‘The law is the way it is. If you try to apply it directly to tradition, you will find that it is not a perfect fit and will affect a lot of [cultural] practices such as initiation.” This is the opinion of Siya , a 32-year-old married Tsonga schoolteacher in Limpopo. The sentiment was shared by most people who took part in an investigation of the clash between “harmful” cultural practices and constitutional principles.
First, limited knowledge about the Constitution and different understanding of rights led to noncompliance. There are several reasons the majority have little knowledge of their rights. Although some people were simply unaware, others attributed it to the Constitution being seen as “the law of the white people” or as a document written in a foreign language .
Third, rights were not always seen as legitimate. There were grave concerns that rights emphasised individual rights. It is the giving of a certain set of rules and ways of behaving to individuals that is not compatible with the ways in which people live their lives. A male participant explained: “I have an understanding of what [constitutional] rights are, but I know that, in our culture, rights are not the basis for how things are done or should be done.
Finally, the participants didn’t see the need for compatibility of cultural practices with the Constitution because they did not see the relevance of the latter. They considered the Constitution a bad fit for their cultural practices because it introduced and measured elements of privacy, harm and choice that did not play a role in their practices and in their lived realities.
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