The culture of brutality rules

The Star, February 18, 2009 Edition 1

THERE is a theory - applied particularly in military training - that recruits have to be broken down before they can be built up into trained soldiers, the sort who when ordered to jump, ask "How high?"as they unquestioningly leap.

That thinking was behind the "Kamp Staaldraad" fiasco a few years ago, when Springbok rugby players were subjected to brutality and ignominious treatment to "toughen" them up for the challenges ahead. (The torture did little to engender team spirit, though, as they continued to lose ...)

A similar "sports jock", macho thinking is behind many so-called initiations which mainly young men are forced to undergo … both at university and at high school.

The latest of these - at Parktown Boys' High School - saw Grade 11 pupils stripped naked, beaten and abused by those from the grade above them. All in the name of "team building". One mother has removed her traumatised son from the school.

That this barbarous form of conduct can still take place is bad enough … but the response from the school is even more worrying. According to headmaster Tom Clarke, the guilty pupils had "got up to nonsense and lunacy".

No, no, no, Mr Clarke. What your charges did was criminal. It was assault. It was a grievous violation of the victims' human rights. If you think that is "nonsense", then you have a somewhat warped view of the world, we would suggest.

It has also been reported that, when another parent complained about the incident, the victims were made to run laps for "tittle tattling". Another allegation is that at least some teachers were aware of what was going on. It is apparent that, at Parktown Boys' High School - as at many others in this country - there is a "cowboys don't cry" culture which allows, or even encourages, violence.

We think the Gauteng Department of Education should launch an immediate inquiry and that those who carried out the assaults be criminally charged. They are old enough to realise the implications of what they were doing.

This brutality does not make better citizens.