By batsman
Since it was recently Women’s Day, I thought I might write something from half-awake slumber to celebrate in a half dark and half light way after a fitful night.
Jang Ja Yeon (see link) was a beautiful and tragic soul. Unfortunately there was little sympathy for her. Some comments even say that unless she was violently raped, she was fully responsible for her own actions. This sort of needled me as it delved into the matter of violence.
There are many types of violence of which physical violence is only a small part. Of course, physical violence is abhorrent especially when visited upon helpless people like women and children. But it is not only women and children who are helpless as we shall discuss later.
Of all the types of violence, physical violence is the most abhorrent. This is no accident since physical violence is also often the only type of violence available to poor and marginalized people. So a society that looks down upon poor and marginalized people will also put physical violence high on the abhorrent list.
It looked to me that Jang Ja Yeon was tricked into selling her body and ultimately her soul. Whether this is a form of violence, it is up to you to judge since you probably have many experiences of being cheated yourself.
I suppose for the first few men, Ms Jang probably thought it was for advancing her career as an actress, but for the last few, she probably realized that she was just being treated as a receptacle for male DNA sperm (not required in the Korean forensic labs since she left many letters identifying the donors). She might even have been blackmailed into submission. She was no longer advancing her reputation as a rising starlet but gaining as reputation as a whore. There was no way of correcting a bad mistake. She was trapped and she took her own life. Is this a form of violence or is it not?
In a way, she sinned by taking her first lovers and then by taking her own life, but her ambition and setting aside morals was repaid by the violence of social stigma which trapped her sufficiently to take her own life.
In conservative societies, the women are protected from sexual predators by ancient traditions, but in modern society which is much more productive, wealthier and more efficient in releasing wealth generating energies of people, it is also no accident that more women are taken advantage of by sexual predators than in conservative societies, such that it becomes social norm for women to flaunt their sexuality as a means of getting ahead economically. Both money and sex is more efficiently released in modern societies. Unfortunately this destroys communities and turns people into selfish, mercenary individuals. Pity the poor and marginalized. Pity the weak but sexually attractive.
The rich and powerful men who used her had many forms of violence at their disposal. There is the violence of money, the violence of connections, the violence of economic monopoly, the violence of crooked judges and crooked policemen and the violence of corrupt politician friends willing to abuse the law among the many. And if these are not enough, physical violence in the form of connections with gangsters and hoodlums as well as managers of aspiring starlets may be used as a last resort.
For the poor and marginalized, they of course have recourse to justice in the law courts, but their ability to pay for lawyers is questionable and if even this tenuous connection to justice is blocked by crooked judges, then the only resort is physical violence. Often even this is disastrous as rich and powerful men often wait for this last measure of desperation to visit even greater physical brutality upon their victims, not just by physical brutality of crooked policemen but the legal violence and brutality of their victims breaking the law.
In Malaysia, it seems that lawyers upping their fees is putting justice farther away from the ordinary person let alone those poor and marginalized, so it is only the rich that can now afford justice. Even with legal charity made available to poor people, the lawyers are selected by the authorities – most likely from crony 2nd rate lawyers who cannot find work from commercially competitive sources. So the authorities not only control the courts, they also control the lawyers “defending” the poor. When Nik Aziz says that Malaysia may yet become like Eqypt, he was not far off the mark.
So it is that even physical violence is rare as a form of obtaining justice with famous exceptions. In the cases of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, physical violence and civil war was a last resort for poor and marginalized people denied basic rights and economically starved by dictatorial regimes. The people had no other recourse except to turn to physical violence, especially when bombed by jet planes and artillery, attacked by tanks, helicopter gun ships, snipers on rooftops and armed men on camel and horseback.
The violence in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya is recent but not new. Violence has been visited upon the people of Palestine for generations as it has been visited upon the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no recourse for the people of Palestine when the powerful nations create and new state and dumps it on Palestinian land, arming this new state with modern weapons of mass destruction. There is also no recourse for the people of Iraq when they are ruled by a brutal dictator in the form of Saddam and doubly faced with an invading US superpower army. If there is anyone more helpless and innocent, it is the people of Iraq.
Of course, the invaders would like to have you believe that it is all the fault of Islam, that is why they visit violence upon a weak and helpless people, but I submit that it has less to do with Islam than with a people driven to desperation and having no other recourse except to defend themselves.
So we come now to Interlok. Apparently the authorities refuse to allow peaceful protests against the use of what these protestors view as racially offensive literature in the school syllabus. If all recourse to justice is blocked, what else is there left? When viewed in this manner, it seems the authorities seem to be asking for and provoking violence.
Fortunately the protestors are mainly Hindraf supporters. Hindraf as is well known has disavowed any form of physical violence. Unfortunately the authorities have classified them as terrorists and prone to violence. Who is right and who is wrong?
When the avenues for peaceful discussion and protest as well as recourse to justice is blocked, it would seem that ordinary people are being channeled into the last remaining path of violence. Is this really the case? If so, it is really scary. The authorities seem to be bent on proving themselves right that Hindraf is a violent terrorist group even at the cost of provoking unnecessary violence.
So Jang Ja Yeon – may your desperate soul rest in peace. May the Korean authorities investigate honestly and with full integrity and bring your torturers to justice.
