At War With Ourselves

South Africa appears to be at war with itself. To rape and murder a woman or a child, to attack, rob and chase away one’s neighbour is to kill something in ourselves.

We talk of ‘Toxic masculinity’ – of a way of being a man that is poisonous, corrosive and fatal to anyone who threatens a perverse notion of ‘manhood’. This toxic masculinity is not only personal. It is global.

We see individual men rape, impregnate, infect, terrorise and kill babies, children and women – and men who do not conform.

We see governments enact legislation and policy to control the bodies of girls and women – including forcing children to give birth and die in the process.

We see a tiny elite, of almost exclusively powerful men with massive egos, looting the planet, excluding the vast majority from the economy, silencing dissent.

We see the World Economic Forum meeting oblivious to the links between the toxic masculinity that destroys the life of a student and robs all who loved her, and the toxic masculinity that maintains a world order in which billionaires binge while billions fight over the crumbs they leave.

We must stand in solidarity to challenge all expressions of this toxicity – be it the rape of one woman, an attack on one foreigner, or the ravaging of our habitat.