The Eden Grove Blue lecture theatre was jam-packed with students and learners from Kingswood College and Victoria Girls’ High when the Rhodes Debating Society held its Xxxhibition debate.
The Eden Grove Blue lecture theatre was jam-packed with students and learners from Kingswood College and Victoria Girls’ High when the Rhodes Debating Society held its Xxxhibition debate.
The Xxxhibition debate is a tradition and is held every year to expose students interested in debating to the British parliamentary style and to encourage students to join the society, says chairperson Kabwela Chisaka.
Ingrid Cloete and Clive Eley opened the debate. Cloete, ‘the prime minister’, argued that today’s customary law, which makes polygamous marriages legal, is there to protect women’s rights.
She said that in the past, women who were second or third wives were not recognised as such when the husband died, and were therefore often left without a home or much support.
Cloete argued that polygamy reinforces patriarchy and causes a breakdown in the equality and dignity of women who must then compete for a man.
At this point, Chisaka, the deputy leader of the opposition, leaped out of her seat proclaiming that women compete for men all the time, to which Cloete replied “I’ve never had to compete for a man.”
Michelle Beukes, the leader of the opposition, opposed the motion and asked why Zuma should be the only Zulu in the country not allowed to exercise his cultural right to polygamy.
“Whether or not we think he’s a horrible person he is doing nothing against the law,” she said. Deputy prime minister Eley weighed up the values and harms of polygamy to people and to society.
He challenged Beukes’ claim to cultural relativism and said that the president is different,because society holds him to a higher moral standard than any other person. Eley said that Zuma’s polygamy, as shown in the media, is not representative of polygamy in South Africa.
At this point Chisaka was itching to take to the podium. She questioned Eley’s western notion of polygamy as she says that women in traditional polygamous marriages are not meant to feel interior or superior to the other wives, instead, it provides a network of wives to call upon and to stabilise the household.
She added that people in South Africa should be allowed to make their own choices. James Ekron defended the motion in the second half of the debate.
He argued that Zuma is undermining culture by making a spectacle of it and making it difficult for
others to practice polygamy.
He said Zuma’s approach is anything but traditional, as “he has been exonerated for rape, engaged in extra-marital affairs and impregnated women before (or if at all) he has married them.”
Customary law and Zulu culture require that families meet and talk first before a marriage is approved, but Zuma “believeshe may take a woman as he wants”.
Ekron concluded his argumrent by saying that nothing is beyond the scrutiny of public debate, especially not the presidency.
At this stage the closing opposition was bristling with indignation. Egmont Bouwer contested Ekron’s condemnation of Zuma’s extramarital affairs, and proclaimed “pomping is not polygamy”.
Bouwer also questioned the“false dichotomy” of being totally Zulu or totally western. He argued that culture is fluid and that monogamy, which has become such a natural institution, is not “the be-all and end-all” of society.
“In monogamy youwrap the bride in a white dress and pay her a diamond ring for her virginity,” he declared provocatively.
Dylan Smith wrapped up the government’s side of the debate by saying Zuma’s polygamy is damaging South
Africa’s image of the world.
The final word came from Lwamba Chisaka who asserted that the defenders of the motion had failed to prove that the effects of polygamy on Zuma’s wives were negative.
She insistedthat Zuma’s extramarital affairs and dubious moral choices are not reasons to condemn his lifestyle, which was the nature of the debate.
After a rapid fire of questions that left the debaters drained and longing for the free pizza and wine served outside, the winners were announced.
Beukes and Chisaka were the winners with Ekron and Smith following hot on their heels in second place. Cloete and Eley were in third place and Bouwer and Lwamba Chisaka ranked in fourth place.
