Initiation schools slammed for not guiding boys to be real men
AN Eastern Cape religious leader and his traditional counterpart are upset about young men who return from initiation schools and abuse women and children, drink alcohol and disrespect elders.
Council of Churches president and Moral Regeneration Movement chairman Bishop Andile Mbete and former Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders (ECHTL) chairman Ngangomhlaba Matanzima said the instruction at initiation schools must be restructured so that initiates understood what it meant to be a man.
Mbete and Matanzima were speaking at a traditional homecoming ceremony for the sons of senior government official Masiza Mazizi, at Colosa, in Dutywa, and of Cofimvaba businesswoman Colin Sakawulu, at Magwala village.
Mbete and Matanzima both attended the Mazizi traditional homecoming on Christmas Day, while the former ECHTL boss delivered a similar message at Magwala village on Saturday.
Mbete said the manner of some young men was an insult to the rite. “Even the way they dress. How can you show your underwear in public, have trousers below your buttock? Mbete said.
“We send them to initiation school to be men with high morals and understand the essence of being a man and what is properly expected of him by society.”
Matanzima and Mbete said real men did not rape or abuse women and children.
They said men should be protective of women, be providers for their families and be of high standing in society.
Matanzima said: “We have traditional nurses who are not a good example. Some of them are drunkards, do drugs and they themselves know nothing of being a man.
“So how do we expect our sons to be if they have been nurtured by such people?
“The job of a traditional nurse is not only wound management, but to create a man of good stature, and they are lacking,” he said.