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Acknowledged globally as the rainbow nation, democratic South Africa’s DNA is etched in celebrating and embracing the kaleidoscope of cultures, customs and rituals. However, there is an inherited and embedded intimacy between an individual and their celebration of their culture.
The migration towards cultural consciousness has seen the rise of black (and in some cases white) South Africans from various walks of life embrace spiritual identities outside of Christianity. Ubungoma is no longer an outdated and taboo spiritual choice that is cloaked in mystery and darkness. It has become an accepted normality that celebrates South African ancestry and is quickly becoming a financially viable and growing industry in itself.
With its growth in popularity, however, has African spirituality in the South African context lost its sacred essence?
The cultural respect for African rituals and sacred spaces is becoming sullied by social media clownery. The respect and dignity of cultural practices, rituals and African healing that we inherited from our parents is in tatters. It is a foregone conclusion that future generations will inherit the hollow ashes of our sacred traditions.
Our culture faces moral decay and an ethical mischief at the hands of television producers. Everything is exposed and cultural rituals splashed all over social media and reality TV shows for clout and ratings. The cultural and sangoma content being produced for TV channels is disgraceful and misleading and does not even come close to what is authentic and right.
It is as if TV producers only care about TV ratings and not the credibility of the content they produce. This reinforces a stereotypical and distorted image of African culture and African ancestral healing. The content being televised is a cheap and sensational mockery of our culture and sangoma ancestral calling.
It is worrisome to see initiates at an initiation school — half naked, at their most vulnerable stage spiritually, emotionally and psychologically — trending in TV shows and on social media pages. As a society, we have allowed such voices and visuals to infiltrate our national media discourse with so much fanfare because it is “entertainment”.
But one wonder’s to what extent and at whose expense? At this stage, most ancestral- calling initiates suffer from depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. Others wish to keep their initiation process private because it has always been private and so that they can protect the mental and spiritual health of initiates.
But alas, initiates do not have the power or the voice if a trainer (gobela) has a contract in place with a TV channel to produce a sensational reality TV show. The contract extends to the private and privileged dwellings of the initiates. If the ancestral-calling trainer is a content creator, the initiates become content by virtue of them being initiated by the trainer that seeks greener economic pastures through TV shows and social media content. The economics are detrimental to initiates.
In our quest to commercialise our culture and ancestral calling, we have sold our last line of defence — praying in the rivers and oceans, a process known as ukuphahla — to the highest bidder for content creation. So important and sacred are rivers and oceans to our African culture that previously we had to fast from sex and alcohol before being allowed to go to such spaces for prayer.
We were not allowed to wear shorts or skirts and even spectacles were not allowed because it is an ancient norm that the glare from these glasses blinds our ancestors in the same way that extremely bright car headlights disturbs an oncoming driver. We were taught by the custodians of our culture that you cannot bring a cellphone or a camera to the river and ocean when you are praying. What you are doing at the particular moment is sacred and intimate, it is between you, your ancestor and God. You are meant to be living in the spiritual moment.
The most intimate moment of praying in the river and oceans nowadays is captured for content creation, showing a complete disregard of the ethos and protocols of our ancestral practices.
We have lost the voice of our cultural custodians. Old people from the villages, who understand and respect our culture, look at us as the cosmopolitan market with utter shock and a lack of appetite to engage with and educate us because we listen to the sound of our own voices. We have adopted a policy of “moving with the times” and “culture evolves”. Obviously culture evolves and times change, but we do not have to go where the wind blows.
Some things are sacred and should not change. As much as identity is fluid, we should not lose the fabric and foundation of that identity otherwise the world will swallow us and we will be left bare. We have a young generation that craves authentic cultural and spiritual guidance because they were deprived of cultural information and wisdom by their parents.
They were raised in Christian homes and modern cosmopolitan households. They were socialised to define cultural rituals and ancestral calling as demonic and backwards. Some of them are starting the process of unlearning the propaganda they were spoon fed since childhood. How do we then meet the young generation that does not have a single cultural source at home to learn about our culture and traditions?
How do we step up and tell people to unlearn what society has taught them about our culture? The pure, sacred, beautiful, authentic version — the undiluted version, the version that protects its own, not the version that capitalises and misuse our culture to further an evil agenda of abusing women in the name of lobola. How do we right the wrongs of a misleading narrative about our culture in society when modern day healers and content creators are carrying out a miscarriage of our beautiful culture?
These young kids turn to social media and television in their search for education and cultural enlightenment about imbeleko, ancestral calling, lobola et cetera. They do so to learn about themselves and reconnect with their own identity, but alas, what was once a beautiful, preserved oral culture has been turned into social media dust. We have lost respect in the eyes of society and new age healers and television producers have become the uNongqawuse or false prophets of our generation.
Although controversy sells and flamboyant sangoma reality TV shows drive ratings, what about the young person sitting at home who is gullible and naive? To bring dignity and respect back to our African culture and ancestral calling, I implore TV producers and social media sangomas to exercise caution. Our children should not inherit an insipid watered-down version because we were busy chasing likes and clownery.
We are our own worst enemy; we only unite when an outside voice is ridiculing our culture, when a Eurocentric voice is making a mockery of our culture. It is only then that we stand in unison and defend our culture. We do not stop and reflect and admit that we have allowed the outsider to come into our space and disrespect us. How we behave in the public domain for content creation creates a conundrum of different voices that have no interest in preserving our culture, but dismantle it piece by piece and render it useless.
Our culture is dying; we are living in times of moral, cultural and spiritual decay. If we do not preserve what is left of it, our children will be financially and culturally scammed by future cultural fraudsters who pose as African healers and prophets. They will milk whatever is left of them. Spirituality is a currency these days. Let us not use platforms that could preserve our identity as a dying seed while the outsider watches and laughs at us.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.