South Africa needs to unlearn violence
Chief director for research and stakeholder relations in Gauteng Department of Social Development, and founder of the Men’s Forum, Bongani Ngomane said gender-based violence (GBV) can end if the mind is transformed. These are his views on GBV:
“South Africa has a long history of social injustice, which played itself in the form of violence. Those who have not previously experienced this injustice and violence firsthand are not immune to escaping it.
“Some have experienced it through the dominant culture that became a by-product of historical injustices and violence. This culture of violence meant that violence became legitimate. It became accepted in public and private spaces. At home, parents could bring up a child through mechanical discipline and at school teachers had unlimited license to administer corporal punishment. This meant both mother and father had a legitimate authority to solve any problems through violence.
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“This dominant culture became repetitive over time and over generations. This results in a society that has young people who are angry and older people who don’t know what should be done about that. We see the anger of young people, especially young men, who behave violently not only towards others but even towards themselves. The risky lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, and crime by young South African men, suggests a culture of self-harm.
“The number of suicides, by young men in South Africa is 450 per month. This is a clear sign that South African men are troubled and are not only acting violently towards women but towards themselves as well.
“If this culture is not stopped, we will be a nation that is at war with itself, a nation that opposes itself. It is, therefore, dangerous and naïve for anyone to lead an anti-violence campaign against women and children and exclude men, especially young men.
“I am emphasising young men because those who abuse and kill women are by far and at large young men. Our country needs to have a comprehensive strategy of intervening in the mindset of these men, thus transforming the mind and eventually the character of South African men. The strategy should start at an early childhood education phase.”
Ngomane continued to say that the key to a country that is free from gender-based violence rests on the education system and not on our justice system. The problem with the justice system is that it deals with the after effects of crime. The justice system by nature is reactive, making it incapable of stopping crime.
“The solution is also not with our police system. The police system is supposed to be pro-active in anticipating crime and stopping it. However, such a system will not win a war against gender-based violence as it’s not easy to anticipate whether a father will come home from work to kill all his children and himself; that a respected pastor, teacher or a lawyer will abuse his power and rape and kill those he is supposed to protect.
“Therefore, our police system fails to deal with the prevention of gender-based violence, not because the police are corrupt and incompetent but because the system was not designed to deal pro-actively with the matters of the heart and the spirit.”
He also says that gender-based violence is seen as a crime of passion. It does not help that our children know mathematics and history but don’t know and understand themselves. It does not help when they don’t understand basic emotional intelligence, or when their spirit is empty.
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“Our education system should be strong on the curriculum of peace studies. Our curriculum developers should study and implement the characteristics of the ten most peaceful nations in the world.”
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