TOM EATON | Let’s hope those prefects are taught to mind their pees and Qs

When I heard that nine Maritzburg College prefects had been involved in a urine-soaked initiation ritual I was shocked and disgusted: I simply cannot believe that prefects are still a thing.

For the sake of transparency, however, I should admit to you that I too was a prefect back in the day. And if I am to be entirely honest, I must also admit that it taught me some important lessons which I carry with me to this day, like that some people — usually those who are good at sport, jokes or convincing people they love Jesus — are inherently better than everyone else, which makes them the ideal people to lead the youth, or to put them in detention for wearing the wrong socks, which is pretty much the current definition of leadership in SA.

About initiation rituals, however, I know much less, mainly because my school was co-ed, which meant it tended not to worship unwashed jockstraps as cultural icons.

To be clear, I have no problem with rites of passage into maturity and adulthood, at least not in theory. They have been with us for tens of thousands of years and remain an important aspect of the modern world.

I’m sure there are also major differences in opinion about the fate of the suspended children: some might feel suspension is too light a punishment, while others no doubt believe the boys have already been severely punished by virtue of having to go to school in Pietermaritzburg.

For example, 3,000 years ago, being handed a small bronze knife and being sent into the mountains alone to kill a wolf taught a young man how to defend his village.

Today, being told to crawl through a long-jump sandpit that has been pissed in by Maritzburg College prefects teaches a young man how to work for Amazon.

I’m joking, of course. Nothing prepares humans for working at Amazon. And what happened at Maritzburg College wasn’t an initiation into anything, but the most toxic and debased form of masculinity.

The school has suspended the incontinent douchebags involved in the incident and so far the ensuing media coverage seems to be much more supportive of the school than was the case in 2017, when three pupils raised the ire of the institution by posting pictures of themselves holding up banners supporting the EFF.

The two cases are a reminder of how challenging it can be to run a school attended by children from a broad spectrum of political backgrounds, with some endorsing crude, hierarchy-based bullying, while the others endorse pissing on Grade 8s.

I’m sure there are also major differences in opinion about the fate of the suspended children: some might feel suspension is too light a punishment, while others no doubt believe the boys have already been severely punished by virtue of having to go to school in Pietermaritzburg.

But whatever happens next, I do hope that, before they were suspended, the boys were allowed to demonstrate the hard work and helpfulness we expect from our future leaders by removing the soggy sand from that sandpit. With their bare hands.