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When 'Real' Men And Women Took to the Floor
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- Published on Monday, 16 July 2007 23:01
The Roads minister was explaining his potential. Although well past 70, he had no doubt that he could do two things extremely well. One, he could kill a man. Two, he had enough fire in his belly to turn a 20-year-old woman into a jelly of desire. Perhaps out of rectitude, he swore both capacities were latent. The first one belonged to the future while the other was in the past. He could murder in anger. To prove there was no justification in what he described as "harassing a woman in sexual connection", the Nyaribari Chache MP was willing to reactivate his dating skills.
A 'serious' man by nature, Nyachae referred to courtship as a "business". He made it sound like an investment that should ideally post profits for shareholders. You could almost imagine a Kabansora Courtship Holdings Ltd whose directors had the sagacity to retire to the comfort of well-earned pensions. "All normal people know how to ask. Men know how to ask women. A good woman knows when to agree. Even at my own age, even when I've retired from that business, I can still convince a young woman if I wanted to," he said in his support of the Sexual Offences Bill.
He talked of "God-given techniques, skills and styles" of courtship that were innate in every man. As usual, he was emotional. But he mellowed into a boyish concern for appearance when he talked of being a capable man of "over 70" years. Then, he reflexively straightened his tie and spine to amplify the glow-worm smile he had suddenly acquired.
But he knew there were lazybones and get-it-quick men who did not want to invest in asking. So the "beasts" resulted to taking it by force. To Nyachae's mind, these were rotten elements deserving to be culled from society. As for him and his house, he would condemn them to death.
Said he: "I've said it before and I will say it again. If I found someone raping my daughter, I'd not wait for the police. I'd kill him. I'd break the law to protect my family."
Judging by his tightly clenched right fist, Nyachae would probably wish to start by crushing certain organs before committing murder. But he did not say so because Co-operatives assistant minister David Mwenje, for once sporting colour harmony in his clothes, wryly interrupted him.
"Mr Speaker, did you hear what the Hon Member said? Is it in order to encourage people to kill those who rape their relatives?" Mwenje asked. Nyachae clung to his indignation. "Hon Mwenje should know there is something called extreme provocation," he said barely suppressing his astonishment that anyone could object to such chivalrous reaction.
To underscore his murderous passion, the minister then invited the Embakassi MP and others who had problems fathoming his declared commitment to a crime of honour to envisage every married man's nightmare: cuckolding.
"If you feel so angry when she has negotiated with another man and agreed to go out somewhere, how would you feel if she was forced to do it like it happens with rape?"
At that point, Kitutu Chache MP Jimmy Angwenyi, who in opposing the Bill had desperately scouted Parliament seats for his idea of the biggest MP who could presumably inflict the most trauma by raping his wife, gnashed his teeth in evinced anger.
Angwenyi may have possibly been worried about what his party boss's unequivocal support for the Bill meant for his avowed opposition to the same. Only last week, the MP had condemned it as an impractical legislation that could lock up 1.5 million Kisii men for the crime of Female Genital Mutilation.
Theatrically cantankerous, Angwenyi, while pressing the rest of his fingers against the thumb in an obscene gesture of breast-fondling, further wailed: "What is so wrong about touching a woman when you're dancing closely with her?"
Perhaps Angwenyi does not dance with the "shy creatures" that reportedly never say "yes" whom his Kasipul Kabondo colleague, Paddy Ahenda, claimed to have encountered. Or maybe, Education assistant minister Beth Mugo should have included him in wondering "what kind of women does Hon Ahenda associate with?"
But she at least knew Gor Sungu is a "real man". It is not because, as the popular ad goes, the Kisumu Town East MP has agreed to "wait" in love-enforced chastity. May be he is doing that. The abstinence Beth was however referring to was that of not disputing the "obvious truth".
She was referring to allegations of alleged rape in Parliament. "Some rapes have been linked to this House...Someone was summoned to the police station to record a statement," she said stubbornly when challenged to "substantiate or withdraw" by Sigor MP Philip Rotino.
Sungu rushed to her rescue by challenging MPs to own up to their mistakes that he said had been "reported all over".
"Thank you very much. That is a real man," a grateful Mugo chirped. That, however, could only mean one thing, or so Mwenje, rising again in barely suppressed mirth, thought.
"Mr Speaker, I'm just wondering: if Hon Sungu is a real man, what is the other one (Rotino)?" The latter, eyes riveted on Beth in anger, opted to cut his losses and keep quiet.
There were others on Tuesday sharing Nyachae's concerns. Kisumu Rural MP Prof Anyang' Nyong'o referred to rape as "sexual terrorism". Tinderett MP Henry Kosgey thought the police needed to be retrained to be sensitive. Currently, he said, they think rape is the stuff of Vioja Mahakamani.
"When a woman goes to report rape, you can see the excitement on police faces. 'Mama, ati ilikuwa aje? Ati ulifanywa nini? Ulisikia aje? (What happened? What was done to you? How did you feel?)
