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Tuesday, 11 November 2003

Coping...

I read an article recently about rape victims and that sometimes, in order to cope with what happened, they take on an attitude that it was their own fault, that they were to blame. For some people, that's easier to deal with than alternative views.

Lots of abuse survivors do the same thing, partly because our abusers tell us this is the case ("If you were a better girl, I wouldn't have to hit you!"), partly because if our abusers are people we love, we can't understand how they would hurt us, and partly, well, sometimes it IS easier to just believe it's your own fault. Accepting that you were victimized is REALLY scary and can make you EXTREMELY angry, to say the least (for some of us, allowing that anger to get out would be disasterous and on some level we know it).

Anyway, I see this applied to other things in society, as well. For example, in Australia there's a manditory "detention" policy for illegal immigrants, and the conditions under which these would-be refugees are held are pretty shocking. They even lock up children! I read an article about the treatment of pregnant women in detention... It's horrible, truly horrible. They basically imprison women and children under horrific conditions and then say it's "their own fault" for entering the country illegally.

Now legality aside (and yes, they DID enter the country illegally, no issue there), the LEAST the government could do is treat these people with some basic decency instead of treating them worse than convicted murderers. Most of them are legitimate refugees. Some aren't, of course, but most ARE. Treating them all, including women and children, like criminals when their only crime was arriving on Australian shores without proper authority... It's just WRONG. House them decently, treat them with some dignity and respect, and send them back if they're really determined to be outside refugee status, etc. But for heaven's sake, don't treat people like hell and hold them in abusive conditions and then say "They deserve it." (If you want to know more, do a Google search for "Woomera Detention Centre" and see what you turn up.)

Anyway, the thing is, I've seen people outside the government say, "They deserve it." Little children deserve to be held in the desert without proper facilities? Why? What did THEY do? Since when do little children have ANY say in where they go or what happens to them? They DESERVE it, do they?

The people who say this sort of thing are living in the same sort of denial that rape and abuse victims are when they say it was "their own fault". It's the grand "blame the victim" game. Sometimes the victim is yourself, sometimes it's other people, but it's still that peculiar sense of denial and delusion that people deserve to be abused....

I've done a lot of things in my life for which I got exactly what I deserved. I'm a big believer in taking responsibility for your own actions/decisions. I know for sure that you reap what you sow, and I've sown some very bad seeds. But I did NOT deserve to be victimized (raped, molested, verbally abused, physically abused, etc.). NO ONE DESERVES TO BE ABUSED.

I wish that the human race was able to pull their collective heads out of their arses long enough to figure this out, but I'm pretty sure it will never happen. All I can do is rant about it and make little gestures of kindness and compassion when and where I'm able.

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