Since it was recently Women’s Day, I thought I might write something from half-awake slumber to celebrate in a half dark and half light way after a fitful night.
Jang Ja Yeon (see link) was a beautiful and tragic soul. Unfortunately there was little sympathy for her. Some comments even say that unless she was violently raped, she was fully responsible for her own actions. This sort of needled me as it delved into the matter of violence.
There are many types of violence of which physical violence is only a small part. Of course, physical violence is abhorrent especially when visited upon helpless people like women and children. But it is not only women and children who are helpless as we shall discuss later.
Of all the types of violence, physical violence is the most abhorrent. This is no accident since physical violence is also often the only type of violence available to poor and marginalized people. So a society that looks down upon poor and marginalized people will also put physical violence high on the abhorrent list.
It looked to me that Jang Ja Yeon was tricked into selling her body and ultimately her soul. Whether this is a form of violence, it is up to you to judge since you probably have many experiences of being cheated yourself.
I suppose for the first few men, Ms Jang probably thought it was for advancing her career as an actress, but for the last few, she probably realized that she was just being treated as a receptacle for male DNA sperm (not required in the Korean forensic labs since she left many letters identifying the donors). She might even have been blackmailed into submission. She was no longer advancing her reputation as a rising starlet but gaining as reputation as a whore. There was no way of correcting a bad mistake. She was trapped and she took her own life. Is this a form of violence or is it not?
In a way, she sinned by taking her first lovers and then by taking her own life, but her ambition and setting aside morals was repaid by the violence of social stigma which trapped her sufficiently to take her own life.
In conservative societies, the women are protected from sexual predators by ancient traditions, but in modern society which is much more productive, wealthier and more efficient in releasing wealth generating energies of people, it is also no accident that more women are taken advantage of by sexual predators than in conservative societies, such that it becomes social norm for women to flaunt their sexuality as a means of getting ahead economically. Both money and sex is more efficiently released in modern societies. Unfortunately this destroys communities and turns people into selfish, mercenary individuals. Pity the poor and marginalized. Pity the weak but sexually attractive.
The rich and powerful men who used her had many forms of violence at their disposal. There is the violence of money, the violence of connections, the violence of economic monopoly, the violence of crooked judges and crooked policemen and the violence of corrupt politician friends willing to abuse the law among the many. And if these are not enough, physical violence in the form of connections with gangsters and hoodlums as well as managers of aspiring starlets may be used as a last resort.
For the poor and marginalized, they of course have recourse to justice in the law courts, but their ability to pay for lawyers is questionable and if even this tenuous connection to justice is blocked by crooked judges, then the only resort is physical violence. Often even this is disastrous as rich and powerful men often wait for this last measure of desperation to visit even greater physical brutality upon their victims, not just by physical brutality of crooked policemen but the legal violence and brutality of their victims breaking the law.
In Malaysia, it seems that lawyers upping their fees is putting justice farther away from the ordinary person let alone those poor and marginalized, so it is only the rich that can now afford justice. Even with legal charity made available to poor people, the lawyers are selected by the authorities – most likely from crony 2nd rate lawyers who cannot find work from commercially competitive sources. So the authorities not only control the courts, they also control the lawyers “defending” the poor. When Nik Aziz says that Malaysia may yet become like Eqypt, he was not far off the mark.
So it is that even physical violence is rare as a form of obtaining justice with famous exceptions. In the cases of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, physical violence and civil war was a last resort for poor and marginalized people denied basic rights and economically starved by dictatorial regimes. The people had no other recourse except to turn to physical violence, especially when bombed by jet planes and artillery, attacked by tanks, helicopter gun ships, snipers on rooftops and armed men on camel and horseback.
The violence in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya is recent but not new. Violence has been visited upon the people of Palestine for generations as it has been visited upon the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no recourse for the people of Palestine when the powerful nations create and new state and dumps it on Palestinian land, arming this new state with modern weapons of mass destruction. There is also no recourse for the people of Iraq when they are ruled by a brutal dictator in the form of Saddam and doubly faced with an invading US superpower army. If there is anyone more helpless and innocent, it is the people of Iraq.
Of course, the invaders would like to have you believe that it is all the fault of Islam, that is why they visit violence upon a weak and helpless people, but I submit that it has less to do with Islam than with a people driven to desperation and having no other recourse except to defend themselves.
So we come now to Interlok. Apparently the authorities refuse to allow peaceful protests against the use of what these protestors view as racially offensive literature in the school syllabus. If all recourse to justice is blocked, what else is there left? When viewed in this manner, it seems the authorities seem to be asking for and provoking violence.
Fortunately the protestors are mainly Hindraf supporters. Hindraf as is well known has disavowed any form of physical violence. Unfortunately the authorities have classified them as terrorists and prone to violence. Who is right and who is wrong?
When the avenues for peaceful discussion and protest as well as recourse to justice is blocked, it would seem that ordinary people are being channeled into the last remaining path of violence. Is this really the case? If so, it is really scary. The authorities seem to be bent on proving themselves right that Hindraf is a violent terrorist group even at the cost of provoking unnecessary violence.
So Jang Ja Yeon – may your desperate soul rest in peace. May the Korean authorities investigate honestly and with full integrity and bring your torturers to justice.
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