Segment Amathongo Episode 3 - Part 2 Toxic Masculinity in Religion & Tradition

Send us a textPart 2 Continuation with Guests:Menzi Ka Gudu Maseko Kgosikgadi MmamusoSubscribe on show link for more content. Support the showSubscribe and Follow us on all social media platforms.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome, my spoken truth family, to Amaton podcast segment. And this is part two of our topic, uh, toxic masculinity in tradition and religion. Um I remember Umkulum Seko had said that this might actually take us a very long time to dissect, and we're willing to do that. So this is part two, and uh, we're hoping that uh we'll have another guest. And if she doesn't uh jump on, we'll have her on part three or four. Uh so umkulu, we left off, we said a mouthful, but not so much, um, trying to dissect toxic masculinity in religion and tradition. And we left off when you were explaining um how religion is tradition. Yes, and um, I wanted us to then, you know, just now we have the skeleton of understanding religion and tradition what it is, but we're still trying to figure out if um toxic masculinity is the right word to use in this context, in religion and in tradition, and also with the few examples I gave you on why I thought or why I think that religion and tradition are toxic. And I have another analogy that I wanted to pass through to you, and the analogy um is um like I I'm just trying to, I'm really like kind of trying to interrogate, let me put it that way, cultures, systems on why men are placed in specific situations and women are therefore not put in a situation. One thing I noticed in Kulu, right? We spoke about how um, you know, customs of doing things because of tradition and culture, and then we spoke about religion of not going into church because you're pregnant out of wedlock. Then there's this other one that also bothers me, Mkulu, on the fact that men tend to um, you know, abo malume go to uh lobola negotiations, um, they do the joyful ceremonies, whereas um they do the tedious work of Laosebumoshe Gekorna, you know, those types of roles and and duties um that we we face in traditional in our cultures. So I wanted us to look at all those dynamics of tradition and culture and religion, and then we just see that's toxic. Is it toxic? Are we using the right word by saying it's toxic? Or should we put throw away the word toxic and look into it in a different context? Hello, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

So sorry about it. Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yes, very clearly.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

We can hear you.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Okay, yes, uh welcome, welcome back.

SPEAKER_05 3:25

Yes, no, I technology can dribble you sometimes, it happens to everyone. I know it. Um so um just to answer your question, you know, there uh norms, you know, um traditionally, religiously, culturally, in the workplace, in battle, and when I say in battle, in times of war, because the world is a place space where they have of course you know the ebb and flow times of war and peace. Now peace and attitude, war time, it's obvious. You know, during uh an unsettling time of war, uh there's lots of fleeing, there's a lot of fear, there's lots of uh you know, subsistent living, we are not living off the fields because the fields are burned, things like that. Long story short, we have to put these things, our masculinity, our masculinities, topics of masculinity and femininity in perspective. We can't just come down with terms and just ride with them just because they come from a particular cultural standpoint, which is why you see in a lot of pan-African spaces and black consciousness and black radical political spaces, there are a whole lot of people who are against feminism, not because they are pro uh they are anti-woman or they are pro-violence against women, but what they are against is a worldview which parachutes ideas from a dominant culture and puts these ideas in our midst, and we are supposed to just live with them, not question them. So a conversation like this is important because we get a space where, as African people, men and women, we can just question these things, questioning ourselves without the white gaze, without the European gaze, without the academic gaze, without Ameth or Aban, Abane. So, what toxic masculinity basically is those norms that are harmful. It's norms that have been passed down that are harmful. They exist in every society. But I mentioned last time it's important for us to understand that a lot of terms, a lot of labels, they tend to diminish the status and the role of the black African masculine wholly without interrogating why is the black man of the 21st century, 20th and 21st century behaving the way he is behaving? What kind of violence has been on him for 500 years? What kind of uh status has he been given for the person? What kind of roles has he been lied to? Has he been lied to to actually take up? What kind of religion has he imbired? What kind of diet is he having, both spiritually, culturally, economically? So his behavior is a result of his environment. Just like the white man's behavior, a lot of not generally, but when you speak about with the white man, we are talking about a particular trope with a Kunabandu who feels superior to others. It's not just the white male, it's the white woman also. When she sees a black woman, even if they've got the same PhD, she sees she would feel the need to teach her, she would feel the need to civilize you, she would feel the need to correct you. How are you eating? Are you on your P's and Q's? You know, are you living according to my standards? We have this went to the same university, same school, we speak same English, probably even better. But because of the society, the dominant culture that she comes from, she feels the need to mother you go. She feels the need to you know lead you, you know. Yeah, and there's a dominant culture run by her husband, her white man, who is on the economic level in power. So in that dominant culture, she's underpaid more than him, even if he plays the same role. So imagine the other people because they look at things in a hierarchy. If he's overpaid and he's underpaid, she still does all the work. She works in the boardroom, she works at home. He comes home, kicks off his shoes, hangs off his coat, expects dinner, expects all these things. But now we have to ask ourselves as I close this part was it always like that in the African society? Where the woman's role, I believe that women in all societies they work harder than men. I believe, this is my belief, that women are stronger than men, both emotionally, psychologically, and in absorbing the blows of existence generally. I'm not saying that they, you know, it's that it's that whole thing women is about what I don't like it. But it's you know, I don't like the thing, but there's other things.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

