With Oscar Pistorius’ shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, he has added merely one more to the 2500 other women abused and assaulted annually with guns by men in South Africa. It’s so frequent it’s old hat and no longer an event attracting societal concern, although President Zuma had apparently included a reference to this bewildering statistic in his speech he was to give that valentine afternoon.
What is it with men and boys that drives them to amount this insane statistic?
Presently mothers and girlfriends are getting the blame. Mrs. Lanza New Town as her son’s first victim
was shot right in her sleepy face. Reeva had to sustain blows from a cricket bat before she attempted to return through the bathroom where she was shot dead through the bathroom’s door, Oscar claiming she was an intruder which she was, but a rightful one, and likely a known one. She belonged in that house and he knew it. His paranoia for intruders was showing, Bang, Bang through the door into her flesh, never to lure again, Oscar never to run to acclaim once more, perhaps.
For he was an Olympic hero widely admired, rich and white in South Africa where heroes like Oscar couldn’t be dispensed with.
“Men want to dominate and separate; women want to communicate and connect. Men — especially Western men are individualistic autocrats; Women are communitarian healers. Men objectify while women want commitment. Men kill; women give life. If women ran the world there would be no warfare.”
Lucretia Mott, in Fire with Fire by Naomi Wolf p. 145.
Yesterday the first pieces of evidence were offered at the bail hearing, where the battle for public opinion was furthered along. His father asked what does one think when one thinks an intruder is in one’s house. Is a family member or friend suspected?
Does Mr. Pistorius belong to a South African version of the NRA? How many guns does he maintain in house? What was the argument overheard by neighbours before shots were fired? Who was involved?
