I’ve been following this since the early 90’s when pre-internet, we nurses on night shift would swap the newspapers trying to wrap our heads around the concentrated campaign of genocidal rapes of Bosnian and Croatian women in the former Yugoslavia.
Radovan Karadzic the master mind behind the atrocities is arrested ~ the end of a man-hunt.
After 14 years on the run, mostly hiding out in Eastern Orthodox monasteries, Radovan Karadzic, who masterminded the campaign of rapes for genocide of Bosnian and Croatian women in the former Yugoslavia in the early ’90s — in which millions of Bosnian, Croatian and Albanian women were raped, tortured, murdered, raped until they conceived children and forced to bear those children — has been arrested.
Natalie Nenadic, who worked with some of the rape survivors, wrote of the rapes as they were happening.(warning, potential trigger material)
Serbian (military) are committing genocide through mass rape and serial rape ending in death and mass rape and serial rape in order to produce what they consider Serbian babies to populate and maintain the Greater Serbian state. Corpses are also raped. Women’s breasts are sliced off and their wombs ripped out. …These rapes are committed on the Serb occupied territories of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, in different types of concentration camps and in rape/death camps, in which the victims who survive the initial massacres and deportations are interned. If women are already pregnant…their bellies are ripped open since those babies are not Serb. Birthing women are left to die in ditches. ..the majority of women and girls who survive the various types of Serbian concentration camps …have been interned in them for at least 21-28 days to ensure pregnancy.
…[Serbians] also use rape as a public spectacle to induce women to leave their homes and never return. These sexual atrocities are done “for Serbia”. Sometimes they are filmed as they are taking place. The film footage…the pornography of genocide…is used as propaganda in which the identities of the victims and the aggressor are switched…
Made my day, almost in a Berlin Wall sort of way.
Ah but Sparkle the ITV early evening new and channel 4 news focused on the real issues – namely the mass murders of men and boys ordered by Karadzic. No mention of the fact Karadzic instigated and systematically ensured that innumerable (I say innumerable because no one knows how many women and girls suffered and died) women and girls had men group raping them constantly until these women either died as a result or they became pregnant with ‘Serbian babies.’
Of course male sexual violence against women and girls of whatever nationality or ethnicity is now so common and routine it is not news. We must not forget the Congo or Darfur. Yes, I’m glad Karadzic has been arrested and I sincerely hope he is found guilty of mass femicide and for the mass multiple rapes carried out by his male followers on Serbian women and girls.
But I am certain Karadzic will be portrayed as either an ‘evil man’ and therefore a deviant speciman not a ‘normal respectable man’ or some other excuse will be used to minimalise his crimes against women and girls.
Channel 4 attempted to analyse the reasons why Karadzic ordered the mass male sexual violence against Serbian women and girls. One glaring answer is Karadzic is not an ‘evil man’ he is a man who subscribed to the extremes of masculinity and patriarchy. Karadzic believed Serbian women and girls were dehumanised beings and it was right for men to either rape and sexually torture them to death or to impregnate them with ‘Serbian babies’ so their ethnic identity would be destroyed. All patriarchal lies of course – because a child’s ethnicity is never, ever derived from the male sperm.
Karadzic wanted power and he achieved his ambition for a time. Likewise Karadzic like so many is racist and it takes very little to believe certain groups, particularly women and girls are dehumanised beings and then if a certain female group is not human it becomes so much easier for males to commit sexual violence and sexual torture upon them because the victims are not human.
One only has to see the same mindset within pornography – the women are never human instead they are men’s dehumanised playthings. Likewise women of colour in pornography are portrayed as even more dehumanised than white women. But patriarchy continues to proclaim these lies as truths and that partially explains why Karadzic and his henchmen filmed men committing these atrocities against the women and girls because it was ‘fun.’ Turning this systematic male sexual violence into porngraphy serves two purposes: one it tells women and girls of certain ethnicities this is what we believe you exist for – to be raped and sexually tortured by men because you are not human and secondly to destroy a whole ethnic culture through sexually torturing and murdering women and girls. Men of the same ethnicity as the women and girls are perceived as being incapable of ‘protecting their women’ and the aim is to totally destroy the men’s morale and resistance.