It's a very ugly story.

SPEAKER_05 8:51

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. She may be sensitive, she may, you know, be intuitive, have all these qualities that uh sometimes stereotypically put upon her. But that's the role, those are the behaviors in society that have been expected of both a girl and a mother, you know. But we'll see the woman and the men are raised in a particular way to our gorgeous man, which means basically you teach the child while they're still young. So, what is the what we should be asking is what is the African child taught that is not taught to other races? Maybe uh uh let me just put it there.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

African boy child, African, and I think that's where all the question is. Um, Khwassa Hadi, what's your thought on this on this topic?

SPEAKER_03 9:43

In my prior recording, I had um defined first and foremost what toxicity was, what patriarchy, because I was like, we cannot begin to define toxic masculinity without going into patriarchy because that was like the basis. But you guys went and um went into it quite well in the recording that you sent me. Um and then when I joined, you had been talking about burach, you know, and for me what I wanted to talk about was possession, how patriarchy puts possession on the man, you know. Um a husband has a wife, but their children that they have together, you know, they belong to the man. Why I say possession, they belong to the man, it's the surname of the children are always said to be from the side of daddy. Whenever we seek yes, whenever we seek clarity or advice or something, we must ask the the rang one. Um we must speak to dademu wuru. So even if it's on the male, female side, it will be my but we'll always seek and want clarity, want advice on life from the man when it was never like that. It was really, really never like that, you know. But for and when when are we going back? What I do do in my classroom, especially when I'm talking to my children, uh, right, who are busy with human rights in the workplace, and I was explaining to them just like um Uba Maseko was saying, that I explained to them in the workplace, if you I need you to understand that it's going to be your reality. It's going to be your reality that you will uh as a female go into a workplace, be hired with a gentleman, you guys will do the same thing, yet your salaries will not be the same. It will even be worse if he's more to a white person, right? And I'm not teaching them for them to accept it because a lot of them are sort of rebellious against that system. Why should I sit in this classroom and you're the only person talking to me? We're not engaging. Why and and it it's those small things that when it comes to the education part, it's one person standing in front of you, they have authority over you. They give you permission to go to the toilet, they give you permission to read. It's those systemic little things that are put together so that we're always looking to authority. And should we ever look in front for someone who has to be our authority figure and they're not male, then it'll be the white female and then the black female. So, but I'm I'm I'm teaching it to them to be like it's not something that should be um now taken as this is it. Also, when it comes to is tem and how we're told is Tem was initiated by the man, but yet he'll he'll occasionally go and seek um permission. But in actual fact, when this especially coming from uh the modern day gunis, the Zulu Closa um those you you go ask for permission, but at the end of the day, if you still want to do it, you're still going to go into it. So can we sit down with our children and say, This is what has always been happening? We've no, this is what has now become a norm. We've got a man in front who must tell us what to do. Uh, you made the example of your younger brother when you were uh in Saudi, he had to campaign. You're already teaching your younger brother that he has authority over his mother, superiority, you know, and it and it's those things that religion just puts in place to make sure that you know, uh, don't ever be out of line, don't ever be out of line.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

