MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Mutual Respect or Mutual Disrespect?

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Dear Editor

Contrary to Mo & Phindi’s Mutual respect a necessity for marriage to thrive article [The Weekend Post – Saturday 1 July 2023]; I am opining that disrespect is the end-game to any interaction.

Having never been married myself, but there is no bargaining for respect in any interaction, because disrespect is always calculated and therefore never a once-off honest mistake. Spousal Homicide nowadays is simply a confirmation that one party is better off without the other, long after mutual or unrequited respect has run into a dead end; excuse the dead pun.

I am therefore repeating that respect [and disrespect] is the beginning [and ending] of any interaction. To paraphrase my statement, one starts and/or ends an interaction based on admiration and/or disdain of someone; which is respect or lack thereof. The term, showing the last respects to a deceased, must have been coined when a funeral is attended or not by a certain individual; because non-attendance of a final send-off by an enemy can also be attributed to respect of the departed too.

You can respect anyone without ever loving them, but it is impossible to love someone one does not have respect for. Hence I find it shallow-minded, snobbish and/or status-conscious to believe that respect is earned. I believe that one must be given respect, especially upon first time meet up, then they themselves negate that free-given high regard towards themselves through their contemptuous behaviour and/or utterances.

In my relationships with family, friend or foe, disrespect is the litmus test of the longevity of our interaction; hence someone will only emotionally, psychologically, verbally and ultimately physically abuse anyone after calculating that they are not worthy of their respect.

Regards

Luyanda Marlon Kama
Kwa-Dwesi, Gqeberha

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Port Elizabethan

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