There are two main points that really get my goat about the current Ukweshwama debacle (Ukweshwama, for those who don’t know, is a traditional Zulu ceremony involving the ritualistic slaying of a bull). The first is the unbridled cruelty to the animal involved, and the second is the most widely used justification for the ritual’s ongoing existence — namely “culture”.
I’m not going to argue the first point here. Suffice to say, my own meat-eating habits will add to the complexity of my argument against the cruelty. No, I’m not conceding, I’m just not going there. Yet.
But the second point is much easier to argue. The Ukweshwama ritual has been described by many of its proponents as “an integral part of Zulu culture”. And somehow that justifies it, they say. Absurd, isn’t it?
The moment “culture” starts providing a blanket excuse for social taboos or legal infringements, we’re in big trouble. I mean, if you fancy the idea of jumping a bull with a gang of forty other men and mutilating its testicles to make you feel like a man, or you feel like doing copious amounts of hallucinogenic substances and dancing naked in the fields, or cutting your neighbour’s scalp off because he trespassed on your property, then say so. Take your argument to court, and enjoy being laughed at. Well, mostly …
But for goodness’ sake, don’t say it’s your right because you’re a Zulu, or a hippie, or a Native American. We could have a field day with that sort of cultural carte blanche. I could decide that defecating on the pavement is a facet of my culture. Would you want to share the country with me?
It also serves to mention here that not all people of Zulu descent are too worried about their Zulu identity being lost because they didn’t maul a bull somewhere along the way. None of my young male Zulu friends have done it, to my knowledge. I also never really see modern Zulu men insisting too vehemently on sleeping in a beehive hut. People move on, cultures progress. Well, mostly …
And please don’t argue that because the tradition has existed for a long period of time that it suddenly qualifies as an untouchable cultural expression. We could pick out all sorts of choice “cultural” nuggets from the past and regurgitate them in that case. How about royal family incest from the Egyptians (culture doesn’t go back much further than that)? I picture the following hypothetical scenario with a mixture of amusement and disdain: during the glory days of the British royal family, it somehow gets revealed that Princess Diana has Egyptian lineage. Princess Diana and her son William announce to the world that they intend to get it on and produce offspring (insert appropriate banjo music here), because it’s “their culture”. Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it?
To clarify, I’m not here to argue the merits or demerits of animal cruelty, drug use, scalping, defecating on pavements, incest, or any other taboo. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether they are right or wrong or fall into a grey area, the notion that issues can be justified because they’re cultural norms for a particular group is ludicrous.
So ludicrous in fact, that me being the ludicrous chap I am, am now quite keen to adopt it as I write this. Thus, should I find my neighbour, for example, beating the crap out of an animal and gouging its eyes out for no reason other than looking good in his community, I will be inclined to beat the crap out of him in return. Because it’s my culture.
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46 Responses to “Sometimes culture is a load of bull”
You are ludicrous Allen as you claim. How silly of you to equate an established culture to defecating on the pavement or is this an indication of your lack of understanding of the meaning of the word ‘culture’.
I just wish if you could attend one of the ceromonies when they kill a bull and try to do the little crap you wrote in the last paragraph. I can bet they will beat the crap out of you and you will become a man my boy.
“…the notion that issues can be justified because they’re cultural norms for a particular group is ludicrous.”
Ag, you’re sounding more like another pale skinned god who thinks that the only cultural norms acceptabe (justifiable) to us are those named after British names. You’re no different to any other hippie outhere who thinks that blacks (in SA) should always get approval (for everything they do) from their white masters…
How sometimes i wish the idea of a rainbow nation was realistic.
By which logical argument could you possibly justify deliberate and knowing ritual cruelty to animals? Stop saying “culture” every time you do something morally abhorrent just because other people expect it of you. Grow a pair. Be honest. Say “Because I want to. MAKE me stop.”.
I feel worst, however, for the very young men in whose honour these rituals are held. These impressionable young sophonts (one hopes) are taught that cruelty to animals is okey dokey. That it is their birthright. The ritual killing of an animal defines you as a man. If someone takes that away from you, what do you have left? Do you have time, at this point in your life, to embark on a search for identity? Personally I would love to do that myself but I have to work overtime this month if we’re serving anything but lentils this month. You know how it is.
@ Pieter and Allan- The practice is not an established tradition. It is one that had been dropped and only recently revived in a much changed context.
@Allan - While one can discuss the invention of tradition a cultural norm or practice is not just something you can make up at whim. It is done so in a greater context of society and in regard to other traditions.
