I am a 25-year-old rape survivor. I am educated, and work as a consultant for a bank. I was lucky.
After the rape I went to the Johannesburg Hospital where I was referred to a rape crisis unit at a private hospital. They had excellent counselling, sympathetic attendants, blood tests and free anti-retrovirals not provided by the government for “sexual assault victims”, as we’re called. The hospital also provided periodic Aids testing for the next six months.
The hospital even contacted the police, who explained that they would only be able to see me the next day, while I was scraped and scratched and examined for the rape kit and the doctor’s report. It was a horrific procedure; it takes a lot of courage to overlook the shame and disgust.
Besides the three-day dose, which I was told was insufficient to suppress the virus, I had to pay for a month’s supply of AZT and 3TC/Combivir, costing about R2 000.
The rape was not my doing, yet I had to exert myself to be examined; face the possibility for a year of being infected with Aids; go through the agony of describing the event to the doctors and the police; and make sure the police were doing something.
On my own initiative, I contacted the police to compose an identikit. I’ve heard nothing from them since. I have no case, no justice, and yet I did everything in my power.
Yet my dignity was maintained to the greatest degree possible. The bank and agency I worked for arranged counselling, gifts and time off.
What about women who have no transport and cannot get to a hospital in the specified period; who support their families and can’t afford counselling or sitting for hours at a police station? Free anti-retrovirals were not provided by the government before this year, and getting them for a month is still impossible.
Imagine being a woman stuck at a state hospital in the clothes she’s been raped in, the disgusting sense of being violated still lingering, trying to afford herself some dignity.
The groups against the abuse of women and children express anger without offering a solution. Of course we’re angry — it’s unfair; but we know this already.
I refuse to see myself as a victim. I have no shame in saying that I was raped, although the people around me wince.
The first step is to report the case. The moment you say that you are important enough to protect yourself, you empower yourself.
An inquisition into the reported cases needs to be set up by rape survivors to find out where the rape kits are and what has happened to the case files. We should see how we can strengthen our cases and find cases that can proceed. — Nadine Padayachee, Cape Town
I read your excellent articles on rape with great interest. It would be useful for members of the public to know some of what is currently being done about rape and how readers can respond in other ways than just being appalled.
It would increase reporting a great deal if the media could publicise the list of designated centres where people who have been raped can go for medical attention and report the matter to the police.
Rape Crisis, together with other organisations within the Network to End Violence Against Women, will be recruiting volunteers to offer support to victims reporting rape at these centres and police stations next year.
Already many volunteers have offered their services and are doing an enormous amount to prevent secondary trauma at the hands of the police, doctors and prosecutors. This, strangely, is the most sought-after expertise.
Granted, we need more doctors, nurses, police officers and prosecutors, and anyone who wants to sponsor a year’s salary for one of these is more than welcome to do so.
In the meantime all of these people have aspects of their jobs that do not require extensive training and these are the aspects that most frequently get neglected. Papers go missing, phone calls are not followed up and case numbers are not kept — communication that is essential to the eventual conviction of the criminal.
This is how ordinary South Africans can get involved and make a difference. A victim who knows she or he will be kindly treated and supported is more likely to report in time for forensic evidence to be gathered, and to be sufficiently calm to remember enough of what happened to put the perpetrator away. –Kathleen Dey, Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust
The Sexual Offences Court in Sibasa last month tried 61 cases, of which 70% involved children. Despite the difficulties inherent in such cases, they managed to achieve a 60% conviction rate.
We’re not sure just how they are realising this miracle, but believe it to be due, in part, to the healthy working relationship that exists between them, our organisation, and our shamefully under-resourced but extremely committed child protection unit.
It may also have something to do with the sterling efforts of our voluntary case monitors, who “follow up” on all cases of rape and ensure that children are prepared for court.
Perhaps someone should look at what we’re doing right in the Far North, and learn a few lessons from us! — Fiona Nicholson, Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme
Unjustified link to rightist extremism
The Group of 63 has been hard-done-by by the Mail & Guardian’s innuendo that it sympathises with rightist violence. One of its main goals is “to cultivate a democratic culture among Afrikaners and to promote the equal accommodation of all groups, to the advantage of a greater South Africa”. It has put a lot of energy into removing the taint of fundamentalism and racism that still may cling to the public concept of Afrikaners.
The group is highly disturbed by the Soweto bombings and the arrest of rightist conspirators, events disadvantageous to good race relations that again threaten to contaminate the Afrikaner’s image. This is why the Group of 63 was the first Afrikaans civilian organisation — a fact conveniently forgotten — to condemn the attacks and emphasise the need to prosecute the perpetrators.
In its letter to President Thabo Mbeki, the group unequivocally rejected any attempt to reinstate white dominance.
However, it also said the causes underlying the wide sense of alienation among Afrikaners should be urgently investigated. For this, it is subjected to slanderous allegations.
The responsible reaction to political violence is to identify its underlying causes and to clear them. Mbeki himself advocates this approach. Condemning the September 11 attacks, he said: “We must also focus on all possible root causes of these despicable acts of terror and develop strategies to address them wherever they present themselves.”
Far from legitimising violence, the Mbeki/Group of 63 approach contributes to its prevention.
The letter to the president dealt with some causes of Afrikaner alienation: Afrikaans education appears to have been targeted by the government’s Anglicisation policy; Afrikaans is being eliminated from the courts and the civil service, and thousands of Afrikaners have suffered reverse discrimination. Afrikaners are the targets of land redistribution, which has taken an ominous turn against the backdrop of Zimbabwe. The government’s Zimbabwe policy has raised serious questions about Afrikaners’ treatment in future.
