The Sins Of Our Fathers

Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity to me, the female sex, not the weaker sex. It is the nobler of the two, for it is even today the embodiment of sacrifice, silent suffering, humility, faith and knowledge.-Mohandas Gandhi.

And that is the essence of what we are actually witnessing in the ordeal of a 15 year old girl at the hands of 38 men on 20 May in Ketereh.

 

While we need laws to award punishments to reflect the gravity and irreparability of the crime, punishments in stand alone have not proven to stop rape. Neither will greater emphasis on religious studies in schools, in our homes, in our communities, of which our cups runneth over to inundation.

 

It is us, men, who have failed utterly.

 

We have failed to raise our sons to look upon women as our equals, and who often times prove that they are our better halves. You would not inflict such abuse on someone you respect.

 

We have failed to raise our sons to never, ever, under any circumstance, take what is not theirs. Doing so can never be right no matter what premise we conjure for ourselves.

 

So many ills can be traced to how we raise our sons. It is ridiculous for us to insist that our daughters say "no" when we do not raise our sons in the sensibility of self restraint nor to listen when someone's daughter says "no" to them.

 

We cannot demand adherence while we practice in divergence from what we espouse.

Therefore any law, any upbringing, any creed or view that does not pay with the ages of generations in raising sons with the right attitude towards women who remain our salvation in spite of all that we as men have made them suffer, will perpetuate this failure.

 

The only religion that will stop this and any evil, is the one written on our hearts, the only law we will not transgress is the law we learn from our fathers in how they have treated women-all women.

 

It stops when men say NO.

 

Really, it isn't them.

 

It's us.