“According to reports, her hands and legs had been tied and a rag had been stuffed into her mouth before she died.” – Al Jazeera
How can such inhumanity be possible? This question has challenged us over and over and over again in Sri Lanka. Yet, it’s a pathetic rhetorical question. One that has so many possible answers, that it remains unanswered by those very possibilities. Anthropology, sociology, psychology, any behavioral science that tries to explain it, including the blame of Gang Rape Porn on the internet, still struggles to answer the whys and hows of such cruelty and suffering. Perhaps we’re afraid to truly comprehend what is possible. Perhaps we see ourselves not just in the victims but also in the perpetrators. Perhaps not understanding it is our simplest defense. Is our confusion and disgust and helplessness the very facade we need to stay ensconced in the safe spaces we’ve created for ourselves, free from the brutal reality that can be, and is? Are we overcome with shame at our inability to act, or do we cling desperately to empathy, so that we don’t need to go any further?
We have to echo Jaffna’s cries for justice. We have to stand together, once again, even as we did in January, to confront evil and hatred. There is no us and them. There never was an us and them. All there is, is who we are, and this more than ever is a test of our metal as a people. Justice. We demand it. Justice. We deserve it. Justice. It is our right.
Today Vithiya Sivaloganadan: Who’s next?
First they raped Manamperi
And buried her body alive
I did not speak
Because there was an insurrection
Then they came for women in Kahawatte
I did not speak
Because I was not from Kahawatte
Then they came for women in Nuriwatte
I did not speak
Because I did not live in Nuriwatta
Then, they came for Women in the North
I did not speak, because
Krishanthi Kumaraswami, koneshwari, Isaipriya
They were not my sisters
Then they came for women with a different skin colour
Eight men gang-raped Victoria Alexandra
I did not speak
Because she was just a foreigner
Then they gruesomely gang-raped Rita John
Stabbed her body fifteen times
Left her murdered body on the Modera beach
I did not speak
Because she was an Indian
She was asking for trouble
By walking on the beach
with her jewelries in the evening
Then they gang raped a woman in Wijerama
I did not speak
Because she was just a prostitute
Then they raped hundreds of virgins
And celebrated with champagne
in Akurassa and Monaragala
I did not speak
Because too scared of politicians
Then they raped Logarani
Threw her naked body into a sacred temple
Then they gang raped Saranya Selvarasa
I did not speak
Finally they raped
Vithiya Sivaloganadan
I did not speak
Because she is Tamil
She lived on a small Island in Kytes
By Shamila Daluwatte, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(grassrooted.net)