenches
equality as the cornerstone of our democracy, we are still very far from
achieving the South African that we hope for which is united, non-racial,
non-sexist and democratic. Both racism and sexism are the challenges that women
still have to contend with, within our communities, in our churches, in the
workplace, in our houses and believe it or not, in our political parties or
organisations.

Among us we do find people who still encourage sexism. The succession debate
is a case in point. It is sheer discrimination against women to say that "this
country is not ready for a woman president." It sends a message which says
women are worthless than men, they are inferior to men, they have less power,
less intelligence, less integrity and are less competent, therefore they have
to be subordinate to men.

Do you know what this translates into? Women have recently been the victims
of being booed, hackled, sworn at and called names by their own colleagues and
comrades. I dread the day when people who have such an attitude get the
opportunity to govern this country. That very progressive constitution we boast
about will go out the window and in will come policies and practices that will
deter the advancement of women. There will also probably be a reason advanced
for inequality between women and men.

Another disturbing issue is the way women or female victims of gender-based
violence are treated in the criminal justice system. It is very clear in some
of the judgments that the evidence furnished by the complainant or victim is
easily dismissed. Often women are portrayed as liars thereby suffering double
victimisation.

Once again the recent case, the State verses Jacob Zuma has clearly
demonstrated the lack of understanding of our diverse culture and the
intolerance of each other's cultures. Rape should not be taken lightly. We must
concede that we do not know each other's cultures, but the least we could do is
to appreciate each other's cultures. Both the prosecution and the judicial
officer were members of a totally different culture from that of the
complainant and the accused. Even between the complainant and the accused there
were stark cultural differences. My wish is that the esteemed judges should
understand and accept that education is an ongoing process, "sakufa
sifunda."

My second last point - I have been having questions around why this topic
only refers to traditional authorities and their role in addressing patriarchy.
Our society is a patriarchal society in its totality. We cannot confine this
phenomenon to traditional authorities. As I said earlier, even in our political
parties you will encounter this problem.

Fortunately, we have legislation in place which enjoins traditional
leadership to the principle of gender-equality and through their structures,
houses of traditional leaders, we can continue to involve them in gender
education programmes and also ensure gender-representivity in their
councils.

Our greatest challenge lies outside the realm of traditional authorities
where the struggle is about power and control. Look no further than government
departments. Do we look at legislation again to ensure that specific issues
like 50 percent representation of women in all institutions and at various
levels become a reality? Deputy Minister Hangana is right, there needs to be
more integration and co-ordination and involvement of grassroots people. Let's
talk more.

Issued by: Department Of Arts and Culture
27 September 2006
Source: Department Of Arts and Culture (http://www.dac.gov.za/)