13 years ago I exchanged marriage vows
with my wife as part of that exchange of
vows I privately made a promise to
myself and that promise was never to
beat my wife now that promise to myself
might come across as a bit strange to
most people but I had to make that
promise to myself because I had gotten
to a place where I was scared of myself
the reason I was scared I’d like to take
you to my childhood in 1980 we moved
into a new neighborhood and in the time
it takes to offload household furniture
from the van into the house two things
happened the first one I made a new
friend his name was Sam the second thing
I got into a fight the reason for the
fight was because myself and another boy
could not agree about who could beat the
other so the only way to resolve that
difference was naturally by fighting
that fight marked my entry into a world
where we used violence to settle
differences we used violence to
established hierarchy we used violence
as play and play as violence and in this
world you had to be a victim or you had
to protect yourself because where is
violence you are always going to meet
boys were stronger than you bigger than
you and when faced with such a boy you
had to make sure that even if they beat
you they had to learn a lesson never to
attempt to bully you in future and you
that by exacting a price into their
bullying so when you are fighting them
you hit them with a stone with a knife
with a fork
anything so that not only they would
learn the lesson but even other bullies
who were watching the fight would know
that that boy you do not pick on him and
that was the only way to protect
yourself the second thing I learned when
growing up was that whereas boys we
fought a lot physically physical
violence the girls on the other hand
used words so you might call it verbal
violence they reduced you they cut you
down they believed you and you knew
which girls not to mess with because you
knew they were going to reduce you and
finish you on the spot girls were so
good at the communication game
that a girl didn’t have to really say
anything to insult you there’s this
thing that the girls did when a girl
looked at you from head to toe and back
again and if you were at the receiving
end of that look you knew what was being
communicated and the fun part was trying
to find a boy trying to tell a teacher
because he felt injured he felt insulted
but it was difficult to package it and
report it so that is one of the things
that happened so I want you to imagine
this world in which this young boy and
this young girl grow up both of them
developing a specific set of tools of
software to protect themselves to use
the same tools for aggression and
defense all the time
these become hardwired into their
personality it becomes like software
they don’t have to think about it they
don’t have to practice it just comes
naturally now I want you to understand
that whereas as boys we did a lot of
fighting and as we got older into junior
secondary that violence just became
worse I want you to imagine when this
girl and boy fought even as boys when we
fought it was violent but when a given
boy thought it was a bit more violent
because there was a little bit more
desperation from both sides you see if
you were a boy and you fought with a
girl the fight had to be definitive
you had to come out Victor without
question and for the game you have to
remember that she is literally fighting
for her life she is fighting with
someone who stronger who has got more
experience the CV with physical violence
it’s longer now I want you to imagine a
world where these two grow up and marry
each other now I don’t care how much
happily ever after this marriage is
going to be but there is going to be
friction there going to be differences
it’s going to be frustrations and when
this happens you have to people will
have the triggers for each other’s
violence when the woman or girl becomes
verbal it triggers physical violence and
the physical violence triggers verbal
violence in short you create the perfect
storm the perfect storm without a
referee and that is where we are today
today we are in a society where we have
started to see violence escalate in
marriages among couples and partners and
we are surprised that this is so this
violence is so prevalent that more than
the women close to half the women have
experienced it and the tragedy is that
many of these women cannot even report
it
we are told more than 10 percent of the
women who have experienced violence of
one form of the other have never told
anyone the only people who know is the
man and herself that is the extent of
our problem but this is not the end of
the problem the real problem lies with
how much we have come to accept this
violence this violence is so acceptable
to the extent that women who are at the
receiving end most of the time of this
violence justified in specific instances
so for instance women agreed that in
certain instances violence is inevitable
the first one for instance 52 percent of
women agree that if the women Bin’s food
the husband’s violence is justified 42
percent agree that if the woman argues
with the husband she is inviting
violence and if it bitter
it’s justifiable 42 percent agree that
if a woman goes out without permission
the man is justified in beating these
are zambian statistics 42 percent agree
that if a woman neglects the children
their husband is justified in beating
the next one is shocking 37% of women
who are in relationships think that a
man is justified in beating her if she
refuses the man sex that is one in three
women in Zambia if you look at the stats
have given you it’s further disturbing
to note that 61% of women agree with one
of the reasons I have given that’s more
than half of the women in this country
think that violence as a response to
provocation irritation disappointment is
justified I’m sure you agree with me
when you look at these stats that we
must end this culture of violence we
need to end this culture of violence
because the results of this culture of
violence are there for all of us to see
in the media everywhere we look we see
the results of this violence we see a
society in which people look at
compromised dialogue reasoning with one
another as a witness where they see
bullying and violence as strength my
proposal is that we need to correct the
