Chronicles of Fly

L-R: Nokokure, Paulina, Mr Maingo, Memory, Mr Tjatindi, Uri, Bravo, Nanguei, and Uendji. (Omaheke Regional Debate Team). I can tell something is wrong as Nokokure walks towards me, it’s in how languid her stride has become, the pep has gone from her step.   She and Bravo , vice-captain and captain respectively, are a forlorn shadow of who they were the day before. In a supermarket in Okongo , they raced through the aisles towards me and stood next to each other. “Sir, which one of us is taller?” They both asked . I laughed, because what they really meant was which one of them was shorter, next to me, they looked like hobbits. But, I indulged them none the less. Using Nanguei (tallest member of the team) as a scale, we came to the conclusion that Bravo was short, but Nokokure was shorter. We laughed about it in the bus on the way to our destination, Enhana in the Ohangwena Region. Hosts of the National debating championships, rebranded as the Namibian Newspap...

Image by Barry Deutsch (https://thenib.com/toxic-masculinity-stew) Masculinity has always been fragile, because just like racism, it is based on a belief of superiority. The problem with a superiority complex is that the natural reaction to any threat to this superiority is always violence. When men feel that there is a threat to their masculinity, most naturally react with either physical or emotional violence. Any individual or group that responds with violence to little or no provocation, primarily to perpetuate a perceived superiority or belief, is naturally insecure, therein lies the problem with masculinity. Masculinity has always been attached to something, in the past it was physicality. That’s not to say that femininity wasn’t attached to something, it was: beauty, purity, and fertility. Femininity existed in obedience and servitude to masculinity. However, while the definition of femininity has evolved and become flexible and fluid, masculinity hasn’t, it was...