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A journey exploring African masculinity through research, conversations, and personal reflection. The show examines what it means to be an African man today, drawing on academic studies and diverse perspectives from across the continent's rich cultures. Covering topics from personal growth and fatherhood to identity, vulnerability, and accountability. Hosted by a former humanitarian worker turned stay-at-home dad, this programme explores what it means to be a man today, engaging with nuance and difficult truths.
Ralph OFUYO (00:00.061)
My name is Ralph, and I have been living in Italy for now five years now. And this journey started when we moved here. I thought, you know, everything, work, life, everything was going to go in balance, but then I couldn't find work and I found myself really, really lost at some points at different moments in time. And so I started exploring. But my friend, you are eating three square meals a day.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (00:16.792)
Mm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (00:24.75)
Mm.
Ralph OFUYO (00:30.139)
Like you have a family next to you, you've got kids, like you can get out once in a while and exercise, you you can see the sunset, have a glass of wine. What is your problem? And so I started down this exploration. Okay, but why am I feeling like there's still something missing? Yet I am present for my daughters. They are so happy, like even when I discipline them, after a few minutes they see you, pa. So
Dr. Mzamo Masito (00:36.587)
Ease.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (00:41.838)
Mm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (00:48.835)
Missing.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (00:58.926)
Mmm.
Ralph OFUYO (00:59.707)
By all metrics, I'm I'm doing fantastic, but then I'm still feeling like I'm not complete, you know, like something is missing. And this is why I started this journey of okay, but why do I feel this way? And is it only me who feels this way? And let me talk to a bunch of people around the continent and see, hey, what do you think how how are you feeling? And this is basically it a journey of me exploring
Dr. Mzamo Masito (01:07.15)
Thank
Ralph OFUYO (01:28.653)
why I feel this way when even when everything else tells me that I should be just kicking back, feet up and relaxing. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (01:37.1)
Yep, super, makes sense.
Ralph OFUYO (01:40.893)
Perfect. So I don't know, do you have any questions or I can just jump into I've got just five solid questions that I think should manage to use the time quite well.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (01:51.5)
No? Jump in. Let's jump in.
Ralph OFUYO (01:53.373)
Okay, perfect, perfect. So maybe the first question is look looking back at your work, like what was the thing that you were seeing that in the in the lives of boys and young men that you realize something needed to change?
Dr. Mzamo Masito (02:13.119)
I'll use, I would say three key themes. The first one is my two older brothers. My two older brothers, the first one was really my brother's keeper. He was really kind, very gentle and very strong, physically strong. And I grew up not physically fluent. I was not that kind of a boy who could fight.
physically fight. I was verbally fluent. I could start fights with my mouth. I was very mouthy but I was not physically fluent. I couldn't fight to save my life but my brother could and he always jumped in. He was my brother's keeper. He always took my side no matter what. He just took my side.
Ralph OFUYO (03:03.172)
Wow, brilliant.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (03:06.549)
And he was strong and he was very caring. And when he got married, he was an amazing husband and a present father to his son. Just egalitarian, pro-social and a paramedic. Just loved people. And I thought that I made it in an era in life where
Ralph OFUYO (03:11.996)
It's pretty.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (03:35.478)
A lot of what is said about masculinity is toxic or trash or like the words are negative far more than positive words or kind or healing words. So I thought I wanted to celebrate a masculinity that saved my life, that took care of me, that watched over my back.
Ralph OFUYO (03:59.805)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (04:04.107)
that was my brother's keeper. And then the second one is my older brother. My older brother committed suicide and completed suicide. And he hung himself. He not only hung himself, he hung his son, my nephew, nine years old. And he left me directly a two-page suicide note addressed to me, not even to the entire family, but to me.
Ralph OFUYO (04:19.398)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ralph OFUYO (04:32.635)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (04:32.679)
And I read that two page note for a very long time. And I observed that in South Africa, for example, men complete suicide at four to five times the rate versus women, young and old males. And also 80 % of all suicide deaths in South Africa are males, from young to old. So my brother is just part of that stats. And I wanted to understand
Ralph OFUYO (04:45.435)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (05:02.133)
Why? Why do young men and older males commit completed suicide? And why at such a high rate? And so that was another reason. So that's the first theme for me, which is my two brothers, which led me to want to investigate and write something to bring to society's attention, I guess, as to not just it is happening, but also why.
and maybe what to do with it. Then the second thing is me. It's, guess, it's kind of like my own me search or me research. And I was in therapy and they had asked me to do a self-authoring exercise where you look at your adverse childhood effects, how they showed up. And we did an ACE score. It's an assessment you can do online.
