“You can’t clap with just one hand,” explains a Haryana curmudgeon, in a video about the Indian state’s rather pervasive rape culture. But, hear the bugger out: Does he not have a point?

Hear the messenger out: Consider, first, biology. If we go far back enough in time, when physical strength was crucial to determining the dynamics of relationships, thousands of years of evolution had made it so that sex was a method by which a man could spread his “seed.”

In this regard, for a man to be successful, what he would require, more so than anything, would be to have sex with as many women as possible so that his genes found homes in the wombs of a diverse array of women, providing them better chances for continued generational survival.

And since women were not always willing to provide said home for their spermatozoa, sometimes, rape was merely another survival tool, and perhaps to a great extent, necessary.

And since women, as we all know, are biologically to some extent hardwired to attract the male (and subtly and coquettishly do a few things to heighten that attraction), it is only a biological imperative for men to give in.

And, to further complicate matters, we all know that women are not always clear about what they want, as various instances of attraction to dominant male figures have shown throughout history.

What we subsequently have done is provide societal context for these rather primitive acts for posterity. In fact, some of these societal inventions serve to protect women as opposed to harm them.

Cover up, so that you are not raped. Get married, so that you and your children are provided for. Stay indoors, so that other men may not harass and assault you.

Without the benevolence of those in power, the oppressed could never find a voice. And in the case of men and women, the situation is no different.

It is thanks to men, and the power they wield, the generosity with which they have decided to treat women, placing them up on a pedestal as opposed to a gutter, that women have been allowed the grace and dignity biology felt they did not deserve.
 

Is that what we want? A generation of silent rapists lurking in the alley?

Where the fault lies
The Asif Mahtabs of this world have you believe that this is the root cause of rape — and there are a lot of Asif Mahtabs in the world, and in our country.

For those who do not know Asif Mahtab, his 15 minutes of fame came about as a result of a Facebook post highlighting the various “scientific” reasons behind sexual harassment and assault.

Some gems include men’s attraction to “symmetry” and how lips and nails turn red during orgasm because of excessive bloodflow. I encourage independently reading his entire post for a more detailed understanding of his mind-set.

These aren’t the root causes of rape, but represent some of the root excuses for the perpetuation of rape culture. While rape culture I personally find has expanded to include perhaps too many mere happenstances within the penumbra of societal relations, I would like to focus on the absolute basics: Why people think rape has two criminals (the rapist and the raped) and, sometimes, only one (the raped).

While I do not think that the monsterization of rapists is helpful in the fight against the continued sexual assault carried out on women, the biological defense which some utilize does nothing to humanize their belief systems.

The very reason human beings are special (I do not mean better) amongst all animals is because we have the self-awareness and the capability to fight our basest urges, and through social evolution have, to a great extent, eradicated them altogether.

For any individual to hold up biology as an excusable defense against the continuation of rape is hypocritical, for one presumes he is not a pure anarchist who walks around naked in the streets and eats raw meat which he has hunted and gathered from the woods next to his cave.

Whether or not this analogy holds up, of this you be the judge: Consider how we must fight terrorism. It is not enough that we carry out raid after raid, but that we engage with communities which show young people that violence is not the answer.

For this, our approach must be the same. Not only must we incorporate role models into our schooling who teach us to respect gender and sex and their complicated multifaceted narratives, but also engage in public debate which first acknowledges the arguments of various adults in our society first.

Merely painting them as outcasts ensures their continued existence in the shadows.

The next such individual, having seen the way we have ostracized, will be less likely to air his bigoted views, thereby ensuring the perpetuity of his mind-set as a rape apologist.

Is that what we want? A generation of silent rapists lurking in the alley? Because, if you look around, you’ll find we’re already there.

SN Rasul is an Editorial Assistant in the Dhaka Tribune. Follow him @snrasul.