Western white culture once — quite recently, actually — included hanging criminals and flogging naughty schoolkids. And then there’s the tradition of slavery which was an almost universal practice going back over 3000 years. And we used to carry out witch-burning too. But we’ve given it all up because those cultural traditions were wrong. So we changed. We scrapped them and moved on. Proper cultures aren’t stagnant; they change with the times.
Bull-torturing is wrong. Zulu culture needs to accept that, dump the practice and move on.
Pieter on December 2nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
“I can bet they will beat the crap out of you and you will become a man my boy. ”
As usual, everything has to be sorted out using violence, how primitive!
Please, how does acting violent make someone a man?
It takes a REAL man to control his anger and a REAL man to show compassion to other living things!
Howz about taking on something worthwhile like the use of Bovine Growth Hormone in beef and milk production and the negative impact it has both for animals and man, instead of this dimwitted attempt at slamming the centuries old culture of a people you clearly have no understanding of or empathy for.
@ Pieter I will try to be polite about a crude comment that I can only justify by speculating that you believe :
An animal is somma just an animal with no feelings or rights on God’s beautiful earth.
They have no voice to plead for mercy.
It is up to us who call ourselves “human beings” viz the higher evolved species - to speak up for the voiceless.
Animal rights and SPCA are their voices in the wilderness of man’s inhumanity to fellow man - let alone the dumb species.
If you disagree with the author - please justify your view point, as I have justified mine against your comment.
But what business of yours to poke your nose in something you that doesn’t concern you. Racism as a white culture hasn’t moved with the times, it’s still the old same.It’s not by pure coincidence that you’re Bernard not Bongani or Tebogo. There are lot of black people who share you name but I’m yet hear of a white person with a Black South African name. Unfortunately because of your racial blinkers you seem to think this is normal. this is just one example of you racial arrogance in the name of “civilisation”. Can you speak and write in Zulu? If not why? You’re probably dating a white woman or man which is your tradition, and yet you have the audacity to critisize cultures of those you consider to be lower than you.
I urge all black peeople(Xhosas,Zulus,Sothos, Tswanas, Swazis,Ndebele’s)to go on a slaughtering spree this festive season.If you do it in front of complaining white neighbours, all the better!!I personally have had enough of people defacating on our cultural practices and as for your “enlightened zulu friends” i wonder how well you truly know them!!
the heart of darkness on December 3rd, 2009 at 9:41 am
I can understand that Zulu people want to confer good wishes on their King and people through the slaughtering of a bull. However, I can’t understand why a real live bull needs to suffer inordinately to achieve this end. Surely an alternative, symbolic ritual will achieve the same end? When it comes to cultural disagreements, it’s often a particular practice and not the culture’s general intentions that cause contention…
@Pieter: Not silly at all. Bernard is simply pointing out that it is a fallacy to derive ought from is. That is: A practice cannot be assumed to be ethical simply because everybody (in my culture) does it and always have.
Flawed logic here. Why is it that nobody ever says culture and religion evolve over time when referring to religious acts when all the Abrahamic religions are based on books written more than 2000 years ago?
The spanish chase and kill bull in public, the brits hunt foxes, the americans slaughter turkeys for thanks giving and there is no hallabaloo that is being raised. I am not even sure why you would write about a subject that you don’t know should you not know better. On what grounds is this wrong, because you bring your own morality and think that it is acceptable to all. It is this kind of ignorance that will always take us back. Is it no enough that your forefathers have told ours what to do for a long time and now you still want to tell us what to do. Get off your high horse.
I notice that the ones leaving the most intolerant, inflammatory replies do so without providing a link where they may be reached. Stop hiding behind the bland anonymity of the internet. Why is it that you will only utter these thoughts when anonymous? Society was more polite when you were expected to back your convictions with something beside trolling on the internet.
This thread has cast in sharp relief the fact that people generally just are not ready to define themselves as individuals.
The word “culture”, in context, seems to mean “doing something which others believe to be insane and getting away with it because many of our ancestors have done the same and we are statistically a sufficiently large portion of the population that politicians and legislators let us get away with it”.
It really is past time for humanity to just grow up.
To be honest, just kill the damn bulls. While I find the idea abhorrent, I write this while eating ribs. And I regularly see people abusing animals. At least some people are getting some form of satisfaction out of slowing killing bulls.
You can further add that the enlightenment of a nation/culture can be measured by the way they treat their animals.
