The Sunday Mail
Our culture cannot be defined and interpreted by hooligans who spend the majority of their life time high and drunk on substances and act like they live in a jungle.
“Oh God, I beg of you. I touch your feet time and again. Next birth, don’t give me a daughter. Give me hell instead” (Folk song from Uttar Pradesh).
That the innocent young woman who suffered tribulation at Fourth Street rank – at the hand of bronco-ridden, rake and rambling touts – was thanks to her dressing is not only mischievous but neither here nor there too.
She could arguably have gone to church and attended the whole service in that pretty dress.
Who forgets the year 2006, in a month like this, when the Fichani twins walked in Harare wearing nothing but nhembe; which left their buttocks fully exposed, with only the front part being covered, albeit still partially exposed as they walked.
Nobody molested these twins. They were just arrested for indecent exposure. A crime this woman is innocent of. If she was guilty, then why didn’t she get arrested?
Many women have for long been abused by men simply because of their sex, not their gender.
I should hasten to contrast these two. Gender refers to the social and psychological differences between men and women, and these differences manifest in roles, qualities and behaviours, dressing included.
Then sex refers to the biological differences between men and women. Some of the key sex differences are women’s ability to give birth, menstruate, features like visible breasts, buttocks, heaps, you name it.
A few years back, I had to get a taxi while walking downtown with a female friend (if she read this, I hope she will testify one day).
She was wearing what others call tsiga ndikuroore, so gender aside. Her only crime, according to those who started to boo her, was her sex, her body features to be precise.
The low life touts “dismantled” her body, part by part, loudly calling each part by name, much to their excitement.
My poor friend! At school they used to call her “heapilicious”, something she didn’t like. But on that unfortunate day, I had to quickly get a taxi to whisk her out of the agitating vicinity. Only God knows what could have happened eventually, had we stayed there a few more minutes.
This sickening behaviour did not start today. I can trace it back as far as the biblical times, when the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught “in the very act” of adultery (John 8:4).
Now help me understand here; if this biblical woman was caught in the very act, then it definitely means that she was with a man. But I believe the man was quickly whisked incognito.
Only the woman was reprimanded, paraded in all shame before the jeering public, and was about to be stoned – with only Jesus coming to her rescue. Poor woman!
Let’s come back to the woman who was molested at Fourth Street rank on her way to Ruwa.
I use Fourth Street rank daily to get kombis to my home, which coincidentally happens to be Ruwa.
If you are to take a stroll at Fourth Street rank, your foot won’t be spared from kicking several empty canisters of bronco, that banned and illegal cough syrup, highly concentrated with some intoxicating substance.
The product is sold in broad daylight and the touts there overdose on it to get a quick and cheap high.
When they get high, the pastime of these touts is playing chikudo, trading vulgar loudly, betting on snooker tables, commenting on just about every woman who passes by and other monkey business.
When Joram Nyathi says: “So long as we accept to be gregarious humans, we shall be guided in our daily lives by norms, values, expectations and acceptable rules of engagement,” I completely agree.
What I will absolutely not subscribe to is the implication that these rake and rambling touts are the custodians of our values and norms, for them to illegally molest a woman who was legally dressed – and we mention norms and culture.
Would you, dear reader, have molested the young woman like that? I wouldn’t have. If you and I wouldn’t have done that, then it means that there is something wrong with those who molested her. Our culture cannot be defined and interpreted by hooligans who spend the majority of their life time high and drunk on substances and act like they live in a jungle.
If this woman was molested by some women, I would have forgiven them. But alas, it was the very men who saw the Fichani twins parading their buttocks in broad daylight and smiled and swallowed. I am sure Marvelous Kandemiri, a tout who can’t afford a lawyer, did not wake up on that unfortunate day, brushed his teeth, bid farewell to his loved ones, to go to Fourth Street rank to molest a poor woman.
He had his specific income generating endeavour that is far from this sickening act. Why didn’t he stick to that? What are touts still doing in the ranks anyway?
Last time I checked, these rent-seeking touts were being arrested from the ranks. Their presence in ranks is unwelcome.
Men, no matter who they are, must learn to respect women and stop this stinking behaviour of harassing or molesting them.
If women continue to be molested and tormented because of distinct features associated with their sex, then should we warn God to start creating featureless women, in whose image?
Women don’t choose a body they want to get from a catalogue. They have no control over the body types that God gives them. Or do they?
The folk song from Uttar Pradesh above really portrays the pain that parents who have been blessed with female children go through.
Take this innocent young lady’s parents, the pain they must be going through. Not to mention her distress.
Recognition of the rights of women is one of the principles of good governance upon which Zimbabwe is founded, according to our constitution.
Those rights should not be “mini-mised”. The constitution does not end there.
It further says that the State must take practical measures to ensure that women have access to resources.
The national budget has also proposed creating a women’s bank. That all these deliberate measures are being taken to accommodate women somehow reflects that men can easily take advantage of women and get away with it. Just like that man who was with the woman who was caught “in the very act” of adultery.
Elsewhere, there was a time when the law actually forbade women from voting.
United Nations statistics indicate that women do 67 percent of the world’s work, yet earnings for that amount to only 10 percent of the world’s income.
We must therefore not find excuses to sanitise the abuse of innocent women walking in the streets, or calling those women who are condemning such devious acts “hypocrites.”
What are we going to call men who also condemned her molestation?
