Back to my original point. Essentialism is what enables the line of thinking that we don’t want “their” ways over here, at home, but for “them folks over there it’s just fine and dandy”. We ain’t gonna comment lest there be expectations that we should actually DO something.

You are right, armed robbery and street crime are horrific in that country. The rape statistics in terms of quantity, victim demographics, and the details of the offence and so on are neauseatingly shocking. The fact that we have stood by all of this silently is shameful to say the least.

brightbluelizard, I don’t get what you are driving at with “It never ceases to amaze me how naive North Americans can be about this country. They speak about the “end of apartheid” as if their moralizing brought it about. A) Apartheid is still alive & kicking in all its forms (BTW, the ‘isms in South Africa are definitely mutual).” North American, honky, white, however you want to describe it, the rage against mass rape of anything that has an orfice (infant boys also get raped in scores under the “cleanse youself of AIDS” belief) applies accross the board. I very likely misunderstood your comment but I worry that dividing us all into those who “get” Africa and those who don’t only detracts from OUR power as women, and people, to mobilize against horrific treatment that we have to weather no matter where on the map.

I’ll say it again: next time you see an exodus of people from their home country right around an election -PAY ATTENTION!

The character referenced above is the former deputy president, Jacob Zuma. He was fired from that position, but is still the deputy president of the ANC. He was the head of the Moral Regeneration Movement (Ha!), and also sat on a national AIDS committee (!!), prior to being charged with rape. He has also been involved in various shady financial deals.

He is still very well supported by part of the population, who endorse him for the presidency of the country (I can barely type that without throwing up). The treatment of the victim during the rape trial was so vile it nearly brought me to tears. Women supporters of Zuma burnt her picture outside the court and chanted “Burn the Bitch”. As is customary, the defence called the victim’s sexual history into question, and, infamously, defended Zuma’s “HIV prevention shower”, by saying that “if one put one’s hand into a bucket of HIV fluid, wouldn’t you wash you hand?” (Zuma took a shower after the rape to “prevent contracting HIV”). I’m not kidding, it was that stupid.

IBTFP.

Incidentally, South Africa does not have the highest rape rate in the world. It has the highest reported peace-time rape rate in the world. (I am using the term “peace-time” in the traditionally understood sense, certainly it is a misnomer in most countries of the world where women are prey)

Conflict zones such as Eastern DR Congo and Darfur, not to mention past trouble areas where ethnic violence was extended to the very bodies of women and girls, have higher rates of sexual violence against women and girls. The difference is that in Congo and Darfur there is some underlying conquest of land/people/victory, while in South Africa it is a war against women in its own sake. I would also be critical about the types of rape that are reported here-South Africa has very high levels of violent street crime which is what gets centre attention, but how do their marital rape stats compare to those of other countries? I would imagine that information would give us a slightly different picture.

South African women have been outspoken in their outrage. Our acceptance is a betrayal.

Iraqi Women: Prostituting Ourselves for Our Children
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/15/iraq.prostitution/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

More and more Iraqi women are turning to prostitution, since the American invasion, just to survive, earning about $8 a day. One woman explains how she was a cleaning woman and started being propositioned. Others explain that their families still think they are out cleaning houses. One woman has sex for money with her three children in the room, although she stations them in different corners of the room.

And Bushies keep saying, “The world is better off without Saddam,” and I ask, “Whose world?”

This quote from the article should be tattooed on my body somewhere, perhaps on the inside of my eyelids:

“People shouldn’t criticize women or talk badly about them. They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we have had to take this path.”

Another quote: “Most of the women that we find at hospitals that have tried to commit suicide have been involved in prostitution” (but isn’t the chance to sell oneself just another capitalist choice? ).

Another: One woman prostitutes because she would rather that than see her 17 year old son exposed to the dangers of bombings in the streets. Another says, “Everything is for the children. They are the beauty in life, and, without them, we can not live….I would never allow my daughter to do this. I would rather marry her off at 13 than have her go through this.”

I got married at 17, twenty-two years ago, and, sister, I’m not sure marrying her off in the patriarchy is, over the long haul, that far from seeing her prostitute herself. Maybe just my own bitterness, but there it is.

This is the same country, in which on the nation’s top politicians was charged with raping an HIV/AIDS activist (who is HIV positive herself) and was acquitted. Before the attack she tried telling him that he would be risking himself in attacking her, but he went ahead with the rape anyway. The acquitted rapist later confessed to setting a poor example of having “sex” without a condom. Oh and the best part was that this woman was greeted outside the courthouse with a mob of hundreds of men changing, “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!” and threatening to rape and kill her.

Sadly, the level of anti-female violence in that country is truly breathtaking.