No Day For The Men

I WANT men and boys to open their eyes because we are being conspired against.

There is not even a day specifically designed for us. Something which is done normally by most small mammals, from baboons to lion cubs, small donkeys, puppies, even chimpanzees with almost identical genetic structure to ours, is called rape if small human beings do it! How can you say that a boy, playing ‘house’ with a girl, thus pretending to be a father, is a rapist? He is acting out of normal curiosity.We can’t regard this as rape – it’s tantamount to a boy taking a toy gun and pretending to shoot another.Second point is that men who are illiterate or ignorant of our Constitution and who don’t know about statutory rape, are found guilty of it.If a man grew up in a deep rural area and didn’t get formal education, his perception of a woman is different to the literate one who has been indoctrinated with the laws of the Republic.For him, naturally, customarily, traditionally and culturally, a girl is regarded as a woman when she experiences her first period at average age of about 15, and are then eligible to get married and bear children.In this kind of innocent man’s language there is no such thing as statutory rape.We preach the country’s rules in English (strange to someone who is illiterate) and only interpret the laws in a courtroom to an ‘innocent’ in his mother tongue before pronouncing his prison term! Some of the charges should be declared as ‘culture’ or ‘course of nature’ and be annulled.Tell me: should we convict an ancient-minded Himba or San man for this kind of ‘offence’ instead of conserving and respecting their ancestral heritage? Some of these laws should be amended.They may have been shipped from Amsterdam or Berlin by colonial masters only to be reproduced by generations of our leaders.Consequently, this is colonisation that is being foisted upon us.Robert Marlon Tjanika Otjiwarongo Note: Your calling rape a ‘cultural’ or ‘traditional’ act will be unacceptable to a vast majority of people.It is widely accepted that minors must be protected from sexual abuse, and that a woman’s consent is required for purposes of the sexual act.Ways must therefore be found to educate all Namibians to this end, rather than simply defending what you term cultural or traditional practices which may violate the rights of others – EdSomething which is done normally by most small mammals, from baboons to lion cubs, small donkeys, puppies, even chimpanzees with almost identical genetic structure to ours, is called rape if small human beings do it! How can you say that a boy, playing ‘house’ with a girl, thus pretending to be a father, is a rapist? He is acting out of normal curiosity.We can’t regard this as rape – it’s tantamount to a boy taking a toy gun and pretending to shoot another.Second point is that men who are illiterate or ignorant of our Constitution and who don’t know about statutory rape, are found guilty of it.If a man grew up in a deep rural area and didn’t get formal education, his perception of a woman is different to the literate one who has been indoctrinated with the laws of the Republic.For him, naturally, customarily, traditionally and culturally, a girl is regarded as a woman when she experiences her first period at average age of about 15, and are then eligible to get married and bear children.In this kind of innocent man’s language there is no such thing as statutory rape.We preach the country’s rules in English (strange to someone who is illiterate) and only interpret the laws in a courtroom to an ‘innocent’ in his mother tongue before pronouncing his prison term! Some of the charges should be declared as ‘culture’ or ‘course of nature’ and be annulled.Tell me: should we convict an ancient-minded Himba or San man for this kind of ‘offence’ instead of conserving and respecting their ancestral heritage? Some of these laws should be amended.They may have been shipped from Amsterdam or Berlin by colonial masters only to be reproduced by generations of our leaders.Consequently, this is colonisation that is being foisted upon us.Robert Marlon Tjanika Otjiwarongo Note: Your calling rape a ‘cultural’ or ‘traditional’ act will be unacceptable to a vast majority of people.It is widely accepted that minors must be protected from sexual abuse, and that a woman’s consent is required for purposes of the sexual act.Ways must therefore be found to educate all Namibians to this end, rather than simply defending what you term cultural or traditional practices which may violate the rights of others – Ed