Public stupidity

ALMOST 10 years ago, at the closing of a legal literacy seminar for women, a certain Roselan Johar Mohamed, then Kota Kinabalu Umno pro-tem head, uttered, among other things, that “if you cannot fight rape, better lay down and enjoy it and rape victims should be psychologically assessed as to whether they enjoyed the incident.”

There was public outrage over his bizarre remark. I cannot remember whether he said sorry or not but he certainly should have, given the wide media coverage and fierce condemnation of his vulgarity. Angry women groups also demanded an unqualified public apology from him.

He is certainly not (nor will be) the last of the (male) chauvinistic politicians the country has seen. Every now and then, you still read about sexist remarks made by the people’s elected representatives at state assembly and parliamentary sittings.

It’s down right uncouth — even obsence — when an assemblyman could do things like asking a woman YB at a state assembly sitting to remember to look after her own “forest” while commending her for managing forest reserves.

I thought this kind of misogynic fools and display of public stupidity in the August House only existed in boleh land. I was wrong. There is equal, if not frighteningly greater, degree of gender prejudice (against women) in other lands as well. And it’s going to stay, I firmly believe.

On Dec 16 last year, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was repeatedly raped in a bus in south Delhi by six men, including the bus driver and a juvenile. The attackers also inserted a metal rod into her body before dumping her naked body out of the moving bus onto the road. Latest police reports said they were trying to run the vehicle over her.

The victim died after some weeks of medical care at a Delhi hospital and later at Mt Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore to which she was transferred for specialist treatment. But the injuries to her internal organs were too grevious for her to be saved.

As the world grieved over the tragegy, an agriculture scientist at a rural university in Madhya Pradesh, Dr Anita Shukla, won few friends with her shockingly dismissive reaction: “If the girl was surrounded by six rapists, why didn’t she surrender before them — at least it could have saved her intestines.”

As if this was not enough, the insensitive scientist, who is also a Lions Club member, blamed the victim for the crime.  “Women instigate men to commit such crimes.”

She did not stop there but went on to accuse the victim of being insensible by staying out of her house after 10pm.

“It was bound to happen when she roamed till late into night with boyfriends.”

She was speaking at a seminar — Sensitivity towards woman — organised by the Lions Club.

Some newspapers reported it was organised by the police themselves. If true, this is another example of sheer public stupidity on the part of the police to hold such a seminar at a time like this — no matter how noble the objective.

I thought the president of the Madhya Pradesh Women’s Commission was being too kind in her response: “Dr Anita Shukla has lost her mental balance. A statement like this from a female scientist shows she is insensitive towards women even after being a woman herself.”

The Andhra Pradesh Congress chief Botsa Satyanrayana, describing the gang rape of the physiotherapy student as a minor incident, said: “Women are asking for trouble if they venture out at night.”

These are glaring examples of how stupid and inhuman the opinions of some people can be and how it takes all kinds to make up our society.

Mind you, there are people watching from the side who blame rape victims for not resisting. “Why didn’t they scream for help? If only they had fought back, maybe this would not have happened.”

But if the victims resisted, people such as Dr Anita Shukla and Roselan would quickly retort: “Why did you fight back? You only made it worse!”

Yet others would say if the six men were not of a culture where sexual harassment of women is accepted as a fact of life and where rape victims are ignored by police, and worse, blamed for the crime, maybe they would not have beaten up and raped anybody.

Let me cut in here. If there are educated people like Dr Anita Shuka who openly blames rape victims instead of teaching her sons to respect women, then the death of the gang-rape victim will have been in vain.

Moreover, if people like Botsa continues to hold office, I am afraid there isn’t much the administration of Andhdra Pradesh can do to guarantee security and justice for its wo-menfolk who are victims of sex crimes, dowry tortures or any forms of harassement, abuse and atrocity. Unless there is drastic change in mindset, it’s futile to expect light at the end of a very long dark tunnel.

If some sectors of Indian society continue to treat the fair sex like domestic creatures who should not be seen after 5pm lest they become vulnerable to masculine repression and violence, then all the protest marches and candlelight vigils following the beastly gang-rape will have only fleeting impact for change.

Until people are prepared to be better parents and better human beings, not looking for scapegoats when something has gone wrong; until politicians are pro-active and not merely paying lip service in enacting laws to protect the public, irrespective of gender, and until there is a paradigm shift in police sensitivity and attitude towards rape victims, women in Delhi will continue to have the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

As one young girl lamented: “If a nine-month child can be raped or a three-year-old molested, what kind of clothes will save me from being raped?

Indeed, all this open and unspeakable stupidity has been a rape of my intelligence!