EDITOR—Joseph Kony must be wiped out. During his heyday, he abducted women and children to be conscripted into his blasphemously named Lord’s Resistance Army. We have been told that he not only killed, but also sometimes boiled people’s flesh.

He shocked the world with his brutality. Certain foreign powers who are also members of the United Nations sponsored Kony, by manufacturing guns, while others donated those guns to the LRA! Not even envoys appointed to children caught up in armed conflict could help much! Some of those girl children in captivity were forced to bear Kony’s children while the world laughed at how many wives Kony had.

The tragedy of those women was made to look like a simple comedy, as many girls suffered under Kony. The time has come that he must be attacked to pay for his atrocities towards women and children.

Without doubt, he must have laid a precedent for men in Uganda to launch war against their wives. Many wives have become cannon fodder to their husbands. When women talk about violence against them, they ought to be taken more seriously. We need courses for men to learn how to use their masculinity more responsibly. Masculinity should not be used for wife-battering. Men should attend women’s studies or gender courses to know that they have been supporting a scheme to perpetuate violence against women through their chauvinist attitudes and their unwillingness to change. We could tap into our pre-colonial histories to remind us that in those days, women had more power than what we know today. We have been condemning colonialism, but there is an ongoing colonisation of women today through violence and battery. Male domination as the norm is responsible for a male-only world, where women have been reduced to mere servers of male interests as sexualised objects. Misogyny against women has been well tolerated where the beating of wives is considered normal. Sexist attitudes that the men in former colonies have internalised from the colonial masters who used violence to try to route out our cultures in the process of trying to ‘civilise’ us, must be done away with. Today the same former colonial masters are trying to ‘develop’ us as they export their sexist attitudes to our men. Even grandsons have internalised sexist attitudes and have no respect for grandmothers. Husbands say that their wives are unruly. What is the meaning of all this oppressive language towards women?
For those honourable men who might be offended by my calling them colonised, they must remember that before colonialism, there was no talk of a woman being unruly as we were all equal with equal status. Colonialism exacerbated inequalities. King James of England was said to rule through ‘the power of the husband.’ This is what the men in Uganda and other former colonies or protectorates of England are copying in trying to maintain their rule over women. Unfortunately, they end up battering their wives. Wife-battering is the shame of a male-dominated society. Moreover, allowing a few women into parliament through affirmative action without change of attitude among the male folks nationally will not do much to end violence against women. Women MPs together with male allies in parliament must bring about some tangible changes necessary for law reforms to give women security in the country.

Jenn Jagire
Ontario, Canada