Who Asked For Your Opinion - Part 2: So We Are All The Same?
When: Nov 3rd, 2005 5:14:12 am - Subscribe
I'm feeling: Tickled
Talk, Opinion, Music, Life, Stuff: Life
" I cant escape this life that I'm living,
I'm in a fix, I'm in love with two women,
I've got two honies on my mind,
And I don't wanna let none of them GO!" - Lost Boys (hip hop group)
I'll tell you where you can GO; Netherlands. Apparently, polygamous civil unions are possible in the country where smoking weed and same-sex marriage are legal. A heterosexual man, Victor, "married" two bi-sexual women, Mirjam and Bianca, in one civil union function. What is the world coming to? Are Africans being beaten at their own game? At least a polygamous African man will marry one wife and take a break before getting another!
I almost died of laughter reading this story. I passed it round the office and needless to say it livened the dull, rainy afternoon. I mean, how can you upstage an African? We run this!!
On the serious side (yeah right!), there are a number of issues that intrigue me. When the missionaries came (even from Netherlands) to spread the Gospel in Africa, they set about to eradicate the "backward and retrogressive practices of the war-like natives" like polygamy. Barely a century later, their descendants are in the final stages of legalizing the same "practices" Africans are still castigated about. Talk about preaching water and drinking wine. (I wish these missionaries could rise from the dead now and see what is going on in their countries!! Hehehe! )
Which brings me to the million guilder, no, euro question, do we as Africans need to listen to foreign opinion about our culture and traditions? Why should we be made to feel inferior about our traditions, when some years later, those castigating us will rename and adopt our traditions? And why is it that when Europeans adopt such "unions" they are viewed as progressive and "LIBERAL" (oh how that word irritates me!), while Africans are called backward and retrogressive people out to stifle "women's rights"? Note that in Africa, polygamy is culturally acceptable.
On the other hand you can not compare the African view of polygamy with this newfangled Dutch version. There were cultural, (note - cultural) reasons for polygamy in Africa e.g. the necessity of labour in agrarian societies, pride and prestige of polygamous families, safety and security against high mortality rates e.t.c. Someone said culture establishes social institutions to maintain the continuity of a society, and polygamy was one of those institutions in Africa.
I can help wondering if polygamy in Netherlands is the logical progression down the "slippery slope". The slope started with civil unions then same-sex marriages. Now that same-sex marriages are allowed, it is only a matter of time before polygamy and polyandry and other group-type marriages are legalized. Watch this space. I'm interested to see how long this marriage will last.
What will they pick up next (from Africa)? Hmmm. There are those pushing for marriages where a woman can marry many men. Polyandry, I think. Before the liberals claim it as another progressive, industrialised thought, may I note that it is already practiced by the Irigwe and Tiriki communities of Nigeria (a country in Africa, for those who are deficient in geography), amongst other African communities .
We could go on, but I have a term paper due some time soon. In the mean time, it will be very interesting to see what new developments take place.
In the words of my fave singer Jill Scott - "What goes around comes around really do, really does come back around"
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