THE PROFUNDITIES OF INITIATION?

By Omoseye Bolaji

It was a magnanimous gesture on the part of Ntate Thabo, the nigh-veteran South African police officer. Although exactly 50 years of age now, he has been in service for decades.

Now, he painstakingly tracked me down to buy me special lunch!I had been rather busy and could not meet him for a couple of days. He kept on phoning me. “My friend, stop avoiding me,” he said. “I have some extra money now, and I want to make you happy....” Anyway I did meet him, and we went for some drinks – and a magnificent lunch, at his expense.

We talked. A very hearty straightforward, genial man, this man is a mine of so many intriguing stories. He has had a somewhat checkered career while serving his country, but at least he is very much a fulfilled man in his own right. This became evident as he told me about his son. Thabo grinned. He does have a wonderful smile!

“Ah, my son – in his early 20’s – will soon become a man. You know, he will be spending weeks at the arcane initiation centre, up in the mountains; where he’ll be circumcised during this winter. I’ll be driving my boy there,” he said.

I winced. Initiation ceremonies have become somewhat controversial in South Africa these days, with horrifying tales of kids being abducted, suffering harrowingly, bleeding to death during these initiation ceremonies. And here was a proud father, who will soon drive his own son there very much willingly.

Officer Thabo was still smiling. “Thank God, my boy will soon become a veritable man. I’ll be supporting him all the way whilst he’s there (in the mountains); taking food and other material support to him; blankets....”

I managed to say: “you mean, you are not worried...about your son. I have read so many negative things about these initiations...the practice is not anachronistic?"

Whether he understood what I meant by “anachronistic" I am not sure; but he continued smiling effulgently. He said: “My son knows that without going through the initiation rites he would not be regarded as a true man in many circles as he grows up. That is why you see some very old men in my culture (the South African Xhosa people) going to the initiation schools in the end...."

My mind went briefly to Camara Laye’s masterpiece, ‘The African Child’, which brilliantly re-creates the poignant ambience, fear, dread, pains, and travails of such initiations in his own old society (Guinea). I suppose there is a lot to be said for Africans still having pride in certain ancestral customs.

“What are you thinking? Still worried about the initiation? I’m the boy’s father, and I’m not worried. Why should you?" my cop friend said, still good naturedly.I said: “You know, I’ve always felt that maybe some sort of printed certificate should be given out at these initiation schools, maybe as a token to modernity. I mean; all those weeks of deprivation, great discipline, learning, learning, the old ways...."

Thabo laughed. “There is no need for any certificate. There are special songs they learn at the initiation, which nobody else can know. The uninitiated cannot pretend to have gone to the school....Stop worrying about nothing. Let me get you another drink, my friend," he added, still with sparkling good humour.

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This piece, in its original form, sparked some interest and comments. I was particularly interested in the comments of my good friend, Soqaga "Dada", a very proud Xhosa man who commented thus:

"You must also know that we the Xhosas we are
unshaken and unafraid to practice our ancient culture of initiation.
It is the old culture and since this western and so called advanced super
power states have problem about it and certainly we cannot compromise
our noble,lovely and beautiful heritage of our forefathers. This is
the best school for the boys to learn to behave in a manner that is
moral and disciplined in our society..."

"ND" AND THE INTERNET

By Omoseye Bolaji

It was “peak period” inside the internet centre, as it were. A cauldron of frenetic activities! Here we were in the heart of Bloemfontein city in one of the internet cafes.

As usual the young ones, the students, were in the majority here now, adolescent boys and girls in school uniform chatting and gossiping whilst savouring the wonders of the internet. Eyes glued on the screen of the computers; intermittently the young ladies in particular checked the latest goings-on on facebook – both on the computer screens and their mobile phones.

Apparently, these days the young find it much easier doing their homework and assignments with the help of the internet. Showing off their knowledge, the pupils luridly made suggestions to each other: “No, try Google!” “Wikipedia is better!” “I still like yahoo,” etc.

I could hardly hide my smiles; perhaps I was in a tolerant mood! But it struck me powerfully how the youth have taken all these scientific marvels in their stride; how they take it all for granted. Whilst the truth is that the world has existed for thousands of years, yet incredibly things like world wide web, internet are just about 20 years old in human existence!

