I Thought I Should Let the Members of This Forum Know That in Spite of the Seemingly Calmness

Sasdites

I thought I should let the members of this forum know that in spite of the seemingly calmness that pervades this forum on the issue of circumcision, outside of the forum, in churches, and in other gatherings, many are splitting hairs on this issue and the debate is vibrant and very serious. In most of these debates one observes that there is usually a lot of thunder but no rain. Most African cultures/religion do not take kindly to the question, “Why”. These cultures/religions are sustained by tradition and not innovation. The latter asks questions while the former experiences reality. African religion is lived not argued and defended, it is experienced and is not missionary. Africans do not go about convincing people of the goodness of their religion or culture, they do not look for converts. One is born into the religion he or she is not converted into it as a result it may be difficult to give the reasons for the “hope that is within” For those who may not appreciate, this is the main reason why we do not have hypocrites in African religions – there is no tension between theory and practice. Our defense often run as follows, we have always done it this way. We grew up sharing and that is how it has been we never attended a lecture on the importance of sharing. People like Dr Motsega, Mbiti and Bediako amongst others have done a good work in articulating the philosophy of African religions and this is appreciated, and we would do well to read their works.

What am I trying to get to by all this? The question why do AmaXhosa practice circumcision will always meet with resistance and aggression for the reasons stated above. The long and short of it is that many do not know why, it has always been done and to dare to even ask is regarded as disrespectful and demeaning. The best and the most correct answer is that – “it is our culture” we have always done it this way, there is nothing wrong with it, it is who we are, our identity, etc” Some of us may not realize how true this response is. Some have defined culture as consisting of , the techonological (clothes, artifacts, etc), sociological (language, relationships) and ideological (worldview, religion). We can dispense with the first two levels easily, but that does not mean we have changed. We may wear Western clothes, speak English, attend Model C schools but when it comes to the ideological, you will always meet with resistance. The last level is the heart and soul of African culture, it is who we are, without this we are naked and have no identity, and that is where circumcision fits in. We may deceive ourselves as we often do that circumcision means nothing, well this is just self-delusion. Circumcision is everything to us, I mean to us Xhosa - Adventists, we cannot think of life without circumcision, we do not know what we are without it. The question still remains as you may have guessed – Why is this so important, not to the Xhosa speaking people for they have the answer, but to us the Xhosa-speaking Adventists. So far our answers leave a lot to be desired. There is a need for a serious debate on this, that is all I can say for now, there is no one person who has all the answers.

Sasdites

I have been keeping away from this circumcision discussion for very personal reasons. I intend to still do so. But I can't keep my peace though when I hear how Ps JP decries the way Africans approach culture.I feel his analysis in this regard is not entirely accurate. He makes very sensitive statements which I suspect are in fact aimed atdisparaging circumcision as practiced by AmaXhosa. But hegeneralises themto even take a swipe at how Africans view culture and respond to it.

He writes: ". Most African cultures/religion do not take kindly to the question, “Why”. These cultures/religions are sustained by tradition and not innovation."

I personally do not think that this is accurate. Lifeas livedwithin any culture, as long as it is human, is by natureinvestigative. Cultural practices are arrived at through vigorous, investigative engagements with experiencedreality. It is the nature of human-ness toask and investigate aboutquestions of existence and life. And it is ashumansask these questions and arrive at different answers that cultures are born and reborn. To say therefore African cultures/religionsdo not take too kindly tothe question, "why", is misrepresentative of the what reallyoccurs at the level of culture-genesis. Cultures by naturearise as a response to questions and especially the very"why" question.Ps JP says African cultures survive by tradition and not innovation.I really doubt the veracity of this statement. How does it evolve and metaphorsizethen in the first place?Culture is dynamic by nature. And the reason why it is so is because ofthe fact that its practitioners are constitutionally and dynamically investigative and innovative. You do not necessarily need to be adversely critical of your culturein order to be innovative. You can be supportivelyinnovative. And thatyou aresupportive should not mean you are necessarilytraditional.

Again he writes: "African religion is lived not argued and defended, it is experienced and is not missionary."

I beg to differ sharply with mygood friend here. If by arguing and defending he means articulating our culture in Western,philosophicalconceptual categories of thought, I will agree him. But if he means Africanpractioners ofAfrican culturepractise/d culture without knowing why and beingdevoid of the ability todefend their practices when confronted with the"why" question, I disagree completely.Africans havealways knownwhy they do what they do. If asked why they do a,b, or c, they would and still will explain why. We may disagree with thereasons. But they are there. We may think the reasons are flimsy. But they are there as reasons anyway. Africans defendedand arguedfor their way of living in their traditional meetings, social meetings and at "Dikgotleng" . They argued for and defended their way of living by living it. And as Ps JP correctly pointed out, there were no "hypocrites"within the African culture. Not necessarily because they could not come up with independent reasons why they should defect, as heimpies, but becauseAfricans come to embrace the "faith of their fathers" as theirs. Is this not what we want Christians to do? We want Christians to defend and argue for Christianitymore by living it outthan articulating it. And that you cannotconceptually articulate it should not translate to not being able to argue for it or defend it. Let your life defend it. That is what Africas do. And by the way, to say I do something because it is my culture is a reason. Maybe not a good one but it is nevertheless a reasonl.