And all the indignant Zulus and other tribal folk that are pouting in solidarity and claiming that this is just a Eurocentric outburst by people who have never slaughtered their own food, consider this - the difference between cruelty and humane slaughter is enormous. By engaging in cruelty you show the base side of your humanity. That is the same side of humanity that gives us racism, torture, abuse, cruelty and war. If that is what you cling to and foster in your people in 2009 then you have a long way to go before you can engage the rest of the world on the topic of humanity.
“Jeffrey Dahmer. Son of Sam. Ted Bundy. The boys who gunned down their classmates at school. The shooter of US Capitol security guards. These men and boys had something in common beyond their acts of terrifying violence: All had abused animals long before they went on to destroy the lives of other people.
Animal cruelty, which begins showing up as early as age six, is one of the earliest and most reliable predictors of later violent behaviour.”
Non-violent societies do not engage in animal cruelty…for any reason.
Bernard well written, unfortunately the ones who need to understand, what you have put in a very simplified manner, are unable to comprehend. If this horrible ‘tradition’ does go ahead, I think some one should take a video, and put it on twitter and the internet for all to see it. If those who support this cruelty feel so strongly that it is okay, they surely will not mind sharing with the rest of the world?
Why should people turn a blind eye to this exhibition of cruelty because tradition is involved? Apparently Shaka ordered the execution of a number of men while grieving the loss of his mother. No reason why King Good Zwelithini shouldn’t do the same should say, one of his wives pass away? Of course he won’t. That’s an insult to the king, he has moved on from the days of Shaka and the kind of tough measures that prevailed then have no place in a changed society.
I’ve seen zulu culture and customs be pretty flexible before; watching a cleansing ritual where the deceased wife was substituted for by her surviving daughter. It was symbolic, like all rituals. The funny thing is, the Ukweshwama is largely symbolic (you don’t really believe the power is transferred to the king?). So why not make it less cruel? As Fred Khumalo said; ‘I know I speak for many Ngunis who respect their customs and traditions, but who are outraged by some of the regressive practices’.
We have white supremacy in which everything should fit the white schema for it to be acceptable, human or civilised. Blacks have been decimated as they don’t have the language to articulate their suffering. They get attacked by the hollier than thou attitudes and we are told of animal cruelty but those who are shouting so loud do not tell us how the bull is slained in the butcher. We are told that the animal should be killed in the humane way, has there been humane killing?
No need to over-impose your culture on others, Bernard. Be mindful of the fact that you find yourself in Africa and not the other way round. Have tolerance. It is perhaps wise to say, guard against the devil in you that is a cultural imperialist, least you find yourself loathed because of your lack of hindsight and also your being ungrateful to the sacrifices African are enduring just to accommodate you.
You are indebted to the very same Zulu’s who let you inhabit their native land yet allow you an unwavering tolerance towards your wayward culture.
Rub off your false superiority complex and play ball because it is constitutionally sound. Stop looking down on everything African. You are not doing yourself any favours. When last did you recognise anything positive from the natives of this land?
Are you biased or normal. Catch a wake up call chief and learn to understand ukweshwama rather than criticise ritual. Descend your fictitiuos high horse and preach to your people not to follow your self-centred approach to others’ dear culture. If u beleieve all cultures are progressive, try changing yours and your people’s.
Dear Bernard, while your take on this matter does come across as a little flippant I still strongly agree with your opinion. The right to ones culture is indisputable but the right for that culture to trump all other rights and laws is unacceptable. Because Culture, Religion and Law can almost never reconcile their differences this very paradox renders culture irrelevant when that culture violates anyone else’s culture, religion or the law of the land.
HYPOCRITES!!! I bet they will pay a lot of money to go to Pamplona for the bull run and not see anything wrong with that.
why dont we start with prohibiting americans and english who come here every damn day for trophy hunt.
don’t think so, because they are pale skinned and not primitive and what they do is acceptable.
@Billy and Sipho..if you had read the blog with some understanding you would have realized the entire point was not to slam the traditions of various cultures but rather to emphasize the danger in using culture to justify in-despicable and unacceptable acts such as for example the cruel means by which cattle is slaughtered. Nor was the point to slam culture and tradition as concepts..they have had and always will have their place in society. Take for example the Arabic/Hindu tradition of painting of hands and feet with Henna. An artistic and meaningful custom, but does the performing of it harm another living creature? So look carefully (no matter your race or creed) at what these traditions are and have the strength of character to abandon or at the very least modify those that do.
You must consider taking an undergraduate certificate on cultural diversity and management where you will beggin to learn much about sensitivity and tolerance, otherwise you will turn our hard earned constitutional democracy into yet another Rwanda or Sudan with your hawgwash - no matter how stupid you may think one culture is as compared to the other, you just don’t reducule it and force it to submit to “change” - for a example many believes that racism is a culture which is passed on to afrikaners from early childhood. In raising such public perception, you must learn to be sensitive
@Noko et al: Slavery is morally abhorrent and you are correct. Please don’t equate an article with slavery though, okay?
