Dear friend, thank you for speaking out.

I dreamt it again

I dreamt it again. I dreamt someone stole my backpack – where I keep all my ‘precious’ things, the ones I use for my work, that is actually my life: books, camera, notebook, pens, few money, documents and mobile phone. My ‘safety’ objects, the ones that help me keep track of the people I meet and I work among.

I know this theft is an evolution of an older one – a folder with the content related to my studies in the past, a collection of essays. In my dreams – for months – it was stolen by my former boyfriend, the ‘psychotic bastard’ as I call him now after many years, and I know this time it’s him stealing my backpack again.

He does so because he hasn’t a life by himself. He has no character, nor personality, nor passions, nor interests. He has nothing. He is nothing. He steals other people’s lives, sucking their energy to the bones, to survive. And when he finds a weak, good, sweet one, he destroys him/her – by manipulating, by violence, by humiliation. Because this is his strategy to survive, while conscious of being nothing and so not having any alternative to base his existence upon.

There are some men who continuously humiliate and/or beat their women. Sometimes they kill them too. The amount of ‘private violence’ is unbelievable, and something striking us in our everyday life, among most of the women we know or get in contact with. A man killed his wife in Sevilla yesterday. And yesterday I did also get the information about a new (attempting to be funny?) group on Facebook calling rape a ‘natural masculine instinct’, so that it should be not considered a crime. Everywhere I look around, I see women acting as nurses to men – hoping to lighten their existential pain, allowing them to take it out on them, and repeating “he will change, because of my love and care; he will change, because of my love and care…”

No, he will not change. Because, as he opened his eyes, he would recognise he has/is nothing – so he won’t do it. And he doesn’t ‘have’ you, either: not being in love with you, because he is not he will be twice angry against ‘life’ that didn’t give him the ‘perfect woman’. And he will beat you: you may not be ‘perfect’, but still you are useful for his needs – that means physically absorbing his frustrations.

I rushed away – luckily after less then two years. The damage he left on my body and my soul can’t be counted. It can’t. I still face the physical consequences, 15 years later. Law protects them: as police told me, they can do something against him only in case of a failed attempt to kill me. But who says how deep is the beating you received? How painful is it? What did you think about during and after? And what if he was successful in his attempt to kill you?

I do also think, after so many years of slow psychological recovery, that it was also my fault. I had been a stupid idiot. I have no other words to define my dumbness. I wasn’t able to protect myself from him: I had no idea of what an equal relationship was, and I thought to ‘sacrifice for him’ was a value and a ‘right effort’. No, it wasn’t. It was only a stupid action by a stupid woman in love with a rapist – protecting him from all the ones who had already recognised him as he was. It was my fault to authorize his violence, to allow it to go and to repeat it in the future with someone else.

No, he will not change and he will not stay with his victim/wife/mate (stupid words these last two in this case) the rest of his life. When the victim begins reacting, he will hate her and make her feel deeply guilty. He will cry for compassion. He will ask for pity and assure his love. I remember him crying, and now also his sneer after he was successful once again because of that, and I came back. But the truth is that – at his eyes – as soon as you will react you’ll be guilty of not behaving as his victim and toy anymore. And he will humiliate you and get even more violent, as much as he can, and then quickly and simply find another one to replace you. These people have a strong consciousness of who their next potential victim might be.

He is not helpless. Not even to comfort – no matter what he had to face in his life. An attitude to violence can be explained by previous bad experiences, but not justified by them. These are two different things. Nothing justifies humiliation, violence, insults, manipulations. This is not love. Such as being in love can explain why it took me so much time to get out of this situation, but not justify my stupidity in case I remained, repeating the idiot mantra “he will change, because of my love and care” (errare humanum est,perseverare autem diabolicum).

Differently from many other women, I soon got out of Stockholm syndrome, but it took me time not to be instinctively scared by a caress, and even more time to manage my feelings toward the next men properly. Well, I guess I didn’t reach this last point yet, and maybe I never will. I’m very envious of those persons who never had to face such violent relationships, because somehow they do better than me in this. But I know I will always be a careful person, and, even if not interested, I will be always honoured by being loved by someone – as falling in love with someone means to see some beauty in him/her. And I know I will be careful of my actions toward these persons, knowing the weakness caused by being in love, and will never abuse this power.