I like how she puts it when she says, positioning, don't be out of line. It's as if we're in combat, it's as if we are soldiers in a system, you know, being ruled and governed in a specific way. And that's where my challenge is. I'm trying to challenge that in the sense that can we change the roles? Can women have a say now? Can I be the one to go to lobola negotiations because I birthed the child? I birthed the child, I gave this child life, I chose for this life to be here, but I have no say as a woman in society, in African tradition, which um lobolo and child now who was going to work Monday to Friday, has a say in how my daughter has to be married, has a say in how my son has to go and I lobola and what is expected of him to choose and what he needs. And these are where I'm I'm trying to say, is this toxic? Is this toxic? Yes, can it change? Can we change the system? Because it touched on a gnome, because once it becomes a gnome, it becomes tradition from generation to generation to generation.

SPEAKER_05 15:06

It is toxic, my sister. Uh, but again, that it we must not get carried away because we need to dissect this and break it down to the level whereby we can come up with proper solutions. And the solutions are already here. Uh, I'm a great advocate of what is called indigenous knowledge systems. Now, these indigenous knowledge systems are dynamic, they are not, and they are also contextual, right? Uh uh the indigenous knowledge system of uh of Namibia is not 100% similar to the indigenous knowledge system of Tanzania or of Abeguni or Ababedi or Abakatla or you know, according to each village, according to each tribe, according to each nation, according to each people, ethnic group, whatever terms that they put on these uh uh differences. That's why I always speak about something called African cultures. I don't believe in one African culture, personally, as Mentimas, I believe in African cultures. That when you put them together, you can have something what we call Africology, you know, the scientific and logical uh uh appreciation and study of African, of Africanity, right? We call it Africology, right? And the reason why I'm raising that up is because we need to learn, if we want to find solutions, we need to learn to separate what is our cultures and what is not, what is foreign to us, and how what is foreign to us influences us, and how we perpetuate it, and how sometimes we take things that are not our own and we make them our own, and we defend them and we perpetuate them and we make them make it worse. I mentioned last time the uh female genital mutilation, which is a topic that is very hard. It's a very difficult topic to deal with, but there have been women at the forefront of dealing with it since the 1950s. Only in the 1990s did you find uh women like uh African American women, such as uh um uh uh uh Walker, what's her name? The Walker Lady that writes beautiful books. What's her name? Um, Alice Walker, Alice Walker and others, you know, what they do is they've been working, she's been coming in and out of Africa. She's African-American, but she's been coming in and out of Africa, working with African women in the villages, uh, writing petitions, empowering them with knowledge, empowering them with knowledge of their villages, villages that they may not even visit because they are bound by a particular culture that keeps them in a particular setting, right? They only meet other women in the market. And the information they get in the market or in the or in another place, is information that is parachuted to them from another culture, in particular, Islamic culture. And the Islamic culture, which is a distorted form of Islamic culture, is a male-centric, toxic, masculine Islamic culture. Just like African women in the South, we get male toxic Christian Judaic culture, which is not really the essence of what Judaism is, because I was telling another pastor the other day, I met him at a cafe. Excuse me if I'm making it too long. I'm just making examples. I met a pastor uh the other day, uh, and uh I've met him before, but anyway, he asked me some questions, and I said, you know what? In order to solve problems that you are finding in the church, uh, the church is losing a lot of members, uh, and there's a whole lot of issues happening in the church, cultism and all kinds of things, sexual um, sexual assault. There's a lot of things happening in the church. I said, My brother, I'm an African indigenous practitioner, but I can tell you one thing that you can fix in the church. I gave him an example of the thing that Moses built, which is uh the Ark of the Covenant. And it has, if you look at its structure, it has these two angels, these Kerubs. These Kerubs stand uh guarding something called the mercy seat. I explained to him, said, Go and read your Bible past, and go and do some research of what is the spirit that resides in the message on the mercy seat. And I explained to him in a nutshell now that death mercy seat comes from the Ark of the Covenant, which comes from Egypt, Egypt, which comes from Sudan, Sudan, which comes from Uganda, Uganda, which comes from the Kong. What is what death mercy seeds depicts is something called in Judaic law. It's called Shekinah or Shekinah, Shekinah glory, which is a feminine aspect of your male God. So your male God is the God of thunder and lightning and jealousy and hard laws. But the shekinah is the mercy part, that's why it's called the mercy seat. In that mercy seat comes forth a spirit called Shekinah. I said, Go and study that. Don't take my word for it, go and do your research. The moment you reconcile the fact that your male God, who stands alone and he only has a son, doesn't have a daughter, doesn't have a wife, just basically has it's just males, two males, Jesus and Jehovah. If you interrogate the problems with that, then you will start to unravel the problems in the church. And then if you unravel that, you'll start to get to the tradition, which is Catholic tradition, which is removed even from the church. It is not part, Catholicism is not part of the church's uh original history. It's only halfway, you know, it's something of a thousand years ago or maybe 1500. So the point I'm making is that there are traditions that come along the way, which put into jeopardy, I don't know what's the right word. Uh the I'm looking for English. Ukstaza is to make something that is pure and make it unpure. You know, when it was actually as a spiritual discipline, it was good, it accommodated both men and women. But then later, just like African Uktuana, Uktuani Dombi, uh Ukshaha, Ya Umfaz, you know. Some men think it's African culture. It is absolutely not African culture, you know, it is something that we learn from dominant cultures that come and impose male centered ideals on us, and then we perpetuate it. I'm saying we have to look at history. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Yeah. If I can just help you actually, and how they were able to so by taking power away from a woman for us to not see a woman as

