‘oh well Purple Jupiter you were wrong, it is
not every 17seconds that a girl gets raped, it is every 17 seconds that a man
gets an erection’ spat Kaelow aka No Life at the last Open Mic I attended.
I
literally zoned out, almost choking, my eyes tearing, hands over my mouth, the
minute this poet uttered these words blocking my mind from any more of his
destructive words reach. While others stood in reverence at the words that wantonly
escaped from his lips as he rhymed through what I suppose was meant to save the
world as it was rehearsed for over a month in preparation for the Open Mic. Still failing to make sense of his words and still
rather surprised at the women who were in favour of his supposed good rhymes, I
honoured my womanhood by refusing to clap for him as he delivered his last word
in pride, that was the only action I could take at that time in that setting.
For
a poet to write a piece on rape, a lot need to have happened, the poet must
either have put herself in the shoes of the victim, felt the agony and ran with
it, leaving a big chunk of her soul in the gutter, or the poet must sadly have
come face to face with this tragedy and that is 99% the case. So for this man
to stand at the alter and to profess such deleterious words on womanhood, even
if it is to educate, it is plain sick, derogatory and damn right disrespectful
and I was not willing, nor am I ever alacritous, to betray my womenfolk’s by rejoicing for
words that did not make me any better as a woman.
It’s
been just over a month since Annene Booysens’s untimely death, having borne prey
to the most inhumane, throat choking attack. After having been gang raped, mutilated
and left for the dead at the construction site in Bredasdorp in the Western
Cape, Annene was found still alive by a security guard in the morning on the 2nd
of February but died later in the day. She died from her injuries in hospital
six hours later but to all our relief she managed to identify one of her
attackers who was apparently someone that she knew very well. How sad it is
that the monsters of our dreams are always in the arms we deem safe.
While
Annene’s family still wore their pain across their foreheads, mentioning her
name over cups of loneliness, stuck on avenues of nostalgia, her mother still
calling hoping she might respond and while the death of this 17 year old set the
nation’s rage on fire, awakening the ghosts in the corridors for others, some
men still find it attractive and apt to say such words, some men still speak
lightly of rape.
While
the mentalities of men, men we have conversations with still stun me I was also
greatly astounded about the LGBTI response to this tragedy. It wasn’t too soon before this premeditated
act of massacre or ‘so called accident’ that led to a death of a child was a
point of discussion on all social network forums that I still today am trying
to comprehend. While the nation mourned the loss of a child, the LGBTI made
this matter a sexuality matter, totally obtuse and unwitting to the reality
that stood before us.
Others
asking why rape cases are not given the same attention, while I understood
their fury with the law, I failed to understand how this butchery was not significant
enough to forget their justified rage with the government and to mourn a life
that was lost. We have lost many soldiers if LGBTI be an army, cases never
making it to court while the ones that actually made it to the ruling are given
2 years punishment while a rhino poacher would be faced with ‘life’
imprisonment. From this point, one can already see who sits on top of the food
chain in the law faculty, it is evident that the life of a homosexual costs
less than that of a rhino and weighs less than Donkey ribs in our favourite
restaurants and while we pray unceasingly for God’s intervention one day, that
day when he chooses to listen to our prayers, we cannot close our eyes to other
realities just because we are more wounded and obviously more pained than
others.
We
cannot be so habituated to such torments that we are unable to show compassion
for anyone outside our sexual premises. While we pledge to always and
unceasingly pay homage to their lives that were cut short by the lot’s
miseducation and the need to control who we keep wrapped beneath our skin in
the dark, not because they were more our friends than they were our sisters and
not because they were more lovers than they were family, but because life is
worthy of celebration irrespective of any sexual inclination.
While
no one had declared Anene’s sexuality as it was never on the discussion table
and therefore irrelevant, we can safely say that the nation’s roar had nothing
to do with who stole Anene’s cherry under her sheets, if at all. The nation’s
wailing was ordained it was and it was relevant. We cannot now be in rage
because no one blew the whistle loud enough when we are being condemned and
unjustly crucified but we can hope than when it happens again, we will be
considered worthy of the nation’s cry, not on any other level but the fact that
we are human before we are anything else and for the recognition that we are
sisters and brothers and even mothers and sometimes fathers before we are
homosexual whores as we are otherwise deemed. Until then, we will continue to
lock our doors, slamming them shut at our cunning uncle’s faces, tell on our
brothers who look at us as souls that need to be fixed and re-evaluate the so-
called “family friends” and playing as farther from them as we possibly can
while we patiently wait for that day when the need equality will matter only on
land re-distribution.
©GayKindaLove
2013-03-13