My heart goes out to all my fellow South Africans in these troubled times, having to cope with three major scourges simultaneously.
On the first - coronavirus - I’m being either cautiously optimistic, or optimistically cautious, by simply following official safety guidelines and not panicking.
With the second - load shedding - there is precious little I can do to avoid it. With planning, I’m coping with the disruptions, just taking life two hours at a time.
It’s the third - the virtual torrent of incidents of gender-based violence - that really worries me because it’s happening with such sickening regularity, and threatens to seriously scar the fabric of our society if nothing is done soon to bring people to their senses.
Come August 9, millions of South Africans will be celebrating Women’s Day in honour of the 20 000 courageous women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 as an act of solidarity against apartheid.
The rousing song they sang that day (When You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock) was meant to be a constant reminder of the pivotal role women play in our society.
The tragedy is that we tend to forget the landmark lessons in our history all too easily.
At least eight women are murdered in South Africa every day, so often by their spouses, partners or someone close to them.
The depraved and senseless acts of violence against women have to stop if we want to believe we are indeed a caring nation.
In the search for the root causes of gender-based violence, I found a great deal of merit in what Durban judge Shyam Gyanda had to say on the subject recently.
His question was forthright: Does the problem stem from a belief among many men that they own their wives and can therefore do with them as they please?
The judge had been presiding over the murder trial of SANDF rifleman Thembinkosi America Ngcobo who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his girlfriend’s sister, although his intended victim was his own girlfriend.
“Is that the way we, as black people, have been raised, to treat women as possessions?” asked
the judge.
“Among us blacks, there is this belief that we own our wives, they are ours to do with as we like. Despite all these programmes and campaigns (on gender-based violence), this doesn’t seem
to change.”
He implored South Africans to change their thinking drastically.
“It will stop when the elders put their foot down and take a stand against youngsters when they behave like this, rather than protecting them.”
The problem, however, is not restricted to men of any particular community - it’s across the board, irrespective of race or class.
Clearly, there is a long way to go in fighting this despicable scourge, but a great start can be made at foundational level by inculcating
the principle of gender equality among children.
When they begin to enter relationships at a later stage in
life, they must realise they do so
as equals.