situation and the first thing is we need
to make some investments in the future
generation the first thing we need to do
is to watch closely how our children are
learning to resolve conflict how they
are reacting to disappointment how they
are able to conduct themselves when they
are annoyed because we need to ensure
that the software we grew up with is not
transmitted to our children but when
doing this I want us to bear one thing
in mind
we are not going to teach our children
to be nonviolent through words we are
not going to say don’t be violent and
beat up our wives and husbands and
expect that they won’t pick it up we
have to make sure that our words and
the second thing is that all of us have
got self-control tremendous amount of
self-control I want you to imagine for a
moment an interaction between a boss and
a subordinate in which the boss having
one information about something is very
annoyed you will see the subordinate
trying to reason with the boss trying to
make them understand what happened why
it happened you take that same person
well despite being showered with insults
was struggling and making every effort
to reason with the other they go home
they meet with their friend or spouse
and in that same interaction you will
see them behave differently why is it so
this is evidence that as human beings we
make a conscious decision that in one
interaction I will exercise
self-restraint and in the other I won’t
and subconsciously
we have grouped people into these
provinces for this group
I will not exercise self-restraint
anything they say and do which annoys me
I will slap them but for this group I
will be reasonable with them I will put
up with them I will be understanding my
proposal is that we need to extend the
same consideration to everyone we should
decide to be reasonable with as many
people as possible so that we can avoid
a situation where when someone bashes
your car the first reaction you have is
to get out of your car and take out a
wheel span that is the kind of society
we are living in where people have
already decided how they are going to
react to something you hear it in
everyday conversations if she cheat on
me I am going to if he did that to me I
would so people have
it decided how they were going to behave
when faced with provocation my proposal
is that we should make the opposite we
should make a decision at that point
knowing how we are going to play out
when something bad happens so we need to
rewrite our software we need to
introspect and gain self-awareness the
other thing we need to understand is
that no matter the situation you catch
someone cheating on you someone bashes
into you someone steals after all is
said and done when we come down we have
to make a decision we have to make a
decision to take it to the police or to
resolve it out of court or to divorce
them or to give them bottom line every
situation which means you have to make a
decision my proposal to you and everyone
is that I hope today is the day where we
make a conscious choice to decide to do
away with violence and adopt a society
and create a society where violence of
any type is no longer acceptable
[Applause] [Music]
with my wife as part of that exchange of
vows I privately made a promise to
myself and that promise was never to
beat my wife now that promise to myself
might come across as a bit strange to
most people but I had to make that
promise to myself because I had gotten
to a place where I was scared of myself
the reason I was scared I’d like to take
you to my childhood in 1980 we moved
into a new neighborhood and in the time
it takes to offload household furniture
from the van into the house two things
happened the first one I made a new
friend his name was Sam the second thing
I got into a fight the reason for the
fight was because myself and another boy
could not agree about who could beat the
other so the only way to resolve that
difference was naturally by fighting
that fight marked my entry into a world
where we used violence to settle
differences we used violence to
established hierarchy we used violence
as play and play as violence and in this
world you had to be a victim or you had
to protect yourself because where is
violence you are always going to meet
boys were stronger than you bigger than
you and when faced with such a boy you
had to make sure that even if they beat
you they had to learn a lesson never to
attempt to bully you in future and you
that by exacting a price into their
bullying so when you are fighting them
you hit them with a stone with a knife
with a fork
anything so that not only they would
learn the lesson but even other bullies
who were watching the fight would know
that that boy you do not pick on him and
that was the only way to protect
yourself the second thing I learned when
growing up was that whereas boys we
fought a lot physically physical
violence the girls on the other hand
used words so you might call it verbal
violence they reduced you they cut you
down they believed you and you knew
which girls not to mess with because you
knew they were going to reduce you and
finish you on the spot girls were so
good at the communication game
that a girl didn’t have to really say
anything to insult you there’s this
thing that the girls did when a girl
looked at you from head to toe and back
again and if you were at the receiving
end of that look you knew what was being
communicated and the fun part was trying
to find a boy trying to tell a teacher
because he felt injured he felt insulted
but it was difficult to package it and
report it so that is one of the things
that happened so I want you to imagine
this world in which this young boy and
this young girl grow up both of them
developing a specific set of tools of
software to protect themselves to use
the same tools for aggression and
defense all the time
these become hardwired into their
personality it becomes like software
they don’t have to think about it they
don’t have to practice it just comes
naturally now I want you to understand
that whereas as boys we did a lot of
fighting and as we got older into junior
secondary that violence just became
worse I want you to imagine when this
girl and boy fought even as boys when we
fought it was violent but when a given
boy thought it was a bit more violent
because there was a little bit more
desperation from both sides you see if
