Kenya and Kongo - Why Humans Aren't My Favorite Species...
The news this week were depressing from a human rights perspective. Yes, I know this stuff's been going on for forever, but maybe, as I get older, I get more upset with it as a woman and as a human being. I know the fact that about 5 1/2 million people have been killed during the Kongo's long civil war (the news folks compare it to the casualty figures of WW II). The number is mindboggling, but as I'm researching and writing about the Gothic war in Italy in the 6th century, I'm well aware how easily/casually people kill each other.
What really disturbs and disgusts me, though, are news of mass rapes, rapes used a weapon, against women and children, gang rapes so horrific that the victims lost count of how many men raped them, women so torn up internally that - if they survive - they need to be surgically repaired. Here are just a few excerpts from the msnbc website:
"One 10-year-old girl suffered a ruptured cervix as the result of her attack, another woman was cleaved across the top of her thighs with a machete and left to bleed to death."
"The perpetrators target females from other tribes to hurt their dignity," Kiama said. "Life will never be the same for a woman who has been raped, the stigmatization is there."
That's another thing that blows my mind - instead of supporting the raped woman, the community and her family rejects her because she is defiled - like it was her choice to be gang-raped!!!
"One Kikuyu widow said she received a cell phone text message: "They are coming to get you. Get out." When the anonymous sender failed to answer her calls, she dismissed it as a hoax.
But it wasn't.
Two hours later, the woman was gang-raped in front of her 4-year-old son."
What is wrong with men? What is it in them that makes them want to do something like that? I don't even understand, to put it very crudely, why men want to f#*% a woman after she's been done by who knows how many others before them in a short timespan? Why don't they just f&#*a sheep or something? A warm, moist hole seems to be all they're looking for - and the power trip, naturally. (Though then I'd feel sorry for the critter....)
In the good old days, cities got sacked and women were raped, taken as slaves, etc. in just the same fashion - most famous example is Troy, I suppose, but there are so many others. Maybe I was hoping that mankind had grown more civilized, but it seems futile to hope for that - another lovely news tidbit was that human trafficking of women had increased by leaps and bounds, especially of girls and women from Eastern European countries. Anybody who thinks that we've left slavery far behind, think again....
What really disturbs and disgusts me, though, are news of mass rapes, rapes used a weapon, against women and children, gang rapes so horrific that the victims lost count of how many men raped them, women so torn up internally that - if they survive - they need to be surgically repaired. Here are just a few excerpts from the msnbc website:
"One 10-year-old girl suffered a ruptured cervix as the result of her attack, another woman was cleaved across the top of her thighs with a machete and left to bleed to death."
"The perpetrators target females from other tribes to hurt their dignity," Kiama said. "Life will never be the same for a woman who has been raped, the stigmatization is there."
That's another thing that blows my mind - instead of supporting the raped woman, the community and her family rejects her because she is defiled - like it was her choice to be gang-raped!!!
"One Kikuyu widow said she received a cell phone text message: "They are coming to get you. Get out." When the anonymous sender failed to answer her calls, she dismissed it as a hoax.
But it wasn't.
Two hours later, the woman was gang-raped in front of her 4-year-old son."
What is wrong with men? What is it in them that makes them want to do something like that? I don't even understand, to put it very crudely, why men want to f#*% a woman after she's been done by who knows how many others before them in a short timespan? Why don't they just f&#*a sheep or something? A warm, moist hole seems to be all they're looking for - and the power trip, naturally. (Though then I'd feel sorry for the critter....)
In the good old days, cities got sacked and women were raped, taken as slaves, etc. in just the same fashion - most famous example is Troy, I suppose, but there are so many others. Maybe I was hoping that mankind had grown more civilized, but it seems futile to hope for that - another lovely news tidbit was that human trafficking of women had increased by leaps and bounds, especially of girls and women from Eastern European countries. Anybody who thinks that we've left slavery far behind, think again....