Lest we forget Karabo Mokoena

Karabo Mokoena was buried at Johannesburg’s Westpark Cemetery yesterday – the tears of the mourners marking the last rights for the victim of one of the more horrific crimes of violence against women recently.

There is no real point in recounting the details of the insane savagery meted out to Karabo but four days before her funeral, a sickeningly similar crime against a 15-year-old girl was reported by police in Klerksdorp.

It suggests there is an undercurrent in some areas, that there are two types of people in what we generally tend to imagine as being a sophisticated democracy: the dominant male and the submissive female. This is a myth which has to be urgently exorcised.

Violence against women has to stop – a relevant priority raised by Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini at Karabo’s funeral service. The minister said if nothing was done soon to address abuse of women, they will continue to be raped, murdered and victimised.

The sad fact is that Dlamini’s prediction is probably correct. It’s time all of us start believing that women are equal citizens of South Africa and entitled to all the rights and freedoms the constitution allows.

That includes ending the so-called “glass ceiling” which, for too many years, has precluded women in many occupations and professions from taking top jobs. That is a skewed presumption which goes to the root cause of an ethos of male dominance: thinking that women are inherently inferior.

As a nation, we have to break down any such perceptions. They are simply not rational and could lead to the kind of tragedies that the murder of Karabo so shockingly highlight. Without this mindset, we have no right to call ourselves a united nation.