Populist women activists are misleading the girl-child

Mar 13, 2017

Writings of the apostles of Jesus Christ are quoted left and right but the women who sustained these men financially after leaving everything to follow Jesus are unheard of.

By Charles Okecha

After the Women's Day celebrations I pondered valiant women who laboured in patience and quietness to punctuate world history.

Such noble attributes elude many a woman of today quick at wailing and staging nude protests. But presently there still exists a remnant among whom is America's 72-year old Christian florist Baronelle Stutzman.

In the once free America, courts are subjugating religious beliefs to civil rights and violating freedom of speech, religion and conscience under the watchful eye of the government!

According to a recent Washington Supreme Court decision, this Christian florist violated the state anti-discrimination law on sexual orientation in 2013 when she declined to create floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding.  She is at risk of losing all business and personal assets except her home but steadfastly maintains her faith and conscience.

The outcome of this verdict remains for the future to tell.

Surely Baronelle shares a legacy with Virgin Mary the mother of Jesus.

Who put her life under jeopardy of a theocratic culture and tradition that stones or burns to death any young woman found pregnant with an illegitimate child in her father's courtyard. Easter celebrations are at hand but preachers rarely allude to this important reality.

Writings of the apostles of Jesus Christ are quoted left and right but the women who sustained these men financially after leaving everything to follow Jesus are unheard of. Does this diminish their eternal world and impact on today's world? Of course not!

  "Jesus went preaching the good news of the kingdom of God in cities and villages and the twelve were with him.   Some women contributed from their private means to the support of Jesus and his disciples.

Among them were Mary Magdalene (Jesus had cast out seven demons from her), 3 Joanna, Chuza's wife (Chuza was King Herod's business manager and was in charge of his palace and domestic affairs), Susanna, and many others. (Luke 8:1-3 TLB).

Mother Tereza the Nobel Peace Prize winner also called the Saint of the Gutters lived a life of extreme self-deprivation. With only two saris, a mat, a cup and a plate as personal belongings, he diligently took care of destitute  people in the squalid slums of Calcutta, India. Her fame surpasses the American Actress Marilyn Munroe. Even though Marilyn's  disciples todate saturate the world with nude shows, soap operas, tabloids, playboy magazines and such like, she died of drug overdose at a tender age and her lewd celebrity status is remembered no more.

Populist activists target higher institutions of learning masquerading as emancipators of women but their goals and source of facilitation remain hidden to the public eye. Why don't they advance causes like food security, women being kitchen CEOs in every home?

When will they mobilise funds from their counterparts who occupy flamboyant offices in government agencies and NGOs  who are recipients of so-called obscene salaries and cash rewards to do the needful? To whom much is given, much is expected! 

In 2000, Claudia a visiting American nurse resolved to mobilize funds from fellow nurses by working for longer hours and skipping meals to educate orphaned children in rural eastern. Can Ugandan women forfeit fashions and makeup to do this?

By participating in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases, rehabilitation of sex workers, reduction of hunger and poverty, encouraging modesty and chastity, women can win the support and respect of men much more than engagement in provocative populist activism.

Which will ultimately conscript many young women into perennial single motherhood and sex trade. Rights of women have been abused but do not render evil for evil but overcome evil by doing good. (Romans 12:17-21).

Right actions speak louder than empty words.

The writer works with St. Paul's College, Mbale

 

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