Thank you,
Nick Kristof for your column yesterday about rape as a weapon of war. The one thing missing from Kristof's column and
the comments page on his blog is a thorough analysis of the motives behind mass rape. And for good reason: there is no way to conduct a scientific study (with focus groups and all) of guerilla rapists in the Congo. Additionally, the normal response to such evil acts is to condemn the evildoers along with their crimes, not to look them deep in the eyes and ask, how do you feel? why did that seem like a good idea? what's in it for you?
The scariest thing to me about deep evil is that those who commit it are usually convinced that they're doing the right thing - Hitler, Stalin, Mao and gang certainly did, and had a substantial body of literature (to use the term loosely) to back them up. I wonder, what set of beliefs, norms and values - ie, what culture - could make mass rape seem like the right thing to do?
The importance of misogyny can't be understated here - in cultures where women are seen as "less" than men in almost every way, violence against women is a way of life. And if you see your own wife as a piece of property or chattel that you can work, beat or rape as you please, it would follow quite logically that raping and mutilating another man's woman would be akin to painting a graffiti on someone else's house or keying his car.
In any war it's important to keep up your own troops' morale while demoralizing the enemy as much as possible. Raping and pillaging are pillars of that tactic, and if women are seen as property, abusing and destroying them is akin to burning down a house, poisoning a well or gutting a goat. In societies where a family's honor is linked to the sexual purity of its women, as is the case in much of the Muslim world, this is all the more devastating to the men. It's in large part for that reason that male-on-male rape is becoming more common in conflicts around the world.
The existence of a myth that sex with a virgin cures AIDS is well-documented. It's impossible to know how much that factors into the horrors in the DRC, but it's plausible that that would be a factor. I haven't seen
The Greatest Silence yet - still working up the courage to watch it - but I remember reading a quote from one of the self-confessed rapists interviewed. The quote said something about how having sex with lots of women was a crucial component of a very powerful magic that brings men strength and courage in battle. Think "eating human flesh will make me invincible," a la Idi Amin, but with rape instead. There is very little literature on this topic, but it's certainly something I would like to learn more about. Finally, it's likely that a number of these soldiers/guerrillas fighters are drugged up - that seldom leads to restraint or humanity.
Before someone accuses me of excessive cultural relativism let me make something clear - rape, torture, mutilation and murder are always wrong. It is always wrong to take complete control over another person and use him or her as an object. But condemning an act or a way of thinking doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to understand the motivations behind the Other's acts.
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