Any white person you meet in the street may have had a longstanding history of cruelty towards your family. This person may be your best white friend (hypothetically speaking). Your worst white enemy’s ancestor may have given succour to some of your ancestors or close relations during the slavery years, or maybe the struggle. You just do not know.
Meanwhile, carrying a chip on your collective cultural shoulder about your inaliable right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and cruelty to animals is sort of deliberately alienating to anybody not of your culture. You are living the life the struggle fighters never fought for: exclusive of others. Distrustful of the stranger. Never questioning your culture.
Do you think any of our ancestors wanted their progeny to always live in mud huts? Of course not. Do you think they always wanted us to grub in the dirt for meagre crops instead of enjoying all the benefits of the free market system, modern manufacturing and materials technologies, and indoor plumbing? Heck no. They wanted their children to think new thoughts, constantly change, constantly improve the world around them.
Never questioning your parents’ beliefs means that you are the cattle and not the man with the knife.
Maybe the Romans took slaves from Gaul because it was their “culture”. Maybe the Chinese eat dogs because it was their “culture”. Maybe the Aztecs sacrificed other humans because it was their “culture”.
I really do not care about culture if it is used to justify something that revolts me.
The Spanish bullfighting and the Ukweshwama ceremony both result in the torture of animals, and that cannot be justified.
Maybe the Afrikaner should just say that apartheid was part of their “culture”.
@the heart of darkness - I think you misunderstood Conrad’s book.
To go on a ’slaughtering spree’ would be grossly insulting to the very culture you claim to be supporting. Cattle are killed in ritual context for a variety of reasons, but never to create offense. The ritual cleansing ceremonies required to follow up from such egregious behavior would be expensive and contribute to poverty and reduce peoples herds further. If you are Zulu and do not believe me because I am ‘white’ then ask your grandfather he would set you straight.
As a veterinary student i witnesed the culture of halaal in british abbatours where the animals throats are slit in the 1980,s.They do not immediately become unconcious and it has been proven that they can experience pain and suffering , which can be considerable before death.Later in the Cape Town abbatiour I witnessed a progressive compromise agreement with Cape Town muslims,where the animals are humanely stunned using a captive bolt (humane stunner) that renders the animal instantly unconcious.The local moslem slaughterman issued a prayer to allah for each animal before each occasion the animal was rendered unconcious.A loud bang from the captive bolt and it was all over.Maybe the Zulus could also learn compromise in their culture like the Cape Town muslims did, if it is for a good reason.In fact the ceremonial slaughter of the bull would still look very impressive,especially the loud bang, to those who took part,and the bull would be instantly unaware of what happened instead of prolonged agony and pain before death.It would be kinder to the bull and give what is after all a magnificent beast,some honour and dignity in death.Many Zulus and I would agree ,cattle are magnificent animals and deserve a kinder and more humane death.
I’m all for Zulus retaining their rich culture and traditions and commend them for doing so in spite of centuries of repression. This barbaric act - ukweshwama however, clearly has no place in any society. Some cultural traditions must die out in order to coexist peacefully with others. An extreme example of barbarism was the ritual of young widows in India sacrificing themselves on their husbands funeral pyre - a practice called sati, which was outlawed a century ago and is non-existent today.
@Siphiwo Siphiwo
A knee-jerk reaction - ukweshwama is roundly condemned by BOTH blacks and whites. Adhering to this practice as an act of defiance against “white masters” is immature and wrong.
@The Black Man
Yes, there is clearly a difference between a barbaric killing and humane killing. This ritual promotes bloodthirsty torture while an defenseless animal is slowly and painfully massacred.
@marumo machete
“…learn to understand ukweshwama rather than criticise..”
Please enlighten us on the deeper meaning of this barbaric ritual? Any tradition justifies this kind of cowardly killing does not deserve to exist.
btw. the name your handle “machete” says a lot about your glorification of violence. Don’t you think?
@masi
You’re right in that the Spanish “bullfights” are equally deplorable and even more cowardly!
CERTAIN cultural traditions are indeed a load of bull, and cannot be justified and should certainly be OUTLAWED in any democratic society!
@ Lee van Zyl, Robert_A & Shamus - I suppose you find dropping a live crayfish in boiling water a human and painless exercise to the crayfish. The only reason you find it so, it’s because it’s not practiced by Africans. It’s racism “finish and klaar” stop denying it.
