Culture is no excuse for degrading women, and no custom, however ancient, is beyond moral scrutiny.
By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai, Boston, USA
There are traditions that deserve preservation because they embody a people’s history, identity and collective memory. Then there are traditions that survive merely because they have escaped moral scrutiny. The ritual surrounding the death of HRM Fon Clement Ndzi II, of Kom belongs squarely in the latter category. The distinction matters. The embarrassing spectacle of women – mothers and daughters alike – being publicly bare-breasted belongs to a bygone feudal age, not a society that claims to uphold dignity, equality, and respect for women. The images that went viral on social media, depict not only Kom natives, but also non-natives (probably American and European in-laws) participating in the obnoxious ritual, underscoring how deeply the practice is embedded in the community. Whether participation is voluntary or shaped by overwhelming cultural expectations, the impropriety of women exposing their breasts in public in the name of tradition is simply mind-boggling and inexcusable. This affront to basic human dignity, is shameful, pathetic, disgraceful, disgusting and devoid of any perfunctory exaggeration. Culture should preserve humanity, not perpetuate practices that diminish it.
Its defenders invoke culture. They argue that participation is voluntary and that the ceremony has endured for generations. Yet voluntariness alone does not settle the moral question. Social conformity, inherited expectations and communal pressure can be powerful forces. More importantly, a practice can be freely embraced and still be fundamentally demeaning. No tradition deserves immunity from moral scrutiny. And age alone does not confer virtue. If it did, slavery, child marriage and foot-binding would still command universal respect. Culture should elevate human beings, not reduce them to ceremonial objects. The 21st century demands traditions that respect public decorum and human rights, not feudal relics that normalize the public objectification of women under the guise of culture.
The central fact remains difficult to escape: women; young and old, mothers and daughters, are expected to bare their breasts publicly as part of a ceremony honoring a deceased ruler. That expectation is not imposed on men in any comparable way. A custom that reserves public bodily exposure for women while celebrating male authority is not a harmless cultural curiosity. It is a feudal monument to patriarchal woolliness and machoistic pedestrianism. All Kom men should be hiding their heads in shame for this despicable dehumanization of women and Cameroonians deserve full apology and explanation for this international embarrassment and national disgrace!
Culture is no excuse for degrading women, and no custom, however ancient, is beyond moral scrutiny.
Culture is not a museum piece immune from criticism. Every civilization worthy of admiration has reformed itself. Britain abandoned public executions. India outlawed sati. China renounced foot-binding. Africa itself has increasingly rejected practices once defended as ancestral rights, from ritual servitude (Slavery) to female genital mutilation. Progress is not achieved by worshipping tradition; it is achieved by subjecting tradition to ethical examination. The Kom ritual fails that examination woefully.
A society that claims to honor women should not require them to become ceremonial symbols through public exposure. Respect is not measured by how faithfully women perform inherited roles but by whether they enjoy the same dignity afforded to men. If a ritual cannot function without the unequal display of women’s bodies, the problem lies with the ritual, not with those who question it. Quite predictably, some “Cultural Talibans” will object that outsiders have no standing to criticize indigenous customs. That argument mistakes cultural relativism for moral seriousness. Human dignity is not a Western invention, nor is equality a foreign import. They are universal aspirations recognized in African constitutions, international human-rights instruments and the lived experience of millions of African women who increasingly refuse to accept that their bodies should serve as canvases for antiquated displays of communal identity.
Traditions are strongest when they adapt, not when they fossilize. Nothing about honoring a late traditional ruler requires the public exposure of women. The ceremony could retain its symbolism, music, dance, language and communal significance while treating women with precisely the same dignity accorded to men. Culture would survive. Only humiliation would disappear. That is the true test of a living civilization: not whether it can preserve every inherited custom, but whether it possesses the courage to discard those that diminish the humanity of its own people.
Heritage deserves respect. Women deserve more. When the two come into conflict, civilization requires choosing dignity over dogmatic infallibility. Any tradition that cannot survive without humiliating and publicly objectifying women has ceased to be a source of cultural pride and become an obstacle to moral progress. The twenty-first century demands better. So should Kom.
