It Takes a Village

A few days ago I was going through some work in the staffroom when a commotion broke out between a teacher and a parent that had just walked in. Because I don`t understand Sepedi, I had to wait for the parent to leave in order to enquire about what had just happened. Apparently the uproar was about the fact that the parent had been called to the school in order for the teacher to discuss with her the problem of her child`s behaviour and poor performance in class. The parent`s prime concern against the teacher, however, was ‘Why have you called me to school? Why must I deal with this? I am not a teacher’. I wish I had been able to tell her ‘Well then that must be why your child is failing’.

Isn’t it fascinating how everyone in South Africa believes that they know exactly what is wrong with the education system in the country and how they have the solution to it. People always believe that they know what teachers are doing wrong and what teachers should do better in being the prime educator of their children. But no one ever thinks that the problem of education may be linked to them as parents. No one ever says ‘the teacher must be doing all he or she can to educate my child, maybe we as parents aren`t playing our part to the best of our ability’. Post-modern living seems to have blinded us to those very traditional beliefs that ground education first and foremost in the home, that a child`s first teacher is the mother, that it takes a village to raise a child.

I joined an NGO a few months ago that stationed me at a school in a village in the middle of Limpopo, a school that need a lot of help, a school that achieved a 21% Matric pass rate in 2010. Thus far, I haven`t attended a single parent-teacher meeting or a ‘Parent Evening’.

I remember when I was a kid, after my first day at primary school, my parents threatened that if I wasn`t going to get at least one certificate at the end of that year, I was sure to get a good hiding. Thinking back, I remember the fear that those words aroused in me. I didn`t have a choice, I had to pass, and not only pass but pass really well. My mom used to sit with a belt next to me when I had to read my set work books out loud to her and then I would get a whack over my legs for every word I miss read. I got certificates for the next three years.

Neither of my parents finished school. As was very common among non-whites before 1994, they left school after Standard 7: my dad, to work for his family, and my mom, to nurse her mother who suffered from Rheumatic Fever and Angina. For this, I am even more greatly indebted to them for the effort that they put into getting me through school and understanding the importance that they played in it.

Later, when my mom couldn’t understand the complex maths we did in high school, my parents still attended the parent meetings that were held four times a year and they still made sure that my work was being done and that I was putting in study time. They didn’t reduce my chores, I still had to wash dishes, run errands and do whatever else was required in order to teach me responsibility, but my grades were always up to scratch.

To date, my parents have never beaten me for failing a year at school (I guess because I never did), or any of my six siblings for that matter. But every time I fail to do my best, I wish they had. My parents' willingness to take extreme measures to make sure that I excelled in school instilled in me the importance of hard work. It made me see that despite our circumstances, despite my less than perfect schooling, despite everything that stood against me, my own success in life depends on me. If parents do not take an active interest in their children's lives, soon enough, there will be other's who will.

A Bit on the Wild Side

So Ramadhaan has come and gone and as we attempt to go on with our regular lives, we can all guess what the topics during Fridays at mosque are going to be about, oh yeah; Imaams will be speaking about the importance of carrying the lessons of self-restraint and piety that we accomplished during month throughout the year as well. So because you have the big guys to entertain you with those thoughts, I decided do this post-Labarang entry about something a bit more personally enlightening that I pondered about this Ramadhaan.

It started at about the end of the first week when I was on my way to the fateful Letaba Air Show with some friends, when Laaika played some music by this Swedish artist called Maher Zain, a contemporary nasheed (Islamic Devotional Music) artist. I had never really heard anything of the sort before – it was devotional and at the same time had an easy R`nB sound to it. I immediately loved it. When I got home that night, I went Googling and YouTubing Zain and found a whole lot of really great contemporary nasheed artists – R`nB, Pop and even Hip Hop and Rap – from all over the world.

For the next few weeks, I had a great time listening to this type of music because I was really very accustomed to the traditional Qasiedahs, Naats and Qawallis that our elders were so privy to, so a bit of a variety was greatly welcomed. That was, however, until I had read a Facebook comment on a photo of Native Deen, a hip hop nasheed group from the States.

This random guy commented ‘What is this? Islamic hip hop? Since when has Islam become so blah-blah?’...and a whole long comment about disrespecting Islam in this way. The comment, however narrow-minded, got me thinking about it for a while and, had I been more closed to other peoples’ opinions, I would either have dismissed the writer of the comment by calling him an idiot, or I would not have listened to Native Deen in the first place. This may just have been one person’s comment, but it echoed a feeling that many other people feel, and I respect this commenter for saying how he felt, even though I do not fully agree with him.

I don`t feel as though people who express their devotion to God in a way that is different from mainstream are disrespecting Him in any way. We all worship God however we feel we can and in whichever way conveys our emotions to the Divine in the best possible way. I agree that it is very new and contemporary to our ears, but t doesn’t make it any less relevant.

We grew up listening to Arabic and Malay Qasiedahs and Urdu Qawallis. Our grandparents had absolutely no problem with them, even though they are based on the same principles – They are devotional music that are sang with rhythmical inflections of the voice while using drums and percussion (and often other musical instruments). Hip hop is made in the same way. Do people now suddenly have a problem with it because it is not in Urdu or Arabic? As if God doesn’t understand English.  

Or would we rather have kids listen only to music about sex, drugs and whatever else mainstream hip hop conveys these days. Contemporary nasheeds are a great, although possibly a bit too idealistic, alternative to having them listen only to the kinds of music that we all listen to anyway.

The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that he has brought Islam as a religion for all time. It was not just for the Arabs, but for all of mankind. It should therefore be a religion that moves with the times, and is not stagnant in 6^th Century Arabia.

I love Native Deen, Maher Zain, Seven8Six (nasheed pop) and all other nasheed group who express their devotion to God in the way that they feel fit. They give Islam more of a modern feel, something to take with you wherever you go and whatever you do and an identity that you can proudly convey to an ever changing world. Will someone please let me know if they find an Islamic Rock Band (~^,).

Check out some of these nasheed artists on YouTube

Maher Zain

Native Deen

Seven8six

Mesut Kurtis

Outlandish (My favourite at the moment - belong more to the world music genre than nasheed)

Kareem Salama (World Music)

Raihan