By CHRISTINE OKONKWO
I am a woman, an African woman who was born in the age when men had the proportions of 'King Solomon macho man'; a woman who accepted her place in that age and thrived in it.
Then the world turned over, and the sun came up again, its rays sharper and brighter with our new freedom. It was an exhilarating world, bearing the marks of joy and fulfilment, and the promise that it would so remain.
Then things began to change again. Or was it me who changed? 'This is the dawn of my awakening,' I said. 'I will not be chained by age-long cultures. The fathers of this world are a callous lot. The mothers are toys, or at best the furniture. As a woman, I will become a man. My weapon is hate, my armour is pretence, my shield a honeyed smile. I will wed, create and destroy them. And having conquered, I will emerge as a colossus bestriding the world, the woman of the century, an idol for generations to come!'
I was not alone in my hurt. The world hurt with me. I withdrew the feminine essence and found myself in a hard, hurting world, filled to the brim with violence and an unending onslaught of barbarism.
The sun set. I reached for the accolades earned by the sweat of my life's work. I could only feel an emptiness, a staleness. I searched deep into the recesses of my being, and a pile of debris stared me in the face. 'Where is the virile generation I have built?' I asked. I found them. Some I found were battered, broken people, people continually running away from themselves, people who rejected responsibility and fought blame, despite being blameworthy.
'I have been on a wild-goose chase,' I said.
Tunnel of discovery
I had spent the tears of my youth weeping for a shadow. But I would not succumb. I had my safe place. I was insured by my smile and my laughter.
Then one day a friend said, 'Your smile must lose its sweetness and gain the serenity of the Cross.' I groped through the darkness down the tunnel of selfdiscovery. I found the tiny rays of the sun bearing a Cross. I had a choice: the cross, the immutable, its rays bearing healing. I took a step to the light.
From days afar I could hear again Mother speaking of the enduring capacity of the woman. With thankfulness and appreciation, she enthroned womanhood. I could hear myself asking, 'Why?' She told me, I remembered, that the world would be without solace, if we all became like men. Women,' she said, 'are the humaneness, the milk and the life of the world.'
To fight to love above all else, compassionately to lead the world to undiscovered heights-neither the merely loquacious nor the merely placardcarrying will achieve this, but those who will be humble enough to be remoulded by the suffering of love.
My heart bears testimony to a new lease of life. To remain within that is my calling for the nineties.