Ralph OFUYO (05:47.58)
Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (06:01.216)
on your adverse childhood effects. And mine, I scored like over seven out of 10, really like a high number. And that high number basically means really high levels of childhood trauma and high levels of boyhood trauma. And also I had to write about my benevolent childhood effects as well. Like what were the good things about my childhood and what were the...
Ralph OFUYO (06:25.852)
Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (06:29.73)
downsides and the crucibles of my childhood and how they show up in my adulthood. And I realised in writing it that what shaped me was issues around inequality and poverty and that we as society underestimate how inequality in particular and poverty, lack of unemployment, lack of employment or high levels of unemployment affect masculinity and affect
young men and older men and how not being in education or employment or training affects young men and how it increases violence or physical aggression amongst men or amongst males. And so was interested in that to see how it shaped me and how it's shaping the men and the young men around me and also the fact that I also had an absent
father, my biological father, abandoned me. And I wanted to understand that wounding of being abandoned by your own biological father and didn't raise you. And I also had an added experience of having a stepfather who was violent to my mother. So I grew up in an intimate partner, violent home, very dysfunctional, violent home.
And I wanted to understand that too and how it shows up in my adulthood given the fact that I ended up with two failed marriages. And I wanted to understand how those things played out in my adulthood and what I could have done better or differently and how do I heal from those adverse childhood effects that I grew up with. And that was another reason really, the second theme.
And then the third one was that I ran for 21 years plus now been running an NGO or non-profit called African Men Care. And in African Men Care, the mission really is to democratize opportunity and increase transcendence for every African child or for every boy and girl child in...
Dr. Mzamo Masito (08:48.717)
We started with South Africa, now we've got kids from Congo, a few from Zimbabwe. So now we're starting to branch out more beyond South Africa. But the idea really behind it was how do we acknowledge that talent is in abundance? There are many ways to be talented and talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. And how do we step in and democratize it?
Ralph OFUYO (09:08.323)
Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (09:17.869)
And also I love tithing, but I don't like tithing to a church or mosque or synagogue. I still have trust issues with religious institutions. So I still wanted to uphold the principle of tithing because I believe in the principle that whom much has been given, much is expected, but I just don't trust. My trust is low with the religious institutions. So I started a nonprofit.
and still uphold the principle of tithing. And I put 10 % to 20 % of my money to African Men Care, where we find these boys and girls that we democratize opportunity for from primary school all the way to university. Now, in the last 15 years of running the NGO, I started noticing that boys are failing at school and that boys are falling behind. And I started noticing it at foundation phase like grade R.
to grade four, that even like ages four to seven or four to eight, that boys were not doing very well in reading for meaning. They were not doing well in numeracy, not doing well in science at that young age. And then I also noticed that as you go up to like grade 10, boys were, dropout rate was high and it was predominantly boys. And I also noticed that the absenteeism
rate in high school was predominantly boys. The late attendance or arriving late and not being on time at school was predominantly boys. And also I noticed that final year of high school, which is grade 12 in South Africa, the only less than 44 % last year boys wrote the national senior certificate grade 12. Only 44%, less than 44%.
And the majority of them didn't write pure meds. They didn't write meds. And that also became a crisis for me. And I also noticed that you could cut the data by race and postal code and class. And in South Africa, the dominant race, the races that are affected in South Africa, we've got four classified races and the ones that are negatively affected are black and colored. And
Dr. Mzamo Masito (11:44.29)
So I noticed that too, so I wanted to call that out as well that you can't talk about males as if they are a homogeneous group. You can't talk about males as a monolithic segment, but you have to also sub-segment these males and be able to show that in South Africa in particular, you can't run away from race when you talk about gender. So gender intersects with race and it intersects with class or income class as well.
So those are the really three big themes that led me to want to highlight to the society at large that, hey, we have a problem. Men are struggling. They are depressed. They are unhappy. They are told that their masculinity is toxic. They are told that they are trash. They are told that hashtag men must die. They are also told that they are useless and worthless.
and they are told that only men who matter are men who can provide and protect. And if you can't, there's high levels of unemployment in South Africa, actually in all of Africa, unemployment is very high. And youth unemployment in South Africa is close to 60 or over 60%. And now how do you expect these young men to provide or to offer provision when unemployment is over 60 % and not every male?
