“WOMEN must be at the forefront of nation-building to bring the South African citizenry together and, therefore, develop a whole new ethos of human co-existence,”
Steve Biko
“There's no transformation process that could bear the desired outcomes without women throwing their weight behind that change initiative, and the same holds for the nation-building process.”
Steve Biko
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| President Joyce Banda |
I would be more than a little remiss if I did not take a brief moment to acknowledge Malawi's new President, The Hon. Joyce Banda. To be honest, I knew of President Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and that the current presidents of Brazil, Argentina and Germany were all women. But when I took a second to verify just how many current female heads of state there were in the world, I was shocked to say the least.
Maybe I am just not paying as much attention to the news reports as I think I do. I chiefly watch international news reports and that leaves me feeling as though I'm pretty much up to date with the status of all things worldly. But clearly I am mistaken.
There are to date 13 female heads of state, elected or appointed. President Banda of Malawi, is now the third such head of state in Africa, following President Sirleaf and more recently President Bellepeau of Mauritius. Though Sirleaf is the only elected female head of state in Africa.
President Banda has a very long history of working for causes important to her, and by extension to the women of Africa. The internet is filled with articles about her political and social activist history so I won't bother to regurgitate other journalists stories. What I did want to say, however briefly, is what this means or can mean for the African Woman of RasTafari.
Without intimating or suggesting that the Woman in and throughout the Rastafari nation/movement/livity, begin to fill the mantle of head of the faith: that argument would never end on this page or anywhere else ones took up the reasoning: I would hope and pray that my children and the women in their lives start to truly take stock of how important they are in the face of Africa's survival and future progress.
I mean I have met many young Rastafari Dawtas in the last few years who are extremely well educated and furthermore, extremely progressive and ambitious. Not to take anything away from the Elder Empresses I have met over the years who are also quite forward thinking. But I don't think any of I and I who declare the truth and rights of HIM, could argue that the current wave of young African Woman breaking the molds in and for Rastafari isn't exiting and feels fresh and new.
We still discuss often amongst ourselves the amount of women we see who come into this livity through the men in their lives. Not to knock those who truly find spiritual fulfillment in this life through those beginnings. Still yet, as a man myself, I have always been a little leery of the women who would blindly follow me on this trod for the sake of love and the intimacies of such. And still yet I have always known ones who know this trod intimately on their own accord.
It is the latter that I see rising in Rastafari these days. Woman, Empresses who rule in their own right, who are becoming nurses and doctors, lawyers and professors, engineers, filmmakers, entrepreneurs and just about every other professional walk of life that might once have been extremely taboo.
I am inspired by such. It is the very evidence of strength, resilience and love that I had been waiting to see when my first Princess was born. As I endeavoured to teach her stories and lessons of strong, powerful African women, born of possibly my own ignorance or maybe even lack of relative proximity to progressive Rastafari elements, I fell short of inspiring my little one in the way I intended.
But today, in Rastafari as a nation of people and throughout the livity, in Africa throughout government offices and society, there are shining beacons of the very light that H.I.M. Empress Menen embodied. Glowing examples of what the Rastafari woman can be now and forever after. No longer simply subject to what may still be deemed as chauvinistic principles and paradigms. Of course all things within balance or what we will have is a pendulum that swings way too far the other direction and may continue to be a hindrance to the movement for the foreseeable future.
At the end of the day, let us give thanks, I certainly do, to see a woman take the helm of another nation in Africa and though it was by appointment, let us concern ourselves with the good that she can do for her people, all people. Many things in the Diaspora are hinging on great thing happening in Africa in the coming months and years. Progress is a must for anything else would be a revelation of inherent insanity.
I pray you all strength health and wisdom Hon. President Banda. God speed and divine guidance today and forever after. "God is love, so let us love."
Follow me on Twitter @JahKwasiAbahu
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