Holy Cows

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Gareth van Onselen. Holy Cows

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The Ambiguities of Being

South African

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In the essay ‘This is a man’s world’, I touch on how South Africa’s formal health system has had to adapt to accommodate the demands of cultural initiation, which is practised in particular in the Eastern Cape, where poorly executed circumcisions (ostensibly part of the passage to manhood in Xhosa culture) have necessitated the establishment of state-run hospitals and surgeons to cater specifically for the medical consequences of this practice.

This kind of hybrid experience, a cross between First World aspirations and, often, Third World-type realities, is everywhere in South Africa, as the modern state seeks to accommodate those things that struggle to find a comfortable home in the contemporary world.

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