Virginity testing and the clash over African human rights

It is time for an Afrocentric interpretation and implementation of the Bill of Rights

- NKOSIKHULULE NYEMBEZI

EVERYONE is being persecuted by the elite version of the application of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing sense of victimhood among sections of the indigenous population, a feeling that, although in the majority, black cultural and linguistic communities face oppression from the government and some democracy-supporting institutions imposing their foreign version of human rights on our indigenous way of life.

In the latest expression of its long-running disagreement, the chairperson of the Commission for the Promotion & Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious & Linguistic Communities, Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, recently met Social Development MEC Mbali Shinga to direct that the testing of maidens below 16 years of age was illegal and that the government should stop it.

Multiculturalists often complain that people should be allowed to choose their beliefs and cultural practices as adults rather than be brought up in and on them. However, if a child or their parent is certain that a harmless cultural and linguistic practice is good for them then society should accommodate them.

And that is the root of the trouble. Is it not? If a person agrees with you, then they are a sage. If they disagree with you, then they are a fool.

Now, I happen to know many people who practise their culture. Some of the finest people I know are staunch observers of culture. But they are all "live and let live" people. They tend to understand that, sometimes other people invite "vilification" because they insist on doing something disrespectful of human rights.