Zumra Nuru, a non-literate farmer with big ideas (and a very fly hat) in Gondor, Ethiopia, is the founder of the commune, Awra Amba ("hilltop"). The commune is open to anyone of good moral character. Religion is ignored. A central tenant of life in Awra Amba is gender equity. As a youth in his village, Baba Zumra observed that "women were like servants and men were like masters." But in the commune, "men do women's work, and women do men's work."
The lesson? You don't need a formal education to profoundly transforms lives, but you do need compassion for humanity. kzs
From a gendered perspective, it takes men like Awra Amba to question the institution of patriarcy and make changes. i have always argued that the fight for gender equity does not only rest with loud mouthed gender advocates, feminists and their gangs parading in Africa but with men who can read through the uneven-lines of female-male relationships and take useful decisions.
ReplyDeleteAs a conscious woman, specifically African i hold to the believe that patriarcy is the manifestation of men's fear of women in terms of 'power'. well who is fighting men anyway.....
Peace sista Sefy,
ReplyDeleteI share your sentiments. I fact in expressed your exact same words, regarding men's fear of feminine power, in a class I took last year. The professor, Jacob Olupona, agreed and elaborated, but I can't recall his details. My take is that this power was first and foremost bio-sacred power--the birthing of children. The "fear" was not limited to this element, but I think it was the dominant one. Controlling feminine power came to be a pervasive preoccupation of men. These patriarchal proclivities were particularly strong in (but not limited to) the western world. kzs
Thanks for this post and your tenacious devotion to applying your consciousness to the exploration of anthropological truths. The origin of patriarchy is most definitely related to our emerging from an absolute state of dependency in utero to a progressive dialectic of separation individuation that persists from cradle to grave. The early imprint of our helplessness, powerlessness, lack of control, reflected in our inability to provide for basic elementary needs results in a profound and persistent resistance to remember or repression. Historical and cultural evidence resounds with the compensatory efforts to repress any recollection of this early state that has paradoxically become ego alien. This alienation results in a spiritual poverty that manifests in perversions of the image of the feminine. The objectification and dehumanizing sexualization is a critical part of the socialization of men in our adolescent rite of passage (or lack there of). The premium placed on sexual conquest as a badge of manhood is the a derivative of this. The cultural shadow archetype of the pimp is a malignant development consequence of this effort to avoid the shame and sense of inadequacy and inferiority associated with dependency on a woman. The experience is turned on its head but remains as clear as the nose on the pimps face.
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