Murder, she wrote

Home Editorial Murder, she wrote

AFTER months of relative calm, we have noticed with great concern a new surge in passion killings across the country, with Walvis Bay becoming a new breeding ground for such type of violence.

The coastal town reported two separate murders of women by their lovers recently, capped by more shocking news of a woman who died after her estranged husband allegedly spiked her drink.

A woman in Omusati Region was lucky to escape with her life after her boyfriend allegedly tried to kill her so that she does not go to China for studies – with the boyfriend fearing she would find a new lover in Asia.

Last week Friday, a man jumped off a Windhoek bridge in an apparent suicide attempt, allegedly after hacking his lover with a machete in Wanaheda.

Events of similar nature have crowded the recent past so much that we cannot list all of them one by one.

History is plagued by all types of crime, but crimes of passion, in particular, have caused a great deal of heartache and have left so many people asking “why?”

It is the lack of answers to the “why” question that led the nation to go on its knees in March this year to seek answers from above through national prayer.

For months, it looked like our prayers as a nation had been heeded but that relief did not last long. As such, our hearts are gutted and devastated. We are a nation that has lost its love life. A nation that is at war with itself.

Relationships have always been a permissible practice in Namibian culture. Generation after generation, Namibians have had love affairs but never in the history of this country have we had so much incidences of lovers killing each other.

The new surge says something about the evolving society we live in, with many young people swimming in the pool of alcohol, poor gun control and an unprecedented use of dangerous drugs.

Or why would love, which is the opposite of hate, lead to so many deaths?

The unfortunate part is that most of the victims of this crime are not here to give us insight into how they became victim to this violence.

Many did not live to give us a witness account. Even perpetrators are killing themselves lately, making it hard for anyone to determine the root cause.

The idea of an inquiry into these killings is not a bad one, except that, while we have the stark evidence of these crimes, we will not have the star witnesses – the culprits and their unwitting accomplices, to testify on the bizarre nature and peculiar motives that lead to these crimes.

The alleged killer of Walvis Bay’s Luise Alupe too tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists, according to the police. Fortunately for society, and unfortunately for him, the suicide master plan failed dismally and he will have his days in court.

Although society seems to be completely in the dark as to the actual causes of passion killings, one of the geneses is the impact of the developing culture of gender equality.

The pattern of these killings reflects a blatant cultural tendency of the most extreme machismo and chauvinism imaginable.

These heinous acts are committed, almost exclusively, by men. The victims are invariably female. It implies that the killings are indisputably sexist in character.

Some women have been killed for simply being out with friends. Their killers believe only they should be out drinking and dancing – because they are male.

Women should be confined to the kitchen and anything domestic, these killers often argue.

The gender equality message, and the modus operandi of its dissemination thereof, need revisiting so that we will hopefully find a way to arrest the situation.