Samajik: The Useless Article @ Baithak

The Useless Article

Saturday, July 16, 2005 | 1 comments

Mahwash Ajaz

U.N. Sex Crimes in Congo: Prostitution, Rapes Run Rampant
By Brian Ross, David Scott, and Rhonda Schwartz

A Culture of Fear

One 14-year-old girl from Bunia was on her way to the village well for water, local police said, when two blue-helmeted U.N. troops, from Morocco, stopped her. One of the soldiers raped her, she said.

"We know that these people came to bring peace to this country," Dieudonne Shabani, the victim's mother, told ABC News. "So how come the same men who come to bring peace are doing this to my daughter? It really revolted me."

The family took their devastated daughter to the police and a doctor from an aid group filed a rape report with the United Nations. The next day, the family said the Moroccan commander from the United Nations came and insulted them by offering money for the case to be dropped. Nothing has been heard since.

At this point, said the Rev. Alfred Buju, the town's Catholic priest, the people fear the U.N. personnel.

"They're saying even to young girls, be careful to not be taken by those peacekeepers," he said.

Buju had his own exposure to the U.N. problem when he said he witnessed two Pakistani U.N. troops sexually assault a teenage girl in a church convent one morning last spring. After filing a report with U.N. officials, he said he was promised that the two offending soldiers would be expelled from the U.N. mission. But one month ago, Buju said he saw one of the soldiers involved in the assault at a U.N. checkpoint 25 miles away.

This excerpt has been taken from here.

"It's a good thing that didn't happen to me."

Is that what you are thinking?

Well. It could happen to you. It could happen to anybody. It doesn't make a difference if you are not living in Congo. You could be working in a nice airconditioned office, with educated, lively co-workers; you could be on your way out from your house to get an ice cream; you could be coming home from school/university; you could be within your family; you could be anywhere. You don't have to be in Congo to have to face this.

I'm trying to find where the most irony lies. Is it in the fact that you are not safe anymore even from the people around you? Is it that more than 150 allegations were made against the UN employees themselves in Congo? Is it that sexual crimes have become so blatant, so profound that we have found it ever so convenient to let it go out of our conciousnesses when we drop our children at schools… when we want to take a walk out on the streets… when we feel that we are surrounded in a work atmosphere… and need to make a living?

Funny. Each one sounds better than the last.

What provokes me the most to write this has to be this little anecdote shared by a friend on one of the communities on Orkut. She was talking about how she walked out the door and a young boy — barely in his teens — sang cheap songs at her… and later someone made loud smacking noises…

On the forum she wanted to know what exactly went on in the minds of these people to come up with such idiocies and what made them do what they did… of course, she said, psychological reasonings could be endless… but she really wanted to hear it from one of these perpetrators themselves.

What does it take to work the insides of a sexual harasser or a molester — was the question on that forum. What they wanted to know was what could possibly make someone do something … (see, I do not even have a name for this something… can we name something like this anything else than something?) … like that…?

I'm thinking I wouldn't want to worry about what goes on inside his head. I'd want to get out of there. And fast.

But her query really did begin to be an irritant stimulus and I started to browse through articles, in my brain and elsewhere, what exactly went behind the bars of the psychopath. Instead of going there I found myself looking at a couple of statistics as given by the UN and PeaceWomen websites. Desensitizing begins and I see statistics par statistics rolling off the charts here. Dr. Shazia, Mukhataran Mai and Micheal Jackson, of late, come to mind and I am still stuck wondering where exactly I'm supposed to give the Best Irony Prize. Desensitizing continues perhaps. It is a little wonder how I am thinking what I thought initially. Am I glad it's not me.

Our shudders will not prevent us from these crimes, ladies and gentlemen. We can be victims today, tomorrow, whenever. Newspapers that dot children's names under sexual crimes could very well be our children. For those whose children they really are probably were thinking, just like you and I, sipping coffee, thanking stars. What made them suffer? What can we do to stop this menace from entering our lives?

I don't have answers and interestingly enough neither do experts. They seem to be falling deeper and deeper into pits of converging and self-conflicting ideas and theories on how to eradicate these social evils. First they say, castrate the perpetrator. Next they say — no … that's too expensive… rehabilitation is more humane and less expensive too… Then they are constantly moving people into more and more people being more and more vocal about it… last I heard they wanted to have Mukhtaran Mai over…

Is this helping? Are statistics going down? Are charts going up or down? Are we making frantic grabs at our humanism? Are we failing? Are we succeeding?

You tell me.

And if you think that this article is going to help you give or take any answers, forget it. After browsing through hours worth of websites and shocking UN webpages I'm as baffled as the next person. They are simply telling me to go hide somewhere where there are no humans around. Anyone can do this to you. It can happen anytime. I do not know how to protect myself or the people I care about. I do not know what is going to stop it all. I know that it is not safe to roam the city at night. And alone is wild step out of the imagination. You can't be trusted. I can't be trusted. Everyone and everything is quarantined.

A culture of fear is promulgated globally. Pure and good and true are things that belonged to what — the past? Notice that it is not Al Qaeda nor the American civilization that is doing any of this deliberately. We are all humans and we are all worried about what happens to our children. We all want our women to be protected, our poor sheltered and our hungry ones fed. There are no criminals thereof, so to speak. There are no terrorist groups. No secret allied forces working against the downfall of mankind. Man… it is man himself who is pushed to the edge… the same man who eats, drinks, dresses, talks and walks like you and I do… who has the psychology to rape a four year old … it is the same woman who is known to commit sex crimes against children. These are all of the same kind.

So where did we go wrong?

I am not going to answer it because I can't. I might quote statistics or psychopathological reports of diseased patients to you. I might tell you the current statements issued by women welfare workers, UN charters, policies, facts, rates of crimes, education, poverty. But that's not where your answer lies. Each of us need to find security now. Each of us need haven from the evils that increase each day. Each of us wonder whether or not we are going to be victimized.

Ask yourself. Wonder about humanity at large. Think beyond these facts for a moment and ask yourself, your family, your friends, your connections what went wrong with humanity. What has made us what we are now? What is the true nature of man and how far along is he from it right now as we speak?

The author herself confesses her limited vision of humanity and fails to understand that so many people could do so many wrongs. Maybe I am naïve. I do not know. But man's inhumanity to man made countless thousands mourn. And I am one of them.

I will not answer anything. I confess I am devoid of them. All I have are questions. And the purpose of this perhaps, useless article, is to ask them from you. I may have begun this article thinking I could reach a conclusion… but now I sadly realize… that there is none.

Except Peace.

Saturday, July 16, 2005 | permalink | 1 comments

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1 Comments:

Indeed ... very true ! These questions keep multiplying .. and answers are nowhere in sight !

By Sairam, at January 18, 2006 9:36 AM