The rape of men: a dark secret of war (2011)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I have also seen problems for women (and some men) in the US military. But that is a whole different chapter.
While you aren't wrong that the Saudi Arabian government tortures prisoners, you're phrasing implies that they are unique when in fact most authoritarian governments around the world torture people in their prisons.
Could you expand a bit on the significance of this? This seems like the kind of response that would be met with scorn if Saudi Arabia were substituted for certain other authoritarian governments in this sentence.
I've been grappling with it a bit myself, lately. When we are thinking about the human rights violations of a particular government or organization, is it important to consider them in context (similar to your statement, if I'm reading it correctly--i.e. such violations are not unique)? But then such attempts to place things in context are often met with accusations of whataboutism (which is sometimes the case in that "provision of context" is actually "attempt to deflect the conversation"). In other cases I'm not so sure.
It's completely valid to say "lots of countries torture, and let's focus on Saudi Arabia because they get a lot of US support so we as US citizens have more leverage over them than most countries". It's also completely valid to say "let's focus on Saudia Arabia because they're on the worse end and we need to start somewhere".
I wouldn't have left my comment there was a large discussion about Saudi abuses; I thought the comment was useful because it was in reply to a single offhand looking comment.
You do realise that the USA is supposed to have a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”?
In my view there isn’t enough responsibility taken by US citizens for their government, certainly stemming from a lack of general citizen engagement in politics in the USA , so it might be actually helpful to remind people that their government is their responsibility.
And if you really believe what you've written, feel free to disclose what government(s) you answer to and what you've personally done to right their wrongs.
To your last sentence, first, yes I believe what I've written. I am an Australian citizen. I personally don't think I do enough to "right [our] wrongs", but that doesn't stop me believing in the principle of democratic responsibility. I recently have gone to a Climate Change protest, voted, and donated 10% of my salary to helping people who deserve help but aren't getting it from our government. Day-to-day I also avoid participating in activities I believe are wrong but which are made illegal/regulated in my society (eg. eating meat).
But again, the above is kinda besides the point. I believe in democratic responsibility so look first to question what I'm able to do rather than blaming some third-party, and wouldn't complain about "you guys chose..." phrasing.
Oh come on. A simple slogan is hardly evidence that we're all individually and collectively responsible for the things our government does.
We the People. Not "We the currently elected and appointed politicians and bureaucrats."
You might as well say that someone in Germany should take more responsibility for the actions of the Catalonian separatists. It is on its face ridiculous. There is literally nothing I can do about, say, the governor of a state not stepping down when he loses an election.
The US has a representative government which the voters have influence on, but they don't get the final say.
Even in a dictatorship the people are partially responsible for what they didn't stop from happening.
It's not like "I was in the minority, so I have no responsibility at all".
How do we feel about German citizens in the 30s who went on doing their business, knowing what was going on, and merely "disagreeing" with it?
At best they were cowards. At worst they were enablers...
Rather the opposite.
You're trying to make the "looking the other way" citizens into victims...
Heck, even citizens in an authoritarian regime share responsibly for its actions - if they didn't do anything to oppose them.
Merely disagreeing with the actions, or minding their own personal affairs, don't absolve of the responsibility.
We should think of them the same way we talk about those Germans who knew what was going on (re Jews, camps, etc) but kept their mouth shut, tended to their families and jobs, and pretended it was business as usual.
In that these are just the men who survived.
Here’s one about the army that’s more graphic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
No one has been prosecuted for the war crimes the CIA commited. Although some low-level army personnel were court martialed for the Abu-Gharib torture, none of the clearly complicit higher-ups were even indicted. In the case of the CIA’s torture program, it is clear that those at the highest levels of government sanctioned these war crimes. Bush, and those around him, should be in prison for their disgusting, shameful actions.
That seems to be as much the source of the problem as the stigma itself. The relief agencies don’t want to acknowledge male rape because it goes against the narrative they have created.
No.
The original rape is worse than anything the relief agency does.
Rape > social stigma == neglect by relief agencies
Still a resounding "no". Demonizing relief agencies as being as bad as societal homophobia? You honestly think relief agencies are in it for the money and are minimizing male rape?
