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South Africa has a history of violence.
Colonisation. The brutality of apartheid. Gender-based violence. Murder.
This history is nuanced and complex, but every single one of us wishes it would end.
The Constitutional Court ruling this week, making it illegal to mete out corporal punishment as “reasonable chastisement” to children, can arguably be advanced as a first and crucial step in confronting and seeking to limit the country’s relationship with violence.
This is not to say children cannot be disciplined – it limits that discipline to an alternative that does not embrace violence, and instead upholds the agency of a child and their rights under our constitutional democracy.
This is not the ruling of a nanny state, nor does it take away from the rights of parents to discipline their children when they do wrong.
What it does is encourage an understanding that discipline is not and should not be punishment; that children must thrive in a nurturing environment, free from a threat of violence.
The world today faces many challenges, and this week’s judgment grants South Africa an opportunity to overhaul a way of life.
A new way to equip parents to deal with the hurdles our children face. A new way to nurture.
Children will be naughty, but that is no crime.
If mistakes are truly understood, it stands to reason they will not be repeated.
This ruling cannot, however, stand as a beacon of guidance on its own.
Our country is woefully inadequate when it comes to communicating positive parenting methods and skills, whether through a lack of education or a lack of will.
For most, time is short, work is overwhelming and bills are a constant pressure.
It may appear easier, then, to smack a child than to reason with them. Who has the luxury of time and reasoning?
This is our failure. As a society, where our social fabric has frayed and pits one against the other above the principle of community, this must be our challenge.
We must be driven by an imperative to improve the future for the next generation, and the generation after that.
We must make the time. We must be engaged.
We must be nurturing or we run the very real risk of deepening a child’s relationship with the same violence that tears at our lives every day.
