By Nenad Kulačin
“The terrible crime that took place in Gradačac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, shook everyone to the core*. After such a monstrous act, everyone has been asking themselves a myriad of questions.
However, there are no answers because this whole act is abnormal and has become very frequent as societies are becoming increasingly weaker and inapt to deal with this type of violence.
It is a cowardly act to strike a woman. Pitiful! Any man who does this desecrates our gender and makes us feel very bad. A woman who gets a slap or a blow from that man is a thousand times stronger. There is no bigger coward than such a man.
Killing a woman with whom you share a child proves that such a man did not deserve to be born. There is no injustice, no fraud, no life circumstances that lead to the separation of man and woman, which is worth violence and murder. Throughout history, this world has given birth to thousands and thousands of cowards who have killed those weaker than themselves. When they are faced with their wrongdoings, they whine, wail and beg.
It is simply impossible to live in a society where this cowardice is the dominant model of behaviour. At what point did men accept that it was normal to hit and kill a woman, and even worse, your own child? Where has chivalry that all men boast about gone? Where are all those psychologists, psychiatrists and, social workers to talk to people as they are about to break up? There are so many cries for help. Why did no one ever help them to understand that when marriage ends it ends, that they have to pay alimony, that their children want their fathers and that by divorcing their wife they are not divorced from their children as well?
I don’t want to defend women killers by writing that it is society’s fault that all this violence is happening, but it is. Imagine the mindset of a police officer who informs an abuser that his ex-wife has reported him. This is where society’s responsibility lies and it is just as responsible as these monsters.
Dear men, you who want to kill women, who beat and mistreat them every day, try to talk, find a common language and share the pain that has befallen you all.Life neither begins nor ends with us. It will continue and no one will shed a tear for thugs and murderers. Violence is not a solution – it is an evil from which there is no cure or recovery. When we were children, parents, or those who protected and looked after us, taught us to be good.
Surely no parent raised their children to be violent and murderous. They were proud of us when we behaved like gentlemen. We were taught to escort the girls to their homes after a night out and wait to see that they have arrived safely. We were taught to keep them safe from everything. A man should respect and protect the woman that bore him children and gave him heirs, not beat and kill her. Sadly, the monster from Gradačac did both things – beat and kill her – and the only thing that this poor woman could think of in her last moments was her child.
Mother courage! No one ever wrote – Father coward! By their acts, such cowards have become nameless symbols of wimpiness that lead to evil doings and do not deserve literary titles. It is the duty of us men to protect women, and not only our wives but also our mothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, godmothers, neighbours, colleagues… There is nothing more honourable in the world than protecting someone weaker than yourself.
A certain woman recently found the courage to stand in front of thousands of unknown people and share her fears with all of us. She spoke and warned. What was the state’s response? “The murder has the right to be freed after serving his sentence.” Why say such a thing? Isn’t it time for the state to say that it will do everything to prevent a convicted violent person from repeating his crime or committing an even more horrendous one?
The state clearly tells us that it is incapable of protecting women and children. The Social Policy Minister, Darija Kisić, is more outraged when a pedicurist doesn’t do her nails properly than by many women who are spending their days and nights in fear for their lives and the lives of their children.
The government doesn’t even want to do what is supposed to do. They are here to fulfil party quotas and obligations and are not interested in taking responsibility or working hard. Men, let’s take care of women and children and we will be perceived as proper men. We will be knights in shining armour and be respected by women even when we don’t love them anymore, not by beating them and shooting at them. By beating up people who are physically weaker than ourselves, we lose a part of our soul that is difficult to recover. Let’s be smarter and braver than the country we live in and is clueless as to what’s going on.
It is not only our obligation, but it should also be the moral code with which we are born and leave this world.”
(Danas, 17.08.2023)
https://www.danas.rs/kolumna/nenad-kulacin/budi-musko-stiti-zenu/
*A man from Gradačac first physically abused and then shot his wife during Instagram live, plus he killed two other people (Turkish citizens) and wounded two. He committed suicide when the police were about to arrest him.
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