About Changing Traditions and Stories about Men

Traditions 2 is happening in just over two weeks time. Ready or not, Ethiopia here we come. 

Nothing will change, and yet something will have changed come 30 November 2011. Where there was nothing before, there will something afterwards.

There have been a lot of anxious moments, anyone who has brought people together to talk about something as elusive as tradition will know. But I think you can't have a clear idea about the anxiety I have been experiencing. A lot of sleepless nights, of tossing and turning, and getting sick with worry, that is. It wasn't only about the central theme of the event, though that almost certainly worsened the troubles we are experiencing. Several times I have asked where are the Ethiopian scholars? Where are the Eritrean ones? Sudanese? I'd say the moment for South Sudanese thinkers to talk about masculinity, nation-building, peace, development, gender in education, and the many other things that are connected to men's lives, or rather things men do for and about power is now when their new nation is being built, is it not? What about scholars in Djibouti, Somalia, Somaliland, Kenya (we received 2 abstracts from that country), Uganda (1 abstract), Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi? Aren't the images from Libya and Egypt to the north west of Ethiopia of men with weapons and others in suits indicative of the fact that there is so much to say and very little being said about men with power and other without? So why aren't African men and women not interested in changing traditions, if not changing men? In my view, tradition, whether under its own name or freighted in various names like philosophical outlook, ideology, paradigm, theoretical framework, discourse, the way we do things here, and even culture, is always central in all fields of human endeavour. There is much about traditions then in all these societies and the rest of Africa that needs actively changing.

At one point I was of mind to abandon the whole thing, I was. What the hell was I thinking that we could just rouse men and women from all over Africa to get curious enough about men's lives, I said to myself? What was I thinking that it is only in talking more to each other, much more, that we will able to bootstrap ourselves out of all the pessimism, misery and despair about what we are and can be? A lot of pause it's given us then. 

But it feels like it's happening. Something is changing. The apprehension is still there, but it's lessened. 

There are some people outside the Institute for Social and Health Science and the Programme for Traditions and Transformation who have been incredibly helpful in getting more men and women from other African countries - especially from Nigeria - to get interested. Others, at the University of South Africa, after a months-long struggle with marketing materials have made the load bearable. I suspect that it will show. Or rather, I believe.