Masculinity

[Michael Holdstock]

Please read

I think this is important.

Michael
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Från: River <whysman at NetAccess.Co.NZ>
Till: Michael Holdstock <mike.holdstock at swipnet.se>
Ämne: FW: [nww-l] The Elephants'
Tale(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/05/093
Datum:  den 20 mars 1999 00:19

>
>       From  today's  Washington  Post.  This article speaks to the
>importance of the role of mature men in society.
>
>The Elephants' Tale
>By William RaspberryFriday, March 5, 1999; Page A33
>Twenty years ago, South Africa's Kruger National Park had too many
>elephants -- far more than the park could sustain. Game managers came up
>with a two-prong              approach: Relocate some of the herd to
>Pilanesberg, another game park, and (sadly) kill off some of those too big
>to transport.
>And that, according to a fascinating segment of a recent "60 Minutes II"
>broadcast, is precisely what happened -- except Bob Simon started his
>report with a more recent crisis: the unexplained slaughter of white
>rhinos, an endangered species.
>The first thought was that it must be poachers who were
>responsible for a killing spree that claimed at least 39 white
>rhinos -- a tenth of the Pilanesberg herd. But that thought was
>quickly dismissed: The carcasses had their commercially prized horns
>intact. One theory after another was explored and dismissed until
>finally game wardens tranquilized and tagged some of the rhinos so
>they could be more easily tracked. They also set up hidden video
>cameras.
>Here's what they found: Young bull elephants were harassing the
>rhinos, for no apparent reason -- throwing sticks at them, menacing
>them, chasing them over great distances, and finally stomping them
>to death.
>Moreover, these now teenage members of the group that had been
>transported from Kruger were being led by a handful of particularly
>bad actors. One of these, dubbed Tom Thumb by the rangers,
>accumulated the game park equivalent of a videotaped rap sheet:
>several instances of chasing white rhinos, marauding, aggressive
>interaction with a tourist vehicle. Somehow, Tom Thumb escaped the
>park marksmen who had to kill five of his out-of-control pals.
>
>Another of the tough young bulls (street gang leaders, the park
>officials called them) once spent seven straight hours harassing
>rhinos, and a week later attacked members of the same rhino herd.
>This young bull -- Maphuto, they had named him, had to be shot. (In
>a scene evocative of too many inner-city tableaux, Maphuto's young
>sister refused to leave her fallen brother as other members of the
>adolescent "gang" ran away.)
>According to Bob Simon, the rangers and scientists detected a
>pattern: The young sexually active bulls, "suffering >from an
>excess of testosterone," were becoming increasingly violent.
>Indeed, it seemed for a time that more of them might have to be
>killed.
>Then last year someone got the bright idea of bringing some older, mature
>bulls to Pilanesberg (there was, by then, the technology to transport the
>bigger animals). Perhaps the bigger, stronger males could rein in the
>teenagers.
>The gamble paid off, for reasons both obvious and subtle. The
>bigger bulls, establishing the natural hierarchy, became the
>dominant sexual partners for the females. The resulting reduction in
>sexual activity on the part of the young bulls also lowered their
>testosterone levels and reduced their violent behavior.
>But it wasn't just a matter of size-based intimidation. The young
>bulls (after a few early and futile skirmishes with the "Big
>Daddies") started following the older bulls around -- obviously
>enjoying the association with the adult males, yielding to their
>discipline and learning from them proper elephant behavior.
>Even the once incorrigible Tom Thumb has stopped harassing the
>rhinos, and there hasn't been a report of a dead rhino since the
>experiment began.
>Simon's report is a virtual parable for what is happening in
>America's inner cities. One could, no doubt, find the public policy
>counterpart of the original separation of the young males >from their
>adult role models: in welfare policies that emancipate teenage
>parents and render males economically irrelevant; in criminal
>justice policies and employment policies that have stripped adult
>men of their normal roles -- but mostly in sincere attempts to help
>a segment of the urban population without properly understanding the
>unintended consequences of those attempts.
>More important, though, are two other lessons from the Pilanesberg
>elephants: first, that the absence of responsible adult males -- no matter
>the cause of that absence -- has serious, even deadly, impact on the
>younger males and, second, that reintroducing adult males into the
>community -- whether related to the youngsters or not -- can help
>powerfully to guide the youngsters into              responsible
>adolescence and adulthood.
>© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company



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