Will Karadzic be convicted – I hope so but he is a very powerful man still and of course many men will not want awkward questions raised about why so many men willingly engaged in group raping and sexually torturing women and girls 24/7 for their pleasure and enjoyment. It raises questions of why so many men enact male sexual violence against women. We must not forget mass male sexual violence and male atrocities continue to be inflicted on women and girls living in the Congo, neither must we forget Darfur or what is happening in certain regions of Mexico and the border land between USA and Mexico. Increasingly women seeking to cross illegally into the US are being subjected to men raping and sexually torturing them for male entertainment.
Are all these isolated cases or is it because women as a group are still devalued and believed to be sub-human compared to men as a group?
Thank you Jennifer, that’s why I deliberately concentrated on the atrocities committed against women and girls – because men and the media never do. It IS a separate issue and hopefully the new ‘rape war crimes’ consolidated only a few weeks ago with (amongst others) Sec. of state USA and the UN will bring these men to justice -past, present and future tho’ I’m not holding my breath as it is values and attitudes that need to change, not laws forcing men to treat women as human.
Genetic trolls sparks? Are they specially modified ones? Yup lets hope he doesn’t manage to hang himself before he gets put on trial eh……
Yup genetically engineered trolls and they glow in the dark.
He’d better not bladdy hang himself, I’ve been waiting for this for years.
Totally agree with you sparks it is men’s attitudes and beliefs which need to change but this is a very, very long journey and currently we are experiencing huge denial and deliberate twisting of evidence etc. Also, as you wrote, the law is still male-centered which is why it is so difficult to change legal systems.
Just thought it necessary to point out how the male-dominant media still believes male violence against women is a non-issue. As regards the UN currently much of what is being discussed about men’s violence against women uses language wherein rape, male sexual violence and of course women as a group are never, ever mentioned. There is immense opposition to accepting the reality of men’s violence against women (as we all know).
Still, thanks for your succinct scientific clarification of just why genetic material is predominantly passed on through the female line. Another little piece of deliberate misinformation patriarchy has long sought to keep hidden.
Back to Karadzic now he is claiming he actually saved lives!! Now where have I heard similar claims before, yes of course whenever men are convicted of violence against women all too often they continue to deny their culpability and instead attempt to minimalise or justify their crimes.
It will be interesting to say the least, how the authorities deal with Karadzic because he still has very powerful allies.
I didn’t know this, just found it on the BBC web-site.
Of course, then he went onto study politics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbPumi94cnM
And 855 books wrote about it (or mentioned in) yet, still – it hardly gets a mention.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=bosnia+rape+of+women&source=citation
Well we all know that the UN also took part in the rapes. The YouTube above mentions it, and maybe that’s why they try to ’sanitize’ the reality?
Serial posting on my own blog folks…
we nurses on night shift would swap the newspapers trying to wrap our heads around the concentrated campaign of genocidal rapes of Bosnian and Croatian women in the former Yugoslavia.
Yeah, I heard of this too, Sparkle. Truly horrifying!
An important quote from Andrea Dworkin:
“[I]n any war, in any violence between tribes or nations, a specific war crime is perpetrated against women — that of rape. Every woman raped during a political nation-states war is the victim of a much larger war, planetary in its dimensions — the war, more declared than we can bear to know, that men wage against women.”
– in the book Woman Hating, p. 94.
Absolutely Maggie.
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/news/detail/20355.html
Unfortunately, I have another argument against “culture” as an excuse for never-ending sexism but it doesn’t matter as long as women want to keep assholes around. It’s the denial that is the problem — but that denial cannot continue forever. Even the “good germans” eventually admitted the truth…
This was a great post, thank you. And the reason I never comment is because I am so very freaking negative, and have absolutely nothing good to say.
You do not measure the harm done to women by measuring the amount of nice guys. Mentioning that “all men aren’t like that” is a justification for continued tolerance of assholes; it is not a reason — because there is no reason for continued tolerance of assholes and neutral guys when the harm done to women is so great.
If we as a people were to truly acknowledge the amount of harm done to women by men, then we would have to also acknowledge the harm created by men — and their worthlessness would become apparent. So we deny, and say the harm “isn’t so bad” or “women deserve it”, all in order to justify keeping the neutral guy around.