This is the only good thing I got from / in spite of that relationship, and I’m not grateful I had it – I would gladly avoid it, if I could. But I couldn’t. No, I correct myself: I didn’t. As I could choose, and I made the most stupid choice for a long time, thinking everybody was allowed to do to me what he wanted, as I meant nothing. Well, I mean something, as I am something. First of all I am myself, with my folders and backpack full of notes, pictures, experiences, feelings and past. I have an identity, and nobody can steal nor rape it anymore. When I wake up, my backpack is still there. And the guy? I have no idea – the last time I met him (10 years after our relationship and 5 years ago) by chance in the train, I went away ignoring him and not even greeting him (there’s no reason to talk, he does not belong to my life, by my choice, anymore – no way, ever!) and kept asking myself “what the hell did I see beautiful, to fall in love with him?” But no reason to waste time to think about it, anyway, anymore…

I have done my best, in those years, to understand and to relate to what happens to them. I have cried with them, cried for them, and cried for the awful horror that is our common, human milieu.

I have cried and felt, especially, for those women — far too many — whom I have met, who have told me their stories of rape, spousal abuse, imprisonment at the hands of “lovers”, ongoing exploitation and debasement. And I have tried to relate. I have related to the level where, as above, I have cried not only for them, but for all of them who suffer these horrors — especially when, for whatever reasons, they feel they must remain silent.

And then, without being raped specifically, I’ve become a victim, too.

I haven’t been in a physical confrontation, prior to seven weeks ago, since the playground days of the mid-1980s. Those, always, I lost in short order. Some sand to the face, a punch in the belly, or, later, a deft evasion on my part, and the confrontation dissolved rather quickly.

I found myself, though, seven weeks ago, facing a monster far greater than any playground bully. I ultimately have no idea whatsoever what a woman trapped by her circumstances into either remaining silent about rape or deciding to tolerate daily abuse undergoes.

I do, however, map some of my own feelings in reaction to those I have come to known from those of my friends who have been there. The correspondences are not always perfect. I did not have to face the situation that Miroslav Pašek would continue living in my home, continue to pretend to be my protector or lover, or continue to play a part in my life.

Even so, I ran. I ran from Pašek’s territory. I ran from his hunting grounds.

I have never really understood before recently what it is to be a victim. I’m not entirely sure that I understand now, especially to the depth that the victims of rape and domestic violence I have known have been.

If I have gotten even the slightest taste, however, by means of what I have experienced, then I know that their reality is, in fact, far worse than I ever imagined.

This realization, along with my own emotions, makes me want to sleep all day, and shut out the world.

And, yet, I cannot.

We had been there a couple of times already during our two weeks or so in the city. Antigua itself is beautiful, up in the high country, filled with classic colonial-period architecture, lots of neat little shops, and plenty for the tourist. Just to the south, Volcán de Agua towers some 12,000 feet above everything. As Guatemala goes, you couldn’t ask for a more serene, lovely place.

Volcán de Agua, Antigua, Guatemala

And the restaurant was lovely too, with an indoor courtyard with tropical trees, a lively bar in the back and a menu worth sampling again and again. Though at the top end of the scale for Guatemala, the prices were quite comfortable for bearers of United States dollars looking for great food in a nice setting. The clientele were generally foreign tourists, with the occasional group of darker-skinned, upper-class guatemaltecos appearing as well.

A couple of people walk in and start making for the back of the restaurant, where there might be some tables available. They approach us, as we’re sitting at a table against a wall along the route to the back. A young man, perhaps 19 years of age, followed by a middle aged man, presumably his father. Both guatemaltecos.

My eye is caught for some reason. Something isn’t right about the youth’s gait. In an instant, I see why: his arm ends in a short stump just below his shoulder. And then I notice his father behind him, with a prosthetic arm slung over his shoulder.

Tragic. What horrible accident must have led to this. I can’t even imagine what life would be like, less than physically complete, not to mention the sensations, the horror, the feelings that must come of losing a limb. The folks who live in the countryside and till the land in Guatemala have hard lives, and accidents must be common.

I turn my attention back to my shrimp cocktail, quickly, as they approach our table.

But something is still not right with the young man’s gait, and I turn as they pass, perhaps impolitely, and look again.

And it is then that I see that the father carries not one, but two prosthetic arms slung over his shoulders. And that his son’s other arm is also mostly missing, ending in a slightly longer stump than the other.

What do you call a young man with no arms?

Victim.

Perhaps I drop my fork as the realization hits me: this young man walking past me, just entering adulthood, was not the victim of an accident.

Silence on the Mountain

Right up until the end of the bloody 46-year Guatemalan “civil” war in 1996, state-sponsored gangs roamed the countryside, striking targets of opportunity and instilling fear into the populace, in hopes of crushing support for the guerrilla resistance groups. A favorite tactic, described in Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala; Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala and elsewhere, was for the terror squads to attack small, rural villages suspected of sheltering or supporting the guerrillas. Everyone in the village was forced out of their homes at gunpoint, assembled, and segregated: men over here, women over there, children here. The villagers watched as soldiers and police raped their mothers, sisters and daughters. Those who resisted were simply shot. Those surviving now watched as some of the children, boys especially, had one or both of their arms or hands hacked off with machetes. And then most of the men were executed. Still more were led away from the villages, bound and at gunpoint, enslaved or slaughtered and never to be seen again: los desaparecidos, the disappeared.

