Somizi and Mohale: Loud voices that shout against abuse have gone mute

Another celebrity abuse scandal has come to light in a country that has such a high rate of murders committed by those considered as intimate partners.

Lovers turn on each other and, all too often, this takes a violent, deadly turn.

While social commentators have a picture painted in their minds of who the perpetrators of these crimes are, it is undeniable that husbands kill wives and wives kill husbands.

On the mean streets of Twitter, the same audience that stands in solidarity with women turns the alleged abuse scandal of a same-sex couple into nothing more than a joke.

They don’t afford it the serious attention it deserves. Suddenly, the loud voices that shout against abuse have gone mute. Remember the hashtags to castigate the male perpetrators; remember the unison of those who said, me too?

The audacity of the population to ask why Mohale Motaung speaks only now of the alleged abuse at the hands of husband Somizi Mhlongo is astounding.

Can we not just agree that nobody deserves to be abused and then expected to remain hushed in order to appease a legion of fans?

We also have no right to make determinations on these allegations … this is what a court of law is for.

This, for me, is yet another reminder of the intolerance of those in this country. The peanut gallery opinion that a match was made in heaven when “a goldigger and an abuser” got married is bitterly disappointing because homophobia has trumped an alleged injustice to someone, the weight of which must be tested through the correct channels.

This is a stark reminder why the men of this country cannot report crimes when they are beaten in their homes by their partners, because they are ridiculed as being not man enough to protect themselves.

And just because this instance involves a same-sex couple, we lose our voices because one of the partners had the guts to speak out against the alleged abuse.