what in the world has our nation become

barely 30 days into the new year of 2004, our nation was greeted with 2 shocking news – the rape and murder of 2 young girls.

first, on 8 jan., haserati saridi, 10 years old, was stabbed to death after
being raped while walking to school in eastern sabah state.

and now the latest, on 15 jan., it happened again. the nation reeled into shock again as we found out that 10 year old schoolgirl nurulhuda ghani was found raped, sodomised and killed in gelang patah, johor.

when i woke up last sunday morning and saw the news in the star paper, my immediate reaction was “oh no, not again!”… and i cried for….. the nation… for malaysia. what has malaysia become? why do we hear of so many cases of rape or rape and murder? are the streets in our nations not safe anymore for girls and ladies? what make men turn into rapists and killers?

you know the minute i read the news , i told my mum (who is uneducated and over 70 now) about it and you know what she said? “huh?? tsk tsk tsk. so sad. must catch the rapists, chop them into pieces and fry them.” hahaha. of course she was only exaggerating but you’ll understand her utter disgust on hearing of such newswith that, i’m sure.

i get very irritated when people refer to these rapists/killers as animals. excuse me, people, don’t insult the animals, please. animals are far more well behaved than men. animals don’t rape. animals don’t do violent acts against their own kind. i wonder why when some human beings are being so cruel, people like to label them as animals. (for example saddam hussein – some people always say of him “that man is an animal!”). is it because humans think they are the mighty being, superior over the animals? oh but this is another issue, not what i wanted to blog about, so i’ll leave this behind for now.

many people had the misconception that rape is a crime of passion and wild desire, and more often than not, they label them as sex maniacs. but rape is actually a crime of violence violence and power. power and control over the halpless victim. more often than not, rape is not an “over-spill” of sexual energy. it is not an impulsive crime. mostly, it is planned, as we are aware, most rape victims are known to the perperators.

why do men rape? i wouldn’t say it is because they are sex maniac. sex hungry maniacs can always go to prostitutes (but of course we have the question of not being able to pay, which is quite irrelvant for now), but one thing is if they are with protitues, they cannot force themselves on the prostitutes, they cannot act dominant and show their power/control.

so you see, that’s why we say rape is NOT a sexual act alone BUT is primarily a violent, hostile act carried out by sexual means, violent acts… sexual means, see. it is NOT a sexual act that becomes violent, but a violent act done through sexual means.

these are the 3 main factors that lead men to rape:

* a desire for power and control over a non-consenting victim
* the acting out of hostility, aggression, and anger
*a sense of dominance and self-validation through the humiliation and degradation of another

and of course we also have the factor of the upbringing and characteristics and his family background/history of the rapists.

according to lisa vetten, the gender co-ordinator of the centre for the study of violence and reconciliation, men rape because they believe they have the right to control and to punish women who do not obey their rules of behaviour. to understand why she came up with that, read this.

it’s very sad and disheartening to note that in our country there are so many sick men who can resort to such brutal acts on young innocent girls. what do you think can be done to stop them? well er… i guess, just like poverty which can’t be eradicate, one can’t… eradicate?… rape too?? then what????