Hundreds of women assaulted in German NYE celebrations

[frogwoman]

Well, as I said many pages ago, you could as easily hang this on the Germano-Turkish right, as on the headcutters.

It seems very unlikely that it was them either tbh. Both are equally (un)likely

 

[J Ed]

Well, as I said many pages ago, you could as easily hang this on the Germano-Turkish right, as on the headcutters.

I think that makes sense but only insofar that both ideas are equally implausible.

 

[bimble]

It wouldn't be at all racist, it would be inaccurate.

Please do kindly try to expand.
It would be 'inaccurate' of me to say that a woman in Delhi is less safe than I am in London when walking home alone at night? As in, she's no more likely to be attacked / abused than I am, especially if she's wearing jeans and not walking with her uncle?

 

[ViolentPanda]

It seems very unlikely that it was them either tbh. Both are equally (un)likely

Sure, but the fact of unlikelyhood doesn't make it impossible, and the Turkish right have proven themselves willing to undertake all sorts of shite in order to put the screws on their enemies.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think that makes sense but only insofar that both ideas are equally implausible.

Of course.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

So what are you saying? That this is more war on terror type propaganda? Not having a go, i genuinely dont understand your point. Given that it shows the police in a terrible light (either as incompetent lying twats or racist incompetent lying twats) im not sure that it is tbh. Obviously the far right have been drawn to it like flies on shit but they were with rochdale, bullfinch, ritherham and even the savile/bbc paedo stuff, which has all turned out to be true

Not suggesting it's government propaganda in this particular case.

I was saying that previous examples of propaganda based on shitty attitudes to women in the Middle East and parts of Asia, when used to justify punitive stuff against people from those areas, hasn't generally been particularly helpful to the women whose troubles are featured in such propaganda.

Not a terribly profound contribution I'm afraid ...

 

[ViolentPanda]

Please do kindly try to expand.
It would be 'innacruarte' of me to say that a woman in Delhi would be less safe than I am in London when walking home alone at night? As in, she's about 87% more likely to be attacked / abused than I am, especially if she's wearing jeans and not walking with her uncle.

My reply was about you making a claim about something being "worse" than something else.
The greater likelihood denotes prevalence, not that "India is worse". As I said, that sort of thing is equally horrible - no worse and no better - everywhere. What it is in India is more prevalent than here, and therefore more likely to happen (for all sorts of structural and cultural reasons) than here.

 

[Casually Red]

Why?
Could you explain why it made you want to puke please?
I know who she is and on a day to day basis she does my head in but I think this is really good.
Where is the pukey bit ?

"So let me be clear: sexual violence is never, ever acceptable. Not for cultural reasons. Not for religious reasons. Not because the perpetrators are really angry and disenfranchised. There can be no quarter for systemic misogyny. And if we’re serious about that, there’s not a country or culture on earth that won’t have to take a long, hard look at itself. I stand with the many, many Muslim, Arab, Asian and immigrant feminists organising against sexism and misogyny within and beyond their own communities. Nobody seems to have thought to ask them how best to deal with systemic sexual violence - even though attacks on Muslim women have increased since the terrorist attacks in Paris last year.

The sensible thing to do in response to the Cologne attacks would be to call, as many German feminists are doing, for a far more rigorous attitude to rape and sexual assault across Europe. Instead, the solution on the table seems to be to clamp down on migration. That fits in with the shibboleth that only savage, foreign men and hardened criminals rape and abuse women - despite the fact that most rapes, in Germany and elsewhere, are committed by people known to the victim, and migrants have not been shown to be more or less sexually aggressive than any other group. As usual, white supremacist patriarchy only concerns itself with women’s safety and women’s dignity when rape and sexual assault can be pinned on cultural ‘outsiders’.

Saying ‘sexism is also part of Western culture’ does not mean that the experience of women in the West is exactly the same as the experience of women in Middle Eastern dictatorships and war zones. Do you know why that is? Can you guess? It’s because the world is not divided into ‘things that are exactly the same as each other’ and ‘things that are total opposites.’

