Taking moral high ground

THE one thing which makes me suspicious of protest is that it always seems to expect redress to come from those who caused the problem to start with.

As a result it seems to suggest that the protester is inferior to the person against whom it is directed, since the protester has to receive a satisfactory response from the culprit for the problem to be solved.

However, after the “Remember Kwezi Four” Naledi Chirwa, Simamkele Dlakavu, Amanda Mavuso and Lebogang Shikwambane stood up in front of Jacob Zuma as he addressed the nation at the IEC operations centre, my view of protest changed forever.

Those young women, during Women’s Month, at the end of what was a historic local government election, got South Africa’s and the world’s full attention.

In their silent, non-violent, well-timed and well-executed protest, there was no hint of inferiority.

Instead they took the moral high ground and their voice was loud and clear.

In one fell swoop, they refocused our attention to the plight of women throughout South Africa and the world.

In one move they reignited the blazing torch which lit up the recesses of our collective memory to expose the depths of our president’s lack of wisdom and moral authority.

In a moment, they reaffirmed the space of protest within a democracy.

With their beautifully creative protest, they crossed every divide and delivered the message loud and clear to ears both closed and open.

The scourge of rape and violence against women is much more than that.

It is indicative of a society which leaves its own behind.

It is a symptom of a glaring lack of knowledge, understanding and appreciation of who we are and what we are capable of as a society.

It is an indictment of a society which is happy to plod along whilst a huge section is left behind with antiquated ideas of gender, race, religion and all other ideas whose time came and is now long gone.

Our ability to accept differing social positions is a remnant of a time when we truly believed that people are not equal, and that this is set in stone and will never change.

In accepting these differing social identities we continue to inspire some of us to think it is legitimately within our rights to inflict pain and dehumanise with impunity.

It is these ideas which allowed a senior leader of a ruling party to say the reason he slept with a young daughter of a friend was because she was wearing a kanga and therefore was asking for it. In this day and age this should never be. But because we are happy to share space with people who we are happy to leave behind, albeit with artificial invisible walls separating us, we accept that “they” do such things even though “we” do not. We seem completely sold to the lie that “we are not our brother’s keeper”.

But the terrible scourge of rape and violence against women keeps showing us off, mirroring a skewed society we have allowed to flourish.

The question asked by these young women, is this, are we willing to turn a blind eye and continue to feed a growing monster of a society which devours and destroys its own? Are we willing to allow those who are less protected to continue being dominated, humiliated and violated by those with more power simply because “they” are exposed and “we” are not? What exactly is civilised about our society, certain sections?

However, if young women like the “Remember Kwezi Four” are among us, there is hope.

Our future may yet be bright. It is a good thing the ANCWL madams of antiquity who condemned the actions of these brave young women will soon hardly matter.