Features
Punishment for the rapist
IN the animal kingdom, there is nothing like rape, defilement or sexual assault. Every aspect of life is excessively democratised and so liberalised that licentious behaviour bordering on sexual aggressions is regarded as part of normal living. A nanny-goat for instance which is always sexually harassed by a bearded and moustache he-goat has no way of seeking redress. Who would listen to it?
In human society, this is not so. The human being is a social animal guided by rules, norms, conventions, morals and folk ways. As such, the human male who goes about bleating, stamping and sniffing around females like a stubborn he-goat does, is well-nigh insane. He is only fit for an animal farm.
Because human society is sane and well organised, wayward behaviour like rape, which is accepted and even commended in animal society, is regarded as a grievous offence. Defilement cannot be tolerated and a lawless society is generally detested and frowned upon.
I even hear that in a certain remote village in Sikaman, it is an offence for a man to deliberately touch the buttocks of a girl or woman. A fine of one sheep and a bottle of schnapps is the punishment for such offence. This decree is quite revolutionary!
GRATIFICATION
It is so very unfortunate that the female species of all living organisms are vulnerable to assault by their male counterparts who are perpetually seeking gratification of their sexual urges.
Females, normally referred to as the weaker sex, have had to contend with aggressive male behaviour to the very extent that at workplaces, girls and married women are targets of sexually-motivated aggression.
The worse form of aggression on women is rape, and in Sikaman today, rape is one of the leading crimes being tried at the courts and public tribunals.
Not too far back, an 80-year-old man in northern Sikaman was reportedly jailed for rape. At eighty and still raping is an incredible achievement, but on the contrary very infamous.
The media also reported on a man, married with three wives who was incarcerated for raping a girl who came to his veranda to escape the rain falling at the time.
The GNA recently reported that on January 21, three fishermen at Keta allegedly lured a 13-year-old girl into a room and “forcefully seduced her.” The case is being tried by the Volta Regional Tribunal, and one of the accused, Amenehu alias ‘Alhaji’ of Angola is at large.
The latest and perhaps the most serious is a rape case being tried by the Greater Accra Regional Tribunal. A married T.V mechanic is alleged to have raped a 3 and a half-year-old girl? The girl demonstrated to the tribunal how she was seduced.
It is not understandable why married men are mostly found in the rape business. Obviously, they were not sexually starved. They are just being wicked.
CONVICTED RAPISTS
Rape in certain societies is regarded so seriously that capital punishment is prescribed for convicted rapists. In Saudi Arabia where strict Islamic laws prevail, a convicted rapist will surely forfeit his head after the Friday prayer session.
In Iran, it would be a neck-tie death day party organised in honour of the rapist. He’ll dangle by the neck at the gallows. In China, a single shot through the back of the head is all a rapist needs to become a good fellow.
After this sort of punishment, he can never dream of raping the most provocative Madonna unless he reincarnates. Dead men don’t rape!
A news report coming from China told the story of relatives and neighbours of a rape victim who took the law into their own hands and forcibly caught and castrated the rapist and displayed his testicles in a jar. I should think that this kind of punishment is more severe than facing the firing squad.
Aside any moral considerations, however, this type of punishment look quite effective. A castrated rapist is no danger at all to organised society. Fact is that he can bark but he can’t bite. Even a strip-tease dancer can no longer arouse him. And sooner or later he will grow so fat and oily that he’d become more famous as a super-heavyweight than as a dreaded rapist.
In a certain US community, the incidence of rape in 1987 was getting so high that a debate was organised and a vote was taken in whether or not castration of rapists should be a suitable punishment.
Naturally, most of the females voted for castration, arguing that a rapist without BALLS fits so well into society. He becomes a round jolly fellow who poses no danger at all. A thousand women can sleep peacefully beside him and not risk the slightest show of aggression.
TOOTHLESS BULLDOGS
The women further referred to the Holy Bible where they claim it is written that eunuchs (castrated men) had special duties including taking charge of women. And in certain kingdoms, eunuchs are assigned to bathe the queen because they are so harmless, just like toothless bulldogs. They also referred to castrated goats as very sober and inferred from this fact that a castrated rapist would be even more sober.
On the contrary, almost all the men voted against castration. They argued that women are responsible for sexually aggressive behaviour put up by men. They contend that the lewd suggestiveness of the dressing of women and girls and the provocative way they carry themselves about induce the call for rape.
They also argued on ethical grounds that a man who is deprived of his most cherished asset-his sexual power is not proper, especially when women induce him to misbehave.
In Sikaman, one can put up such arguments that some of our ladies, disregard the decency of our culture and dress to make themselves voluptuous and attract the eye of harmless observers and rapists alike.
In any case, however, the punishment meted out to rapists, I dare say, is not deterrent enough, considering the extent of harm they cause to their victims. Some rape victims are emotionally wrecked all through their lives. Some cannot bear the disgrace if being called a rape victim.
