“Using metaphors and parables remains one of the greatest assets
in the African education system. Supported by a rigorously used system of
storytelling and the use of symbols, metaphors have for centuries provided
indigenous scholarship about and for African civilisations. The intellectual
resilience of African wisdom cues and philosophy-endowed idiomatic expressions
have served as repositories of community values and anchored a normative
environment comparable to the recorded philosophy of other civilisations. This
use of metaphors creates a rather neutral platform for African societies to
reflect on themselves about presented phenomena".
"The living
experience of society develops mores, norms, and values out of which societal
attributes get entrenched as practice. Some of these become stimuli depending
on whatever momentum their applicability flows with. As Africans return to the
global power or order architecture and start to become a factor in creating a
space for their civilisation to be a force to be reckoned with, their lived
experience can be used to understand what might be inexplainable from the
perspective of other lived experiences”.
Given the patriarchy in
African societies and the predominance of males in leadership, it makes them a
subject of interest to understand the sources of outstanding leadership as well
as those of dysfunction in the leadership practice. How a society eats is known
to be one of the most potent ways it expresses and preserves its civilisation
and cultural identity. The most common substrate of etiquette between cultures
is what happens at households' breakfast, lunch, and dinner tables. Most
transmissions of cultural practices occur when humanity empties its ethnic
content and history around a meal. Mealtime creates experiences that shape
leadership and general etiquette. This etiquette finds expression in society
through various forms.
This rendition will look at how African men eat when they are in the public privacy of themselves as a possible metaphor explaining other phenomena where the outcome
is just eating. The traditional way of serving food in Africa has always
expressed the true meaning of breaking bread together. Food would be served in
different containers, allowing the eater to determine what to eat. In most
instances, food was served to more than one person, especially in early
childhood. The cadence of eating reflected the commitment of those eating to
ensure that everyone had his reasonable share of what was rationed.
This
accounts for philosophical idiomatic expressions such as ‘vana va muNhu va tsemelana nhloko ya njiya”, which literally
means children of the same household will share something as small as the head
of a locust. This defines the basic unit of society origins of the communal
character of being African. It extends to village, community, society, and
ultimately the nation. So, eating together is a core value of being African; it
has been how people eat together that has redefined the virtues associated with
Africans when eating time comes. It is during these moments that a basic ‘table’
(read also ‘eating environment’) is established for contextual use across all
life occurrences.
A pecking order would naturally develop, and
rules of etiquette would be monitored and enforced as the eating process
unfolds. These would develop into the proverbial table manners. The manner of
eating became a microcosm of how the general behaviour of society will be in
contexts where the activity of eating will be essential to dispose of food or
resources. Through table manners and other mores, societies manage greed,
dietary rules, hygiene, and many aspects of human co-existence where the basic eating
instincts influence all other instincts. The servings' structure defines waste
management and a society's ability to influence the availability of the next meal.
There
will then be moments where people would be more than an average household in
number, and mass servings would have to be made. This rendition has no evidence
of how this was handled, but it could not have materially deviated from what
the basic unit of society, the family, does. However, the advent of mining
and industrialisation in South Africa rearranged life. The introduction of male-only
hostels or labour custodial spaces in the now metropoles of South Africa meant
the productivity demands would introduce eating environment mannerisms. In this
context, the serenity of mealtime would be a function of how quickly people
return to work.
It
is these contexts, dehumanising as some practices would have been, especially
with stories of serving on concrete before big steel tables and new mass-eating
methods settled as normal. The steel tables were orderly, and a portable
mechanism in the form of corrugated iron, now called LESENKE, was introduced. This is
now celebrated by African males outside the contextual discontents that came
with its introduction. It has become a feature at funerals when the time to eat
comes. Whichever way this practice is viewed, it has altered the dimension of
table manners in those who practice it.
For
those uneducated about this practice, it is simply piling, if not throwing on, food
onto a corrugated iron surface, and then lunch or whatever is served. The way
people engage with food is human to the extent that it is humans eating. Only
the cognitive element of being human regulates order; otherwise, it evokes
truisms that, indeed, humans are part of the animal kingdom.
What
has been observed in revelations of corruption in the country is the
transposition of LESENKE mannerisms into the public sector procurement system,
or ‘eating environment spaces.’ The public sector budget has assumed a
character of being served on the proverbial LESENKE and thus evoking behaviours
associated thereto. The idea of LESENKE is to finish what is on there until
there can be no further supply.
It
would appear the LESENKE phenomenon has gone into how public power is procured
and managed. The etiquette is 'topa-o-tloge-ke-tope'. Given sufficient time, I
submit this can be a subject of sociological analysis.
BUT MAYBE IT IS ME, AND
I SEE GHOSTS.
Good
morning.
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