Opinion / Columnist
What the racist South African judge should have said and it was going to be politically correct!
15 May 2016 at 06:55hrs | Views
She said: "Rape is a Black people's past time." Black South African men regarded rape as a cultural right. I still have to meet a girl of 12 years who was not raped. How it is possible to put all the blame of rape on a mass scale on Black South African men only? Rape is a global evil that is ravaging societies at global level; it should never be put paid on South African men. Sure "racism" comes in if she thinks that is the black South Africans only raping the young girls and babies and infants. There was no need to make a racist statement, if she removed racism her statement was going to be correct because what she said was correct
According to the whole Judge her "logic" conclusion that South African black men are inherently violent and therefore rapists are wholly incorrect. There are good black South African men out there who are not rapists. Dear white Judge, think global and act local.
I wish I could put words in her mouth and say rape had become a global pandemic. Indeed rape is a global scourge, axes of evil, and it is not regional, not confined to South Africa but it's a global challenge. She should have said rape is as old as mankind in as much as prostitution that predates the documentation of the old testament of the bible.
Rape is indeed a symptom of a culture, a system of oppression which is much greater than social problems. There is a lot of information on abuse, child brides that are perpetuated by poverty. It is indeed the parents that send daughters away for early marriages due to inadequate resources at home: poverty. She should have talked us through how we are going to combat that culture that feeds rape because early child marriage is rape equally and a global nonsense.
The racist Judge should have said: rape is an inherent tendency of male nature, begins with assumption that human sexual behaviour, though based in biological need is an expression of cultural forces. She should have said that rape is part of a cultural configuration which includes interpersonal violence, male dominance and sexual separation. She should also say that she got those quotes from Susan Brown-Muller.
She should have said that rape is interpreted as the sexual expression of forces in societies where harmony between men and their environment has been severely disrupted; this is a classical example of South African development, political and economical. She should also quote the source of her findings to make her statements scientifically and politically correct. Those utterances she made are inappropriate because she cites a particular race: black South African men. Rape is a global pandemic experienced in almost all counties in the world it does not matter how developed those countries are.
The racist Judge should have given national voice to most individual experiences of sexual violence in South Africa as a Judge. She should have found means to chart possibilities to curb rape in all societies rather than condemn it as a black South African culture. She does not tell us how the victims of rape are going to be rehabilitated in the aftermath of rape. Is she going to draw attention to policy makers and health practitioners and make rape a serious national cancer, a national security risk equally as bad as Apartheid itself?
In almost all societies of this world, not only South Africa, women have been treated as objects of sex and it was accepted that a man has the right to sexual intercourse and the woman deserves to be raped. Because it has been the culture in most societies globally to hold women as subjects, rape is not seen as an issue to talk about ever as it serves the man, a higher being than the woman. The white South African Judge in that respect is not wrong at all, I am with her.
In developing countries women are kept in constant state of fear and intimidation and are forever conscious of the fact that they can be raped any time. Rape has become a culture of fear, a tool to be used by men willy nilly especially when there are political conflicts in the land, she should have said this! It is common in African societies particularly in African to let child-marriages take place because of poverty; institutionalised rape per se. Again the ways in which men and women in our societies are socialised, the language that can contain eroticization of dominance and submission put young women and girls at risk of rape, the Judge should have said.
The racist Judge should know that rape is not an isolated act but also imbedded in factors such as culture yes as she puts it, but also religion and economic discrimination, high rates of unemployment, social insecurity make men especially become violent, but this is not specific to South Africa as she would like to make us believe.
Rape is prevalent in Europe: Germany, UK, Netherlands, France, just to mention those few, USA, Asia, Cambodia, India; just name any country in the global set-up; rape is still prevalent in those societies, done to even children and babies. Rape, kidnapping of girls and young women, trafficking of women and girls should be viewed within the same prism, how I wish she should have said this.
It is a fact too that in most households, there is rape in decent establishments; in matrimonial beds. A man is the one that enjoys sex and not the woman. The Judge was dead right in that respect. The way men and women are socialised to speak, is most of the time based on the dominant subject of sex. ( Kunjani nyanewethu? Mukadzi ningina!) The subject matter is sexualised to please the man who is present. Men are characterised as hyper-sexualized people and the women play with this belief most of the time to gain currency of acceptance. This statement excludes girls and toddlers and babies who are victims of rape equally.
The racist South African Judge is correct, the gamut of cultural, social and institutional practices through which gender is constituted within the African patriarchy leaves a lot to be desired, and we shall be the laughing stock for some generations to come. Child enslavement, child marriages, child trafficking and child abductions, child abandonment does give us the epithet of African violence culture.