SPEAKER_05 22:00

thing that can you know um advise us is through things such as rape uh such as making a woman incapable of giving advice so those type of putting her in the workplace um but then not giving her full rights those type of things having a woman not sit at a table where her life is being discussed she's given a bright price she's a she's given a bright price we we make her a possession why but all those things negate advances or anybody would ever look at for anything respect we don't even give a property in some spaces i think it's happening in some traditional cultures where women don't have the right to property it has to be a little son whether it's a young or no yeah those things yeah so I think we about run out of time for now we've got I don't know how much minutes but we're gonna let it start over but that's what I'm saying that that issue of proper of property private property is a Eurocentric idea in Africa in Africa all cultures in Africa the women to Inga your moons and indoor is now you can't all without Infigure Intiga is like the neck it's the pillar that makes us the house stand up but the man takes the glory is the one to be as well but the one who actually makes the house the whole it's another it's it's it is not there's no debate it's the woman but it's a partnership I want to talk about the partnership and then then we can interrogate toxicity toxicity we can't start it in the middle we have to actually get it from the roots how do we approach it to approach it by unlearning basically a dead religion we are we unlearned by unlearning dead cultures things that do not longer serve us as 21st century men and women working in the same spot in the same slaveyard so to speak you know and then we can have our own economy back once we know that the foundations of masculine and feminine are on an equal footing true no i i i think the how I like how you all put it like I'm when especially the last part when you're talking about how a woman is a pillar I like that the backbone with the spine without the spine you can't walk without the spine you can't pick up anything you can't do anything without it and and I think that's one thing that traditional culture has to understand for a home to operate there should be a wife that's why they always say behind a good man there's a good woman there's somebody who's leading this ship there's a captain there's somebody who knows the direction in which they are staring it at you know and and and that's what I want us to end up at when after we have dissected everything the conclusion of how do we asihadi as um as people listen to this how do we teach people to unlearn because it's one thing to talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