is born to be a start-up founder or born to be an entrepreneur, actually less than 10 % of males or 8 to 15 % will become entrepreneurs or start-up founders. That means 89 to 92 % of males will be employed by someone. So the idea that then these males must become providers or all of that is also flawed when there's no employment and the economy is not
And our politicians, of course, across the continent are irresponsible and are not acting in the best interest of the citizens. their countries are also not growing economically. So those are some of the major reasons. And the last reason was just to highlight to society that we have a tendency of focusing on physical violence and we really focus on verbal violence and relational aggression.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (14:10.517)
and that these words we are using amount to hate speech and that the words we are using to each other create conflict and competition amongst the genders and therefore we are not united and also they hurt the children because when two elephants fight as an African proverb would say the grass in this instance a boy child and a girl child when two adults are fighting
and that we should be very careful that this verbal violence that we used to each other or this righteous normative hate that we used towards each other is also, it breeds child poverty. It breeds child poverty emotionally, spiritually, physically, economically. So we are actually in danger of unintentionally
inflicting more harm and pain to a child by using these harsh and negative and hateful words and hate speech towards each other as well. And also it's hateful to men because men who lack emotions, who lack emotive words end up committing suicide. So those are some of the things that I wanted to unpack and that led me to write the book.
Ralph OFUYO (15:35.387)
No, no, super interesting. And I I think something that I've you've talked about it right now and also and I was going through your website trying to read up more is the use of the word transcendence. It's for lack of a better phrase, is not a very African word. And when when you how do you define transcendence in the in in in the context of what you do and how you see it?
Dr. Mzamo Masito (16:04.957)
I actually borrowed the word from Maslow because people have been using Maslow hierarchy of needs for a very long time. the word that normally people use is self-actualization. But the word that I like the most is to transcend. For me, transcending is the idea that you can transcend poverty. You can transcend the things that hold you in bondage. You can acknowledge bondage.
You can acknowledge upper date. You can acknowledge enslavement. You can acknowledge that there was colonization, but we are human beings as Darwin says, who evolve and adapt. That's why we've survived this long. And in our survival, we have in our DNA or in our genes an ability to transcend the things that hold us in bondage, to ascend.
to transcend our adverse childhood effects. We have it in our genetic makeup to do that. And I felt like the encompasses many things we can transcend. I felt like the word self-actualization is very much people who are already well fed, people who are in upper class and who all their basic Maslow needs are met. And now they are just dealing with existential questions of why am I here?
Ralph OFUYO (17:19.588)
Mm-hmm.
Ralph OFUYO (17:24.796)
Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (17:30.667)
What's the meaning of life? Whereas transcendence for me is still very fundamental that you can transcend not having food in your plate. You can transcend having lived in a Kibera-like informal settlement or Mukoku village or in South Africa, in shanty towns of South Africa. But you can transcend and you can transcend the fact that for many years under upper date I was told I'm inferior.
because of the color of my skin and nothing else. But you can transcend that inferiority complex and become confident and know that you are not inferior. And so those are the things we've been trying to unpack using the word so that people understand that the reason we want to democratize opportunity for you is partly because we want you to transcend and through opportunity like me, I am smart.
but someone had to give me an opportunity to go and study in the US. Someone had to give me an opportunity to go and study at the University of Cape Town. But if I didn't get that opportunity, it's hard to then transcend many things about me. Because if you are born in slavery or you're born in poverty and you stay in poverty up till age 26, you have a 90 % plus chance of dying in poverty. So how do you transcend without opportunity? Even if you are talented and gifted.
It is not enough. That's why for me, I genuinely believe that the job of politicians or government is to create an environment that nourishes opportunity, that gives as many opportunities to everyone, that democratizes opportunity. And then the gifted and the talented will grab them, or disciplined and committed will grab them. And the ones who are lazy and not, then they won't grab them. But at least
there must be an abundance of opportunity that allows people to transcend. So that's what really, I would say, is our ethos and belief about opportunity, the word opportunity and the word transcendence.
Ralph OFUYO (19:43.682)
No, no, I I like that the fact that you also think about the the opportunity that someone there's the opportunity needs to be there, but also that there needs to be that personal level accountability once the opportunity is there. And and I think that's something important that people don't people fail some people fail to see.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (19:52.226)
Peace.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (19:56.183)
Yes.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (20:02.817)
Yes, definitely you are right in that we also have agency. Just because you grew up in poverty or absent father or abused or in abuse or in an abusive home or you were abused, yes, all those are valid adverse childhood effects, but it doesn't still take away your agency. It doesn't take away your individual responsibility to transcend those things.
And yes, you're not an island, so you do need a village. And as Africans, we'd say it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a whole human being. we should not only burden that person with the responsibility to transcend on their own, just because they've got agency. We should then also, as a community that believes in Ubuntu, I am because we are, we should also understand that that individual needs a village.
and we as a village must step in to make sure that we fortify that self-efficacy or that agency. We grow it so that that person's agency becomes stronger, becomes better, but we can't expect them on their own and just say to them, but you also have individual responsibility, but you also have agency without communal intervention.
