Clad in varying shades of brown, they wear suits with no ties and hats that do not quite fit their heads. Very much visible in the first few months of the year, they seem to disappear by May, only to resurface again in June. They are oobhuti abatsha, “new men”. Young Xhosa men, fresh from the mountain, who move silently at the back of most lecture halls, their suits like sore thumbs amongst the array of fashionable clothing.

They are the few of their generation (mostly from the Eastern Cape) who still choose to observe the full six months period during which they are expected to wear a suit as a symbol of their newly acquired manhood.

Many have gone through the same rites, but shed the suit as soon as their feet connect with Rhodes soil. They opt for the shorts that they were supposed to have left behind with their boyhood and the sleeveless t-shirts they should have given to their younger brothers. Some choose to keep the hat, most opt for a cap because it makes less of a statement. They choose to blend in.

I have often asked myself what the difference is between these two kinds of Xhosa men. What it is that the one has that is lacking in the other and I found it out recently in a Politics lecture with Professor Vincent . I will not go into the details about the lecture, just a brief description for the sake of contextualization.

A number of examples of practices were put forth, that could, by outsiders, be considered to be harming the individuals involved. The question was whether or not a person can be harmed when they have consented to the said harm. One of the practices put up was the initiation of Xhosa boys; with a picture of umkhwetha, an initiate.

Several brown suits got up and filed out in complete silence. They did not discuss, plan or plot, it was instinctive. They made no scene, did not shout or challenge. They merely left the room in the same silent manner they had entered it. I finally understood, I had finally found out the meaning of the suit.

Xhosa women do not speak of initiation, they do not have opinions on what goes on in the bush because they have never been there and never will go there. What can they talk about when they know nothing? Young men are saddled with the responsibility of booking any woman who dares talk about initiation. Professor Vincent is a woman. No one tells new initiates anything about how they should react when a white woman whose pen determines their fate, is the one that needs booking.

I have never been a man, but surely the brown suit must be a test of African manhood. It tests one; to find out if their development in the West will lead them to shun all things African. It challenges them to become Xhosa men who pursue the Western dream but never at the expense of their heritage. None of the students who stood up at that lecture are willing to fail politics1, but wearing the suit meant that they had to get up and leave.

There were many other “new men” who, in their shorts and sleeve-less t-shirts, found no offense in the lecture.

So it is no mistake that their elders call them ‘new men’, because they represent a new era, a new kind of Xhosa man that values his traditions and defines his own civilization. That walks away from those he feels look down on and trivialize his culture.

I look at the brown suit now and I liken it to the black American’s use of the word Negro, how they have taken a word that was used to oppress and belittle them and personalised it to fit their new found identity, challenging all the power and shame associated with it. So, the new Xhosa man has taken the suit; a symbol of a Western power that has oppressed his people for generations and stripped it of all its European superiority complexes and instead, wears it as a symbol of respect and of humility. It symbolises the changes in his own culture; him learning and borrowing from other cultures, while acknowledging those things that remain the same.

I finally understand the distinction between those who choose to wear the suit and those who don’t. The suit tests one, it separates the men from the boys, because it takes a man not to be ashamed of being different, simply because he understands the meaning and the responsibility behind it and is committed to it. That is the difference between those who left and those who stayed.