I actually can’t believe I’m having to explain this right now. I thought we covered this in kindergarten. Those of us who have moved beyond that level can, if we really try hard, understand that it’s not either ‘sexism is exclusively practised by Muslim men’ and ‘sexism is exactly the same everywhere.’ This is what we call a ‘false dichotomy’ when we get to big-kid school.

The oppression of women is a global phenomenon because patriarchy is a global phenomenon. It’s embedded in the economic and social structures of almost every nation and community on earth. Sexism and misogyny, however, look different across boundaries of culture and religion, as well as across divides of race and class and between generations. This is not a complicated thing to understand. I’m really trying not to be patronising. But a lot of people are behaving like vicious children over this issue, so if you’re not one of them, I hope you understand why right now I wish I could put half the Internet on time out in a nice safe room where they can scream and break things without hurting themselves or anyone else."

The pukey bit is there's no mention in her entire article of the phenomenon of 1000 men carrying out a concerted assault on hundreds of women right in front of the cops . Nor hundreds more repeatedly trying to break down the doors of a nightclub to get at the women inside. Or the attacks in a string of other cities the same night. Which is why Germany has been shaken to its core. She's saying it's business as usual . It fucking isn't.

She says it's not linked to mass immigration. However if all these attackers are migrants then it plainly is. Had they not been in Germany it wouldn't have happened.

And it's not just the attacks themselves people are pissed off with . It's the cover ups and censorship by the establishment who implemented these policies in the first place. There's an entire host of issues she's flat out ignoring . The victims aren't even mentioned once, not once. Neither are the perpetrators.

It's just fucking her, expounding her right on ness. The article is ultimately about her, having to read stuff on the Internet she disagrees with . And pretty much calling anyone she disagrees with a far right hypocrite . In the absence of any coherent argument or solution to what actually happened.

Stand in solidarity ? Where ? With a fucking placard somewhere ? Shouting a slogan a non German speaker doesn't even understand ? And then being told your violating someone's safe space ?
In a train station or outside a nightclub with a lump of 2 by four would at least be a helpful suggestion .

 

[frogwoman]

Think some countries do have more of a problem with this sort of thing tbh. I'd rather be here than saudi arabia for example. That's not solely due to culture but due to historical factors, social conditions etc, but clearly 'the ideas in every epoch are the ideas of the ruling class' and while many saudi men for example don't believe this shite, clearly a lot do. And when a society has been disrupted, constant war, bombing, disruption of social relations to the extent thats happened in some of these places, on top of the attitudes that already exist both here and anywhere people go to, its probably going to have an effect on the amount of violence towards women (and probably men/children as well) that exists. I think that you can safely say that in some places (and places within the same country) it's going to be more risky for women out alone, less accepting of women doing certain jobs, etc, than others.

 

[bimble]

The greater likelihood denotes prevalence, not that "India is worse". As I said, that sort of thing is equally horrible - no worse and no better - everywhere. What it is in India is more prevalent than here, and therefore more likely to happen (for all sorts of structural and cultural reasons) than here.

Ok, right on, it's just "more prevalent'. It's not worse it's just as bad but a fuck of a lot more common and acceptable and legally dispensable as part of the social / moral / legal system of places where the status of women as people lags behind heroic 'us' by much less than we'd like to pretend.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

That's quite possible too.
We shouldn't, IMO, write off daesh because this seems too subtle. That can sometimes be worse than wishful thinking. As soon as one party to a war decides that the other side couldn't be responsible for something because it's "not their style", they've effectively given the other side a route through which to effect an awful amount of damage on them (as George Custer found out).

Sure, and if one were actually looking for new terrorist tactics, reading these accounts might inspire thoughts like:

'What if they'd been running around stabbing people instead of sexually assaulting / robbing them?'

The cops would have had trouble understanding what was happening, still less dealing with it, given the noise of the fireworks and the attackers all mingled with civilians.

Not obvious how they'd persuade what seem to be a bunch of drunken / drugged up petty criminals to get involved in something like that though, given the likely consequences.

