News flash: There is nothing arousing about the sight of 36Â 000 bare-breasted, barely clothed virgins. Blame it on the relentless sun, or on the dervish wind blasting everything with red dust, or perhaps the litany of speeches which defiantly positioned Zulu culture in direct conflict with the Constitution, but as the annual Umkhosi Womhlanga (Reed Dance Ceremony) at King Goodwill Zwelithini’s Enyokeni Palace in northern KwaZulu-Natal last weekend ground painfully to its conclusion, the virgins gathered began to resemble disorientated refugees rather than any male strumpet fantasy.
The Reed Dance may traditionally be the smorgasbord from which Nguni monarchs like Zwelithini and Swaziland’s King Mswati III add to their personal harems. It may also be used as a open-air peek-a-porno session by the ordinary males who gather, but to find even a sliver of sexual arousal in the affair is near impossible.
That male-orientated libidinous anomaly is perhaps the least consequential of the many which plagued the Reed Dance. ‘We, as a Zulu nation, cannot be told what to do about our culture. We cannot apologise about our tradition,†said Zwelithini during his keynote address in response to the recently promulgated Children’s Act outlawing virginity testing for girls under the age of 16. As a prerequisite for participation in the Reed Dance, all girls, some appearing as young as five, have to be tested by an umhloli (a woman who performs virginity testing) and be passed as ‘unspoiltâ€.
‘There’s no department that we’ll ask permission from to uphold our culture and tradition,†the anointed one continued, seemingly oblivious to the R2,5-million from provincial government to bankroll the affair. Or, for that matter, that the Royal Household, a subdepartment of KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sbu Ndebele’s office, owes its existence to the government, having been allocated an annual multimillion-rand budget — which it consistently overspends.
Defiance was introduced earlier by Bishop Manase, in his opening prayer: ‘Human rights are great and acceptable, but it doesn’t mean that every law under that principle is great and acceptable,†he intoned sagely.
On how provincial government could use taxpayers’ money to sponsor an event that not only exposes the tensions between progressive modernity and patriarchal traditionalism but, more disturbingly, incorporates illegal activities, spokesperson for the provincial department of arts and culture, Ncumisa Fandesi, said the department sponsored the actual event, ‘the transport of the girls, their food and accommodation†and not any activities prior. A bit like denying complicity in the Rwandan genocide by admitting to supplying the machetes to Hutus, but only for the Annual Interehamwe Orange-peeling Competition.
‘The department has never indicated that it supports or discourages virginity testing. What it does encourage is for young girls to participate in the reed dance so that they can get the opportunity to hear His Majesty talk to them about critical issues such as HIV and Aids, teenage pregnancy and the dangers of substance abuse,†added Fandesi, skipping past the issue with the ease of Zambia’s Chris Katongo en-route to a hat-trick against Bafana Bafana.
According to Zwelithini’s sister, Princess Thembi Ndlovu, the ‘ceremony goes back thousands of years to when the Nguni people were still in central Africa†and was banned in 1879 during British colonial rule. Zwelithini reintroduced the ceremony in 1984 with the aim of moral rejuvenation among Zulus.
The ceremony itself is stupefying in its mundanity. The king and a regiment of leery old men position themselves in the main kraal as the virgin princesses sprung from Zwelithini’s own loins deliver their reeds to him personally. Then, girl regiment follows regiment as they deposit phallic reeds within the vicinity. Some sing weakly, others shuffle past sullenly.
The occasional fly is swatted, the odd pubescent girl leered at, female European tourists who think it is ‘very good to see how things are done hereâ€, but would reject having their own hymens physically examined back home, snap away with digital cameras. As a spot of ethno-cultural titillation, it is as fascinating as watching cow-dung dry.
In more recent government-sponsored times, the ceremony has been packaged as a major tourist attraction and, with its message of abstinence, a vital component in the fight against HIV/Aids. But HIV/Aids statistics don’t correlate with the perceived success of abstinence messaging: researchers from the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Health and Population studies estimate that if current infection trends in northern KZN continue, two-thirds of the 15-year-olds in the region will have been infected by the time they reach the age of 35.
At the recent South African Aids Conference in Durban, Olive Shisana, chief executive of the Human Sciences Research Council, revealed that of the 500Â 000 new infections in 2005, the highest incidence (4,6%) was among women aged 15 to 24 years old.
‘South African HIV prevalence figures of the last decade alone suggest that the virginity testing revival has had no impact in reducing infection rates. These prevalence figures have been steadily increasing, rather than decreasing,†said Fiona Scorgie from the Gender Aids Forum, who has researched virginity testing.
Scorgie added that virginity testing ‘reinforces gender inequalities by placing responsibility for sexual restraint on girlsâ€. That by promoting an ‘abstinence-only†ideology based on the assumption that educating young people about sex would encourage them to have sex was ‘quite out of touch with the realities of contemporary youth sexuality and sexual experimentationâ€.
According to Scorgie, the pro-virginity testing school has many shortcomings, including the fact that it ‘is effectively silent on the issue of high levels of gender violence and sexual coercion in South Africa — which characterise a significant proportion of girls’ early sexual experiences; it is silent on the connections between HIV risk and poverty, ignoring the fact that many girls in impoverished communities are forced to sell sex for survival [obtaining money for school fees, clothes, food, and so on in exchange for sexual favours with older men]. It also ignores the fact that girls and women are often caught in violent relationships because of their economic dependence on men.â€
But there we have it. South Africa’s muti of science, traditionalism and tourist attractions has much to offer. But perhaps not to taxpayers’ pockets, gender equality or the rule of law.