There is a saying in South Africa when you hit a woman you strike a rock.
Credo Mutwa, High Sanusi said it to me this way, when you strike a woman you strike your mother. "When the men entered the mines they were forever changed, it was like raping their own mother." It went against their traditional beliefs and culture.
Himself a miner in days gone by, Credo was speaking with much pain about the deep suffering of men who went into the mines to drill, and excavate the land for minerals. The land that had been taken from them, the land that was sacred to all indigenous peoples, the land that nourishes and nurtures. It was now the same white men who stole their land that oversaw the Africans as they penetrated deep into the mother, not to sew their seeds of new life, but to rip apart the very source of connection that had fed them, their home and their patriachial heritage, it felt, like we were raping our mothers.
Here in the USA during slavery, men had to watch as their women were sold and or raped, and could not do anything about it. Now the continuing removal of black men from their families, through the injustice system, where there is little or no rehabilitation or reconciliation work, does nothing but continues to foster a culture that continues to turn in on ourselves
I sit with a heaviness that asked me to look at the correlation of all this. That with this continuing violence and abuse of women and young girls, the remnants of the desmasculation of men during apartheid and slavery in the USA, is a continuing rape of the mother, in the most violating way and until the healing is done with and for the men, and for those who continue to pull the veil over the roots of this, how and when will the violation stop?
In South Africa rape is being called a silent war on women and children with many thousands of rapes going unreported and unpunished, but the fact is, during a parliamentary debate it was reported that there has been a 400% increase in the sexual violence against children over the past decade. A child is raped in South Africa every three minutes!
Apartheid and slavery have sewn seeds not only for the breakdown of the family, but the breakdown of a value system that is deeper than any monetary system in existence or ever will be. Value of self, value of another, value of women. It is a rupture of the deep self that has left a gaping hole, unable to be filled in my lifetime with promises of raising a new land of infinite possibilities.
A new South Africa has an epidemic and its not only HIV, it is a turning in on ourselves and each other. A dis-ease of the gravest kind and it is called rape of the woman, when you rape a woman you are raping your mother and grandmother. It is an epidemic that is spreading far and wide and it is a killer.
Apartheid I am told is over. It is not over until those who are the gatekeepers of this tragically beautiful land, realize that with the continuing violation of women, a New South Africa cannot strengthen its foundation, cannot nurture and nourish each other and cannot give birth to healing reconciliation. Whilst punishment is dealt out there needs also be a restorative justice offering that looks into the deeper roots of the this raging dis-ease that provides an opportunity for healing both victim and perpetrator, teachings that would would hold those accountable by honoring the sacredness of women. Not only does it require the men to teach their brothers but it is the women that must also teach the men, this is a family affair.
This turning in on ourselves and each other, is a fire borne out of years of a silenced internal war where in the new South Africa the main target are women and children. It is not new, it is a conditioning deep in any collective dominance, wether it be male,white or black-conquer no matter what. It was once sung our only sin is that we are black, in that men and women were united, now it is, our only sin is that we are women. Rape is not an option for oppression, nor is it a violent entitlement in response to South Africa's violent past, it is a gross violation of the sacred Divine Feminine.