you were a boy and you fought with a
girl the fight had to be definitive
you had to come out Victor without
question and for the game you have to
remember that she is literally fighting
for her life she is fighting with
someone who stronger who has got more
experience the CV with physical violence
it’s longer now I want you to imagine a
world where these two grow up and marry
each other now I don’t care how much
happily ever after this marriage is
going to be but there is going to be
friction there going to be differences
it’s going to be frustrations and when
this happens you have to people will
have the triggers for each other’s
violence when the woman or girl becomes
verbal it triggers physical violence and
the physical violence triggers verbal
violence in short you create the perfect
storm the perfect storm without a
referee and that is where we are today
today we are in a society where we have
started to see violence escalate in
marriages among couples and partners and
we are surprised that this is so this
violence is so prevalent that more than
the women close to half the women have
experienced it and the tragedy is that
many of these women cannot even report
it
we are told more than 10 percent of the
women who have experienced violence of
one form of the other have never told
anyone the only people who know is the
man and herself that is the extent of
our problem but this is not the end of
the problem the real problem lies with
how much we have come to accept this
violence this violence is so acceptable
to the extent that women who are at the
receiving end most of the time of this
violence justified in specific instances
so for instance women agreed that in
certain instances violence is inevitable
the first one for instance 52 percent of
women agree that if the women Bin’s food
the husband’s violence is justified 42
percent agree that if the woman argues
with the husband she is inviting
violence and if it bitter
it’s justifiable 42 percent agree that
if a woman goes out without permission
the man is justified in beating these
are zambian statistics 42 percent agree
that if a woman neglects the children
their husband is justified in beating
the next one is shocking 37% of women
who are in relationships think that a
man is justified in beating her if she
refuses the man sex that is one in three
women in Zambia if you look at the stats
have given you it’s further disturbing
to note that 61% of women agree with one
of the reasons I have given that’s more
than half of the women in this country
think that violence as a response to
provocation irritation disappointment is
justified I’m sure you agree with me
when you look at these stats that we
must end this culture of violence we
need to end this culture of violence
because the results of this culture of
violence are there for all of us to see
in the media everywhere we look we see
the results of this violence we see a
society in which people look at
compromised dialogue reasoning with one
another as a witness where they see
bullying and violence as strength my
proposal is that we need to correct the
situation and the first thing is we need
to make some investments in the future
generation the first thing we need to do
is to watch closely how our children are
learning to resolve conflict how they
are reacting to disappointment how they
are able to conduct themselves when they
are annoyed because we need to ensure
that the software we grew up with is not
transmitted to our children but when
doing this I want us to bear one thing
in mind
we are not going to teach our children
to be nonviolent through words we are
not going to say don’t be violent and
beat up our wives and husbands and
expect that they won’t pick it up we
have to make sure that our words and
the second thing is that all of us have
got self-control tremendous amount of
self-control I want you to imagine for a
moment an interaction between a boss and
a subordinate in which the boss having
one information about something is very
annoyed you will see the subordinate
trying to reason with the boss trying to
make them understand what happened why
it happened you take that same person
well despite being showered with insults
was struggling and making every effort
to reason with the other they go home
they meet with their friend or spouse
and in that same interaction you will
see them behave differently why is it so
this is evidence that as human beings we
make a conscious decision that in one
interaction I will exercise
self-restraint and in the other I won’t
and subconsciously
we have grouped people into these
provinces for this group
I will not exercise self-restraint
anything they say and do which annoys me
I will slap them but for this group I
will be reasonable with them I will put
up with them I will be understanding my
proposal is that we need to extend the
same consideration to everyone we should
decide to be reasonable with as many
people as possible so that we can avoid
a situation where when someone bashes
your car the first reaction you have is
to get out of your car and take out a
wheel span that is the kind of society
we are living in where people have
already decided how they are going to
react to something you hear it in
everyday conversations if she cheat on
me I am going to if he did that to me I
would so people have
it decided how they were going to behave
when faced with provocation my proposal
is that we should make the opposite we
should make a decision at that point
knowing how we are going to play out
when something bad happens so we need to
rewrite our software we need to
introspect and gain self-awareness the
other thing we need to understand is
that no matter the situation you catch
someone cheating on you someone bashes
into you someone steals after all is
said and done when we come down we have
to make a decision we have to make a
decision to take it to the police or to
resolve it out of court or to divorce
them or to give them bottom line every
situation which means you have to make a
decision my proposal to you and everyone
is that I hope today is the day where we
make a conscious choice to decide to do
away with violence and adopt a society
and create a society where violence of
any type is no longer acceptable
[Applause] [Music]
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