By Rena Dourou
«Mr. Duru, I have to close my account for hours and hours, so much concentrated hypocrisy cannot be tolerated». The message to the messenger is the latest in a chain of exchanges on the issue that dominates the public debate these days. Where, as always, the hypocrisy.
Of those who asked today «because now he remembered it»; Those who knew, who couldn't help but know but didn't care. Those who are currently building their lines of defense to «keep the bullets out».
Because, let's not forget what has been written many times, that around such a case of rape or sexual harassment, there are many and repeated cycles of cover-up. Surely you know the three little monkeys. One closes his eyes so he can't see. The other closes his ears so he can't hear. The third closes his mouth so he can't speak.
This is exactly what happens in cases of sexual violence, which we now know has a common denominator: is not about sex but about violence. The polymorphous imposition of the power of the “strong”, whose victims are everyone, regardless of gender identity, age, position, physical constitution. And if the examples from abroad show us something, it is that if for a named victim it is once difficult to break the wall of silence, things are much more difficult for the... invisible, unnoticed victims. The ones next door. Who have no public voice. The ones for whom the vulgar question «but well now does the blessed one remember?» or equally vulgar remarks like «she wanted them», «what kind of outfit is that», «why was she out at this hour», etc., erect a catalytically deterrent wall.
Sometimes insurmountable. Because it forces them, the most vulnerable victims of our next door, to put up a fierce and sometimes impossible fight against the critical gaze, the shaking of the head, the envious insinuation, which often becomes a condemnatory judgment...
Making their struggle to change the shame and fear camp futile.
Can the latest developments change these facts? Might not this grind and the occasion to break this ill-formed spleen, a political atavism in the making? Might the ... three monkeys of hypocrisy, indifference and silence finally cease to reign supreme?;
PS: At the beginning of my note, I did not forget to add the name «Bekatorou» next to the word «subject». Why the issue is not Bekatorou. It is the indifference, the silence of decades on many levels. Indifference / silence - breeding grounds for rapists of bodies and souls. «Respected» and «respectable» rulers in all fields, who take advantage of their position, in the family, at work, in the club, in the party. And let us think well. Around us. Do we too know «something», «once upon a time», that «we heard that... but where to look now...». Do we? Maybe it's a beginning for change.