Ps JP gives an exampleof sharing as anAfrican cultural practice. I agree that sharing is inherently African. But I do not agree that we as African share simply because we were brought up in a culture of sharing. Thereby implying that we really do not know why we are sharing. We are just sharing because that is our culutre. We grew up seeingpeople doing that. Yes we grew up seeing our older folks sharing and we learnedthat practice from them. But now weshare because we believe it is the right thing to do. We learnedand nowwe teach. How do we teach without having being taught first? And howcould we have beentaught and howcoud we have learned without the process of thinking and reasoning?Is Ps JP suggesting herethat we have been behaviourally conditioned as Africans?To portray Africans as unthinking practioners of culture, who can't even argue or defend their behaviour is really unfortunate.

Again to say Africans do not proselytise is bothnot historically andaccurate. It's not correct even in terms of our current cultural practices Historically, you just have to be cursorilyacquainted with the history of the Great Empires of Mali, Egypt, Great lakes regions and Tshaka the Zulu King to realise that what Ps JP is saying is not entirely accurate.At the heart of the military campaigns of these kingdomswas the desire toculturally conquer their foes. The methodologiesmay have differred but the desired outcome was the same as that of the Western Empires. And that outcome wasunmistakenly to culturally dominate their conquered victims. Tshaka wanted to make everybody a "Zulu".That is a historical fact.And to methat is proselytizing. Currently we proselytise through other means of our cultural institutions such as marriage for instance. When I, as Motswana, marry a Zulu or Xhosa or White or Coloured, I am toa degreeconverting them to my culture. The culturation process may be inadvertent but it is there. And once a commit to marry into another culture has been, the culturalconversion process in fact ceases to be inadvertent. It becomes deliberate and concerted.

I wish we could be more sensitive in how weportray ourselves as Africans. I agree that we need to critically examine ourselves. But let us not unduely criticise ourselves. Let uspay ourselves compliments where it is due.

Sadites

Well the good thing is that the topic has resurrected my friend BG, it has been a long time since we have seen him in our shores. I must however hasten to say that my submission is in no way seeking to undermine African Traditional Religion, I am a student of ATR, and also a proud African (whatever that means) so the last thing I would do is to portray myself in a negative light. I am not also, I must add that, not one who romantics everything African, I believe that all cultures are fallen and that in each culture there are some demonic as well as divine elements. How to separate the two is a very delicate process and is open to debate.

The point at issue here, without linking this to circumcision, is on how we arrive at truth. How do Africans arrive at truth or maybe used to arrive at truth is it thorugh theories, arguments, indoctrination or is it through experience. I know this might sound disparaging, since we are convinced that to argue your point and defend it with all kinds of theories is the best form of arriving at truth. But I beg to differ, and that is my argument. Why is it that after almost 350 years of Christian indoctrination we still find African Traditional religions alive and going strong. Is it because we have better arguments, is because we can defend it with better theories. Oh yes there are those who are doing that as a way of showing the rest of the world that this is not a mindless religion or culture. But what has sustained African cultures and religion (the two by the way may mean the same thing) in spite of the attacks and ridicule it has gone through? Today as we speak, we are still struggling with serious religious issues even in the Adventist church with our strong belief on non-immortality of the soul.

Is the Western way of arriving at truth more powerful than the African? Am I looking down on African Religions when I stress how different we are? Look at the Old Testament. The OT religion is clearly not a missionary religion. God’s purpose in the OT was for all nations to observe and see what God does to a people that worships Him. They were never expected to travel long distances arguing their religion or proselytizing for that matter. Queen Shebba came because she had heard, she came to observe, she was not sent to University but witnessed for herself what it meant to worship God. She asked questions and received answers that were a product of the reflection of those who had an experience, these were practitioners not philosophers. It would appear at least judging from the OT mission, that God’s purpose was not for Israel to go to the world but for the world to come and learn by observing.

It also interesting to note that when God led Israel out of Egypt he did not take them to a University to learn theories, about theodicy but rather He led them through the sea and from there they were able to reflect and understand what they had experienced. Most of the books written on ATR are written or were written by those who took time to observe, to witness and to marvel. Their reflection is a product of this experience. In the western religions one can do a PhD in theology but not know God, a PhD in communication but fail to experience communion with his or her family. Africans know what happens when we do certain things, they know what happens when you do not follow certain ritual procedures, they know from experience, they have seen “things” and no amount of theory to the contrary can convince them. Experience is the best teacher, “isiziba siviwa ngodondolo”. That is why I commented that in African Religions we do not have hypocrites for we do not have tension between theory and practice. Actually we can see this phenomenon in the way we preach, there are those who expound great theories and this has been the practice for a long time, but today we see a strong move towards narrative preaching – telling our own stories – what God means to us.

Lastly, when Jesus was asked by John’s disciple whether He was the one or an imposter – He invited them to sit down and witness, observe and then go and tell John what they saw. That was more powerful than any argument that Christ could have advanced. Having made this point, I do not want it to appear that I am looking down on the other way of arriving at truth. In the context of religious pluralism there is a need for correct articulation of one’s belief, we need theologians and theorists.

Once more, to quote our former President T Mbeki, “I am an African” of course this did not stop him from being recalled – it looks like ANC needed more from Him than his arguments on being an African.

Blessed Sabbath to you all

J Papu

Sasdites

I appreciate clarificationby Ps JP on his stance onand attitude towards the African culture and its pracitioners.I am relieved to hear that he understands and appreciates the rudiments of African cultural epistemology and that these are in no way inferior to those of the Western culture. WeAfricans do things the African way. And that way does not have to beabandoned for other "superior" ways. Let it be internally challenged by the dynamics of its own content and thus bechanged if needs be. Change must not be imposed uponit.