The armless young man who just walked past me, without doubt, was one of those children in the villages in the early- to mid-1990s — mutilated, crippled by the criminal violence of state agents in the service of an inhuman ruling class, and left to live as a reminder to those who would challenge their privilege.

I tried several times, in conversations with guatemaltecos, to ask about the war, and how it had touched their lives. None would speak of it to me — perhaps because I am a white man, but without question because they want to forget.

Also thank Governor Gregoire and legislators for adopting the “Fair Play in Community Sports” bill. http://bit.ly/DGPvc

Seriously this is weird, from my rarefied perspective.

So, there’s this guy who comes around and rapes me twice a week for the past year…

And one day I notice he hasn’t been around for a few months.

What do I do now? Send him a fucking fruit basket?

I thought it was important enough to repost here (with minor edits), for those who aren’t diligently following the nostate.com comment feed.

[W]ith a kill ratio of something upwards of 75:1, members of the U.S. [military] are doing the lion’s share of the killing [in Iraq]. It would not surprise if these criminals are also engaging in their share of rape, kidnapping and theft.  And torture  (Abu Ghraib?)

Many members of the military “are simply doing it to make money” (or college money) as they are too weak-willed and/or stupid to make an honest buck.

Instead they choose to get paid to serve an organization whose primary purpose is to threaten and, “if necessary”, carry out acts of aggressive violence against mostly hapless people caught in the crossfire between the US government and the “enemy” du jour.

Governments are always trying to redefine their crimes out of existence by taking a common criminal act and attaching a new label to it. Thus, armed robbery becomes “taxation” and kidnapping becomes “arrest”, etc.

Thinking people see through these lies. If there are people in the military that are responsible for 4 or more deaths is a single event, those people are in fact mass murderers.

Whether or not their crimes are sanctioned by the same government they are killing for is wholly immaterial. Governments themselves are the largest criminal organizations, so to expect any type of moral behavior out of these organizations is foolish at best.

How can you sleep at night?

Merry Christmas, you fucking tool.

Take a look. You really really really don’t want to miss the sheer genius of words like these:

The Bobo of the Week award

In every one of these instances [of war] we have come to the aid of our allies at their request. I am so sick and tired of you pansy-assed whiners referring to this country as an empire. I suppose if someone were raping your sister – you wouldn’t help her would you? You’re such a fucking waste you would shit in your pants first – then explain to your sister later how it was her fault that she got raped. We are a very powerful nation. We have the capability and capacity to help those less fortunate nations when they are under attack by larger nations. Would you not help your little brother if there was a big bully pushing him around? No – of course you wouldn’t. You would rather see your little brother get his ass kicked – then explain to him later it would have just been better to give the bully his lunch money.

These and other exciting fallacies are yours for the deconstructing in the comments section… over there!

So sayeth Cork of the Corktageous blog, linked in my blogroll.

The unfortunate reality is that this is no joke. That evil or deluded people define “rape” differently makes no difference whatsoever.

Halls of justice painted green
Money talking
Power wolves beset your door
Hear them stalking
Soon you’ll please their appetite
They devour
Hammer of justice crushes you
Overpower

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can’t believe the things you say
I can’t believe, I can’t believe the price you pay
Nothing can save you

Justice is lost
Justice is raped
Justice is gone
Pulling your strings
Justice is done
Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim, so true, so real

Apathy their stepping stone
So unfeeling
Hidden deep animosity
So deceiving
Through your eyes their light burns
Hoping to find
Inquisition sinking you
With prying minds

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can’t believe the things you say
I can’t believe, I can’t believe the price you pay
Nothing can save you
Justice is lost
Justice is raped
Justice is gone
Pulling your strings
Justice is done
Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim, so true, so real

Lady Justice has been raped
Truth assassin
Rolls of red tape seal your lips
Now you’re done in

Their money tips her scales again
Make your deal
Just what is truth, I cannot tell
Cannot feel

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can’t believe the things you say
I can’t believe, I can’t believe the price we pay
Nothing can save us

Justice is lost
Justice is raped
Justice is gone
Pulling your strings
Justice is done
Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim, so true, so real

Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim, so true, so real

You’d think there are limits and ways to break people out of insanity and things they’ve gotten used to being normal because of everything they’ve been through, but if even your own crying child can’t do it, what can?

Unfortunately, when it comes to the evils we’ve been indoctrinated with and inured to — be it by parents, religion, society, culture or states — breaking out of insanity is something that precious few of us manage to do.