Hell Hath no Fury like Jemima Scorned

“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathers not with me scatters abroad”, so says the Gospel according to Saint Matthew.  It’s a sentiment that finds fulsome echo in the Gospel according to Saint Julian.  You know who I’m talking about, surely you do?  It’s our very own Saint Julian Assange of Wiki; our own – worse luck – because he’s still holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. 

Apparently Jemima Khan, a former acolyte, recently went to Utah’s Sundance Film Festival, the showcase for independent film makers.  She was there to see the launch of We Steal Secrets, a documentary about WikiLeaks.  Much to her chagrin, Saint Julian of Wiki denounced it without having seen it (Perhaps it came to him in a vision?).  He didn’t like the title, you see, tweeting that it was “unethical and biased...in the context of pending criminal trials.  It is the prosecution’s claim and it is false.”

Jemima was just a bit miffed.  Stealing Secrets is her baby; she executive produced it into life.  The title, as she pointed out to the Holy One, is actually an observation by Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, that it was the US government that was in the business of stealing secrets from other countries.  To this He replied “If it’s a fair film, it will be pro-Julian Assange.”  Yes, yes; always beware those whose egos have grown to third person grandeur!

Hell hath no fury like a Jemina scorned.  An executive editor of the New Statesman, she took to its pages last week in a major exercise in apostasy and iconoclasm.  Oh, how are the mighty fallen in the midst of leaking!  From a prophet of new age honesty, Julian has degenerated into an Australian version of L Ron Hubbard, he of scientology fame, who spread the gospel of abject devotion...or else. 

How the scales have fallen from the Khan eyes.  She once stood bail for Assange after he was arrested on allegations of sexual assault in 2010.  It was all a fabrication, she was convinced, all a conspiracy, a plot by the Pharisees and the Sadducees to bring down the new Christ.  Now she’s not so sure; now the Swedish women who raised accusations of sexual assault against Assange actually may be worth a hearing.  Most important of all, she concludes, there is no evidence that extradition to Sweden would automatically be followed by on onward extradition to the United States, a narrative that does not fit the Assange script at all. 

I was never a disciple, so I was wise before the event.  I always saw this man as a self-publicising, egotistical fraud, who’s only objective was the greater glory of Julian.  It amused me to see all those leftist guardians of moral rectitude and women’s rights, all the Jemima Khans of this world, lining themselves up behind their prophet.  Oh, no; he could not possibly be guilty of sex crime; the women in question were obviously lying, rape fantasies, no doubt.  Or at the most Julian’s forced and unwelcome attentions were, in the words of George Galloway, no more than “bad sexual etiquette.” 

Last summer the Saint, fleeing those who would crucify him, or send him to Sweden, took sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy.  At the time I asked, why Ecuador?  I suppose the reason might be that this banana republic – are there bananas? – is a bastion of truth, justice, human rights and panama hats. Or it might be that Rafael Correa, its leftist president, is almost as childish a narcissist as Assange himself, a little man who wants to cut a figure on a bigger stage.  

About this time Jemima asked Julian to respond to the view of the New Statesman’s legal correspondent that he was no more in danger of extradition to the US from Sweden than he was in England.  Answer came there none.  That’s not quite true; answer, of a sort, came from one Mark Stephens, speaking as Assange’s lawyer, saying that Sweden was “one of those lickspittle states which used its resources and its facilities for rendition flights" - that is, sending suspected terrorists to bad places where they got worse treatment.  Actually, says Jemima, the lickspittle state stopped rendition flights in 2006, a fact inconveniently pointed out by WikiLeaks itself.

My pity always went to the poor women who had the temerity to accuse Saint Julian of rape.  At once his wretched army of left-wing disciples got to work, naming and defaming them on the internet.  If they hadn’t been raped they were now threatened with rape.  Pictures of them were also posted with bull’s-eyes through their faces. 

As I say, Jemima now thinks there may be a case to answer.  I always thought that there was a case to answer. Assange, as I wrote last year, is fleeing from Swedish justice, O. J. Simpson style, which I take to be a measure of his innocence. Quite right, too. Sweden is notorious for its lack of democratic accountability, its biased system of law and its atrocious abuse of human rights. Then there is Correa’s Ecuador, the victim of another campaign of spite and misinformation. It’s simply not true that the country has no culture of human rights and freedom, not true that dissidents are jailed on trumped up charges, not true that journalists are arrested and TV stations shut down for daring to criticise El Presidente. Assange really would be at home there.

Jemima doesn’t regret, she writes, putting up bail for Assange.  Oh, yes, she does!  “WikiLeaks – whose mission statement was 'to produce ... a more just society ... based upon truth' – has been guilty of the same obfuscation and misinformation as those it sought to expose, while its supporters are expected to follow, unquestioningly, in blinkered, cultish devotion".  That sounds like regret to me. 

