Society suffers when the tribe breaks
Recently the Nairobi women's representative Hon. Esther Passaris, proposed compulsory military service for all youth. Military service, she said, would instil discipline. The result would be mature, responsible citizens who can better serve their country. Hon. Passaris has previously had a bad experience with rowdy boda boda riders.
I read in Hon. Passaris’ plea a distress call to a society whose youth seem unserious, frivolous, weak and unfit to face the future. I believe the root of the problem goes very deep, and so must its solution. Compulsory military service could work some good, but it may not effectively rebuild the wax of a stable society. Yes, the immaturity of young adults can be a sign of an unstable society which has failed to educate its youth.
We all know how it works: I could persevere for the period of military service and after, throw the discipline out the window, and reassume my former self. Something deeper has to be worked.
But the tribe has been broken. “The White man has broken the tribe. And it is my belief—and again I ask your pardon—that it cannot be mended again. But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is broken, these are the tragic things. That is why children break the law, and old white people are robbed and beaten.” I have quoted words spoken by Msimangu one of the characters in Cry the Beloved Country, a poetic novella by Alan Paton. Alan Paton was a White South African politician, who discerned most clearly the woes and hopes of the South-African nation through stories and poetry.
Paton, in the novella quoted, claimed that some of the White man’s policies in South Africa had led to the wrecking of the system of African tribes. The tribe had been a resilient system that ensured the stability and prosperity of society. The laws of the tribe, with their rewards and punishments, ensured that not too many people strayed from the right path. Every man and woman, youth and child knew what was expected of them. Society was thus stable.
But the White man discovered valuable minerals such as gold. In the mines, he employed cheap black labour. He ferried black men to the mines, away from the villages. The little land on which the Blacks had settled could not feed all hence the greater need to migrate to the mines where one could work. As the young people left, more and more they lived detached from the tribe. Slowly the wax that held society melted away. Naturally, the tribe would have little to say in the urban areas and mine camps. Chaos ensued; promiscuity and crime burst forth unchained. The tribe was broken.
Is the tribe still breaking?
This ‘breaking of the tribe’ could be said to have occurred in many of the colonies in Africa. After colonization, the process of westernization – the adoption of western life and customs – has continued this process. Urbanization, which can be seen as a result of Westernization, takes more and more people away from the village, away from the tribe. Many more intermarriages have served to diminish tribal identity and therefore its influence on societal life. The tribe no longer serves societal stability effectively.
But what proof is there that society is breaking in Africa, or in Kenya to be specific? Perhaps one tell-tale sign is the problem of single-parent families. A 2012 Pan-African study by Canadian sociologists claimed that, in Kenya, a woman has a 59.5% likelihood of being a single mother by age 45 due to premarital birth or dissolution of unions. Being a single parent is no crime. But we have to admit that generally, a single-parent family cannot function as effectively as a proper nuclear family. Economic challenges plague many single mothers. Beyond the economics of the home, the holistic human development of the children is dependent on whether both parents are present in a meaningful way. Before, when the tribe was firmly in control, the probability of a woman winding as a single mother would have been much lesser. And even then the cause would only be widowhood.
Consider boda boda motorist rowdiness. Certainly, not all boda boda riders can be labelled immature or irresponsible. Yet, we cannot deny that errant boda boda riders, few as they are, have become a force to reckon with. Some riders can be desperate and thoughtless. Cases of their being hired as goons by politicians are not lacking. They can be agents of social distress. When the tribe was in control, young men were not known to be forces of societal distress. By some means the tribe kept them focused. Through initiation practices and the age-set structure boys, were formed into responsible men. It is amazing how quickly one became mature; after circumcision, one was ready to marry and settle down. Yes, low life expectancy dictated that one lives his life in a hurry, but still, men were mature.
Now initiation practices have lost their formative significance and the ages-set has disappeared. Can we then be surprised that many more men are clueless about authentic manliness? We must not forget that duties and responsibilities do the work of instilling discipline and maturity. And these were very clear to everyone in the tribe. Now it is not. A good number of teenagers and young adults live too soft a life. Lack of duties and responsibilities at home has robbed them of opportunities to mature. Understandably, it is with this in mind that Hon. Passaris called for compulsory military service.
I should not be understood as calling for a return to the strict tribal system. The tribal system had its strengths and also flaws. Even then with the current level of globalization, a return to the tribe is implausible. But if the tribe system has failed, something must take its place - if the chaos is to be remedied. Something else has to bring about direction and meaning to people’s lives. There has to be a system that can effectively bind people in duties and responsibilities just as the tribe did.
Religion is the remedy
This force has to be religion. Even the tribal order was based ultimately on religious belief. Think of the taboos, the threats of curses, and the promise of blessings that followed the laws of the tribe. Human beings are fundamentally religious. Above laws or ethical systems, religious systems have proved to be the most binding, history gives us the proof. The great Oriental cultures, the Greeks, and the Jews all submitted to a religion. Religion was the ultimate safeguard of morality. Morality safeguarded, the way was paved for social harmony and therefore authentic progress. A proper view of masculinity, femininity and of the family has to be given by another system.