Following the news of Taharrush, I found myself asking: Can it get any worse?
Doesn’t the combination of the Paris false-flag attack (our own government murdering its citizens) and the emergence of Taharrush (the group assault and rape of women) cover the spectrum of atrocity?
Is there no way that atrocity itself can stop?
Once one atrocity is committed, the population must act, if even to put their shoes in the street. Each atrocity that it fails to respond to invites an escalation from very troubled people.
Very seldom is there a coherent message under atrocity. There is a message. In fact, there are usually several messages, incoherently expressed.
People are unemployed. They have no money. They don’t know the customs of the country. They feel oppressed, at sea, frustrated. They’ve been attacked, humiliated and brutalized in their own countries. They resent being made war on. These are some of the messages, I imagine, that atrocity in Europe expresses.
Help me. Assist me, they’re saying. And we need to do that. I’m not denying it. But that doesn’t change the fact that limits must be set and enforced.
The torture, rape, and murder of women cannot be tolerated on our planet any longer, not by citizens, not by law enforcement, and not by government. Not in those who commit it and not in those who allow it with their indifference.
Just as people marched to protest the Paris attacks, so should they march to protest the treatment of women by the Taharrush mobs. In the hundreds of thousands, peacefully. And leave their shoes behind as a marker too. (Take a spare pair.)
Nowhere on Earth is it alright to make a slave of a woman, to deny her her rights and freedoms, and to treat her as anything less than equal. No culture, no religion, no creed can be used to justify the subjugation and exploitation of women.
These human-rights abuses have been universally and unconditionally condemned in human-rights charters and conventions since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We must set limits to protect women wherever they are on the planet and see that those limits are observed and enforced.