Ralph OFUYO (21:24.219)
I know that's true, that's true. one another thing that I saw when I was reading up on you was your you put a lot of importance on mentorship and social fatherhood. And I guess part of it comes from your background, but also something else that you believe in. Could you maybe talk a bit about that?
Dr. Mzamo Masito (21:46.766)
So I say to people that I am partly where I am because every child who grows up in a dysfunctional community or in poverty, probably sometimes even in wealth, is that you have moments where you stumble, you trip, you fall, you go the wrong way, you do the wrong thing and
What you need in life is someone who catches you before you fall six feet under. for me, social fathers and role models are people who catch you before you fall. For example, in my case, at age eight and nine, my friends and I started selling drugs because we grew up in with drug dealers and gangsters and all of that. And my stepfather, who I would say was an abusive husband, but he was an amazing father to me, my stepfather.
and he stepped in and he took me to Boy Scouts. He told me that from now on you're going to be a Boy Scout, from now on you are going to go to church and become an altar boy, from now on you're going to join a non-profit or start one. So he stepped in and then in those institutions, Scouts, altar boy and non-profit, I met social fathers. My Scout Master
or Akela became my role model. And in the institution called church, I met deacons and some of those deacons and the priest became father figures and social fathers. So social fathers are people who didn't give birth to you, but are males who take interest in you, who take, makes it their responsibility to impart knowledge, to guide you, to correct you.
to say, no, no, no, don't do that. You're going the wrong way. That's not the standard. You can do better. So that's what I'm always advocating for that we are a village. We are molded and built by a village. And the idea that you are going to be built only by your parents is flawed. We are a people who are built by many people, not just one person, your mother or father or your single parent. They are not enough.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (24:07.807)
in molding you into a whole human being. So my intervention started with my stepfather who blessed his soul because he stepped in when I was really moving the wrong direction and falling and he caught me before I fell further six feet under. And then he introduced me to different social fathers who became my new standards, new role models, who showed me what good looks like, what better looks like.
and how I can think differently. So I'm really much advocating that even if you don't have a present biological father, there are other male figures out there that can step in. They don't replace the wounding of your father or biological father having abandoned you, but it is better than zero. They stepped in and then they least heal, even if they heal half of your heart, it's better than the whole heart broken.
And even if they heal a quarter of your humanity, it's better than zero of your humanity not healed. So that's what I'm advocating for is that we do need more of these males. Like, for example, at school, my primary school, close to 50 % of the teachers in my primary school were males. Now, over 90 % of teachers in South Africa primary schools and high schools are female. So if you don't have a father at home,
and then you don't get taken to these clubs or social clubs or sports clubs or religious institution initiatives or activities or initiations or rites of passage. Now the school is supposed to be your next institution that catches you. But now there are no males there to catch you. Whereas in my case, I had a male primary school teacher who caught me.
who also became my role model and social father, Mr. MacCobel. Even when I went to high school, now 90 % of high school teachers in South Africa. In South Africa, be a teacher is to be female. So now, where do you get caught before you fall six feet under if there's no male figure at home? Now you go to school, there's no male figure at school. Now you go to health institutions, over 95 % of the nurses are female.
Ralph OFUYO (26:08.087)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (26:33.665)
Doctors are female, psychologists are female, psychiatrists are female. So the entire care industry, or that is really important, we called it in COVID, essential workers. These super important essential workers are nonexistent for men, or men don't use them because they can't see people who look like them.
Ralph OFUYO (26:49.007)
Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (27:02.005)
So that's the part that for me, I feel it is very important that we make sure that we promote male involvement, role modeling in teaching, make it cool to be a primary school teacher, make it cool to be a male nurse, nurse, make it cool to be a psychologist, a psychiatrist, all of these, a social worker, all of these disciplines are actually COVID taught us that we need them more than we think. We are so obsessed with Silicon Valley.
with AI, with Gen-AI. We're very obsessed with engineering and tech and we forget that we're still social creatures with souls and spirit and a psyche.
Ralph OFUYO (27:45.016)
You I I I as you were talking and you touched upon you actually said the word the words that came to my mind like, Where's the person that looks like me? I I I I actually used that line in an organization I was working for where I felt the ladder for going up the the ceiling was just I couldn't break to the ceiling and I just told the people, I don't see people, I don't see my pathway. And also on the the that community, the that social fatherhood.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (27:55.447)
Yes.
Ralph OFUYO (28:15.181)
It's something that I see here where we'll be at the park or we'll be somewhere with my daughters and with our friends. And the kids will be doing something that is growing up in Africa, like, okay, that is is a no, is no no. Or may this one boy was co there was a photographer, and this one boy was just being a nuisance, like running into every short.
