THE BIG READ: Would men be up to it? (excellent read)

President Jacob Zuma was in fine form on Thursday when responding to critics who accused him of being a failure at his job.

One of his responses was on rights, and how no right in the constitution trumps another. It is worth quoting him at length.

Zuma told parliament: "No right is superior to other rights. In similar vein, we must disabuse ourselves of the notion that certain rights are more important to certain sections of South African society than to others. Freedom of expression is as important and as understood in Constantia as it is in Gugulethu. No right is absolute. It must be exercised with due regard to the rights of others."

Zuma went on to say that "no right is so important that it can be used to undermine others with impunity".

This is an important contribution to the debates of the past few weeks.

I want to extend Zuma's point to cultural rights, because everyone's talking about culture these days. One can get away with murder just by claiming that whatever is being done is "my culture".



FIFTH TIME LUCKY: President Jacob Zuma dances with wife Thobeka Madiba during his traditional wedding in Nkandla, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, two years ago. Multiple marriages are allowed in Zuma's culture - but only for men. This, says the writer, undermines the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist society
Image by: Picture: SIPHIWE SIBEKO/GALLO IMAGES
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Several times over the past two weeks I have been told that, in Zuma's culture - and allegedly in black culture in general - multiple marriages are a right that men have enjoyed for ages and can continue to enjoy today.

That is all fine and well. But just because something is part of my culture does not mean it is in accordance with the non-racial, non-sexist and equal society that I believe we are striving to build in South Africa.

Polygamous marriages do not accord with the dream of a non-sexist South Africa. The reasons are simple and compelling. No woman can have two husbands. When the day dawns when a woman can take two men as lovers, and she is not called a slut or a whore, then perhaps we will have reached equilibrium in our society.

Until that day, polygamous unions remain a throwback to patriarchal, sexist structures in which men dominate, socially and economically.

Of course, not all women are in polygamous marriages because they are economically dependent on the man. However, the truth is that the economic and social discrimination that women have endured through the ages has forced them into such unions. That is the norm in these marriages and we should not be shy about it.

The stock response whenever the issue of Zuma's polygamous unions comes up has been that in his culture it is allowed. My response is that just because I have done something for decades does not mean it is non-sexist.

Just because it is part of my culture does not mean it should lie before me unexamined. Culture becomes stronger, more meaningful when it is examined and interrogated.

It is an insult to logic, to intellectual progress, to say that a practice must remain a part of society simply because we have been doing it for centuries. This argument is inherently anti-education.

There is much to admire in my culture. There is much that not only accords with, but underlines, why we have fought for a humane, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic country.

There is also much that needs changing. Women have for centuries been oppressed, not only as women but as workers.

They have been used as sexual objects.

They have been used as workers for no pay and even today in many industries earn less than their male counterparts. Black women have been oppressed in triplicate: as women, as workers and as blacks.

There is much in our culture that perpetuates this oppression of women: boys, for example, used to inherit their parents' wealth while women would be left to "go get married".

Is it correct that only men inherit because it is part of "my culture"?

Those who continue to defend Zuma's "cultural right" to marry as many women as he likes must not try to stop the rest of us from pointing out that, just because it exists and is accepted, does not necessarily make it correct.

Zuma's commitment to non-sexism, as communicated by the ANC all the time, must be questioned in the light of his greater commitment to the practice of a clearly sexist and oppressive cultural right.

This is the truth that has to dawn on those who are perpetually defending Zuma's cultural rights in this regard.

They must realise that Zuma's commitment to a non-sexist South Africa will only be truly tested the day that a woman from Nkandla can take a second husband and she is not quartered, tarred and called names.

source : NEWS 24/ WRITTEN BY  JUSTICE MALALA