When I was in standard six I spent a term in a boarding school.
One of the things that really stayed with me from my stay at that school, was when the school prefects called all of us into the school's hall one day.
They then pulled a standard seven pupil up to the stage, he had been caught smoking dope. They proceeded to beat him up – instilling their brand of discipline.
It was about that point at which I realised that this was not a place of good values or ideals, but a training ground for violent criminals, because what I witnessed that day was violent crime.
A society of dagga smokers is a million times better than any society where kids, and matric or not these were kids, feel comfortable using school property to try and instil terror in the younger kids.
This week I read a few stories about a camp that claimed it turned “boys into men”.
The camp believed in disciplined kids, without bothering with disciplined adults. The result was a child allegedly being systematically abused, forced to eat his own faeces, electrocuted and finally beaten to death with a shovel by someone claiming to be instilling discipline, turning a “boy into a man”.
That isn’t out of line for South Africa, it is where our current line on discipline, law and order ends.
We tend to think of patriarchy as simply being a matter of feminist theory, but it is an overarching theme that idealises manhood as being the ideal state of being.
And manhood, more often than not, is epitomised by the application of force. A man is tough, a man fights, a man forces the issue, a man is defined more by his ability to destroy than his capacity to create and to nurture.
And this kind of man is destroying our country.
And how can we claim that there is anything wrong with the next generation, when this is the kind of thing some of us call a man? How can we claim as a country that these boys should grow up to be anything but violent thugs and murderers, when that is what we have training them to be, this thing we call “men”?
If a man is somebody who is willing torture a fifteen year-old – and I don't care what the kid did or didn't do – then count me out. I want nothing to do with that concept of manhood.
If a man is one who speaks with his fists, then I do not wish to be a man.
And realise this, the cancer that was that camp is simply the most extreme example of what we consider normal in this country. We have initiation in our schools, and a strong belief in the discipline of the rod.
How often do people argue for corporal punishment? Do we seriously believe we can teach children to be non-violent, that violence isn't the answer, by hitting them?
Our prisons have been unfavourably compared to hell by prisoners. There are people who like this, who believe that jail should be a punishment, that justice is vengeance.
What has been the result? Have our horrific prisons stopped our horrific crimes? Does doing horrible things to people make them learn to do less horrible things?
Have rubber bullets and tear gas reduced the violence of our protests? Now even our Parliament sees the riot cop's truncheon.
What we have tried to do, whether legally or not, to produce a lawful society has failed. We cannot teach peace by violent means, and it is insanity to try.
A different way must be found, not just through government but in ourselves. We need to recognise the courage to not be “men”. To reject our concept of manhood as poisonous to ourselves, and to embrace instead our humanity.
To be human before all else, and loyal not to our concepts or ideals, but to each other, to strive to see each other as the greater good that we fight for, rather than as tools for it. Ideals should serve people, not people serve ideals.
Because as it stands, what we are doing is not working. The results are in every newspaper every day.
As we strive to force each other to behave, we breed our own resistance using our own methods.
The EFF in Parliament is the ANC's problematic child, adopting the exact same strategy and rhetorical styles that the ANC has used on the opposition.
It just doesn't work. If the ANC wants an end to insults – it should stop using them. If it wants an end to disrespect it should act with respect.
Personally I am not that bothered about respect, I want honesty. So I will continue to offend people, frequently with my ignorance and stupidity because lets face it I am not the brightest thing on two legs, because I want an open society where people say what they think.
You have to try to be what you want to be.