And all the parents there were just standing. And and I I looked at everyone and I so I walked and grabbed the boy, of course, gently because I'm still a foreigner. But I grabbed his hand and tell him, hey, wait your turn. But I felt it very strange for me as an outsider to go and do this. But I've noticed it so many times that I've had to, of course, being aware of the context where you're still a guest, that hey.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (28:50.925)
Yes.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (28:56.429)
Hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (29:01.613)
Mm-hmm.
Ralph OFUYO (29:12.453)
Tell this young boy or this young lady, hey, please listen to your mother. She's trying to help or hey, there are other people. So I that echoes even here.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (29:21.997)
Yeah, you.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (29:27.981)
I mean, I have lived in the UK, I've lived in the US and I've lived in India and you will see that the more and more we become, especially the West, my experience is that it has become even more individualistic. So what was once a responsibility of a village is now a responsibility of an individual or just two people.
and nuclear family. the same with relationships, the same with division of labor. What was once a responsibility of many village members has now become same with parenting. I mean, it's not our ancestors, African were wise to say it takes a village to raise a child and they are right. And this is old wisdom which still matters today.
that the idea that you can raise your child only on your own and that any other parent or adult who tells your child no, they can't do that. It's unacceptable. Of course, we are not asking for the other adults to be like you said, you did it gently. You did it with care and respect. We still need that, but still the idea that other adults cannot step in.
to parent your child or to be adults to your child is what's now breeding issues of ill-discipline, breeding issues of loneliness. And now we know that loneliness is worse than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. So we now know that, but for some reason, and we know that loneliness kills. And the same in us raising young boys or young girls, that we can't do this thing on our own.
We need a village to do and raise a whole girl, a whole boy, so that they both have a whole future.
Ralph OFUYO (31:30.617)
No, no, I couldn't agree more. And just picking up on those two things, you've mentioned and and you picked up on a boy and a girl. In your travels and in your current work, you mentioned your organization now is is Zimbabwe. I actually lived in Zimbabwe for a couple of months. I I love the people, I love the food. What are other things that or what are some of the things that you feel people
Dr. Mzamo Masito (31:50.957)
Yeah.
Ralph OFUYO (31:59.591)
continue to misunderstand about boys and young men as you see your work today.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (32:06.829)
For me, the first one, as soon as you mentioned that boys are failing or falling behind, society, I don't know whether it's because of cancel culture or we've just become, we lack nuance and we lack dialectical maturity. We are big, don't live in the gray.
Anymore like and we want things to be black or white and that's it and So when you mention the issue of boys it is if like for some people what they are hearing you are saying is you don't care about girls so there's a you either for the women's movement or girl movement and as soon as you say by the way wait we must continue to empower women and girls, but let end
not even but or however, and the conjunction being and, let's also make sure that boys and men are also empowered and not left behind. We don't have this and end. We have an either or. We are big on pendulums that it's women and girls time to eat, men must stand aside, it's not their time yet. And it's very short-sighted.
because it produces unintended negative consequences in the long run. So that's the first thing for me is that can we get a society that allows itself to see that gender equality is not a zero sum game and that gender empathy is not a zero sum game. You can empower both girls and women while also empowering boys and men. You can do both and it's end end.
It's not either or. That's the first one. The second one for me is we as society have for some reason ignored the fact that there are biological differences between boys and girls. And so for some reason we're fletting that, that boys have testosterone, boys have XY chromosome, and boys' brains develop slower, especially their executive function or pre-photocortex than...
Dr. Mzamo Masito (34:26.327)
the girls. It doesn't mean the girls are superior. It doesn't mean the boys are inferior. That's just how God has decided to make us or that's how evolution has decided to evolve us, whichever way you believe in. that's just now if that is a fact, that then means we do have to accommodate for these differences. We can be a society that does not accommodate for differences, but also we must be a society that
also doesn't, when a boy is born, we should not immediately say, oh no, he must become a man. Boys don't cry. Boys should not show emotion. The first thing we are doing as a society is remember we are growing a human being first, who so happens to be XY-chromosomed. They are not upfront from the get-go. No one comes out of their mother's womb. They are a man.
You come out of a mother's womb, you are a human being who just so happens to be a male. And we first need to nurture the human in you before we're obsessed with nurturing the man in you. So we need to make sure that you have a whole interiority. You know who you are. When we ask you questions like, who are you? You are able to answer that question beyond provision, protection.
You can answer it with more emotive words, with more feeling words. But we are stunted as young boys at a young age because we are not given the vocabulary. We are not socialized to have that vocabulary. And then at age 40, you are told you need to be vulnerable. You need to... How are you feeling? How are you able to do that when you were stunted at a young age and now all of a sudden you don't have the tools in your toolbox to use?
