[Apologies for top posting. I think that horse has left the barn, as we say here in Amurka.]
Insofar as "the system" apparently led to allowing the systematic torture and rape of nearly one and a half thousand children over a period of decades, in a supposedly civilized nation (UK), I hope that everybody reading this note on this list will agree that "the system" was (and still is?) entirely and criminally fucked up. So, we agree that the people who were charged with protecting these children (who were and are both boys and girls, to my understanding) failed, and failed miserably, and criminally. The number boggles the mind. 1,400 children (effectively) kidnapped and raped in one (smallish) city. How can this possibly be true? And yet it apparently is. So it's easy to assign blame to those who failed to protect the children: the mothers, fathers, police, ministers, priests, teachers, and every other goddamn adult in the city. I can believe that some of them had no idea what was going on. But I cannot believe that *nobody* had any idea what was going on. But let's put that on the stack for a moment and consider the other question, who were and are the rapists? According to this story, they were prominently Pakistanis or people of Pakistani heritage. Let's assume that's true for a minute. One then must ask, Is all Pakistani culture fucked up, or is it "merely" some swath of it? ( I take it as axiomatic that raping kidnapped children is fucked up.) My question: how many Pakistani rapists raped the 1,400 children who were raped? Was it 100 rapists who raped 14 children each? 14 rapists who raped 100 children each? That sounds horrific. Maybe it was 200 rapists who raped 7 children each. Is that better or worse? We don't yet know, if I understand the facts, how many of the rapists were Pakistani, or what words might properly be used to describe the ethnic/cultural/whatever affiliation of those rapists who were/are not of Pakistanis "heritage". I shuddered when I read Shiv's comments about "disciplining" children and "honor" murders. He asks, "why were all the girls white?". The most obvious answer is that that's what the market wanted. Shiv says "In Britain the state attempts to protect vulnerable children from physical and emotional abuse by parents," and then insinuates, if I understand him correctly, that this impulse to protect children from abusive parents is somehow correlated to the kidnapping and rape of children in Rotherham. What the fuck? It's illegal to beat up your own child in your own home. It's also illegal to kidnap somebody else's child and rape him or her repeatedly over a period of years. Is it really not obvious that both of these things are bad or that the state has an interest in curtailing them? I'm not even going to try to parse the discussion of "honor killings" or of how "consensual sex" is somehow tied to child rape. I can't even write about this any more. This shit is fucked up. jrs > > The system seem to have things the wrong way round. Exactly what is > going on? > > shiv > > >
