Can Mothers and Women be Sacred Again?
By Sankofie | Published | No Comments
It is the month of May. Sunday the 10th day was celebrated as Mother’s day. In gushing words many declared that ‘everyday was mother’s day’, ‘the whole month should be a celebration of mothers’, ‘mothers should be celebrated non stop’ and so on and so forth. Seven (7) days later, in this same month of May, also on a Sunday, one of the days of rest and Christian worship, we kill a mother on the street. Not in the dark of the night but in the light of the day for anyone and everyone to see. She was shot in cold blood, her body dragged on the street, put in a vehicle, driven away. No ceremony, no sense of wrong doing, no protocols, no respect for a human being, a human body, a woman’s body, a mother’s body, a mother’s, to later be pronounced…dead, body. The presence of extenuating circumstances has been noted. They do not appear in any way, to justify the taking of a mother’s life , a woman’s life or any life. Woman shot dead by police in Jamaica at protest over previous police shooting | Jamaica | The Guardian, WATCH: Cop interdicted after woman killed in Granville police shooting – Jamaica Observer, ‘The lady didn’t deserve this’ – Senior cop says police forced to make ‘quick decisions’ as Granville continues to reel after police shooting | News | Jamaica Gleaner
So clearly all the declarations of the importance of women as mothers was idle talk. Spoutings from mouths, that, as we say, cut cross ways to go up and down, with no strong consensual ‘backative’ in our hearts or culture. We have seen this coming. The shooting and disrespect of a mother of two children and her body in the street is not a beginning. It is another milestone in an enduring effort to debase our societal morals, values, ethics. A continuing of the many efforts to demean women and to undermine, render helpless, tear down, the strongest pillars of society. This behaviour was taught to us and learned under duress. It was institutionalized by us, within us. Many of us are not even consciously aware of that. We do not realize or recognize that this conditioning exists close to the core of our being. That unlike our earliest Jamaica women and mothers, who were the first on this island to be, with the blood of Jesus, transformed from sacred to scared, we today are living a life shaped primarily by invaders and now devoutly maintained by our own selves.
How do we, as today’s Jamaicans, see women and mothers in our societies today? The ones carrying the God given responsibilities for biological and spiritual continuity. Do we see and position them as the first and lifelong teachers that they are, shaping society for the good of all? Do we understand that they were created sacred by God’s choice? That their sacredness does not simply make them ‘important’ or ‘special’ but speaks to their God given mandate, across spiritual, cultural, social, ethical dimensions, to be bearers of life, spirit, culture? That when we interface with women and mothers, we should be honouring, guarding, respecting what should be their inviolable worth and our rite to live in reverence for those God chose to be our mothers?
Perhaps this milestone, though lamentable, can be allowed to bring forth something useful. Perhaps we need to use it to ignite many conversations among us as to how to make women and mothers sacred again. Perhaps after some assessment we could posit that we are and always have been sacred. That all we have to do is reawaken to this knowledge and figure out how in our ‘patriarchy gone wild’ Jamaica, mothers and women may participate to re-structure leadership so as to shift the whole society to a more balanced existence and how to reshape everyday living so that we may go back to living as God must have intended. And if, in fact, we were stripped of sacredness, can women and mothers ever be sacred again?
Can we simply switch the letters around and become sacred again in space and time? Deep inside me where God’s spirit dwells with mine, I want to hold on to God and let God guide my spirit to a place of understanding and hope where I am willing to plant a seed even though I may not eat from the tree. Whereas women we see the need to be who we are, not puppets of politics, economics or other societal dimensions but honoured, wise and respected beings, participating in and purposely shaping all aspects of our livity with the guidance of spirit. As mothers and women we need to stop, assess, reposition ourselves and ensure that Jamaica moves forward in justice, fairness, honesty, truth and so much more. As mothers and women we need to lead in-depth conversations and take actions to see if and how we may return Jamaican society to a place where women’s lives are treated as inviolable, mothers are honored not only in words but in political, economic, legal, cultural and other structures that protect them and where we can restore reverence for the feminine principle as divine, ancestral, and socially indispensable.
May 21, 2026
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