Australia: Rape is Women's Fault!
Believe it or not but in my last years of high school, I had a history teacher who sometimes volunteered to vomit his personal views on women and religion. He sometimes digressed from the class to express some personal opinions.
One of the comments that I cannot forget until today is that when he said one time that women are like sweets (particularly Basbosa) if left uncovered, flies will stop on her. Hence, he believes that women’s best place is their homes and wearing headscarves. The man believed himself to be popular and funny. I always felt that he has got too many complexes at so many levels. And by the way, I did not go to a public/government school where teachers’ qualifications might be compromised. I went to a private school, so in fact there was no excuse to end up with such a teacher.
So I was about to start my university studies with a lovely message from my history teacher that flies will have me as a stop if I do not cover my head and stay at home.
Today, I was reading the news on the internet, I found another smart Muslim cleric who is the laying the blame of rape on women and guess why because that’s what women deserves when they do not cover their head. That’s because a woman can rape herself!
But the news is not coming from Cairo where I grew up and lived. It is coming from Sydney, Australia.
My history teacher was the messenger. In Australia, the message came from the original sources, one of the Muslim clerics who is still living apparently in the dark Middle Ages. No body informed him that in the western world women are treated with respect and dignity.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard called the remarks "appalling and reprehensible." I think this is the least he can say. If I fail to understand this dark mentality that forces women to dress in a certain code and lay the blame on her for every crime including an abhorrent crime like rape, how can the westerners who hire women as heads of state understand?
Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said Hilali's comment was an incitement to rape saying “This is inciting young men to a violent crime because it is the woman's fault." This is a very polite way to put it. However, he should have continued the consequences of making women as the sole responsible for rape. Some pigs will come to claim that they have the right to punish women for their faults by making innocent men slip into raping women.
The only way I see for curbing this world phenomenon of spreading dark ideas is strong legislation that punishes those who insist to live in the dark middle ages. Arguing seems to me so futile. We are living in the 21 century and life is too short.
It is getting more pathetic by the second!