Of course, my beliefs don't amount to anything other than researching who I personally give money to, but I do not find it far-fetched to believe that some agencies act in bad faith; I have a hard time aligning with the false memory syndrome foundation for example.
Did you read the article? This is not an entirely uncommon situation, either. The corruption is often seen as a cost of doing business by interested parties with other priorities, something which all parties are usually generally aware. After a war (a scenario in which NGOs thrive) the existing social structure that has the capacity and organization to execute projects is often the winning faction, which as often as not didn't prevail by being virtuous.
Like any other organization, relief agencies need funding, they need support from local government, they need positive publicity if they're to continue. The people doing those jobs are focused on those results, not the work those in the field are doing.
You asked for an example. About 20 years ago, my colleagues' three-year-old daughter was kidnapped from in front of her apartment house. She was a sweet, blue-eyed, blonde-haired child, and her search became a huge media frenzy: non-stop reporting as police followed lead after lead.
She started working with a local branch of a national missing children's organization. At her first meeting, the director told her that her daughter' disappearance was "the best thing that has happened to them" because the publicity pulled in so many donations.
He wasn't a bad person, or incident to get daughter; but his role was making the agency successful, and he evaluated things from that standpoint. I don't think that's at all unusual for these agencies.
You will notice I did not call out anyone for denying help to make rape victims, merely that I believe bad actors exist in all facets of society. I by no means am putting down the hard work of the heroes who give their time to help people. I find your black and white response just as disgusting, to ignore that people can take positions of power over others and abuse them.
As for naming names, I have given an example of an organisation I find abhorrent.
Because the relief agencies you accuse of predation contribute more towards human suffering than rapists? Keep fighting the good fight, hulahoof!
However, at scale, agencies that try to censor information and reports about rape/violence other than male-on-female rape/violence might do a lot of harm regardless, be it through stigma, or be it through denying victims and future victims (preventative) information and help, or by getting government to marginalize these problems.
I remember some (women) associations campaigning/lobbying against "men's shelters", trying to get their funding cut or not allocated in the first place, or trying to get local governments to deny permits to operate such shelters. WTF.
Citation needed.
But you might be interested to read about this lady: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey
>She is known for having started the first domestic violence shelter in the modern world, Chiswick Women's Aid, in 1971 [...] Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her research into the claim that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally capable of violence as men.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You reacted to something the commenter didn't say, and have since been perpetuating a flamewar. We don't need that. Please don't.
Once politics becomes your ethnic or moral identity, it becomes impossible to compromise, because compromise becomes dishonor. - David Brooks
You singled out a provocative point about an inflammatory topic and then made it even more provocative by using ideological flamewar language ("the narrative they have created"). That's going the wrong way down a one-way street. When commenting here, try to step away from provocation, not further in!
some human rights groups had threatened to have him arrested
When you hear something that makes you ask whether or not it's true it's best to try to validate or invalidate it quickly rather than hold onto it. In this case a simple Google search saves a lot of assumption.
It will often be used to describe aspects of a culture or belief system. Half the time it makes sense (i.e. throwing gays off roof tops) and the other half the time it doesn't make sense but still comports with the accepted definition (i.e. non-bigoted traditional gender role value systems).
If I google "phobic define", I get something about an extreme aversion or irrational fear. If I google "homophobic define", I get something about a mere dislike OR a prejudice.
To have a dislike for something is not sufficient for having an irrational fear or extreme aversion to something.
This, however, is compatible with the uncontroversially true belief that disagreement outside of the conditions stated above exists.
Obviously, there is absolutely no sense in revising definitions such that they fail to account for the actual use of the terms. So, I get your point.
Of course that is a somewhat contraversial political opinion. And the way we speak and the words we us is also political motivated.
But then why should our use of words or their definitions need to be politically neutral? The uncharitable nature of words can be a feature. And really it is amazing how forgiving society has been of homophobes.
If it were, then there would be people who become irrationally terrified when presented with groupings of things that are all the same.
It's more akin to a portmanteau. But that doesn't mean the phenomena it describes are not very real ones.
I would argue that homophobia and transphobia are both describing the same underlying phenomenon. But I also respect that there is fierce debate around that question.