We believed we would find particular understanding from the M&G, which has been one of the sharpest critics of the government’s policy on Zimbabwe.
Our plea is: bring fundamental problems into the open and solve them like responsible democrats, instead of permitting them to fester below the surface. We trust that we shall find an ally in the M&G, instead of being made suspect by an unjustified linkage with rightist extremism. — Koos Malan (Member of the Working Committee of the Group of 63)
Rugby not just for Afrikaners
My reaction to your editorial on South African rugby (“Unhealthy obsession”, November 28) hovers between irritation and bemusement.
As a black, third-generation rugby follower I never can get over the notion that this game belongs to whites or specifically Afrikaners.
Africans in the Eastern Cape started playing the game in the 1870s, well before the Afrikaners. We built a strong rugby culture and produced outstanding players such as Winty Phandle and Enslin Dlambulo, who played for top British professional clubs as early as the 1950s.
It is nobody else’s fault that we vandalised the local club and Sunday League structures that produced this quality when we went into the unity process.
The scale of England’s win on Saturday is meaningless in terms of assessing the team’s capacity. No side can compete at Test level minus a key player in a key position. Ironically, one saw more character on the part of the players in this game, despite the continuing injury toll.
Whoever wrote the editorial clearly has not read Chester Williams’s biography, because the tensions Chester alludes to were during his playing days in the 1990s.
He categorically points out that things have changed for the likes of Breyton Paulse, Lawrence Sephaka and Bolla Conradie within the Springbok team set-up.
Where the professional wing of South African rugby should have been kicked in the pants was when it selected four white coaches for the Super 12 franchises. What puts a Kevin Putt ahead of a Jerome Paarwater or Eric Sauls in coaching merit certainly beats me. — Vuyisa Qunta
So, history has ended?
It is now just over 150 years since the first publication of The Communist Manifesto. Over this period, history has more than confirmed the trend of capitalist development described by Marx and Engels wherein nature and human activity had, even in their time (mainly in Western Europe) and more so at present, been turned into commodities to be traded in a market.
With regard to the editorial (“Low Marx for Engels in Zulu”, November 15) and article (“Comrades row over Zulu manifesto”) referring to the translation of the manifesto into Zulu, it should be noted that translation of classical texts from whatever political source and whatever part of the globe is an important launching pad for the further development of African or indigenous languages.
It is obvious that indigenous languages cannot acquire scientific or artistic value merely by means of translation, but that these languages, through a developmental process, have to include the necessary terms related to history, political economy or physics. The Zulu translation of the manifesto is a modest contribution towards this end.
To set the record straight, the kind of polemic that the M&G wants to introduce between the South African Communist Party and the Workers Organisation for Socialist Action (Wosa) is patently ridiculous. It is not Wosa’s intention to cast the SACP in a bad light; all the organisation maintains is that the present Zulu translation is the first publicly available and accessible copy.
The writers of the editorial, in suggesting there is no alternative to capitalism, that “socialism is a stage between capitalism and capitalism”, are in fact saying nothing can be done or should be done about the billions of people who live in poverty — that the capitalist system is simply immutable; that history has ended.
The feudal monarchies and apartheid South Africa held precisely the same view, and we all know the fate they suffered. –Patrick Chan
Racist Marx
The sacred socialist canon that Mazibuko Jara of the South African Communist Party wishes to translate into Zulu is as outdated as Marx’s appalling racist views (“Marx is dead, long live Marx”, Letters, November 22).
In a letter to Engels, Marx referred to the German socialist Ferdinand Lasalle as “the Jewish Nigger” whose “shape of head and his hair texture show he descends from the Negroes who joined Moses’ flight from Egypt”.
Marx opposed the marriage of his daughter to Paul Lafargue solely because of his small portion of Negro blood. When Lafargue ran for a seat in the municipal elections in Paris, which contained a zoo, Engels thought it appropriate as “a nigger is a degree nearer to the animal kingdom than the rest of us”.
The lesson in any language is that humanity suffers when imagined eternal conflicts, whether race or class-based, override individual dignity and will. –Jack Bloom, MPL, Democratic Alliance
In brief
Muslim anger against the West may have some basis, but not as much as some suppose. As the Roman empire collapsed and Europe fell into barbarism, the Muslim world became a centre of learning and scientific innovation, and Islam the first great transcontinental world power. It was tolerant at a time of religious persecution in Europe. Today, the opposite is true. Islam has long been in decline culturally and educationally, and many Muslim countries are ruled by corrupt regimes. The decline began long before the United States’s rise as a world power. If Muslims resent the strength of Western powers, the starting-point is to examine their society for the causes of its decline. — Philip Machanick, Taringa, Australia
This is my first time writing to the M&G, but I can promise you it will not be the last. I merely write to inform Oom Krisjan and the manne at the Dorsbult drinking hole that I always find their comments insightful and worth a chuckle or two. — Tumelo Bihi, Bloemfontein
In your interview with him, Ntate Tutu (November 15) said something worth repeating: “I am concerned, a little saddened by your newspaper — I respect your desire to be independent, but when last did you have a poster that wasn’t negative?” Why are you so negative about this black government? Is this the post-apartheid agenda of M&G? This government is not flawless. But for Africa’s sake, is there nothing positive that you can report about it? — –Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi, researcher, Robben Island Museum
Please include your name and address. Letters must be received by 5pm Monday. Be as brief as possible. The editor reserves the right to edit letters and to withhold from publication any letter which he believes contains factual inaccuracies, or is based on misrepresentation.