Ralph OFUYO (36:11.663)
The pendulum.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (36:20.205)
to be able to match this question that is now in the zeitgeist, vulnerability, feelings, being in touch with your interiority, whether be able to explain your interiority. How are you going to be able to do that when at a young age we were socialized not to? So these are some of the things I'm observing. For example, boys suffer from alexithymia or alexithymia where they have words without emotions.
And boys can express an emotion at a young age because many boys, even most of African countries, a boy is heartless by the time they turn four or five because we're now preparing him to be a man. A boy can cry. And when a boy cries, he gets frowned upon. He gets especially in the continent of Africa because then we're like, you're going to become soft. And we have words we use for boys that are derogatory.
Ralph OFUYO (36:49.52)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (37:18.079)
and be likeling boys that we don't want soft boys. we also for boys don't take into account that there are many ways to be a male. And one of those ways is some males are more effeminate. Some males are more masculine. But just because a male is more effeminate doesn't make them less of a man. They are still a male. They're a different kind of male. So we've also narrowed manhood
and masculinity into like a monolithic homogeneous one way. And that also kills young boys because then young boys who have different, who show up and express masculinity differently are frowned upon, are laughed at and are excluded. So that's another thing as well that we need to watch out for and change.
Ralph OFUYO (38:10.039)
No, no, perfect. I I couldn't agree more. And I've I've recently and this is more on a on a sort of micro level, whenever I try to there are few friends that we do when we can schedule time, because that's also thing. You can't just call someone up and say, Hey man, I'm going through rough time, it's very hard. So if you schedule time, it's you you've blocked an hour, then by the time you're getting to the issue, hey, I'm having problems with my wife
Dr. Mzamo Masito (38:30.913)
Yes.
Ralph OFUYO (38:39.351)
It's like five minutes to the you you first you waste time talking about cars. did you see this on the news? So that one I completely agree. And some of my friends, it's just a completely if you even just message, hey man, I'm having a really low day, I'm tough, it it's that you'll be fine, you know. There's no like, hey, tell me more. even just to listen, not not necessarily to
Dr. Mzamo Masito (38:40.909)
Hmm. Hmm. Yes.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (39:00.46)
this.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (39:04.183)
Yes.
Ralph OFUYO (39:06.757)
to like be psychoanalyze you just to listen, just hey, just tell me. I I'll listen then who knows, you know, it might go somewhere. Yeah. I don't know.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (39:09.441)
Yes.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (39:14.157)
Yeah, because I don't blame many of these men, more like my friend group, that...
They don't have the equipment. It's not written in their DNA or it's not written in their being. It was not written in childhood that you become an amazing listener of someone else's emotions or feelings or you even decode them. It's not written and of most men, the only emotion they know is anger. All the other primary emotions or
secondary emotions or tertiary emotions. Most men I grew up with or in this continent I've met and I've traveled this continent close to 50 African countries. They don't have the equipment, the tools to express those emotions. A man who is seen to be overly joyous is frowned upon or who expresses happiness, who expresses joy, who expresses shame.
who expresses fear, those other primary emotions are not accepted or sadness. The only emotion you get to learn is anger. And the other emotions, they show you as weak. And so now in our old age, we don't know how to deal when you say to me, I'm sad. And now I don't have the toolbox.
to deal with that emotion because I don't, first of all, I don't know it because I killed it or I suppressed it at young age and I don't know what to say to you. So the only thing that men end up doing is turn it into a joke or say to you thinking they are being useful and helpful, no you'll be okay. Or sending you a YouTube motivational clip. Thinking that will be...
Dr. Mzamo Masito (41:17.954)
a solution, listen to this guy, listen to Jordan Peterson, I think you will be okay.
Ralph OFUYO (41:30.531)
No, I I I I definitely I agree. I agree. And so I I know we're coming up to the end of our time. So and and you've been doing this work for nineteen years. That that's a long time. What do you think and and you also talked about how one of the c one of the issues in fact is also the the leadership in our countries, you know, especially African countries.
What if you had a magic wand, like what is the one thing you could say at a macro level? This is something that we can do to take this issue seriously, one or two things. And then maybe a final question for me would be take away the magic stick. What gives you hope as you continue to do your work you do?
Dr. Mzamo Masito (42:26.573)
Let me start with the hope one first. Because you know, as someone who grew up in a mosque and a synagogue and a Christian church, there's a part in the Christian Bible that says, faith is the substance of the things we hope for and evidence not yet seen. So for me, the thing that I've learned about that line is that hope is a fuel to faith.
Ralph OFUYO (42:46.33)
That's beautiful.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (42:56.557)
So if you lose hope, you also lose faith. And if you lose hope, you also become cynical and you don't become skeptical. I wanna remain a positive, optimistic skeptic and hopeful skeptic, but I don't want to become cynical and I don't wanna lose faith and I don't wanna lose hope.
