Domestic Violence in the United States
Domestic Violence in South Africa
Countries ranked in Domestic Violence
Domestic violence ranking by country
Correction : Bonden Bar ( not Bonde Bar)
Sympathy, empathy, outrage : This sad story
Ethical relativism perspectives :
On Saturday, 7 June 2025 at 16:40:36 UTC+2 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:If we're going to take the bull by the horns,
we've got to face facts: Domestic Violence in Africa
( Perhaps a good reason why Roman Catholic priests don't
get married and raise families, as then, they too would
not be exempt from the general malady and in no time
at all could find themselves singing "The Song of Ocol"
or LL Cool J after saying the Sunday morning mass
Not that wife-beating is a national pastime in Kenya. There's said to be a certain "tribe" /ethnic group in Sierra Leone ( not to cause offence I won't name them ) but it's reported that their woman believe that you don't love them if you don't beat them regularly. Ditto ,the last time that I was at Bonde Bar ( reggae music) a Swedish somebody came over to whisper some sweet nothings in my ear. So where's your boyfriend, I asked her. O I left him in Gothenburg , she replied, and I don't love him any more, she added, he beats me all the time. All the time indeed. Sweet love and affection.
Reminds me of this story about purported national characteristics back then, when Hashem offered the Torah to other nations but for one reason or the other they would not accept it.
Succinctly narrated here:
Anyway, today,
Domestic Violence is a worldwide problem
Nothing new under the sun :
Consider this juicy piece of gossip,
self-confessed by Nobel Literature Laureate Bertrand Russell:
"I went out bicycling one afternoon, and suddenly, as I was riding along a country road, I realised that I no longer loved Alys. I had had no idea until this moment that my love for her was even lessening. The problem presented by this discovery was very grave. We had lived ever since our marriage in the closest possible intimacy. We always shared a bed, and neither of us ever had a separate dressing-room. We talked over together everything that ever happened to us… I knew that she was still devoted to me. I had no wish to be unkind, but I believed in those days…that in intimate relations one should speak the truth."
The serial monogamist Bertrand Russell was married four times…
I wonder what he thought of polygamy…
Reality :
So there could be the problem of sibling rivalry,
jealousies, unedited sob stories
and other complications arising
from wife number one
Sara and Hagar
Ishmael and Yitzhak
even Rabbi Ovadia chirping
that Hashem, "regretted"
having made Ishmael &
his descendants
Once again we find ourselves standing
on dangerous, shadowy territory
willingly or unwillingly
disposed to committing
some painful, unholy,
Wa Thiong'o: Did he? Didn't he?
Shit happens.
Personally, I understand that in some heated, domestic situation,
al-cohol combined with an excess of self-righteous emotion
or indignation, could be be an almost lethal combination
leading to domestic violence
The problem is not merely or peculiarly only African,
in Russia it may be enhanced by Vodka
it's more or less a universal situation
the fundamental bitchin' that goes on in every kitchen
As the bard sang,
"You got men who can't hold their peace and women who can't control their tongues
The rich seduce the poor and the old are seduced by the young."
In some places it's even worse than that :
"Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools
You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules"
It should be futile to speculate
that rumours about
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o being linked to Domestic Violence
cost him the Nobel Prize in Literature
several years running
There's no smoke without fire, true, but we shouldn't rush to conclusions on the basis of suspicion only. Not even if we are - without evidence, prepared to believe the very best or the very worst about somebody who, in terms of human nature, apart from the Jesus or the Shylock of our imagination, is not very different from you and me. After all, so far, the "unsubstantiated claims" have been made outside of a court of law with its own more rigid rules as to what can be legally admissible as reliable/ credible / verifiable evidence and truthful testimony, on oath, the outcome of rigorous cross examination
In the political context of the as yet never-ending Luo-Kikuyu rivalry, if the rumours of wife-beating were unsubstantiated, the cloud of suspicion that was being promoted by the media must have already, sufficiently tarnished his reputation, perhaps according to the Law of Jante, " welcome to the club" as a man, husband, father but would not have necessarily tarnished his reputation as a writer, an ideologue and a decoloniser of the African mind.
On Wednesday, 4 June 2025 at 14:07:07 UTC+2 Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:Ngugi's Son's Accusation of His Father and the Burden of TruthThe great writer Ngugi's son publicly accused his father of being physically violent against his mother and people have taken him on his word.Why?Must it be factual because the man was his father?What do we know about his relationship with his father and about the tensions of their family?Why should a person be condemned just beceause a child or a spouse accuses the person?Are those family members not fallible humans too?Accusations of physical violence, often directed against men, draw outrage, and rightly so, although it should also necessitate the need to investigate the accusation, and if not investigated, to be treated with caution.I also hope verbal and attitudinal violence, which women are more likely to engage in, is more subtle but perhaps equally destructive depending on context, would also inspire the same outrage, while people are encouraged not to tolerate it bcs it can become normalized in relationships, and also needs to be investigated when reported or if not investigated, managed with caution.Rape claims can be false.Domestic abuse claims can be false.My argument is that the fact that Ngugi's son claimed his father was violent does not make the claim factual.The Western legal approach to accusations is ideally "innocent until proven guilty".But when it comes to accusations against men in sexual or domestic situations it has become "guilty until proven innocent".That is a misandrist mindset, which needs to be dismantled in sensitivity to the fact the need to seek the facts and context in such situations.Secondly, bad as domestic violence is, its not the same as rape.We need to know-what are the facts?Was Ngugi actually physically violent against his wife?Then, if it can be proven he was, we also need to understand the context.What were the dynamics of his relationship with his wife?Women and men can be verbally and/ or attitudinally abusive, contributing to abusive behaviour from the other party.I consider it overstretching the case by conflating a claim of physical violence with one of rape, as a respondent to my argument did.Its also unrealistic to refuse to examine the context even in verified claims of domestic physical violence by claiming that bcs its wrong the context is irrelevant.Both partners can be abusive to each other. All forms of violence and abuse should be condemned.Bottom line- we don't know whether or not Ngugi's son is saying the truth and its unjust to take him on his word.We also need to understand the dynamics of their familyIn the absence of such info what we owe the son is respectful attention not the current rush to anoint him as the truth speaker for his family.
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