Others even attempt to commit suicide, and some still can never get married because they become forever scared of men. They also become sexually frigid, and why should the rapist be jailed for only a few years for wrecking the life of a fellow being. I am against castration, though.
This article was first published
on Saturday, November 10, 1990.
MerariAlomele’s
Merari Alomele’s
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In Sikaman, one can put up such arguments that some ladies, disregard the decency of our culture and dress to make themselves voluptuous and attract the eye of harmless observers and rapists alike.
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Your Weekend Companion
www.spectator.com.gh
THE journalist is a hunter. He goes after human rats and grasscutters personified, matters about whom he can salt and spice and present as news. The fatter and juicier the catch, the better, because sensation is essentially our cup of tea.
Our job is to sell news and sell it in grand style.
Because the journalist is a hunter and is created with a special kind of nose for sniffing out news, he is usually not welcome in many places. He is seen as someone who has been born to make people uncomfortable.
The problem is that some people don’t want things written about them even if it is promotional and favourable. When it entails publishing their pictures alongside the story, they are doubly scared.
“Please, don’t use my picture. People will think I’ve got money and come for loan,” someone told me.
Anyhow, journalists are seen as intruders, undesirables, born with plenty of okro in the mouth; maybe some also in the nose. Some of my friends are no longer too close because they fear I’d give them full coverage in the Sikaman Palava column. Ha ha ha! What a funny world!
Well, people like my Uncle, Sir Kofi Jogolo, my former classmate and born-mathematician, Kwame Korkorti, and ex-football star cum human-salamander Kofi Kokotako don’t mind featuring in the hilarious inches of this column. Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty is one personality who has to be mentioned in this palaver.
These are people who are going to live long, primarily because they see the world as one big ball of fun. When Kwame Korkorti was told that his dear mother was dead at home, he smiled and asked the bearer of the message whether his mother had cooked the afternoon meal before claiming she was dead. Until her death, Korkorti ate his lunch at his mother’s end.
When my Uncle Kofi Jogolo was picked and lost 1,500 dollars and a good amount of Sikaman currency, he didn’t lament the loss. Instead he was amused. In fact, he was almost glad about it, because he grinned from ear to ear, stroked his delicate moustache and congratulated the thief, adding that “He is smarter than I am.” Yeah, Jogolo is the man who employs a Swedish barber to trim his moustache.
And when Kofi Kokotako was unemployed and was nearly hit by an articulated truck, he called the driver a fool. “The idiot should have killed me,” he said to me. “Didn’t he know I was unemployed and suffering?”
Today, Kokotako is employed as a Reverend and is not doing badly at all. Thanks to the regular silver collection.
And what about Kofi Owuo, the celebrated poor man. His wife left him not because he was poor, but because he swore in front of her that he would never prosper.
The following dawn the wife packed bag and baggage and went back to her parents and told them all about her husband’s alliance with poverty. Her parents were bewildered and called the alliance unholy. They had no option than to send back Owuo’s drinks to end the marriage.
Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty did not contest the issue. He was more engrossed thinking about how to become poorer than to contest what he called a frivolous matter. The wife could go to hell, he said. These are people longevity smiles upon. Nothing worries them.
Getting back to talking about journalists. I’d say that anywhere there is journalism, the issue of press freedom is not too far away. Is the press free? That’s one question foreigners want answer to when they are on visit.
Well, journalists celebrate a yearly WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY to drum home the idea of press freedom as a very important thing in the practice of journalism.
This year’s was celebrated almost a fortnight ago but people didn’t see much of us because we are normally not good celebrants. We should have mounted a float to roam the entire capital, dancing asaboni to brass band music just like PTC did recently.
Although journalists are known to be very good dancers because they walk very much, on that day, they were all busy writing. It was the Minister of Information, Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi who saved the day by addressing a forum organised to mark the day.
He is a man I’ve always admired since his radical university days. He spoke much on press freedom, cautioning the press not to abuse the freedom granted by the Fourth Republican constitution, but to use it for the progress of society.
Well, press freedom has been defined by many journalists as the freedom to ‘write nonsense’. This definition is not quite accurate. I asked one staff reporter to define press freedom. It took him fifteen minutes to put up something.
“Press freedom is the freedom that is enjoyed by the press that enables journalists to publish or broadcast any kind of material so long as it is absolutely true, is not libelous and slanderous, and is not against the national interest.”
I gave him eight out of 10, a straight A. I guess every journalist is old enough to know that certain things he or she writes is for or against the national interest. We certainly must guard against writing against the national interest; that is very important.
There is also the question of criticising government. The government can be criticized, so long as the criticisms are genuine and the President and his ministers are not insulted and called names. Let us criticize, but let us do it decently so that the journalistic profession can be revered, and its nobility acknowledged. We are not war mongers, are we?
