The rise of ”modern individualism” had helped destroy the family values that were the foundation of society, Deputy President Jacob Zuma said in Cape Town on Friday.
Addressing the annual ceremonial opening of the National House of Traditional Leaders, he said the government hopes to work closely with traditional leaders in consolidating the moral regeneration movement ”and reviving all these values that we hold dear”.
”My own experience and knowledge of your role is that you need to do more, to be bold, to ensure that we revive the fibre of the family unit, which has been destroyed.
”The modern individualism that has been inculcated to us has helped us to destroy ourselves. We need to fight this.”
He said that among the things that had disappeared are homesteads where children used to eat from the same vessel.
”The fact they were made to eat together as they grew implanted the seed of love and understanding and the important thing of sharing,” he said.
”If you have kids [who] eat on different plates, you actually inculcate individualism. That’s what it is.”
He said that also traditionally, a father would be served and would eat first, and a child would look forward to eating the food that he left on his plate.
These important lessons have not been recorded, as they are seen to be backward.
The chairperson of the National House of Traditional Leaders, Mpiyezintombi Mzimela, said traditional leaders should be aware that ”modernists” view them as something of an anachronism and a ”remnant of a dark and misty past”.
”Among our strongest critics will be those that have most recently abandoned their ties with their roots and have assumed a mantle of sophistication — that of citizens of the world.
”That is their choice, but in order to affirm that sophistication, we must understand that many such ’emancipated’ individuals will wish to see the disappearance of all vestiges of their origins so that they are not constantly reminded how recent that emancipation has been.”
Traditional leaders’ task is to find a way to marry the ancient and modern. — Sapa