Now virtually everybody, especially the youth take advantage of this technology every time, sending a plethora of electronic messages hither and thither; be it via emails, facebook, twitter, SMS (text messages) etc. I shook my head, remembering that not so many years ago – before the internet became popular in Africa too – as a roving journalist I used to send my reports via telephone (eg from stadia during football or rugby matches), as internet was very scarce then.

“ND”- the owner of the internet cafe now entered, surveying the goings-on inside his internet cafe. He greeted me very well – after all we are both Nigerians and have been friends for years and he moved on to his office.Ah, ND! A very important man indeed, though the hordes of youngsters here at his internet cafe would not know this.

ND, a proud Igbo man to boot, was the first person to popularise the internet in the whole of Bloemfontein city. Almost 10 years ago he opened his internet café and charged incredibly cheap prices for the masses” to come and use his services. To complement this, he went out of his way to teach people the wonders of the internet at a time ignorance was rife in this wise even amongst the most educated people.

Within a few years other people were copying the pioneering efforts of ND, all over the city; opening internet cafes and trying to keep the prices down. Gone now were the days when black people in particular had to more or less “travel” to white areas to use the internet at very exorbitant rates. That was/is the legacy of ND!

And he was not alone. In other South African cities (and towns), Nigerians over the last 10 years have contributed greatly to popularising the internet – in well known cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, for example. Till date, many of such internet cafes belong to Nigerians; affording cheap access to the internet for large numbers of people; and to boot, often opening their offices to the public at unusual times (eg late into the evening, and on Sundays.

Hence we now see a situation where hordes of people, including young scholars, flood these internet cafes. Yes they are taking so much for granted; but that is part of the effervescence of youth. They take it all in their stride!

RASPUTIN!

By Omoseye Bolaji

“There lived a certain man in Russia long ago
He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow.
Many looked at him with terror and with fear
but to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear…”

From Boney M’s hit, Rasputin.

I was with a white friend or acquaintance, of mine in the South African suburbs. I seldom went to his place and whenever I did, I initially had to jump through hoops of the intimidating presence of his dog (in the courtyard)! But here we were now, in the sitting room.

It was, I suppose, an average sitting room. A big television set, sound system, an impressive library to my left; and the inevitable laptop on the table. Some sofas were dotted around in the room. David (that’s his name), after giving me a drink, said he wanted to play some music.

“I suppose you won’t appreciate the music, though it’s English” he said. “One of my old favourites. It’s Boney M, You know the old group?”I nodded absent-mindedly; my mind was engaged on something else for a moment.

Then I found myself almost freezing, goose pimples coursing through me! All because of the music of Boney M, David was now playing! It was “Rasputin," and its “bizarre” melody and lyrics were affecting me adversely! It was as if I was about to faint!

“What’s going on Bolaji?” he said, “Have you suddenly come over a bit sick?” I forced a wry smile, trying to pull myself together.But my mind had gone back to decades ago, when I was a very young student at the university, University of Ife, Ile-Ife, in Nigeria. I stayed at Angola Hall of residence and there was a particular student in my room who used to play Boney M, especially “Rasputin" rather late in the night almost every day.

He knew by then that most of the inmates in the room did not like this particular song.I remember one of them complaining: “What the hell is this? What type of music is this? It’s like I must run to my mother for protection when I hear this song…Rasputin!”

Yet I found myself fascinated by the lyrics of the bizarre- sounding song (a great international hit decades ago, overseas). Over the years, I was to learn the real-life details of the erstwhile Soviet Union’s Rasputin even more, the gentleman who had caused a stir in Russia many years ago, garnering the reputation of becoming something of a philanderer and manipulator.

I was in Sierra Leone some years ago when I read an authoritative book on the life and times of Rasputin, written by his daughter. Thereafter, I appreciated even more the legacy of the charismatic, controversial Rasputin; and how his life and demise spawned the many legends, myths, exaggerations that still survive him (including the Boney M song on him).

Yet the killing, the murder of Rasputin, is one of the most horrific ever; if contemporary accounts can be believed; he was not only poisoned, but shot many times, stabbed, his manhood cut off, his body thrown in an icy lake etc…all these factors combined to overwhelm me when I heard the “Rasputin" song again!

I said to David now: “Don’t worry. There’s no problem. I was just carried away for a moment. I’m enjoying your drink. Thanks,” Rasputin!!!