The repercation of rape especially to babies and children are most horrific to note. Fistula is a medical term that means the tearing in a child's vaginal wall which allows the passage of either faeces or urine leading to continual incontinence. If that is not horrifying then what is horribilis?
I pen off for now
Ugogo omncane
Chirikadzi
Nomazulu Thata is a political activist, an engineering metallurgist by profession, author of two books, a chemistry teacher and lecturer in her present occupation. Her essays are purely personal and do not reflect any political party affiliation. She can be contacted on Nomazulu.thata(at)web.de
According to the whole Judge her "logic" conclusion that South African black men are inherently violent and therefore rapists are wholly incorrect. There are good black South African men out there who are not rapists. Dear white Judge, think global and act local.
I wish I could put words in her mouth and say rape had become a global pandemic. Indeed rape is a global scourge, axes of evil, and it is not regional, not confined to South Africa but it's a global challenge. She should have said rape is as old as mankind in as much as prostitution that predates the documentation of the old testament of the bible.
Rape is indeed a symptom of a culture, a system of oppression which is much greater than social problems. There is a lot of information on abuse, child brides that are perpetuated by poverty. It is indeed the parents that send daughters away for early marriages due to inadequate resources at home: poverty. She should have talked us through how we are going to combat that culture that feeds rape because early child marriage is rape equally and a global nonsense.
The racist Judge should have said: rape is an inherent tendency of male nature, begins with assumption that human sexual behaviour, though based in biological need is an expression of cultural forces. She should have said that rape is part of a cultural configuration which includes interpersonal violence, male dominance and sexual separation. She should also say that she got those quotes from Susan Brown-Muller.
She should have said that rape is interpreted as the sexual expression of forces in societies where harmony between men and their environment has been severely disrupted; this is a classical example of South African development, political and economical. She should also quote the source of her findings to make her statements scientifically and politically correct. Those utterances she made are inappropriate because she cites a particular race: black South African men. Rape is a global pandemic experienced in almost all counties in the world it does not matter how developed those countries are.
In almost all societies of this world, not only South Africa, women have been treated as objects of sex and it was accepted that a man has the right to sexual intercourse and the woman deserves to be raped. Because it has been the culture in most societies globally to hold women as subjects, rape is not seen as an issue to talk about ever as it serves the man, a higher being than the woman. The white South African Judge in that respect is not wrong at all, I am with her.
In developing countries women are kept in constant state of fear and intimidation and are forever conscious of the fact that they can be raped any time. Rape has become a culture of fear, a tool to be used by men willy nilly especially when there are political conflicts in the land, she should have said this! It is common in African societies particularly in African to let child-marriages take place because of poverty; institutionalised rape per se. Again the ways in which men and women in our societies are socialised, the language that can contain eroticization of dominance and submission put young women and girls at risk of rape, the Judge should have said.
The racist Judge should know that rape is not an isolated act but also imbedded in factors such as culture yes as she puts it, but also religion and economic discrimination, high rates of unemployment, social insecurity make men especially become violent, but this is not specific to South Africa as she would like to make us believe.
Rape is prevalent in Europe: Germany, UK, Netherlands, France, just to mention those few, USA, Asia, Cambodia, India; just name any country in the global set-up; rape is still prevalent in those societies, done to even children and babies. Rape, kidnapping of girls and young women, trafficking of women and girls should be viewed within the same prism, how I wish she should have said this.
It is a fact too that in most households, there is rape in decent establishments; in matrimonial beds. A man is the one that enjoys sex and not the woman. The Judge was dead right in that respect. The way men and women are socialised to speak, is most of the time based on the dominant subject of sex. ( Kunjani nyanewethu? Mukadzi ningina!) The subject matter is sexualised to please the man who is present. Men are characterised as hyper-sexualized people and the women play with this belief most of the time to gain currency of acceptance. This statement excludes girls and toddlers and babies who are victims of rape equally.
The racist South African Judge is correct, the gamut of cultural, social and institutional practices through which gender is constituted within the African patriarchy leaves a lot to be desired, and we shall be the laughing stock for some generations to come. Child enslavement, child marriages, child trafficking and child abductions, child abandonment does give us the epithet of African violence culture.
The repercation of rape especially to babies and children are most horrific to note. Fistula is a medical term that means the tearing in a child's vaginal wall which allows the passage of either faeces or urine leading to continual incontinence. If that is not horrifying then what is horribilis?
I pen off for now
Ugogo omncane
Chirikadzi
Nomazulu Thata is a political activist, an engineering metallurgist by profession, author of two books, a chemistry teacher and lecturer in her present occupation. Her essays are purely personal and do not reflect any political party affiliation. She can be contacted on Nomazulu.thata(at)web.de
Source - Nomazulu Thata
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