 

[Dowie]

I'm not sure we can make that assumption. The abuse may, for example, have been the primary mechanism for intimidating the women to make it easier to steal from them.

that may be the case and that doesn't contradict what I said... the aim in the end being to steal

Again, you're making assumptions.

lots of people are making assumptions in here

 

[DotCommunist]

I'd rather be here than saudi arabia for example

Racist! I'm sure the KSA would happily accept an outspoken brit feminist lefto jewish woman! As they always do!

I'm still trying to work out why european govs are doing quotas and arguing over this many or that many. Its a lost argument. They are here and they will keep coming. These quotas just mean 'who gets semi-accepted'

anyone else, to the internment camps. With your kids if you brought them.

Theres a lot of ways to survive without state support or recognition and none of them are pleasant. The next morcambe bay will be drowned people from the conflicts having been picked up desperate by the gangmasters.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ok, right on, it's more prevalent. It's not worse it's just as bad but a fuck of a lot more common and acceptable and legally dispensable as part of the social / moral / legal system of places of where the status of women as people lags behind heroic 'us' by much less than we'd like to pretend.

Pretty much. It happens less here almost entirely because it's more socially-visible. Go back in the UK 100 years and there's not a lot of difference between then and India now, in terms of the status and treatment of women.

 

[frogwoman]

Pretty much. It happens less here almost entirely because it's more socially-visible. Go back in the UK 100 years and there's not a lot of difference between then and India now, in terms of the status and treatment of women.

There's less of a difference between india and the deep south of the USA too like that poor woman who was put in jail for a home abortion.

 

[bimble]

Pretty much. It happens less here almost entirely because it's more socially-visible. Go back in the UK 100 years and there's not a lot of difference between then and India now, in terms of the status and treatment of women.

Exactly. I'd say one generation max. "Our" arrogance and moral superiority is disgusting, in this as in 'look at those awful homophobic Jamaicans' for instance.

 

[frogwoman]

Pretty much. It happens less here almost entirely because it's more socially-visible. Go back in the UK 100 years and there's not a lot of difference between then and India now, in terms of the status and treatment of women.

I think thats one of the things i find scariest about this whole event tbh. The freedom to walk around at night and go for a drink etc is one that i value

 

[DotCommunist]

There's less of a difference between india and the deep south of the USA too like that poor woman who was put in jail for a home abortion.

get this pleasant comparison. AIDS rates among black and hispanic women in states south of the Mason-Dixie line are comparable to the aids rates in women from sub saharan Africa. Something very, very wrong going on there. In both cases of course, but in the case of the american women? Thats a society that declares itself the freest of the free where anyone can start a whelk stall and become a president with enough hard work and can-do attitude. Yet here we are.

 

[J Ed]

I think thats one of the things i find scariest about this whole event tbh. The freedom to walk around at night and go for a drink etc is one that i value

Well, we feel like that. Imagine what the women of Cologne and their husbands, sons and friends feel? Who will they vote for and support with that feeling in mind?

 

[Casually Red]

There's less of a difference between india and the deep south of the USA too like that poor woman who was put in jail for a home abortion.

In India the local tribal elders might sentence her to be gang raped, or burned to death as punishment . Bad as the deep south is the county sherrifs department still manage to draw line somewhere well short of that .

And it's not just India. Years back I saw a video, that I stopped before the stoning started, of a host of grinning Kurdish policemen bringing a young girl into a village square to be stoned to death By her family and neighbours. Her crime was to have run off with her boyfriend . these same forces are supposed to be our allies against daesh.

There's other talibans who get a total bye ball .

 

[frogwoman]

Some of them will go far right but i dont think all of them.will, after all many pediga types have just as shit attitudes to women

A lot will probably just stay at home tbh

 

[bimble]

Well, we feel like that. Imagine what the women of Cologne and their husbands, sons and friends feel? Who will they vote for and support with that feeling in mind?

Fuck their husbands and sons. But yes anyway. That (the political fallout of the coverup of this awful thing ) is why the NYE story is more than a personal nightmare for a (puffa jackets to Calais sending) person like me for instance.

