Here’s what I don’t get, you apply for your child to be admitted into a school knowing full well that the school has been Catholic for the past 120 years. You applied to it anyway and now that you are enrolled, you suddenly have a problem and kick a fuss about that school IMPOSING it’s religious beliefs on your child. Why didn’t you apply somewhere else? No one held a gun to your head to apply there.
It’s the same when people are on social media, they will join a Facebook group that’s specifically for something and want to spam it with unrelated content. I’ve had people join WhatsApp groups that I admin and want to impose their own two cents over how it should be run. Listen, you have a WhatsApp account, why don’t you create your dream WhatsApp group and do whatever the hell you wanna do there?
I dislike joining a group and seeing content that has nothing to do with what I signed up for. You’re looking for accommodation and find a thousand messages and none of them are about accommodation. I don’t get it.
It’s like I throw my wedding and you show up and decide to turn it into your own birthday party. I don’t think anyone would like that. In the words of Trevor Noah, “You came here for this.”
But now these rebels without a cause will say you’re oppressing them and want to change the status quo to suit their selfish objectives. A person will actively type, “Unrelated to the group but…” So they know what they are doing isn’t right and want to do it anyway. How opportunistic like an infection.
Discipline and self control elude most people. They are unable to control themselves (ukuzibamba) and want to bend things to suit them but that’s not how the world works.
I’ve just switched from a laid back creative agency where we wore gym kits to work on Tuesday to an NGO set up with an HR department, Code of Conduct, Sexual Harassment policy which I agreed to adhere to. A butt my size and thighs to boot are hard to cover up but I have to, you know why? I agreed to the terms and conditions of employment. It’s not comfortable dressing like I’m off to an SDA church service. It’s not cheap either. I must invest in a new wardrobe but I have to do the hard things which I said yes to.
Even from a Christian perspective, Amos 3 verse 3 says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” The whole Bible is a tale of God’s covenant with us and a covenant is an agreement. Agreement in its entirety avoids a lot of unnecessary conflict. When we grasp this concept we’ll be able to thwart social issues such as rape and sexual harassment. Consent is literally an agreement.
When in Rome, just do what the Romans do.
I understand your frustration. I understand the point of the blog post. Now for the but.
As I was reading it, it reminded me of a comment by a European teacher (as opposed to African) complaining about African children who speak their African mother tongue during class to their African friends. She said, “if these Africans want to carry on in their African languages, they should not enrol into English medium schools”.
It’s the same logic as your post. The children should do as Romans do.
I think it is easy when the discussion is a Facebook group, WhatsApp group and, you don’t throw a birthday party during someone’s wedding. These are things that anyone can set up for their own purposes.
It’s difficult when the event organised has multiple purposes such as a Catholic school. In South Africa, Muslim parents enrol their children into the best schools in their neighbourhood to increase the probabilities of success for their children. The school’s used to uphold your stance during oppression of the Africans (Apartheid). But now the schools set up for specific communities are acknowledging the challenges of running a successful school for minorities, such as Muslims.
In the beginning, the doors were opened to allow the African children to be educated in schools established for European children (Model C). Today, the African children have demanded and changed the school policies to allow them them to attend school with an Afro.
Is it wrong…The answer depends on the side asked. A contentious issue that stems from the argument you described here.