One area in which journalists are not spoken well of is the complaint that they misquote people. Journalists sometimes misquote people, but in four out of five complaints it turns out that nobody is misquoted after all.
When we interview people they say things unreservedly and we publish unreservedly. When the publication is out and their friends or superiors read it and accuse them of having said too much to the press, then they start claiming they were misquoted.
We have encountered these ‘misquotation palaver’ every now and then and reporters are usually accused of this transgression. However, when they bring out their note-books or recorders, it is realised that they wrote nothing out of the way. “Book no lie”.
My advice to people who deal with the press is that if they do not want anything written, they shouldn’t say it. What they want to say is OFF-RECORD, then of course, there is no reason to say it. When you say it, you’re taking a risk. In that instance, you can’t also claim to have been misquoted or words put into your mouth.
And it isn’t every journalist who would be circumspect in matters that are supposed to be off-record, because journalists often want to be as sensational as possible to make their stories saleable. So say just what you want to see published and you won’t later regret it and claim you were misquoted.
Well, I’m not holding brief for journalists, because a few of us are notorious for colouring our reports sometimes sand-papering the words so much that they look very bright in front of readers.
As I once said, when the police tells one such notorious pressman that the thief stole a brown goat, the pressman would want to know whether the goat was bearded. Of course, the police would say ‘Yes’.
However, in the press report, it appears, “A gang of notorious goat-thieves were apprehended in the early hours of yesterday. In the car in which they were riding was a brownish-red goat having a long beard. Upon further examination, it was realised that the goat also had a greyish moustache.”
When the story appears, the police are naturally disturbed. A single thief turns out to be a gang of thieves. The goat also becomes a chameleon and changes colour to brownish-red. And a moustacheless goat overnight wears a greyish moustache whether you like it or not. Luckily the journalist does not add that the moustache was trimmed by a Swedish barber.
Yes, we have a few of such mischief-creating, chronically notorious journalists. But they are one in a hundred. In any case, we make the world. And we shall always do our best to make it a happy place to live in.
This article was first publish on Saturday, May, 20, 1995
When I hear of people who are of the opinion that they cannot make it in life unless they travel abroad, l become sad.
Whenever I see on TV, news of people, that is migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, while attempting to cross to Europe, l become filled with sadness and then anger.
The underlying factor is desperation born out of loss of hope, in life. When an individual tends to believe that his only hope of making it in life is to travel abroad, the risk of dying at sea, does not deter him or her.
The role of some pastors on shaping the mindset of people, especially the youth, leaves much to be desired. You hear them declaring on various media platforms how they can pray for you to get a visa to travel abroad, instead of encouraging them to find something to do to improve their lives as the Bible teaches that God will bless the work of their hands.
The GREATER WORKS CONFERENCE is geared towards renewing the minds of people with a specific focus on people of African descent to rid themselves of the negative perception of lack of capacity to excel in life.
Pastor Mensa Otabil believes that every human being, no matter the skin colour, was created in the exact image of God and therefore has the capacity to do exploits.
The whiteman was not created in the image of God while the Blackman was created in the image of something other than God. The Black person therefore can achieve whatever the whiteman can achieve.
The development in terms of industrialisation that is lacking which has generated unemployment for the youth, is due to lack of effective leadership. The lack of moral integrity in society, is what is causing the lack of job opportunities, which is as a result of corrupt acts which drive away private investment.
A culture of inferiority complex exists which needs to be dealt with, so the African can develop the self worth necessary for personal development which can then result in capacity deployment to avhieve personal goals.
Success in life begins with the individual’s recognition that he or she is capable of achieving the dreams he or she has conceived in his or her mind. The Bible teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding according to Proverbs 9:10.
Christianity was the driving force behind the development of Europe because no society can sustain development without high moral values. GREATER WORKS therefore is a deliberate project to shape the minds of people, especially the youth, who will become the leaders of our future, to prioritise morality in their daily lives.
This is the only way to see a massive transformation in every aspect of our lives as Ghanaians and Africans in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Since the inception of the GREATOR WORKS CONFERENCE, it has made a lot of impact in the lives of many people from the youth up to the senior citizens level. I recall the testimony of a church member who was motivated and pursued higher education and became one of the youngest Chartered Accountants in this country. Year after year, the impact of the conference has been enormous and lives in Ghana and across the continent, are being transformed.
Black people have started regaining their self confidence and the youth have started getting into areas that previously were considered out of bounds. At a personal level, certain ideas that some years ago, l would have not dreamt about suddenly has become realistic dreams.
The Christian lifestyle has impacted on my children and those close to me. Mindset change starts with one individual, then another and then gradually it spreads like a viral infection until a critical mass is attained and them a massive impact. There is hope for the future.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