 

[DotCommunist]

In India the local tribal elders might sentence her to be gang raped, or burned to death as punishment . Bad as the deep south is the county sherrifs department still manage to draw line somewhere well short of that .

And it's not just India. Years back I saw a video, that I stopped before the stoning started, of a host of grinning Kurdish policemen bringing a young girl into a village square to be stoned to death By her family and neighbours. Her crime was to have run off with her boyfriend . these same forces are supposed to be our allies against daesh.

There's other talibans who get a total bye ball .

it wasn't two years ago that they were digging out dead babies that irish nuns had stuffed into a fucking septic tank so I don't think there is much to be gained from this line. Thats not 'whataboutery' thats just to point out that bad shit happens when fundies get the whip hand. Wherever that may be.

 

[J Ed]

Fuck their husbands and sons. But yes anyway. That (the political fallout of the coverup of this awful thing ) is why the NYE story is more than a personal nightmare for a (puffa jackets to Calais sending) person like for instance me.

Are husbands and sons of women (but not friends apparently) not allowed to be worried about sexual assault and rape?

 

[campanula]

I am doing moral somersaults because I haven't a fucking clue how to parse this whole thing. For sure, I am torn between feeling absolutely incandescent that so many women were so blatantly mauled. I am livid at the fumblings of authority. Despairing at what the future holds - the movement of literally millions of people...to where. To what? With a viciously hateful govt. enacting the direst cuts to public service...the utter fucking dishonesty of the media, the manipulations. And what is alarming me most seriously is the feeling that refugee women and children, more than welcome - men can fuck off. Young men with crap attitudes can especially fuck off. These men were making a fucking statement (no men were attacked and robbed were they? - just women). No confidence in govt, police, authority (clearly self-interested fuckwits). Obviously, all men are not molesting bastards, all Islam does not consist of ragingly fundamentalist maniacs with sick attitudes towards females...but some are, possibly quite a lot - how do I know. Unemployed, bored, broke, vindictive, militarised, traumatised, a mob...The results are inevitable.

 

[Casually Red]

it wasn't two years ago that they were digging out dead babies that irish nuns had stuffed into a fucking septic tank so I don't think there is much to be gained from this line. Thats not 'whataboutery' thats just to point out that bad shit happens when fundies get the whip hand. Wherever that may be.

And what direction do you reckon western European society is going to head now ? I don't just mean this year with a knee jerk, but ten , fifteen years down the line ? Where do you see this going eventually ?

 

[irf520]

Thats a society that declares itself the freest of the free ...

Talk is cheap

... where anyone can start a whelk stall ...

Possibly

become a president with enough hard work and can-do attitude.

Not without billions of dollars in campaign funding and establishment support.

 

[DotCommunist]

And what direction do you reckon western European society is going to head now ? I don't just mean this year with a knee jerk, but ten , fifteen years down the line ? Where do you see this going eventually ?

the usual, absorbtion, semi acceptance, used as cheap labour. Thats whats happened with every other influx of migrants and refugees for most of my life. You do know you beat the NF right? The BNP? they are gone now. They aren't coming back and no amount of tribute acts or semi legit electoral platforms will change that. This isn't going to become a polarised failed state(s) warring with people who have been taken in. Just the usual exploitation by capitalists. Aint life grand

 

[bimble]

Are husbands and sons of women (but not friends apparently) not allowed to be worried about sexual assault and rape?

No. Go ahead, please do worry about it. I didn't mean any offence.
I just get a queasy feeling when people talk about rape and abuse of "our women" with analogies of robbery/ theft, which I don't think has happened here on this thread for a couple of days at least

 

[J Ed]

No. Go ahead, please do worry about it. I didn't mean any offence.
I just get a queasy feeling when people talk about rape and abuse of "our women" with analogies of robbery, which I don't think has happened here for a couple of days at least

Well I do mean 'our women' in that I mean friends and relatives of women I don't mean our noble Aryan sisters of the Volk or whatever.