Hmm, I might be charitable enough to say that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents and so on and so forth, but I won’t!  Assange was never more than an L Ron Hubbard manqué and she was a simple-minded devotee.  I’m minded to quote Kaiser Bill, of all people.  He, in his wisdom, said that stupidity was also a gift of God, but one musn’t misuse it.  Jemima, I fear, is overdrawn at this particular bank.  

Oh, the scorpion simply can’t resist one final sting.  Jemima, the poor little rich girl, writes for the New Statesman, that ancient castle of left-wing rectitude.  This is a publication graced in the past by such lions of English letters as Cyril Connolly, H. G. Wells, J. B. Priestly and George Orwell.  Now, aside from Ms Puddle-Duck, it's a showcase for the likes of John Pilger, Will Self, Mehdi Hasan and, best of all, somebody called Laurie Penny. 

The latter is especially noteworthy.  If ever there is a museum of bad prose and political idiocy Penny Red – her stamp on the world - will be a cherished exhibit; I feel sure she will. Formerly shortlisted for the Orwell prize (poor George!), she was apparently included on a Tatler list last year of the top 100 people ‘who matter.’  My; is Penny what matters? It seems to me that she would be best placed on a list of fashion victims and ugly women.  Alas, this truly is the age of Asses, Pennies and tiresome mediocrity.  

Damming Daming

What, no job?

I began this year by writing about the rape, mutilation and murder of a young woman in Delhi. Last year I wrote about Amina Filali, a sixteen-year-old Moroccan girl who was forced to marry her rapist as a way of preserving her family’s ‘honour.’ Subject to continuing abuse, she killed herself in a particularly horrible way – she swallowed rat poison.

Rape is a dreadful crime, even when it isn’t accompanied by additional acts of brutalisation and violence. It is an act based not on desire but on hatred, on the worst forms of human depravity. Women everywhere deserve the protection of the law. Potential rapists need to understand that, if caught and convicted, they face the severest of penalties. Instead the law, as in Morocco, simply adds to the crime, often by stupid insensitivity on the part of judges and senior legal officials.

The whole world was shocked by the savagery of the Delhi attack, which saw the victim disembowelled. One would have thought that a new sobriety would have descended, at least for a time. Alas, the whole world did not include Indonesia, or at least it did not include Judge Muhammad Daming Sanusi.

Daming, a judge for twenty-four years, serves as head of the South Sumatra High Court. Earlier this month he was in Jakarta, the capital, being interviewed by the House Commission for a possible place on the country’s Supreme Court. This is clearly a serious position for serious people, and who could possibly be more serious than a senior lawyer? After all, they are the guardians and upholders of the law, the protectors of the innocent. Who could possibly be more serious than Daming? Well, the answer has to be, just about anybody.

During the course of the interview he was asked whether the death penalty in rape cases was a necessary change to the law, which at present carries a maximum sentence of twelve years imprisonment. "Both the victims and the rapist", he responded, "might have enjoyed their intercourse together, so we should think twice before handing down the death sentence." Apparently, after a moment’s silence, the panel laughed. It was all a great joke, a joke that just happened to have been made not long after an eleven-year-old girl died after being gang raped in broad daylight in the streets of Jakarta.

Unfortunately the ordinary people of the land, those without sound legal sense, or a sense of humour, failed to see the joke. Thousands took to Facebook and Twitter. The condemnation of Daming was damming. Those who previously laughed discovered, on reflection, that it wasn’t so funny after all. Politicians from the country’s main parties said that they would not support his candidature. He himself, in a contrite and tearful public statement, said that his remark was merely intended to ‘ease the tension’.

"I have three adolescent daughters", he said, ‘and one of them told me that she is very embarrassed and that she felt as if she did not know me at all." He knows her, though; he knows that she might enjoy being forced to have sex. Oh, but wait a minute; it’s never one’s own that are the subject of such observations; it’s the children of others, those who do not matter.

Commenting on his words, the Indonesian Child Protection Agency said;

Has Daming felt what it’s like to be a rape victim or a member of the victim’s family? It’s extremely inappropriate for a Supreme Court judge hopeful to joke about the suffering of people and their feelings.

The sad thing is that this is not the first time that a senior public official has been responsible for such crass insensitivity. Rape is a crime, you see, where the victim is at fault. Last year Fauzi Bowo, the governor of Jakarta, advised women against wearing ‘provocative clothes’ while using public transport just to avoid being raped. This came in the wake of a series of sexual attacks on public minivans, including that of a university student who was subsequently murdered.

Apologies, tears and family disapproval notwithstanding, it’s all too late for Daming. On Wednesday the House Commission appointed eight new justices. He received not a single vote. But the matter does not stop there. On Friday the Judicial Commission, Indonesia’s highest legal authority, recommended that he be dismissed from his existing post. Imam Ashori Saleh, the Commission’s deputy chairman, said that Daming should be removed because his rape remarks breached the judicial code of ethics. The Supreme Court now has fourteen days to decide his fate.

