Media Flaws

I will make no reservations in stating my utter disgust at the levels of gutter journalism employed by eTV’s 3rd Degree.

Last night, 9 November 2010, 3rd Degree embarked on screening their pilgrimage to find the Holy Grail, sorry I mean the most barbaric Ukuthwala practitioners, in the Eastern Cape.

Now Ukuthwala is a practise, which in its most basic form, means ‘To Carry’. Within a traditional context it specifically refers to carrying or taking an unsuspecting wife-to-be to the groom’s family. Yes. I know. Savage. Right? How dare women’s rights be trampled upon like that? Yes. Yes. Would it make a difference if I told you Ukuthwala actually resembles arranged marriages? Much like the ones that continue to go unabated in India and other parts of the world I haven’t bothered to google?

But because we’re in South Africa and this is being practised by an inferior race once-and-continuously stripped of its identity, such cannot be palatable?
A race that comprises of over-grown children, inept of making their own decisions in their own land.
A race whose practises are continuously reduced to triviality via the ease to mock without much media literate opposition from said race.

Anyway.

3rd Degree, in it’s pilgrimage to the Eastern Cape, interviewed children around the ages of 12, 14 and so on who had either been 'cooped' or ‘abducted’ into one of these arranged marriages, ‘raped’ and thereafter forced to live with the kidnapper.

Before I say that this is not the norm.

Before I say that you cannot tarnish an entire practise based on the activities of a few.

Before I even begin to ask questions about interviewing children in the media (You just can’t! Especially when they are not fully media literate – to them it’s just Im-going-to-be-on-TV hype)

Before I even begin to ask about matters of consent and proper interviewee briefing.

Before all of that.

I’d kindly like to know “What the fuck is wrong with you eTV?"

This type of show, the negative portrayal and one-sidedness on Ukuthwala is a classic example of how the media swindles audiences to self-hate and self-de-appreciate via distorted selectively damaging reports on cultural rites. I watched a stream of Tweets under the #3rdDegree tag on Twitter and was quite incensed by the amount of influence and bickering this caused owing to the fact that 3rd Degree failed to put the subject of Ukuthwala in its proper context. Their pre-pilgrimage brainstorming session must have been as follows:

Deborah: We need to expose those savage Ex-ho-sas down there in Lu-siki-siki who are marrying little children!

3rd Degree Team: Yes, Deborah. Yes!

Deborah: We must make sure we belittle those people, mock them hard and trample on their culture – regardless of any positive outcomes that ukuthwala has and might yield when practiced correctly and by those who subscribe to it.

3rd Degree Team: *Cheering*

I find it very difficult to stomach this type of journalism. It is not investigative. Make no mistake. It is not. It is sabotage-like in its intention and I’d go as far as saying it is the remnants of unconscious racism. To even pick such interviewees [children and rural subjects - unaccustomed to media objectives] reveals a predatory intention to exploit the miseries of hijacked cultural rites. Yes, in life almost anything is prone to be corrupted or taken advantage of. That's life. And trust me the type of interviewees selected, and I’m not undermining them, but the type of interviewees – rural, children, etc – are the very same type that will feed ‘umlungu’ / 'baas' exactly what he/she wants to hear; tell you what you want to hear to pacify you and get you off their backs. 3rd Degree could have done in-depth research on Ukuthwala and learnt that Ukuthwala is something that still happens. It is a protected practice whereby in which a young woman who breaks into menstruation thereafter undergoes Intonjana which acknowledges her transition into adulthood. At this stage if a man has spotted her, it gets discussed by the two families and it is agreed that uzakuthwalwa on such-and-such a day at this-and-that particular venue. Get it? So the mother will send the daughter to the shops or river knowing full well that she is going to be carried away once there. That is Ukuthwala. Why call it abduction and kidnapping? What do you seek to achieve via such words? Exactly.

Another problem that arises, is the manner in which a girl is defined as an adult through such a practise. Non-traditional laws define adult as one above 18 or so. And yet this has not been the case in traditional definitions. Therefore in the context of a constitutional framework – taking a woman who has been defined by culture as an adult, but not by law – is in fact illegal. This then puts such cultural practices into jeopardy as they’re not accommodated and cannot be accommodated as they are automatically criminal. It also becomes unacceptable to those uninitiated on the origins of the practice. Add 3rd Degree to this and you have yourself savagery, rape, ‘child’ abuse, abduction or whatever you’d prefer to call the insignificant other’s ways of doing.

It’s rather sad that after 16 years under the myth of democracy we still have a media so oblivious to the harm it continuously imposes upon society in general as well as sensitive cultural dynamics.