WeeklySA_AdminPANDEMIC: With so much death around even the most stoic break down
By Ali Mphaki
Jesus wept. Is it? Well, for the benefit of the unbelievers this is confirmed in the shortest verse in the Bible: John 11:35.
History will also show that the act of crying is not only the reserve of the ordinary folk, like me and you. Many a king, bishops, presidents, elders, diplomats, also cry. What is not a laughing matter, however, is that nobody likes how they look when they’re crying.
Overwhelmed by the gruesome details during the TRC hearings, chair Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu could not hold it together. He wept. In the full glare of a bemused nation former Eskom heavyweight Brian Molefe was not to be outshone.
He sobbed. Almost uncontrollably. Like a schoolboy robbed of his candy. It is not clear if the late former president Nelson Mandela ever cried in public. On a visit to the Goree Islands,we are told, Mandela broke out from the tour group and went to a room alone.
When he came back his eyes were reddened. Who can forget Kenneth Kaunda, the former Zambian president’s affectation of carrying a white pocket square, which he pulled out to daub his eyes when occasionally shedding tears in public. The London Guardian reports that Winston Churchill cried so frequently – at funerals, when he was made chancellor, when Parliament applauded him for sinking the French fleet – that Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson nicknamed him “Cry-Baby”.
Even Barrack Obama did shed a tear in 2016 at a funeral of a gun-shot victim, in a rare public display of emotion bemoaning the rampant gun violence in that land of the free and home of the brave.
That we all cry, men, women, and children, is undeniable.
Zulu Royal historian Shalo Mbatha who is also a lecturer at the University of Zululand, says the mighty Shaka kaSenzangakhona also occassionally let torrents fall. “He even cried in front of his amabutho when his mother Nandi died,” she says. Im crying as I write this.In the background the haunting strains of Soul Brother’s lament Xolisa Umoya.
At least, I’m alone. But, like all of us, I’ve been crying a lot these days. Too numerous to tell are friends, relatives, family neighbours that we’ve all lost during these apocalyptic days of the Corona virus. I think of friends and colleagues of mine: People like cameraman Andile Fosi, journo Louis Mazibuko, photographer Tseko Kabasia, the efferverscent Lucky Nxumalo, boisterous Sbu Mseleku, Bra Jon Qwelane, Bra Alex Mbatha etc.
Yet, at the back of my mind like an incessant drum the maxim “men are not supposed to cry” continue to beat on me head.
My spiritual leader the affable Anglican Rev Mangaliso Mdlela has a way around explaining such phenomenon. These days (spare a thought for him) the poor Rev is chock-a-block with trips to burial sites. He does no longer recall when last he held a baptism service as one by one his congregants are called to Higher Service, thanks to the Chinese Virus.
First, Mdlela does not think it a “transgression’ in the eyes of the Almighty for men to cry.
“Open up the flood gates”, he says urging me to cry more. Rev Mdlela speaks about the “health” benefits of shedding a tear.
“It relieves you. You’d feel much better,” he says. His contention is that we tend to teach parent our sons and daughters differently. ‘Traditionally boys are not supposed to cry. “If you do you will be seen to be a Mama’s Baby.
“Qina ndoda (Be a man) we are told,” he adds, which could lead to emotional problems later in life for young men as they fail to express their emotions. There’s been several studies around this vexatious question. In one study, it was found that women report crying significantly more than men do. Five times as often, on average, and almost twice as long per episode, research says.
Could it be that women have long realized that tears are a language? Author and teacher Fiona Forman, shares her thoughts.
“In some ways, we may feel we are protecting boys from the judgements of others and preparing them for the so-called ‘real world’ by telling them not to cry from a young age.’
“It has always been more socially acceptable for girls to cry, so we are more likely to comfort them rather than telling them to stop.’
“Boys grow into men who are often seen to be less open about their feelings in comparison to women but because they may not talk, does not mean they don’t feel.”
Further compounding the issue of men crying is that research from the 1980s has suggested a relationship between stress-related illnesses and inadequate crying. Weeping is also, somewhat counterintuitively, correlated with happiness and wealth, researchers say.
We are also told countries where people cry the most tend to be more democratic and their populations more extroverted. Asking where have all the men tears gone, an article in Readers Digest suggest that changes in the economy which required men to work together in factories and offices may have been the cause which saw emotional expression and even private conversation discouraged as “time wasting”.
As Tom Lutz writes in Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears, “You don’t want emotions interfering with the smooth running of things”. Echoing the sentiment is former US president Donald Trump, on record that the last time he’d cried was when he was a baby.
And that he sees crying as a sign of weakness in men. He makes me wanna cry.
