Seasoned traditional circumcision-school surgeon Mmbangiseni Mutavhatsindi, who is also a circumcision-school owner, has called on the government to desist from trying to govern the country's culture and traditions. This follows an instruction from the health department that all kids going to traditional schools should first go to hospitals to be checked to see if they are healthy enough to go to the mountains.
On Friday morning, Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba told a national radio station that boys should be checked to see if they are not sick before going to traditional schools. Mutavhatsindi, however, reckons that the message should be directed at parents, not at traditional leaders and owners of traditional schools.
Speaking after circumcising two boys at his traditional school in the Tshivhilwi mountains on Sunday morning, Mutavhatsindi said they needed no politicians to intervene in their age-old traditions.
"This is our own culture and tradition. We do it the way our ancestors instructed us to. Only our traditional leaders have the right to advise us, not the government. When they invite us to their meetings, they bring people who know nothing about our traditions. In our culture, it is taboo to discuss circumcision matters with women. If they dare and bring nurses and doctors who are not traditionally circumcised here, I will personally circumcise them first before we can listen to them. But if they go through our traditional leaders as tradition demands, we will work together in harmony. What we are not interested in at the moment is politicising our culture," he said.
Mutavhatsindi started circumcising boys in their passage to become men when he was 11 years old in 1983. "Like all my other brothers, our father introduced us to this tradition when we were very, very young," he said.
When asked if the government's interference was not an attempt to save lives as many kids were perishing in circumcision schools around the country, he turned around and took a short breath before saying:
"I started circumcising in 1983 and no child has passed away to date. You just saw our initiates; they are well and healthy. Some of them came here coughing badly, but through our traditional medicine, they are all well now. They must go to the Eastern Cape where kids are dying, not here. The problem with our government is that they are generalising everything. We cannot be blamed for other regions' problems," he said.
Meanwhile, a parent who brought his son for circumcision on Sunday morning said he would never, ever send his kids to the hospital for circumcision.
"We can't change our culture because of people who know nothing about our tradition. They think boys come here only for the removal of the foreskin. This is a school where real men are nurtured to become responsible adults in the future, not lazy, fat cookies that cannot even solve family matters but use their wives as punching bags. Here we take them through a passage that transform them from boys to men," he said.
Well-known traditional healer Dr Mashudu Dima said that for politicians to interfere with culture was disingenuous. "We will never allow any politician to tell us how we should conduct our traditional business. Never," he said.