I feel very disturbed. All the positive energy I have harnessed during the day is now gone, evaporated within seconds, pushed away, pushed down to the floor, beaten and kicked out of me...
This happens often. It happens every time I hear or read about another rape story. And since 2003, I have heard hundreds of them, literally.
One never gets used to it. NEVER. Each and every single time, the rage that wells up inside of me is even greater than the previous one...and so is my hatred, a raw hatred.
During the "tyrannical rule of the Dictator", rapists in Iraq were executed. A good deterrent don't you think ? I think so too.
Today, I wish for every single rapist in Iraq to be not executed, but castrated. Yes, castrated and preferably by the woman he raped.
Rabid animals need to be put down, and in the case of rapist men, be put down slowly...I think castration is a nice slow death, am all in favor of. Yes, no mercy.
I have met, spoken to, listened to, read about hundreds of cases of Iraqi women raped since "their liberation". Raped by militias, raped by the police, raped by American soldiers, raped by contractors, raped by neighbors, raped by strangers...
This physical, sexual, moral, spiritual assault on the Feminine is ongoing in Iraq...
It has not stopped. And will not stop because rape is encouraged. Yes you read me right. It is encouraged.
When a rapist(s) is not arrested and not tried, a message is sent out, a clear and loud message saying - the feminine body is public property for you to possess and enjoy.
The invasion and the occupation of the Iraqi woman is a DIRECT consequence of the invasion and occupation of her country. The two go together, hand in hand.
The Occupation of Iraq has set free the perverse demons of a deviant Patriarchy, that were chained by authority, an authority that respected and protected women, and are now set free to do as they please with our bodies...
Our bodies have become the final frontier for the final weapon at the disposal of the invader whoever he may be - the final weapon being his dick, forced upon our bodies, forcefully penetrating us, just the way the occupier did when he set foot in 2003. This is a continuum on the same line...
I can tell you of tens of cases I personally know of, tens of female lives who have been totally destroyed because of rape with very severe consequences, some of which were suicide or attempts at suicide.
Iraqi women victims of rape have NO SUPPORT network to turn to. They cannot report a rape case because the puppet police themselves are rapists. They cannot speak about it because of the stigma attached. They cannot openly share it with other women because of the shame they feel. They have no hot line, no counselor, no refuge...they have nobody.
Their body also becomes a no body. It is no longer their body but their body. The public body. They are no longer owners of it, but the public is. The male public to be precise. The male collectivity who lets the crime of rape go by...and laughs it off.
Yes laughs it off, secretly and sometimes not so secretly.
You know why ?
Because every single male is a potential rapist.
The rape of the female body is the final frontier...and there are so many other ways to rape a woman...no wonder they laugh it off...each single one of them has done it one way or another...
Ask any woman and she will tell you that the fear of rape is always lurking in her mind...because somewhere on a collective unconscious level, all women have experienced it either directly, or indirectly....
I am always shocked by the laxity and flippancy with which rape is dealt with. That in itself is the ultimate assault.
Rape is the only area, where the male object can prove himself to be a subject, where the penis becomes power personified. I say male object because men are slaves of their desires and a slave is an object.
I know you will jump to the defense and say not all men. I don't give a fuck how you argue around it...
In times of peace you are like dogs kept on a leash and in times of war, you are nothing but unbridled beasts let loose. And for most women, nay all women, it is a time of war, because there is a war going on, a silent war against women, against us.
And women, Iraqi women in particular, know what am talking about. And you don't.
Another story has added itself to the pile that I carry with me...has added itself to the anonymous list of names...to the unknown, faceless initials and forgotten bodies...
Another fictitious name, Hoda. Hoda, a mother, a wife...Hoda a woman, a person...
Hoda fled to Syria, July this year. This year when security in Iraq is supposedly so wonderful. She fled after she was abducted along with her son for a ransom.
For 13 days, she was repeatedly raped by a gang of 10 men, daily.
Don't just read that sentence like idiots. Read it slowly until it sinks into your heads...Close your eyes and imagine it. Feel it happening to you, to your mother, your daughter, your sister, your wife, your lover...
I know that some of you perverted shits out there would probably get a hard on reading this. And I would not be surprised either. This is the sickness of your psyche and nature. And it needs to be treated in a radical fashion, as I said earlier on.
There a hundreds of cases like Hoda. Ranging from Abu Ghraib victims to victims of Shiite militias, to men in uniforms...to men, to rabid animals not even fit to be caged in a zoo.
I draw a lesson here and I hope, even though am not holding my breath, that you do too.
It is high time that male objects,(which is what you are) start a new chapter in their lives.
Take the Iraqi example as a lesson for yourselves. Use it. Use it to go within yourselves for a change, instead of acting out your deep soul sickness...
Use it to look inside...use it as an opportunity to become less of a stranger with who you are...use it to face your own monsters, those monsters that have created havoc in the world ever since you took power. Use it to face your own shadows, your own demons, your own perversions, your own twisted minds...use it.
Use it, so all of us Iraqi women out there - so all of our crying wounds and stubborn scars would not be in vain...
Use it to regain a semblance of humanity.
Use it to regain your true selves.
Use it as the final frontier to re-connect with what you were initially created for,
Use it to re-connect with Life.
Painting : Iraqi female artist, Betool Fekaiki.
