Let Her Go Already!

I was barely a teenager then.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and as usual we were all at \"home\" with all entrance doors locked and the keys in a \"safe place\" known only by my father. We had to accept being locked up and isolated from family and friends and visitors and neighbors as \"normal\".

We were havinglunch......or dinner? But it was our last meal for the day. On days like this when our parents were having a disagreement, no one would dare enter the kitchen to prepare a meal. This meal, luckily, had been prepared before the argument began. I was sitting with my elder sister and my kid brother.

We always knew what the outcome of a disagreement was in our house. We knew who would win. Dad always won. And we knew what he always had to do to make his opponents succumb to him, whoever they were.

So in our mouths, our food had thatbitter taste of fear mixed with it. And we weren't sure whether it was the food or the fear that made our little stomachs churn painfully. But we ate........silently. And we couldn't look up from our plates......wouldn't dare, couldn't bare.

Then suddenly,I could just catch a glimpse from the corner of my eyeof Dad as he sprangacross the sitting room headed in Mum's direction. She raised her arms in self-defense as shelet out a helpless whimper. But he ignored it. As usual, he ignored it.

Mum was some 20 or more years younger than Dad. She had been married off because her own parents couldn't afford sending her to college. Usually, parents in such a situation would marry their daughters off to whoever walked up to them and offered to marry their daughters with a promise to send them to school and send some money back to their in-laws from time to time. Parents were always on the lookout for the most educated amongst the males who approached them for their daughters. And if they found one they liked, without checking out his character or their daughter's feelings for the man (if she had any), they would give their consent, and marry their daughter off quickly. It brought some honor to the family of a girl for other villagers to know that their daughter married a man who went to school.

So Mum was married off to this man, a monster (albeit a highly intelligent man), and she moved with him to the city. He sent her to school only as payment of her bride price, and not because he believed in the empowerment of women. For throughout her time in school and afterwards, he swore toher thathe was only keeping a promise as expected and that she would never be allowed to work or pursue a career or go out or have friends.

Mum never worked. Only Dad did, and his income was nothing close to what we needed to do well in life.

On theoccasion aboutwhich I am herewriting, he had lost his job again, as he often did due to his violent temper. The textile company where he worked had also crashed just months after he was dishonorably dismissed from work without any benefits accruing to him. At that time he must have been about 60 years of age with a deteriorating health. We three kids were as yet too young to work.

What that meant was that.......we would starve unless Mum was allowed to go out and work.

This had beenthe bone of contention on that Sunday afternoon. And having just about had enough of her reasoning, he sprang across the room and grabbed her head.

Then I heard a loud thud. He had bashed her head against the wall and proceeded to drag her by the hair to their bedroom.

And that was it for me.

\"Let her go already!\", I screamed as I rose to my feetwith tears rolling down my face.

In the piercing silence that followed, all eyes spoke as everyone staredat me.

You see, culture forbade a woman to interrupt a man, let alone raise her voice in a reprimanding tone. Traditionally, a woman is expected to give the man room to vent, in whatever manner he chose to do so, and then later to present her case (if she must) on her knees after she has fed him well and catered to his ego. It imbibed modesty in a woman, the elders taught. So the shock in the eyes that stared at me was understandable. Besides, my father was a man feared even by men, not the kind ofman to stand up to.

But it wasn't a thirst for heroism that had made me stand up to him for the first time in both our lives that afternoon. It was the need to stand up for equality of rights for the more vulnerable sex. It is of no use crying \"oppression!\" if only to continue to allow it to thrive by keeping mute about it and refusing to exposeit for what it is.

You follow?

\"You must never do it again, he's your father!\"

Father?! Sincerely though, what did the word even mean?

The very screams and cries and wounds and pain of the oppressed, hopelessness relentlessly inflicted and chains mercilessly wound around their limbs, pulls at the core of the human soul.......should pull at the core of the human soul.......begging for reprieveand intervention often from one stronger or bolder or higher inauthority, or simply from one still in touch with the ability weaved into the fabric of the human nature to feel (and be moved into action by)empathy and compassion. And I chose not to be silent anymore.

I did it, not because I wasn't scared, but because the community of suppressed feelings in that room needed a plurality ofvoices to speak against the injustice. It was up to us.

My father's lips quivered with rage as he slowly walked towards me, fixing me with a piercing gaze that tore at the roots of my courage.

\"You're a fool!\" he breathed, clenching his fists.

My voice shook, and I felt my panties as they began to get wet.But I reached deeper into my little heart and spoke from there.

\"An ally. That's all she is trying to be. That's all that every woman is trying to be. To save us. And you! This family! Why can't you just accept that she is just as intelligent and creative? What are you teaching your son by doing this? How can he be a leader like this? We don't want your pedestal, and we don't want to fight with you. We are not strong enough. We just want to be nurturers. The least you can do is respect that ability that was put in us by Nature and empower us to perform our function as mothers, caregivers. She doesn't deserve this. This has to stop, wecan't take it anymore! Dad, just stop this please! Don't beat usand lock us up anymore!\"

\"You've been reading, I see!\" my father mused. Then he barked,\"Lay on the floor, face down, now! And wait for me.\"

He charged intothe backyard of our house to cut canes from the agedDogon Yaro tree. He loved his canes fresh. He would strip the canes bare so that, as he slashed my body with it, the moist pieces would burn my skin through and bury themselves in my openflesh. It's how we were often punished back then. I still have scars from such beatings.

I obeyed and lay face down where I was standing. No one lay with me, no one stood with me, no one spoke for me, neighbors kept their distance. I shook as I wept and felt lonely. But I was ready to take the beating and never apologize, not only on that day but on any other day he (or anyone else)made such a violent move against a woman or child again. The point must be made.

In the weeksthat followed, our house was like a graveyard and it seemed I had failed my mother. Within themonththough, Mumannounced to us that Dad had released her to go look for a teaching job in the schools in our vicinity. She got the job. We kids were pulled from school to do same. Dadimposed a curfew on ourmovements though, and ordered that all oursalariesbe remitted to him. Then we would be given 10% as our pocket money and Mum would be given money to buy some food, and he didn't care whether the money he gave was enough or not. We had to obey.

I wept, but I was glad that we were at the early stages ofwinning the fight for survival and equality and empowerment.

We mobilized and encouraged one another, mother and children, always outside the house on the way to or from work because inside the house Dad made sure we were isolated one from the other in orderto \"prevent a mobilization\".

Still we mobilized, not for a coup, but to empower ourselves and plan for the family. We began to get creative, though it was all hush-hush.

My father hated me for the rest of his life. For the rest of his life, I was punished for speaking out like I did that Sunday afternoon.

He never changed.

However, that day becamea turning point for me. I never kept silent about domestic violence anywhere I came across it ever again since then.

From that singular experience, I learned courage in the face of fear. I learned sacrifice. I learned that to stop violence against women and children, we must stop the silence. And yes, it may require putting our lives on the line. Is that losing too much of yourself? I think I understand your reluctance.

But then you have to ask yourself this: what would you rather share in, the suffering of the oppressed or the crime of the oppressor?