Modern Day Castration: Men Kneeling for Men

The picture of the Zambian minister kneeling as he speaks to President is frightening and baffling. It is a testament to how much western values have polluted real African practices. True African leadership was never about one man being a god and all other men seeking to please that man at all costs.

Zambians are of Bantu ancestry and in African tradition the chief sat at council with elders who were advisers and not bootlickers who sought to please him at all costs. African leadership was about debate then consensus building not about dictatorship. Dictatorships were a death sentence to any tribe because everything was about community and inter-dependency, from which the African philosophy of ‘Ubuntu’ is derived.

This modern practice where men seek to please other men by any means necessary can be directly linked to Western culture. Most of what we understand to be Western culture stems from the practices of the Greek and Roman empire. These kingdoms are often viewed in the West as the ideal models of political leadership. In Greek and Roman customs men always sought to please their leaders by any means necessary by submitting themselves to another man, even sexually. The ultimate act of submission involved a man kneeling for another man and doing whatever the more powerful man required.

It is much more widespread in African culture to see a woman kneeling for her husband, or father. But there was never a point in our culture where it was acceptable for a man to kneel for another man. The practice of Ministers kneeling for the President is something that needs to stop. If the Minister is castrated by the President to the level of kneeling, how will he ever tell the leader when he is wrong? In African culture there is no place for effeminate men because it indicates that such a man has been conquered and is no longer of any use in defending his family and his country.