@Gerry - you know two white girls called Thandi, I know thousands of black Africans with European names. You’re probably the type that claims that those few whites fought with Africans against apartheid, did it on behalf of every white person. Just because some white people invented something, then every white person becomes an inventor.
GS van Zyl said it. The dominant cultures in this country will have to realize that they, like those before them, will be judged by their actions. Forget all the reasoning and justifications, if you want to take part and be regarded as an equal partner, get used to the scrutiny! Blustering and threats are the weapons of those with weak arguments. Marumo, do you really believe what you wrote? Do you even begin to comprehend what message you are sending towards white people in this country?
While I agree with the author that culture should not be used as an excuse, I would like to know who determines which culture is the correct one. You are basing your outcry on your definition of humanity and using your own culture as a point of reference. The Chinese may eat dogs but in what way is it different from eating a lamb?
Secondly we are supposed to be a rainbow nation, celebrating our differences, otherwise we might as well call ourselves the Grey Nation
@Lee
Yes I agree with Lee. Take a video of this insanely cruel killing of the bull and put it on twitter. Then it will be plain for all to see, whites, Zulus, Xhosa, et al. Those that argue for it being a sancrosint cultural practice will have a hard time defending their stance.
Culture can never be an excuse for cruelty.
Cannibalism, and later, human sacrifice were both part of culture at some stage. So was the absolute power of husband over wife (including the right to kill her). But as civilization advanced, these things became unacceptable and hence no longer part of “culture”. Currently being debated is female circumcision, another barbaric “cultural” activity.
If we need to eat anumals, the least we can do is to kill them humanely. To torture and eventually kill a bull for “cultural” reasons is not acceptable. So let us do away with it.
We could never get out of this one without much mud-slinging and name calling!
I often wonder how an average white person would respond to another telling him/her to treat Africans/Blacks with humane respect during slavery/apartheid. Perhaps the one making the suggestion would be ridiculed and called all sorts of names because his/her ideas would have come too early? Fast-forward to today: Some, Black & white have come to realise that animals do in fact feel pain, think and suffer, while too many of us still believe that this is bull - they are “just animals”! This includes those who think it’s cool to make animals suffer when they kill them.
This debate shouldn’ be about one group’s culture versus others, it should be about us reaching consensus on what is humane and what is not, including in the manner of treating animals. Perhaps, just perhaps, we’ll get out of this without brandishing tired race cards!
@ Solly MOENG - have you considered that plants do feel pain too? Have you seen a fish wiggling on a hook? Have you killed a snake? Have you killed mosquitoes, flies or ants.
Or is it a matter of size with you? The bigger it is, the less painful it should die.
I make no exclusions in as far as the capacity to feel pain goes. All I’m saying is that at some point, people must reach consensus on what pain can and should be tolerated and what pain shouldn’t be, and then try to move forward as one! The fact of the matter is that much of human societies are governed by some for of social contract and a lot clear and assumed beliefs!
The following must be very much interesting:
- What is “KILLING”.
- What is “HUMANE KILLING”
- What is meant by “SUFFER”
- What is the real meaning of the world “PAIN”
- What is the relationship between “MORAL” and “KILLING”.
- What really make sense when one put KILLING, SUFFER, PAIN (even “less pain??”), HUMAN & MORALITY.
- Who determines what is really “HUMANE KILLING”, let alone asking his/her Skin Colour.
- To whom must all so called cultures make sense (I mean ‘MORALY CORRECT KILLING SENSE’).
- Who’s the “generally” approved one to measure the accepted human-inflicted pains to animals along the lines of being “generally accepted” or “labbeled as BARBARIC” (who is a BarBari for that matter). I mean who is this SUPREME one to lay the rules on how to “CORRECTLY KILL” animals (particularly for ritual purposes).
- Is there no difference between KILLING FOR MEAT and KILLING FOR A RITUAL(from the purpose point of view).
YOU CAN REPLACE ALL THE FULLSTOPS WITH QUESTION MARKS, Appologies for that its my “CULTURE” i do not use ????? they are to my “CULTURE” a taboo.
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Bernard Allen is a freelance communications specialist, who is passionate about justice, logic, humour, the arts, and Guinness. In no particular order.
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You are ludicrous Allen as you claim. How silly of you to equate an established culture to defecating on the pavement or is this an indication of your lack of understanding of the meaning of the word ‘culture’.
I just wish if you could attend one of the ceromonies when they kill a bull and try to do the little crap you wrote in the last paragraph. I can bet they will beat the crap out of you and you will become a man my boy.
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