America be ashamed

We are held hostage and have become unwilling captives of the taboo world of pornography and the murkiness it conjures. As the U.S. president and leader of the free world, Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels, a sex worker, hurl slurs at each other we cannot help but feel contaminated, if not violated, by the splatter and spray of gutter sludge. Alas, due to the explicit nature of the contents of these disgraceful diatribes, the world’s collective mind is forced to contemplate the particulars including the size, utility and merits of the  male phallus, more to the point, that of Donald Trump. 

Forsooth! The Emperor has no clothes, lacking even rudimentary vestiges of fig leaves. This latest farce emanating from the White House is just another deleterious episode highlighting Trump’s immorality, cruelty and sadism. Another Emperor devoid of any graces whatsoever, was Emperor Caligula (July 31, 12 AD – January 22, 41 AD) whose rule over the Roman Empire was supposed to usher in a golden era, but was instead marked by his tyranny.   Caligula said: “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”  If those words have a familiar ring, it is because the same sentiments have been vocalized by Trump. It was said of Caligula that his sadism horrified an empire.

Having cavorted with her merely few weeks after his wife put to bed, Trump’s  puerile, sadistic comparison of Stormy to an animal, specifically a horse,  is not only the height of hypocrisy, it is sexist in the extreme.  In denigrating her looks he solidifies his position as a card-carrying misogynist, who denies the intrinsic and innate talents of women and goes as far as to deny our personhood, seeking  to perpetuate the harmful myth that women are objects, whose only value resides in superficial physical attributes and in their appeal to men.

Indeed, a corollary of this mind-set is that the raison d’être of our existence is to provide pleasure to men. Nothing more and nothing less!  This cave man mentality emanating from the White House deals a dastardly blow to the emancipation and empowerment of women and the girl–child worldwide. It is especially egregious and harmful to gender rights and development in Africa, as we are lagging far behind our Western counterparts. It has the potential to erode the slow progress and small victories we have garnered on the continent and takes our struggle back to the grim, dark era of entrenched cultural and institutional discrimination against women and the girl-child.  In 1979 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW).

The instrument is often referred to as the “International bill of rights for women.” The only countries not signatories to the convention are Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Tonga and the Holy See.  Although the United States of America is a signatory, the argument can be made that the current U.S. president is in violation of the spirit and letter of the law and should be held accountable. Regarding gender discrimination, this state of affairs aligns the U.S. more closely to three nations on the terrorist list. It is deplorable and unacceptable table that after concerted international action over eons to recognize and uphold women’s rights, Trump has the temerity to refer to us as animals.  In the recent past he called the only black senior level functionary in the White House, who happened to be a woman, a dog.  It is noteworthy that other high profile women in his administration including his daughter Ivanka Kushner and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, both self-acclaimed champions of women’s rights, did not speak out against his latest volley of abuse, but decided to remain mum.  Could it be that they too believe that they are animals, or worse, that their daughters are animals?

Trump’s feral appetites, bloated ego and leanings towards blood-thirsty tyrants who he mawkishly admires and lavishes praise on, are co-mingled and pose a threat to humanity.  The latest rendition of which is now playing out on the world stage, as he refuses to unequivocally condemn Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the heir apparent to the throne of the kingdom of Saudi-Arabia for his alleged involvement in the grisly murder and hacking to pieces of a dissident journalist, which ostensibly took place at his behest in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. A clear pattern now emerges as Trump’s contempt for women’s rights and human rights in general, intersect in real time, which ought to disabuse our minds of any amelioration in his conduct or tone towards women.  He is in free–fall and we can only realistically expect that the status-quo is a harbinger of worse to come.

I believe that it is time for women’s and  children’s rights  groups to galvanize themselves and take action to stem the constant tide of verbal harassment and drivel which flows from the White House and permeates our air-waves worldwide.  As someone who has a passion for the youth, I am of the strong opinion that their innocence should be protected. It goes without saying they should be shielded from the adult world of vice and corruption for as long as possible, in order to ensure the solid moral foundation they need to grow into well-grounded and balanced human beings. 

Therefore, legal action should be considered to secure an injunction which would prohibit Trump from using his official twitter account to disseminate material of a disturbing and reprehensible nature, unless such material is accompanied with a guardrail aimed at children. The efforts of these groups should be under girded by religious organizations, including Christian groups who are true representatives of Jesus Christ and His moral teachings and do not fall into the category He railed against and called hypocrites, brood of vipers and white-washed sepulchers, who have turned His house into a marketplace. More importantly He said: “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.’’ Luke 17:2 (NIV).
• Fowler is an international lawyer.