The Male Crisis

Many men run away from women that produce more than one child at a time

By Wanambwa M. Rogers

In the wake of increasing radical feminism, gender equality, gays and homosexuals, inclusiveness, atheism, increasing poverty levels, unprecedented levels of inflation, throat gripping pressure from all kinds of life’s issues; in the midst of all this is the man.

I am going to try to show why there is a male crisis, how it has come about and probably how to solve this crisis. You can add what you think about it too later.

In the past and admittedly even today, a man was/is expected to be the provider, the protector of the family, the voice of the family, the leader among other things. This gave men purpose, a sense of significance, a sense of authority and worth. Daddy was seen as the “man of the house” and this phrase practically signified what I’ve just talked as what was expected from men.

The late 20th century and indeed the start of the 21st century have seen women coming up to stand next to men and compete in and for the same things as in education and jobs among other aspects of life thanks to feminism and gender equality. This in addition to disconnection from extended family, and now day and sometimes night jobs for both mom and dad left the children to their devices and house helps. I’ll get back to this later on.

Because of equality and radical feminism teachings, women aggressively took on men as opponents instead of partners they were supposed to help and in essence, were taught that they could do without men, hence pushing men away at the slightest mistake done(since women can do without men).

As it is, women can now provide for the family, and in some cases, earn even more than the men. This has led to men feeling more and more inadequate, unwanted, less loved and appreciated. As women keep asking men to “be men” they’re instead killing the sense of masculinity in these men. I bring this particular issue of women equality because men consider every competition seriously and either they win the competition or when they’ve been won, will withdraw(so you’ll hear women saying “it’s as if he withdrew from me”). Because men lose the sense of assignment and reason to live, it leads them to a sense of confusion and so you see men flocking gyms to feel powerful and when they go back home and realise it’s all a lie, they turn to bearing their women and children up. Note that even though I dwell on the negative side of feminism and women equality, it is not all bad as a phenomenon in itself. The benefits of it to the world are enormous and this excuse may seem as weak even though it is very much a big cause of what we see today.

That is just one issue to look at, another is absent fathers. Boys need a male figure in their life and absentee fathers are another cause of the male crisis. Because of the issues I mentioned at the start, men are always at work, so their kids never hear their voices. Other men, because of divorce, are not around. Others are dead while others are in prison. It was discovered that 75% of inmates in the US never saw their fathers! This actually affects both daughters and sons, because they’ll look for the male voice in even bad characters that lead them astray; so you find young girls with children and no fathers to the kids and boys in gangs. Or even grown boys(so they keep playing not wanting to settle down hence ‘players’) and not men.

Another issue is the loss of community and belief in something(especially a higher power like God). This has led to people who don’t have any sense of accountability to anyone because no one told the about responsibility for anyone but themselves. And because they don’t even believe in God, they don’t believe in sin, so fornication, adultery, murder, among other things are all on table. All this is because people are lesser and lesser having any remorse before and after committing sin. Even neglect of your responsibility is sin in itself.

Let me take another angle at this still, men are very good at work(consider Genesis 2:15 where God gives man a command to work even before the woman is created) but he is not good at crying out. I talked about mounting pressure on people due to so many things and catering for the family is becoming harder and harder everyday. In the midst of all this, men continue to grapple with life shielding their families from this harsh life and in essence, it kills them slowly to the point of death without saying a word. You hear women(who are more vocal) crying out whenever they take on the mantle of men’s responsibility.
These are just a few of the issues that have put us in this predicament we find ourselves in. However, let me talk about some solutions.

First of all, men need to recognise that they indeed need help and that women as their helpers, it doesn’t mean women are weaker because a helper is generally of equal strength or of greater strength.
Then again, after recognising this need for help, men should accept help when it is offered both from women and other men, one shouldn’t die from pressure that they can be relieved of.
Still, men should accept that they don’t know some things and sometimes, women know more(maybe even many times).
With that said, men should invest in educating themselves as this is the greatest investment one can make. Read books, or listen to them, nowadays there are audio books too.
Men should also seek the help of successful men and submit to them. It is important to have role models to look up to.

