REFLECTIONS : Beware, the Re-emergence of the Amazons!

If 2009 marked anything, it was the return of the Amazons. In case you were born the other day (the 1960s and later!) and have never heard of the Amazons, ask Wikipedia. The Amazons were a nation of women who lived in Pontus during the era of the Roman Empire. Pontus was part of modern-day Turkey, but the Amazons’ nation stretched from areas around the Black Sea to as far as Libya. These women warriors were so powerful that even men in distant nations lived in terror of their ever impending invasion. Under the rule of Queen Hippolyta, only one tribe known as the Gargareans was allowed the luxury of living. The Amazons visited these Gargareans once a year for purposes of procreation, but male children resulting from these visits were either killed or thrown into the wilderness. Female children were kept and brought up by their mothers, trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting and the art of war.If you think the Amazons were distant monsters, you have another thing coming. For, at about the same time as that of the Amazons, Inshinzi reigned supreme here in this very Rwanda. However, unlike the Amazons who had the Gargareans as friends, Inshinzi of Rwanda had killed all their men-folk. The women warriors of Rwanda did not entertain anything in loin cloth! But as Shakespeare says, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” I must send a strong disclaimer here that these words are from Shakespeare’s mouth and no one else’s. The way women in Rwanda are rising in power, I don’t want anybody associating me with the utterances of this bard of yore, in case I am asked to account for myself. His was an era of men, when women had been silenced. And how did the Amazons or Inshinzi get to be silenced? In Pontus, the Gargareans exploited that chance of yearly visits to smuggle into their tribe men from distant tribes. After growing in strength, they captured the women who had come visiting and together invaded and overran Pontus. In Rwanda, men’s emancipation was painfully slower but resulted out of that frailty that the bard refers to. While other women warriors on one of their invading missions killed their captives, one woman hid hers and used him for ‘regular procreation service’. Soon her increasingly extended belly caught the attention of other women. When the news reached the queen, she summoned the woman and forced her to surrender the man. The little fellow was placed in the palace to await punishment. That punishment, however, resulted into an extended belly for the queen, too! When Inshinzi in the kingdom noticed that their queen ‘was not doing unto others as she would have others do unto her’, they abandoned her to hunt for men of their own. And thus came the fall of the Amazons and Inshinzi, and the re-ascendance of the man-folk of the world. The way things stand today, however, that hard-earned power of men may be tottering. If in doubt, cast a glance northward and back at 2009. In Uganda, last year closed with the death of yet another man, at the wrathful hands of a woman. That fateful night, the policeman had gone for duty but returned early in an effort to confirm rumours about the wayward ways of his wife. Sure enough, his wife had slipped off into amorous adventure. When she finally returned, the man administered a few slaps, but that was the last he would ever slap anybody! The woman grabbed his gun and blew off his manhood and left him to bleed to death. Before that, again in Uganda, a man who thought he could rape a teenaged girl was put on a collision sprint with a brick. The young girl thus saved herself and the man took an early retirement accommodation in Satan’s lodge. Before that yet again, again in Uganda, the whole universal man-folk was shaken to its roots when a great military general was rewarded with a hammer on his head that saw the end of his celebrated days. For apparently verbally abusing Lydia Draru, Gen James Kazini saw her shatter his skull, in the wee hours of one morning. Where emancipation of women took root early, men learnt early what it meant. The American John Bobbit knows the story best and luckily for him, he can tell! During the night of June 23, 1993, wife Lorena sliced his manhood in half and threw away the phallic scrap. Luckily for Bobbit, the member was recovered thanks to the efforts of policemen and, thanks to Dr. James T Sehn and Dr. David Berman, it was re-attached during a nine-and-a-half-hour operation. I will leave you to your illusions of being exceptional as strong men of Rwanda and not remind you of what happened to that man in Butare last year. Laugh if you will but, personally, this emancipation of women in Rwanda sends shivers down my spine! What happened to the strictly-kitchen woman? Maybe His Majesty Mswati and Excellency Zuma know something that we don’t! ingina2@yahoo.co.uk