Dear Editor,

The recent incident of a man seen in a video brutalising a female nurse is another demonstration of the ill-bred, barbaric, uncultured nature of a critical mass of our menfolk, representative of all social strata in our country. Then there was the suspected abduction of yet another female student, now presumed murdered.

We have been here before, and like then, the national outrage is resounding, but only for a while. We will return to business as usual in a few days, when children are likely to be abducted and raped, senior citizens robbed and murdered, and adult women beaten and degraded in the streets. Regrettably, the conscience of the nation remains unscarred.

I put it to you that among the factors driving this entrenched tendency to abuse females in our country are emotional weakness, low self-esteem, and inferiority complex among our menfolk. Females are steadily progressing in areas of advanced education, economic independence, and proficiency in usually male-dominated spheres, and coupled with their oftentimes superior emotional intelligence, females are on the move in pursuit of their dreams. Our menfolk, in the meantime, have chosen fear over partnership, directed by their egos.

These demented men who derive strength from degrading females are oftentimes validated by financial and material proprietorship — regardless of how they are attained. They have determined that their material possessions have ordained them to be superior, equipping them with a foul sense of indispensability. Sadly, they are often propped up by women who endure abuse in exchange for glamour and hype. They regularly find solace in the defence offered by other women, whether in the Church, the legislature, the boardrooms of corporate reach, or the wider civil society.

Women cannot continue to remain silent or offer tacit support to abusers if we are to crush the tendency to mistreat and trample on the rights of females. We remember the solidarity offered by the female principal of an all-girls high school when a clergyman was implicated in a rape charge. We also remember the public beating of a female, with a stool, allegedly by a member of our legislature. And it does not stop there, for our political organisations have this proclivity to boast about the number of females being offered for legislative representation and yet we have not witnessed commensurate improvements in the state of women’s affairs. Instead, women are used as props to satisfy male egos, their body rudely glorified or denigrated.

While the most recent cases of abuse will quickly fade from our consciousness without a lingering scar, the perpetrators are likely to face minimal consequences. Like so many others, the nurse will probably endure permanent psychological dislocation, and other grieving families will carry the emotional burden, with little compassion from a numbed society.

The current reality is disheartening and, unfortunately, on each occasion that we are reminded of our characteristic tendency to be vile and barbaric, there are two constants: We politicise the issues and we claim that this is not like us. This is not a political issue though. The behaviour of the man who stepped on the nurse while she laid on the ground has nothing to do with his political affiliation or which prominent people he is associated. It has everything to do with a society in which morals have been progressively eroded and critical institutions, such as the family, the Church, political governance and other symbols of order and structure, are struggling for relevance.

Our society has been in a race to moral debauchery for a long time, and we are now at the bottom of the pit. Many will try to bury their heads in the sand, speaking nonsense that this is a new low for our country. No, it’s not, it is an entrenched characteristic of our people to abuse the weak and vulnerable, and those with reach and influence are shameless in their tacit support.

The best educated and enlightened in our society are oftentimes the supreme culprits in creating and nurturing the decadence which characterises our country. They are key players in the tribal nature of our politics, advancing partisanship instead of thoughtfulness, even-handedness, and progressive solutions.

The fact of the matter is that we have no conscience, we are unadulterated hypocrites, and our minds are guided by self-centredness. Nothing is changing significantly for the better. We are more educated, but we lack intelligence.

Painfully, as has been acknowledged, we have been here before, and the fleeting outrage will dissipate quickly, but lest we forget, the treatment of women is reflective of the standing of the society. Ours is one lacking in nobility and a rude awakening is certain.

Mark A Hylton

St James

markahylton@hotmail.com