I've been brooding on two cover-ups of sexual abuse of children was discovered this week. The first is the reluctance of the English secular authorities to pursue the gangs involved in the abuse of girls; the second is the reluctance of the Office Irish authorities to continue or to expose the priests involved in the abuse of (mainly) boys.
The point is that it is very rare to meet people who think that none of the religious or cultural aspects are relevant in both cases. Probably a majority of people accuse the two cultures and consider all Catholic priests with the evils of some suspicion and all men of middle age Muslims as potential predators. Almost no one blame or - if you think that one of the disturbing things on the cases of Rochdale is that they will be used to galvanize opinion against Muslims, you are very probably see nothing wrong in blaming the Catholic Church as a whole for the Irish scandals. Conversely, people who try to defend the Catholic Church in Ireland will tend to see cases of Rochdale express something important on the culture behind them and religion too.
The same is true of concealment. Reliable observers in both cases detected a reluctance to prosecute on the part of the authorities that might have done. But people who think that political correctness is an absurd red herring in the history of Rochdale will be happy to assume the worst of the motivations of the Vatican, and those who believe that the Catholic Church is persecuted will assume no there was no valid reason for any reluctance to continue to Rochdale, Nottingham, or all the other places where it may be a password.
However, there are significant moral equivalencies between these cases and that the same kind of reasoning had in two cover-ups. In particular, the idea that the scandal is harmful and something to avoid is almost as strange that journalists like to pretend. It is not yet quite immoral.
There are of course totally wrong and dishonourable reasons to ignore rape. There are a few police officers, judges, prosecutors, bishops who despise the victims of rape, almost as much as rapists. Their behavior is inexcusable. But it is not the real problem. If bad decisions were never made by evil people, that the world would be much better that it is. We need to understand how good people can register for bad decisions. And here the reasoning of the avoidance of the scandal becomes really interesting.
Fight against racism has become one of the bearing contingencies of our society. It is one of the things that we believe is necessary for a decent life. We understand that racism is bad, even when it is not explicitly illegal. Fight against racism but is also under threat. Racists are there. They will take advantage of any drop in alertness. The EDL, the BNP and their supporters have demonstrated in several cities. They are certainly strong in places like Rochdale. The rape of mass of white girls by Muslim immigrants is a staple of the extreme right-wing propaganda in much of Europe. And it was one of the effects undeniable, unavoidable and quite predictable of the trial that these stories went into overdrive.
It is difficult to believe that these stories were not studied for fear of upsetting Muslims. much easier to believe as a reason to ignore their's afraid to give comfort to the extreme right.
Similar considerations are applied in Ireland. The Catholic Church was executed by people who believed that they were the custodians of the moral backbone of society. We can know that they have made a mistake, but it is impossible to understand without knowing what they meant it. Even the proposed as Irish constitution. At the same time, they knew that their church and their morality, had enemies who would be strengthened by a scandal. It is easy to see how this kind of reasoning can twist round to betray and to silence the victim appears to be the moral response of a crime.
It is asking to imagine instead of the victims. But it is a small contribution to hygiene moral to imagine how easily we could have been part of concealment, if our values that were threatened by a scandal.
Follow-up comment is free on Twitter @ commentisfree
No comments:
Post a Comment