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune

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As a younger and far more ignorant individual, perhaps even as a teenager (and much thanks to an English medium education which seemed to prioritize ancient Mesopotamia over recent Bangladesh — or perhaps, I shouldn’t blame the system, but my selective memory, which found one history more interesting than the other), I was under the misconception that December 16 was “our” Independence Day.

While this may be an unforgivable mistake, an error without excuse, I would argue that my mind had followed a logical (though mistaken) path. The independence day of any country is determined by the moment in time when they became independent.

As far as I know, Bangladesh remains somewhat unique in this regard: Not only are we the only country whose independence was catalysed by a common tongue, we had the audacity to consider ourselves independent even before we had achieved it.

That is, we were independent because, on March 26, we had said so.

Considering the linguistic nature of our (perhaps perennial) struggle, it only makes sense to do so on the strength of our collective voices. A man or woman, who does not think or speak as if he is free, can never be free to begin with, can they?

Linguistic divides
How has our language been used since then? Has Bangla, for example, become our primary go-to for expression? Some of us, yes, but perhaps the existence of this very newspaper and/or the website on which you read this, and the language in which I write, speaks of a discord, not merely on ideological grounds, but also when it comes to language.

Perhaps one of the saddest characteristics of the Bangladeshi experience is the segregation some of us feel based on our ability to speak a certain language. But, the very fact that we, for the moment, have the freedom to express ourselves in whatever language we choose, that is more important than which specific language we use to do so.

We mustn’t forget that Bangladesh is not home to just Bangla and English, but other minority languages which now run the risk of becoming extinct thanks to the overpowering nature of any official, state-sanctioned language (India is running the risk of doing the same).

To deem Bangladesh a simple autocracy is unfair, to some extent, especially considering how much, still, we are (technically) able to do

If not for expression, what about for propaganda? It may very well be that my fluency in English over Bangla is characteristic of one kind of freedom, but what exactly I can say with that fluency, that remains to be seen. The Digital Security Act, which uses language in such a way as to deem anyone practicing their right to free speech a criminal, hinders not the words I use, but the way in which I arrange them.

There are historical blemishes which perhaps need clarification, leading down paths and holes which have been closed off. We are, in many ways, constantly asking ourselves how much of the truth we really need. Do we need to know, for example, exactly how many people died during the nine-month war for liberation? Does it matter if it was 3,000 or 3 million?

Perhaps not. A person allowed to die under an oppressive regime begs an inevitable question: Is not everyone who lives in such a nation dead? What value do they have as people, if their words never see the light of day? Is a person, who has not been able to express himself, alive, even though his real self resides within him, never to be seen?

A country of beggars
Maybe 3 million people did not die in 1971 but 160 million people die here every day, in some form or another. And we don’t have to look to freedom of expression, but merely at how, sometimes, a person’s very existence is such a struggle that they do not have the freedom to become individuals. Children beg for change, women beg for equality, rape victims beg to be heard, free-thinkers beg for rationality.

A country of beggars cannot be free, can it?

Then a German-based think tank comes along and rates Bangladesh as one of the newest autocracies in the world. Isn’t that quite the achievement?

I find myself caught between celebrating our nation’s “developing” status (whatever that means; perhaps another linguistic façade behind which we will carry on as an imperfect collective?) and bemoaning the fact that it is official, we are no longer a democracy.

The current government denies the allegations — and I remain wary of all governments, not only autocratic ones — and, to some extent, I do realize that democracy has multiple forms, and perhaps we have worn a most unattractive democratic garb at the moment.

To deem Bangladesh a simple autocracy is unfair, to some extent, especially considering how much, still, we are (technically) able to do. But that could change, and it could change very fast.

The real tragedy, of course, would be that we have come full circle.

And, if we suspect we have come full circle, maybe the other tragedy is that sacrifice has become inevitable. We must become free, as we once became.

We must, first and foremost, say so.

SN Rasul is an Editorial Assistant in the Dhaka Tribune. Follow him @snrasul.

This article was first published on Dhaka Tribune

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