And so what gives me hope is that we are a species that's been around for a million years and we've adapted and evolved and survived. We have ancestors who have been enslaved, colonized, under upper date for hundreds of years and they're still standing and we're here. So if you look at history on its own, we are very adaptable and we evolution.
and adaptability is our thing. It's embedded in our genetics and in our DNA. So, and we've faced far worse issues before. And this issue is unlike slavery or upper date or colonization or any of those. We've faced worse things before and we've survived them or we've transcended them or we're still coping with them. So I'm hopeful that even this matter
we will transcend. And I'm hopeful because when I look at the data on women, there was a time where we as men, we were unfair, unjust towards women. And we treated women badly. We treated persons with disability badly. We treated the LGBTQ AI plus community badly. We treated people with neurodivergence or mental illnesses badly. And
You can see the evolution of a society starting to become more humane towards women, towards persons with disability or LGBTQAI plus community or neurodivergency or mental health. It gives me hope that if we can do it in those segments and now women can vote, women can have a bank account, women can work and women are thriving in the education.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (45:20.436)
system and yes we still have many things and challenges we need to resolve but we should admit that there's a lot of good that is happening out there in society. So that then tells me that there was a time in 1995 when we wrote when we signed, South Africa signed the Beijing Declaration where we agreed that we will support and empower women and girls.
persons with disability, LGBTQIA+. We've made amazing strides from 1995 to 2025. You can look at the data and you can see in health, in education, in employment, access to quality health, quality education, all we've made strides. Yes, are there gaps? Do we still have to make more? Yes. However, if you measure ourselves on progress, amazing progress, the same can be done for boys and men. I see that
We have a playbook. We have many playbooks where we've had problems and we came up with solutions and we've made progress. The same here. You highlight clearly what the problem is. Everyone agrees that there is a problem. I know society is good at coming up with amazing playbooks and blueprints and solutions or adopting or adapting or inventing new playbooks from existing playbooks.
I'm hopeful, so I never lose hope. Also because I never want to be unfaithful to humanity. And I also never want to be cynical. I find cynical people dangerous. And they become very, and holistic, and they're the people who go out and shoot everyone in a park or in a school. And that's not the type of a human being I want to become. And if I had a magic wand,
You know, Chuny Achebe wrote the book, The Trouble with Nigeria, and that book should have been, the book should have been called The Trouble with Africa. And because at the core of it, Achebe mentioned that the issue is not the weather, not the water, not this. It's actually leadership. And my magic wand is asking God that, can you please grant us leaders who value competence?
Ralph OFUYO (47:23.337)
Trouble in Nigeria. I know it.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (47:47.177)
over comradeship, who value hiring people on ability and competence, who value character, honesty and integrity and respect for the opportunity to serve, respect for the citizens who elected you, respect for yourself and your own values. Can you grant us those leaders who have these two Cs? The first C being competent, the second C being
character-led. Then the third C is consistent. Can you grant us leaders who are consistently, courageously and have character and competence? Just grant us that. And I'm not even asking for an Einstein or I'm not asking for a Nobel Prize winner. I'm just asking for these basic fundamental things that I saw in Singapore.
and Lee Kuan Yew who turned around Singapore. mean, Ghana and Singapore were in the same bus in 1960s, but look where Singapore is now and look at where all of West Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is. And the same China, I see what leadership does when leadership decides to be leadership full of competence, full of character and is consistent. And then the last C.
Ralph OFUYO (48:57.281)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (49:14.911)
I ask God if I had a magic wand is courage. If you could give us leaders and citizens that have courage to speak truth to power, that have courage to have discernment and sift through the noise and be able to see when these politicians are lying to us, when they are deceiving us, when they are just smoke screams and they are not doing what they're supposed to be doing. We have the courage to hold them accountable, to remove them.
Ralph OFUYO (49:17.913)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (49:44.726)
if they are not suitable for that seat and put someone who is suitable for that seat and also to have leaders who are courageous to not be liked by their own citizens because they are effective and who are able to make trade-offs and difficult decisions that are good for us as citizens in the long run but are painful for us as citizens in the short run. And we might hate that leader now and dislike them
But in five, 10 years, we'll be like, my goodness, that's a great leader. He saved us or she saved us. And look at where we are now for making that difficult decision. And I'm praying, if I had a magic wand, I'll say to God, here are the forces I'm asking you in a leader to give us. Give us someone who's competent, who has character, who is consistent, and the greatest of all of them has the courage.
to execute that competency, to be consistent in that character and competency. just like Maya Angelou said, courage is the virtue that strengthens all other virtues. If you can't claim you have a virtue, if you don't have courage, because you're gonna need the courage to live up to that virtue or value. And if you don't have courage, you're not gonna be able to do that.