How do we unlearn because one thing I have started doing which is which is literally stressing my family out is that I question. If I am told something I will question it and I will stand firm in it. Something as simple as oh your daughter is gonna turn one we're cutting her hair I said why because it's culture why who did it why who said it yeah and they're like yeah but it's because I'm like but then if you say it's culture then they're like and then those who are religious I'm like but then did Samson is it Samson who had hair did he cut his hair apparently there was power in his hair why like I've now gotten to a point where I ask why before I do I do not jump because culture says I do not jump because tradition says until you tell me that somebody died in the family because they didn't do it then maybe I might consider it you know so I want us to get to that point of also having to help people how do we unlearn it how do we start where do we start as Ubuntu because we we also this like you were saying that it's 500 years a thousand years that it went from one generation to the next it's hard to undo something that's in your DNA. How do we now change the course of our DNA? Because we standing here today and we're saying we are the generation that is going to stop generational curses. We are the ones who are going to heal so if we are the healers of our forefathers and our kids who are yet to grow how best are we going to do that? How do we teach people to do that?

SPEAKER_03 26:58

I know that for me I've decided for myself that um in my house right in my house my children will not do things like get vaccinated my children will not be uh go to traditional schools I want to homeschool my children when my when my children are born I do not want to have the placenta cut when the book I want it to fall off because I wanted to keep feeding my child until it naturally falls off. I want to take that placenta and I want to look up and I will have a tree planted then I want my child to grow up with that already being connected to the roots I want to change it I want my child to have certain roots I will start that way from especially from the placenta because my child was born from that placenta then everything that I have had to unlearn and relearn the I'm only going to be teaching my child that what I had to relearn. And it's something that I have this and I have to find someone who thinks the same as as me has the same worldview and then we can so that I don't have to be seen challenging being challenged and having to argue and to say but this is why we're this is not why we're doing it black clothes when we're mourning there was a white woman she wants to mourn and wear black then all of a sudden now there we are we are now wearing black to mourn you know uh the clothes that you see in these uh denominations you can trace it back to European country flags so you can see who started that denomination why must I learn that and I mean I'm at a place where I don't do anything unless my ancestors teach me and I've created they've helped me create that line of communication between us where they tell me no I want you to do this I want you to do that and that is the only thing and that's me how I've decided I'm going to change it for myself my house and my kids you know I like when you spoke about the black uh wearing black to moan I remember when when the passing of my grandfather I wore orange I was 12 and people at the funeral were like how could you wear it?

SPEAKER_04 29:18

It's a bright color she's this is that I wore it confidently so my grandmother was supporting me. You know extended families always have something to say then they asked me why I did it I said because that was his favorite color for me.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

At that moment I was representing the man who raised me I didn't care at that age that I had to look as at 12 what do you know about wearing black at 12 you you just love your grandfather you just love your grandfather and that's what matters the rest is you know so even if people decide even you get people say why would you wear whites white is for a wedding who said how about if I want to wear black at a wedding who said that who said that like for another thing is you can actually trace back to a person hence I I I understood Ubuchi tradition is subjective it is the same way Ubaba Womuzi kids say you know what for me and my kids I feel like we don't want to slaughter anymore so therefore this is the last offering I will make and this is me saying Ugiya Pamili will no longer slaughter and it becomes their tradition so therefore I have the right to create a tradition let's everybody has the right so let's create new ones then and then when challenged we can say we trace back uh wearing black to a a queen in um England we trace back church clothes to different countries uh and their presidents we trace back this to so therefore you shall trace this back to me you will definitely trace it back to me the Unspoken Truth is the catalyst for important and thought provoking conversations that need to be had the network tackles social ills spiritual healing soul searching and mental health awareness to subscribe click on the show link to follow our podcast and be part of the Unspoken Truth family.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

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