Courage, Sisters!

From left: Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are shown in these file photos. (AP Photo)

From the fount of Western civilization
to the Dark Continent; ancient Greek women
to present-day African women; oppressed,
degraded, devoid of human rights, a
surging sense of empowerment arose:
from the battlefields of women's bodies
denial of access as a signal that all will
not continue as it has in a world dominated
by male power, exclusively patriarchal,
denying the very alien concept of gender
equality and liberation of the female spirit.

Courage, sisters! African leading lights
in the women's movement to deny men's
institutionalized prerogatives; casual rape
of women and children. Together, we will
present an allied front, an impenetrable wall
of resistance. And we will insist our counsel
be sought in the violent pursuit of ancient
tribal enmities, victimizing the helpless for
the glory of the powerful, uncaring of our
hapless, no-longer-helpless plight.

Women's fury, finally roused and awakened
from its ghastly corpselike apathy, crucified
in violence, scorn, poverty, starvation, disease
and ignorance has combusted into a fiery
demand and righteous entitlement. Notice
given, the wheel of progress and enlightenment
initiated grinds inexorably forward. And three
African women saluted as Nobel laureates.