And if God doesn't grant you that courage, then we shouldn't appoint you as a leader if you're not courageous enough. So those who I would say, am I, I know I'm dreaming now since you said magic wand, but I am still hopeful because we've had these leaders in the past. So that's what also give me whenever my present fails me, I go look at history. I'm a student of history and I look at history and I see, no, we did have these leaders. Or if not,
Ralph OFUYO (51:27.502)
We need
Dr. Mzamo Masito (51:43.905)
South Africa, the continent had these leaders. Other continents had these leaders. And since we all share the same DNA, genetic markers or genetics, whatever they have in Singapore, we have it too, in our DNA. Whatever they have in China or Japan, we have it too. In South Korea, we have it too in our DNA. There's nothing unique that they have the South Koreans or Japanese or Chinese.
or Singaporeans that we also don't have. So that means we can become like them if we so courageously decide to be so. So I'm really, I'll never, my hope will never die in this instance. I will always be hopeful because history tells me that we have done this before. So we should be able to do it again.
Ralph OFUYO (52:35.254)
I think that's a beautiful place to end. before I let you go, if you could recommend one book, what book would you recommend? Apart from yours? Yours is very good, we're gonna read it. What other what book would you recommend? And why?
Dr. Mzamo Masito (52:38.445)
Thank you.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (52:43.575)
Mm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (52:50.849)
Hmm
Dr. Mzamo Masito (52:56.769)
I have too many books, so now let me in my head. Let me think. The book, I would say shaped me, either than the Bible or the Quran and the Torah, which I recommend people read extensively, these holy books. There's lots of wisdom there. It's actually, if you don't read any other book, these three books or maybe, yeah, these books are actually...
Ralph OFUYO (53:00.236)
Take your time.
Ralph OFUYO (53:22.498)
Just those three
Dr. Mzamo Masito (53:26.391)
profoundly insightful. Not read them for dogma. Read them as a questioning, insightful citizen. As someone where God says, I have not given you a spirit of fear. I have given you a spirit of power, love and sound mind. You read them with that sound mind. You be critical. You question God the same way Moses debated with God, the same way David or Solomon questioned God.
Ralph OFUYO (53:31.286)
Mm, mm, yeah.
Ralph OFUYO (53:47.936)
Yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (53:55.981)
You just read them in that sentence. I think you will be just a lot more wiser if you're a questioning being, not a dogmatic religious being. So that will be the first one. My book that I love the most is, will always be Steve Beagle's book. I write what I like. And the reason I love it is because Steve Beagle was in his 20s when he wrote that book, like Franz Fanon.
when he writes Black Skin, White Mask or The Wretched of the Head. These people were young. Number one, they just make me feel like an underachiever. They were just young, but they were so insightful and so full in their 20s. And I was not even thinking that way in my 20s. I was just chasing girls and thinking about things that...
Ralph OFUYO (54:25.881)
And yeah. Yeah.
Ralph OFUYO (54:34.191)
Yeah.
Ralph OFUYO (54:45.368)
Yeah.
Ralph OFUYO (54:48.748)
They had the opportunity you mentioned. it was a di the community, yeah.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (54:54.356)
Yes, and Steve Bego writes in that book, he covers many grounds. He covers religion, theology. He talks about identity. He talks about black consciousness. He talks about mental freedom and the importance. And he says the greatest weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. And that for me is just soulful and insightful.
on its own, that line on its own is more than profound that the greatest weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. And then he goes and talks about Jesus as a freedom fighter and that if you look at Jesus as a freedom fighter, not just as a Christian or someone who gets put on a cross, but you look at him as someone who was contrarian, was willing to not be liked, was willing to fight for
the oppressed, who was willing to go and spend time with prostitutes, to spend time with the people who are sick. That's the kind of freedom fighter you want, is to model your life around someone who's willing to go against the Pharisees, to go against the leadership of the time, the Roman Empire, whatever it is. But that's just the ideas that he presents in that book shaped me. And he will always be my hero. That's why if you look at the back there, that's Steve Biko.
Ralph OFUYO (56:00.61)
Yeah.
Ralph OFUYO (56:10.04)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (56:23.36)
That's my mom. That's Steve Biko. That's Robert Sobuku. These are the people for me who fundamentally shaped how I think and how I see the
Ralph OFUYO (56:24.546)
Uh-huh.
It's beautiful.
Ralph OFUYO (56:37.1)
Doctor, as in or in Swahili, we say Datkari. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Mzamo Masito (56:41.388)
Thank you. Thank you, my brother. Thank you very much.