Papo,+Hope,+condemn+killing+of+women+by+partners



=We should all condemn the killing of women by their partners.=

From The Star, Johannesburg, June 2nd 2005.

 * By Hope Mankwana Papo**

A notion that say that rights of women which were ushered by democracy, are the cause of the abominable practice of men killing their partners is pure nonsense. These killings have been happening for years but are now receiving coverage in the media. Some of the dear principles of the liberation struggle were and remain equality and non sexism. Because the common and bigger enemy was apartheid, at times we did not focus adequately on the parallel and criminal oppression of women through their race, gender and class. After managing to legally defeat the monster of apartheid, as a country we had to confront the problem of the oppression of women. This oppression has to be tackled through advocacy, awareness raising, changing the oppressive legal framework we inherited and punishing those who do not want to abide by those laws. Oppression has historically been perpetrated through various ways like manipulation of religion, culture and falsification and distortion of history, developing a dependency syndrome and even cowing victims through intimidation and violence into submission.

Our terrible socialisation (which is currently done mostly by women) on the role of men and women in society also creates problems on how men and women should relate to each other. Some women still falsely believe that men are and should be bread winners and that any men who is unemployed or does not have an income does not deserve to be loved. That man will be told that they are inadequate and less of a man. Men and women should respect each other in whatever relationship on the basis of equality and common decency. Clearly as a society we should deal with some of these issues in our families and institutions and not perpetuate the current ongoing lies which are being told and are responsible for some of the conflicts in families. Just as you will find a minority of people who for selfish individual gain abuse democracy and rights which came with it, you will also find a minority of women who abuse rights of women who abuse those rights for selfish reasons. This is not surprising. You also find women who abuse their partners and will also injure or kill them. Sometimes women kill their partners after years of abuse. We should therefore not use these cases to then say rights of women are a problem. Racists also accuse democracy and human rights for what they call "reverse discrimination". Domestic violence is one of the crudest form of sexism.

History also informs us that oppressors do not give up power easily, men were bound to react verbally or violently to them loosing their illegitimate power. We currently see how some of the South African racists are violently reacting to the programme to build a non racial society. They drag some of the black people behind bakkies, instruct some of their employees to participate in heinous acts like throwing other employees like Chisali (who complained about their conditions of service to the Labour Department) inside a lions den. Some racists continue to tell black people to go and get a job from Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki.

This is so with men who were wrongly brought up to believe that they are more than equal than women as so called head of families. Except biological differences between men amd women, there is no rational & scientific evidence which show that men and women are not equal. If we are to build an equal, democratic and non exploitative society, biased to the majority we need to confront all these myths which have been developed to oppress half of the world population. As love is an emotional and irrational concept where logic is generally not applied. That is why you will hear concepts (which are taken as normal and correct) like "I am madly in love" " I cannot live without you". With these kind of statements, some of the men feel that they own their partners and can do anything with them if they do not get “their way”.

I cannot accept any of the reasons being provided for men to kill their partners. Is it not said that people fall in love and out of love? If a love relationship with a person is having problems are we not supposed to seek help in our families and/or from professional councillors. If that help is not useful you finally have to part with that person. Some men, because of their obsession do not want to accept that their partners have fallen out of love with them. They then resort to violence motivated by " If I cannot have you, no one will" No one has a right to kill any person because they are angry with them. We are still a long way to dealing with long entrenched sexist and patriachal values in our society. Just as racists have to acknowledge that black people have been oppressed for centuries and that we have to address the legacy of this oppression. Until us as men accept that women have been oppressed for centuries by our male dominated societies and that we have been part of that oppression through our action or inaction, there will not be a solution. Denials of women oppression are nauseatingly common. When the history of South Africa is written, we should not be found on the side of those who kept quiet when rights of women were violated through intimidation and violence. We should be on the side of those who uphold the principles of our hard won struggle to create a non racial, non sexist, democratic, united and prosperous South Africa. This is a society for which many people paid dearly for. We cannot rubbish their legacy by our silence. We should unconditionally condemn violence against women and men by their partners. Just as there are consequences for acting out racism, there is and should be consequences for acting out sexism. Otherwise it will be an illusion to say we are building an equal and just society. Just as racists have to be educated and even punished about our constitutional value of non racialism, sexists have to be taught and even punished about the constitutional value of non sexism. There is no middle way.

Yours sincerely Hope Mankwana Papo Johannesburg Gauteng Province