The fact of the matter is that he has become a political embarrassment. Personally speaking, I have little doubt that if this business had been confined to Indonesia’s old boy network of lawyers and politicians the whole thing would have passed without repercussion. It just a little levity, after all, no need to let some casual words detain us unnecessarily - Judge away, Judge Daming. Alas, the levity made an ass of the law and a laughing stock of the victims of crime. Sometimes, just sometimes, ordinary people can make a difference, if their voice is joined in common purpose.

Sister, my Sister

I feel ashamed.  Late last month I was loosely aware that some horrible crime had been committed against a woman in Delhi, the capital of India.  But I looked no closer.  I was too full of the joys of life.  I was getting ready to host a party in London; I was looking forward to a family Christmas in the country; I was preparing for my annual skiing holiday.  What was happening in my own life was more important than what had happened to some unknown female in a place as far away as Delhi.

I’m now back to reality, my eyes wide open.  I now know exactly what happened to this twenty-three year old physiotherapy intern, so far unnamed.  If you are at all sensitive to these matters it might be best if you read no further.  She was gang raped, horrible enough in itself, but the details of what was inflicted on her, the violence and the mutilation, are almost beyond any horror that I have the power to conceive.  What happened had nothing to do with sex and desire.  It was an act of atavistic and sadistic hatred.  It was an act that goes deep into India’s heart of darkness.

It was the evening of 16 December.  The woman, let me just call her Sister, was on her way home with a male friend, an engineer.  They had been to the cinema together to see The Life of Pi, something countless numbers of couples were doing that day across the Earth.  They hailed a chartered bus, a private vehicle used to ferry schoolchildren by day.  That night it was being taken on a joyride.  Six men were on board, all members of staff. 

Sister and her friend got on, after being told by one of the alleged perpetrators, a seventeen-year-old youth, that the bus was going in their direction.  No sooner was it underway than the taunts and suggestions began.  The bus had large tinted windows, so nobody from outside could see what was going on. 

Sister’s male friend, trying to protect her, was beaten unconscious with an iron bar.  She was dragged to the back of the bus, beaten with the same bar.  Then the rape began, five men taking turns as the sixth drove the bus around the city streets.  The sexual assault was violent enough.  Making it even worse was the torture. 

Later medical reports show that Sister suffered serious injuries to her abdomen, her intestines and her genitals.  Doctors also report that a rusted iron implement had been thrust into her.  Part of her intestines was pulled out.  She was then almost completely disembowelled.  According to police reports, the youngest of her attackers, the seventeen-year-old, pulled out her intestines with his bare hands.  Later in hospital she was found to have only 5% of her bowels left inside her body.

The couple were then dumped into the streets from the moving bus.  The perpetrators allegedly tried to run Sister over, but she was pulled aside by her male companion.  Both were later found bleeding on the sidewalk and taken to hospital, where doctors struggled to save Sister’s life.  With her condition deteriorating, the decision was taken to move her to a specialist hospital in Singapore. 

It has to be said that the motives here were political and not medical.  She was going to die and the government, already embarrassed, did not want her to die in India.  She did die.  She died on 29 December, when I was skiing on the slopes of French Savoy.

As the details of the horror became public the mood in India turned toxic.  There were widespread public protests in a country where rape and violence against women is commonplace.  Not only that but the law is notoriously slow in dealing with accusations of sexual assault.  There was only one conviction from the 635 cases of rape reported in Delhi between January and November of last year.

Most of India’s rape victims are poor and generally of a lower cast.  Sister was different.  She was a child of India’s emerging middle class.  Disgust at the callousness of the attackers turned to disgust against the government.  Across the country Indians, women and men, protested at the incompetence of the political classes.  As I celebrated the arrival of 2013 half a world away a more sombre mood settled.  Writing in the New Statesman, Soumya Bhattacharya said “We were shamed and chastened, united in grief, and the notion of revelry was not something that figured in most people’s minds.”

Deeply unsettled, the Indian government has promised to introduce harsher laws against rape, including thirty year jail terms, chemical castration and the setting up of fast track courts.  In the meantime shock over the incident led to anti-rape protests spilling across India’s borders to the rest of the Subcontinent.  There were demonstrations in Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.  Even Ban ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, was moved to make a statement, saying that “Violence against women must never be accepted, never excused, never tolerated. Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected.”

Sister was cremated on 30 December in accordance with Hindu custom.  Her fate may, I stress may change attitudes towards women of all castes and classes in India. I certainly hope so.

Sister was my sister.  She is your sister, your mother, your daughter, your cousin, your aunt; she is Everywoman.