By. Ngenge Sasa.

Melanisian Man were the first to loose their identity.
How?

It was in the early 1500 when the first missionaries and explorers arrived on our shores, our man were rounded up, and force to do intensive labour on plantation, working 5am-5 pm, which at that time was very new to what they are used to doing, in Melanesia, Men and women dont work that hard, but they live a very healthy life. They usually work in the early part of the moning, then comes home and hangout in the village doing other task, like building or fixing canoes, mending fishing nets, building fish traps, or building houses, etc, (mens work), later in the afternoon they go back to work in the garden.

While women on the other hand, continue to do what they have been doing for generation? Looking after the kids, the family, the clan, cooking, gardening, fishing in some cultures, and making sure the family are well feed etc.

Then things start changing, Men after working in the plantation are too tired to do any thing in and around the house. Shared responsibilities like gardening, fishing, looking after the kids, becomes a womens full time job.
Then we have the new introduce jobs in the house, that the white men brought, eg, washing cloths, brushing the pots, washing the plates, all these are also given to the poor women to do, including the traditional responsibilities the women already have.

Then Men with the new mindset taught to them by the white men, starting thinking that they are superior to women, they started acting like kings, and expecting the women to do everything, they men also become very aggresive if women fail her task in and around the house. The feeling of partnership and equality between men and women in our culture started disapering, men started loosing interest in their traditional responsibilities, they become confused not knowing what to do, where to go, they men then resort to alcohol to ease their confusion, resulting in wife beating, material affairs, broken families, hopeing those things will solve their problems, but still no solution.

Today alot of Melanisian men are very confused and are still searching for their real identity.

It was recently that the Melanisian women are standing up and saying, Men you are not doing it right, we can teach you how to do it. 
Womens Rights group are supporting women to fight against men. 
So women are also leaving their traditional responsibilities, thinking it would change the outcome for the better, but the conciquenses are the same has men, but much more demaging then their men folks, women are also becoming very aggresive around the house, having affairs at work, remarrying, and the list goes on.
Women are the core of Life, the family, the culture, the clans, and everything that makes up who we are as a people. Once you change that, everything colaspe.

My point here is, Melanisian Men and women let us stop our inhouse fighting, over womens rights and mens rights, because we are both victim of an introduce system and mindset that we not aware of.
And let us sit down together and discuss what we should do as a people to take back our loss Identity.

To be cont…..

Source: Facebook