Thursday, November 4, 2010

What Manner of Man Art Thou?


On a night in July 2010, rebel soldiers entered a village in the northeastern region of the Congo and raped 250 women and young girls. When they finished, they slithered back in the jungle virtually unpunished.

Two months later, a UN delegation went to the village to investigate this incident of mass rapes. The village women told their horrible stories beneath a thatched roof. Nowhere in their pitiable accounts was there mention of dead village men, (nor of dead rebel soldiers). How can that be? How can there be a tale of 250 raped women, and not a corresponding tale of 250 dead men who had tried to protect them?

Where were the men of the village that terrible night? Did they jump under their beds, or did they flee into the night and hide in the bush?

These unsophisticated village men cannot be expected to protect their families from Ebola, or some other strange and powerful force they do not understand. But they must be men enough to protect their families from other men, or at least die trying.

We understand the rebel soldiers who committed those unspeakable acts - they are animals. What we do not understand is husbands and fathers who do not serve up their very lives to stop them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's sad, and it makes me mad, very mad toward men that allow their sin nature or ignorance of the value of human worth to dominate their lives like that. Sad Bro, sad! Keep bangin'it out and stay encouraged. Tico