Outside Parliament in Cape Town, 6th Sept, 2019, protesting the soaring gender-based violence, and violence against children in South Africa.
This article written by Mbali Marias in 2009 and offers a deeper look into the core wound within women and men from Colonialism and Apartheid and the urgency for healing.
Mbali is a teacher at Dharmagiri and will be co-leading a retreat there in June 2020. Details here.
In South Africa rape is being called a silent war on women and children with many thousands of rapes going unreported and unpunished, but the fact is, during a parliamentary debate it was reported that there has been a 400% increase in the sexual violence against women children over the past decade. A child is raped in South Africa every three minutes!
This turning in on ourselves and each other, is a fire borne out of years of a silenced internal war where in the new South Africa the main target are women and children. It is not new, it is a conditioning deep in any collective dominance, whether it be male, white, or black, — rape pillage and conquer no matter what. It was once sung our only sin is that we are black, in that song, men and women of South Africa were united, now it is, “our only sin is that we are women.” Rape is not an option for oppression, nor is it a violent entitlement in response to South Africa’s violent past, it is a gross violation of the sacred and the divine.
There is a saying in South Africa when you hit a woman you strike a rock.
Credo Mutwa, High Sanusi said it to me this way, “When you strike a woman you strike your mother. When the men entered the mines they were forever changed, it was like raping their own mother.” It went against their traditional beliefs and culture.
Himself, a miner in days gone by, Credo was speaking with much pain about the deep suffering of men (and the reverberations of raping the earth,) who went into the mines to drill, and excavate the land for minerals. The land that had been taken from them, the land that was sacred to all indigenous peoples, the land that nourishes and nurtures. It was now the same white men who stole their land that oversaw the Africans as they penetrated deep into the mother, not to sew their seeds of new life, but to rip apart the very source of connection that had fed them, their home and their heritage, “it felt, like we were raping our mothers,” he said……..
In the USA during slavery, men had to watch as their women were sold and or raped. Now the continuing removal of black men from their families, through the injustice system, where there is little or no rehabilitation or reconciliation work, does nothing but continues to foster a culture that continues to turn in on ourselves. I am saying go to the root.
I am asked to look at the correlation of all this. That with this continuing violence and abuse of women and young girls, the remnants of the demasculation of men during apartheid and slavery in the USA, is a continuing rape of the mother in the most violating way. Until the healing is done, including for those who continue to pull the veil over the roots of this, how and when will the violation stop?
Apartheid and slavery have sewn seeds not only for the breakdown of the family, but the breakdown of a value system that is deeper than any monetary system in existence or ever will be. Value of self, value of another, value of women. It is a rupture of the deep self that has left a gaping hole, unable to be filled in my lifetime with promises of raising a new land of infinite possibilities.
A new South Africa has an epidemic and it’s not only HIV, it is a turning in on ourselves and each other. A dis-ease of the gravest kind and it is called rape of the woman. When you rape a woman you are raping your mother and grandmother. It is an epidemic that is spreading far and wide and it is a killer. How then do we love our earth?
Apartheid, I am told, is over. It is not over until those who are the gatekeepers of this tragically beautiful land, realise that with the continuing violation of women, a New South Africa cannot strengthen its foundation, cannot fertilise the soil of this stunning country, cannot nurture and nourish each other and cannot give birth to a healing reconciliation. Whilst punishment is dealt out there needs also be a restorative justice offering that looks into the deeper roots of this raging dis-ease that provides an opportunity for healing both victim and perpetrator, teachings that would hold those accountable by honouring the sacredness of women. It will only work when men teach their brothers and hold them accountable as well as women and mothers teaching the men. This is a family and ancestral affair and requires deep root healing.
Mbali is a medicine woman and diviner, and has been a healing arts practioner for the last 30 years. Her work is rooted in the Dagara tradition from West Africa, which like the Bushmen she also works with, sees the seamless connection to the natural world. She is founder of Return To Origin an NPO in Cape Town that reconnects underserved youth to Nature. Born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa she was raised and educated in London. During her 16 years living in the USA she has lead transformative retreats and devised traditional medicine programs for mainstream medical models.
Mbali is a trained HIV and AIDs Counselor, and has worked with the homeless in Oakland, she has also participated in relationship work with the men at San Quentin Prison, California. Her teachers and guides include the late Dr Angeles Arrien, Michael Meade, Malidoma Some and Baba Credo Mutwa. Mbali served on the diversity committe at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and has taught mindfulness in California schools. She is completing her training in family constellations with a focus on Land and Nature.
Mbali with her son Sips and Baba Mandaza – Dharmagiri, July 2019
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