It is imperative that men accept their weaknesses and even share them with their families to seek for solutions. No one is an island.
Lastly, magnify your strengths as a man. We all love superheroes because they actually remind us of us; Superman was really Clark Kent persona.
It should be noted that some of the ideas in this write are from the message by Bishop T.D.Jakes titled “HE Emotions”.
These are just my views and are open to critism.

Fighting For Identity: A Case Of Lost Identity

By Wanambwa M. Rogers

Being born in a country like Uganda is rather exciting. We are the source of the Nile river, home to over 1000 bird species, more than half of the world’s gorillas, home to over five mountains among which you find Mt. Rwenzori, Mt. Elgon and others, over twenty fresh water lakes, tens of rivers, beautiful forests, hundreds of animals that live in serene parks, the most fertile women on earth, a 5.8 rate to prove that, the youngest population on earth, and over 50 indigenous tribes, not counting all the people who are always coming into our country. For example, in 2017, we welcomed over a million refugees into our country. As I said, it’s exciting to live here in Uganda.

So with all these different tribes comes a conundrum; one that has progressed entirely on its own I believe or maybe not. But still, we are faced with a quagmire of intermarriages. I am a product of one myself, a Mugisu father and Rwandan mother. Where does the quagmire arise from? Well, it’s in how to identify oneself or how others identify with you especially.

See if you’re born of parents from the same tribe or from closely related tribes, you may not really understand what I’m trying to say but I’ll try to paint a picture for you. First of all, there’s the thing about the languages, different dialects and enunciations of words. It is particularly distressing, acutely so if you had or have parents like mine who don’t even speak their mother tongue with you. My late father(may his soul rest in peace) for example, never spoke even a single word in Lugisu with us. It was always English and although our mom has tried over the years to talk to us in Kinyarwanda, we haven’t been able to master the language due to infrequency that we even get to hear people speaking it. At least we hear Kinyarwanda, unlike my father’s Lugisu that we don’t hear anything.

Now if you were born in a place like Entebbe like I was, you most likely studied with people from all the tribes in Uganda and whites too in some instances if not Asians. This means that even at school, you most probably spent most of the day speaking English or Luganda which is the language spoken by most people in Central Uganda and nowadays most parts of Uganda too(I was having a debate with some people sometime back as to why we just don’t have it be our national language and be done with that). I for instance am fluent in these two languages only(English and Luganda). Intriguing right, well this is the plight of many young people today in Uganda.

Being this way wouldn’t have been a problem but here comes it, when you visit your relatives on either side, they expect you to know their language which of course you don’t know. And the isolation starts, slowly but surely as you’re cut out from conversations and ultimately most of their other activities.

It doesn’t stop there, with isolation comes racial and tribal insults that are meant to spite one for being a half breed(a term that basically means one that is of different genealogical backgrounds, in this case tribes). It must be noted that many people have parents from even up to over 4 different tribes. My maternal cousins for example, have grandparents from three different tribes, Basoga, Itesot, Bagwere and Basamya on their father’s side and a Rwandan mother, consequently having over five different villages to call ancestral homes.

Now each of those tribes is partially their heritage and aren’t they entitled to all of them? Of course they are, however, this is not what their relatives may think as each of these tribes may deny them saying they belong to another. The reasons for this are among these:
When it comes to inheritance, parents generally leave their wealth to their children and this means that my cousins for example could have inheritance in all the five villages that they have ancestral heritage in. However, because of envy, the relatives in these places may cut out my cousins as has been done before, saying that since they’ve inheritance in other places, they should leave what is there to them. If all do this, this leaves them in air, with no inheritance.

The other issue, as has happened to me and my siblings too is a more entrenched racial stigmatization among tribes where by because of the hatred amongst different tribes, one finds themselves a pawn in this barbaric war, mostly of words but sometimes that spills into violence.
As if one doesn’t have enough on their plate already, you find that even those from other tribes also insult for associating with either of those that you come from.

To me, I would suggest that we all move away from this petty and backward tribal and racial stigmatization and war and focus on better progressive things. After all, we are a country of many languages, shouldn’t that be used as an advantage to us as Ugandans? Because, in the end we are all recognized as Ugandans and out there as Africans and that’s it.