Anarchy

Imagine for a minute it was you who were kidnapped by some brutes. Close your eyes and try and think how it would feel to be physically assaulted, drugged, stripped naked, verbally abused and having things done to you that would wake your grandfather up in his grave.

Then probably after having humiliated you further, those animals insert a piece of sugar cane in your vagina, undoubtedly tearing up your insides, bringing unbearable pain. Imagine the brutality of the act. Imagine being beaten up again and again. I?ll leave the rest to your imagination. I went through the same exercise and felt like throwing up my guts. If you?re a man and you can?t imagine those things being done to you, then I suggest you substitute the ?you? to ?your daughter? or ?your mother.?

I?m sorry to be so crude. But why should we be shielded from what happened to somebody else in this country? Another person who was as entitled as you and me to the protection of the law but whom the State has failed to protect. How will we ever make it up to Marie Linley Savriacooty?

Nothing the police will ever find out about this wretched affair, no judgment pronounced by the courts, no amount of time served by the perpetrators of this horrendous act will ever give back to Marie Linley the child that she has lost, will ever erase the pain and indignity suffered after the first act of sexual abuse, will ever make her forget the way she was treated by the authorities and will ever take away the suffering and humiliation endured two days ago.

Countless people will ask why, some will demand that capital punishment be reinstated and a few others will say ?maybe she asked for it.?

So be it. There is nothing left to say. Words would be pointless. What can you say or do when as Yeats so aptly put it, ?turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world??

Deepa BHOOKHUN

Tipping Point

It?s hard to shock a journalist. Every day brings its share of crime, cupidity and general crassness. Needless to say, it?s not really the right profession for those who would like to remain enamored with the human race. Or, as Gloria Allred put it : ?The more I know about men, the more I like dogs?. Yet even us world-weary press people crossed a threshold upon learning of the gruesome attack on Marie Linley Savriacooty.

Just take a look around you. Look at the women who surround you. The women who make this world go round. Then put yourself in the shoes of Stéphano Savriacooty. The shoes of a man probably still shuddering in shock. The shock that will metamorphose successively into denial, guilt and rage. A wild and boundless rage that will drive him to despair and, eventually, an almost unquenchable thirst for revenge.

Yet revenge, even if he succeeds in exacting it, will offer little solace. His wife, his dear wife, has been physically and morally abused beyond repair. Tuesday?s events will be forever burnt into his mind and soul. Fortunately, this unimaginable tumult will be followed, albeit after a very long time, by acceptance and even hope. Yes, hope.

But we cannot accept what has happened. Society has reached a tipping point and the only possible way for it to exorcise such a horrendous crime will be to prevent its recurrence. Lest the line between humanity and inhumanity becomes forever blurred.

For the time being, the State, and indeed each and everyone of us, must relentlessly hunt down the animals responsible for this act of unspeakable bestiality and proscribe them to the deepest and darkest corner of the land where they can rot and wrangle with the minuscule speck of conscience they have left.

Nicholas RAINER