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Every problem has a root cause
Fungai Machirori
June 05, 2007

Recently, as I stood in a static bank queue, I couldn't help listening to the conversation between the young men behind me, to alleviate my boredom. At first, the two strangers made small talk about sports, politics and the economy, but after about 30 minutes of virtually no progress in getting to the front of the line, they began to discuss their love lives.

"You can't trust women these days," one of the men said to the other. This declaration he made after ploughing through his illustrious past with all sorts of "chicks" (girls) - as he referred to them - who had at one time or the other, "played him" (slang again, for cheating). On the other hand, his last girlfriend, he said, had been far too clingy and he had dumped her because she wouldn't give him his space.

When the two had joined the queue, I had given them a cursory glance and from their dress and general appearance, had gauged them to be no more than 20 years old. It baffled me to hear them speak so expertly about all sorts of relationship scenarios and to eventually declare that relationships were merely for the physical benefits of sex and other such pleasures, and in their own words that, "Women are dangerous."

Move over to the young women's side and you will hear the very same comments being passed. "Guys these days are such players [two-timers, or in this case even ten-timers], regardless of how old they are," you will hear them say. Some have even made up their minds to use them right back for money and other benefits, and not truly invest their emotions into a relationship. In fact, one of my close friends has even warned me to never give a man my whole heart because all he would ever do with it was walk all over it until it shattered into a million pieces. She offered this advice from her own personal experience.

So is this where 'love' finds itself in the 21st century's definition? Do relationships count for no more than just token gestures and practices that we enter into because of general social expectations? Are men and women simply out to use each other to get what each desires from a loveless union?

The older generation generally bemoans the state of affairs among young people these days, pointing to the fact that far too many are not willing to contribute meaningfully to making their relationships work, believing that love is no more than a four-letter currency that people exchange for what they want and not what they feel.

And whether or not they are correct in their thinking, let me remind you that we are living in an era where HIV and AIDS are wreaking havoc among the very same young people who are deciding that committed lasting unions, and even marriage, are not worth the effort, and that instead, multiple sexual relationships are more alluring than the 'outdated' concept of monogamy and faithfulness.

This isn't a new message at all but that does not make it any less worrying. And this also isn't to say that every young person is behaving in this way. While our national HIV prevalence rate may be on the decline, it is still in double digits. This is a dangerous situation, especially if any of our young people believe love, sex and relationships are trifling experiences. To water down their importance is to reduce their relevance to life and by association, the risks involved in engaging in them. If relationships become but a pastime, and sex a mere add-on advantage, then the conscientiousness to engage in safe sex can easily be lost and the risk of HIV transmission heightened.

But the values that young adults have, and the world views that they develop are usually a direct result of the values and experiences they encounter in their formative years, particularly through what their parents and elders teach them about life. That brings me to the next point - are adults teaching young people the right ways to think about love and life?

What does a young boy learn about how to treat women if his father is always out of the home, returning at suspiciously late hours and abusing his mother? What does the young girl deduce from the negative anti-male comments that her single mother passes about the various men that she goes out with merely to have a 'good time'?

Just last week, I met a man who, as he began to speak to one of his female colleagues, instructed his five-year old son, "When we get home, tell your mother that I was talking to a woman more beautiful than her so that she gets jealous." From his stern tone, I gathered that he was not joking. After my initial shock at his insensitivity, I began to question how this man was teaching this very impressionable young boy to position women - obviously, not as people deserving equal respect and dignity with men. Already, this boy is being trained to perpetuate the same thought processes and power differentials as his father, who was probably taught the same. Mothers do the same thing with their daughters, telling them the now proverbial 'truth' that, "All men are dogs", and should therefore be treated as such.

Do we really expect that our younger generation will not internalise these attitudes towards the opposite sex and relationships that we carelessly pass on to them, and share them within their peer groups?

Advice and guidance are different from passing judgement and making harsh declarations and generalisations on behalf of every woman and man. As adults, let us not merely sigh and fold our hands at the way our young people are growing up, apportioning to them all the blame for the challenges that they are presently faced with. While they are able to make their own decisions about things, they also need to have reliable and respectable opinion leaders who offer responsible guidance not only through their words, but also through their actions. It is never enough to merely point the accusing finger, without identifying the root causes of a problem.

Fungai Machirori can be contacted on fungai@safaids.org.zw

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