misunderstood
My friend, my brother, my cousin, my son,
You have misunderstood.
You have misunderstood.
You have misunderstood what it means to be a man.
You have grown to believe that that look,
that needy, greedy look
was a manifestation of your manhood,
a symbol of masculinity,
of strength and fertility.
You have learned from rappers and idols
that sex is a commodity,
that girls are mere objects,
to be pursued and subdued.
You have learned from young men you admire
that consent is secondary,
that rejection is corollary,
that persistence is key.
My brother, I am afraid to tell you
that you have misunderstood
blunt machismo as manhood.
My friend, let’s sit back and reflect.
Surrendering to our primitive instincts
has become more valuable than resisting them.
But was it not precisely our ability to resist that defined
our strength, our endurance, our success?
What happened to respect?
Was respectfulness not a prerequisite for respectability?
What about hypocrisy?
That harmony between what we pretend to be
and what we really are.
That conformity of our words with our deeds.
Is it not hypocritical
that we kneel down to pray,
fast to be pious,
claim respect for Deity in heaven,
while disrespecting Deity on earth?
My friend, let us recast masculinity,
while realising the ambiguity of that term,
since we are all, in fact,
half man,
and half woman.
You will be a man, my son,
if you dedicate yourself to self-improvement,
the unapologetic, ceaseless pursuit
of a better version of yourself.
if you learn to treat others
the way you would like to be treated.
With dignity, humility and respect.
if you realise that we are all equal,
or at least should,
and that each of your actions is a message to others
about whether this principle is upheld or not.
I am aware, my son,
that heroes are rare,
and that it is hard to be different.
But do not despair
and do not forget
that with pure and humble dedication
you will be that hero yourself,
for the young ones that follow,
for the men of tomorrow.