We have just commemorated Anzac Day here in Australia, a bit like Veterans Day in the USA. At 17 years of age, my grandfather was in the battle for Lone Pine, on Gallipoli, and after receiving a shrapnel wound to the head was repatriated back to Australia via Cairo. Other than that, I have been free of the gambit of thoughts and emotions experienced by those who have been directly touched by loss of loved ones at war, as well as those who have returned, suffering physical and mental trauma.
As I took time this year to reflect on war, I was engaged in my thoughts about the burden of loss that is experienced by the mothers of all those who die during war. These are woman who have nurtured an embryo, suckled an infant and raised boys and girls who lives would be short lived because of the ravages of war. Only a mother knows the breadth and depth of pain that accompanies such a loss.
Let me digress for a moment. I have seen a recent Australian Government commercial raising awareness of violence against women. This was made more poignant with the news report over this Anzac weekend of a man who bashed his ex-wife to death with a cricket bat. The commercial stated, ‘Violence against women starts with disrespect’. ‘From little things, big things grow’ was essentially the theme of the advertisement. What it was really saying is that respect for women has to be instilled from a young age.
Respect taught in a home can only go so far. If the society that a child is raised in disrespects women, there is only so much family modelling can do. Sending men and women off to war, the crucible of death, is the ultimate disrespect for women who bear the uterine crucible of life. If women were the ones to make the decision for sending their children off to war, we would have less wars. I understand that there were American Indian tribes, who when faced with the prospect of going to war would essentially handover the decision to the grandmothers of the tribe, as they, better than anyone, appreciated the value of a life.
As much as we must acknowledge the sacrifice of our galant soldiers, equally, as evidence of respect for women, we should be acknowledging the sacrifice of the mothers. They should be walking in our Anzac Parades, alongside their ‘boys and girls’. This respects procreation, the sacredness of childbirth. When this sort of respect is extended to a key role of women, instead of objectifying women’s genitalia in pornography, it becomes something sacred. When the ‘pussy’ becomes the ‘sacred yoni’ all that emanates from the womb will be held sacred, there would be no rape, no sexual abuse, and there would be less war.
Just because war has existed since time memorial, doesn’t justify us continuing to resort to war as a means for resolving our differences. No greater motive for a peaceful solution is our need to build respect for mothers and women.
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