It’s why I don’t believe society will ever recognize the range of problems created by rape. If these rape victims were Jews and their oppressors were Nazis, we’d have serial documentaries enumorating the horrors of men and “never forget” statues in our homes and public spaces. If these rape victims were men and women in rape concentration camps and their oppressors were “good german” men and women, the world would react with shock and horror, and invade in a heartbeat.
Instead, we deny. We deliberately shame these women so they will not come forward and they will not be counted. We shame them so we can pretend their voices are few in number but they are fucking legion. Men did this and women help, because to do otherwise is to admit that your son your brother your father your friend your lover is a fucking animal.
Delete this if you want, I have nothing good to say. Men can get away with any amount of autrocity to women, as long as they don’t kill us.
Well you’re freaking negative, but you’re essentially right M Andrea. As the latest mega thread at Witchy’s proves *waves to Witchy* not my Nigel-ism is rampant…….though we in rad fem hivemind who practise groupthink know better.
Gosh I’m being terribly bitchy these days – don’t know what’s come over me, I used to be so lovely.
Why would I delete it missAndrea, you’re right.
Oh, the radfem hivemind. How did I forget that?
Another fact carefully hidden for years is that women imprisoned in German concentration camps were raped and sexually abused by male German guards. Yet whenever we hear or read about the abuses carried out by the Nazis the focus is always, but always on what happened to men and boys imprisoned in these camps.
So, once again the world apparently revolves around men which explains why women’s lives and experiences are always invisibilised or just deleted.
So, we come back to the fact that male sexual violence against women is normal and it works because the end result is the continued subordination of women to men. It also explains why it is so hard to challenge widespread belief that once a woman has been raped or raped by numerous men she is supposedly ’shamed.’ Because if we face the truth it is the male rapist(s) who should be shamed and held accountable for their crimes. But then that is challenging male power and male-defined beliefs that a woman’s sole worth is whether or not she is considered ‘respectable’ from the male-standpoint.
Yes Jennifer, sadly, I also know the true story surrounding the treatment of women in German concentration camps. (thanks to a historian mother) It reminds me of how the early-modern witch hunts are in danger of being invisiblized or diminished, and how – activists/historians such as J. Katz makes an interesting point when he says (and I paraphrase) “that the sexual sadism element of the witch hunts was the crucial feature of the terrorism against women – not the purported ‘crime’ of witchery”
But then, mens’ atrocities, let’s repeat that… MENS’ ATROCITIES against women suddenly become unimportant? Invisible? Probably both.
And, that history keeps on repeating itself; unquestioned.
Yes, as we all know, rape only happens to men and boys.
Only males have bodies that are held by social norms to be inviolate.
Mary, I’ve yet to read a mainstream report on this where the atrocities committed against these women aren’t half way down the page – after how many men were murdered.
Some people don’t realise that because of their cultural beliefs these women ARE condemned to a living death. Or maybe they do realise but hey you know life goes on…men first.
I suspected Sparkle you would know about the true facts concerning women imprisoned in German concentration camps. I also suspect many other readers of your blog know the truth too. But I wanted to emphasis this just in case any casual reader chanced upon your blog. You know the old saying ‘knowledge is power.’
Why else whenever there are reports of men raping and committing sexual atrocities against women and children during conflict, I always but always read ‘oh but men are being raped too!!!’ Never, ever does the writer ask which gender is committing rape because it most certainly is not women.
Yes indeed Sparkle – the world revolves around men and as Allan Johnson said ‘the world is male centric.’ And that is from a man who is not only pro-feminist but readily acknowledges his male privilege and how this operates to ensure women are kept firmly beneath men’s feet.
Yes, I know Jennifer and I agree, these ‘ghosts’ need bringing up on feminist blogs.
Interestingly, I’ve just started a module on ‘what is knowledge’ and yup Foucault’s ‘knowledge is power’ is in there…however…
Ah that fellow Foucault – only one problem Foucault suffered from dysfunctional vision, because he does not gender his theories. I cannot recall where I read it but a feminist academic showed how Foucault deliberately ignored writing from a gendered perspective. Something to do with how power is used/misused.
Perhaps during your module you will learn about this.
I heard on the early evening news that Kadaradzic was in court and the indictments were read out to him.
The news report stated that Kadaradzic was responsible for the mass rapes and murders of ‘men’ and women. Does this mean then that men committed mass rape against other men? I think not because the planned and deliberate multiple rapes of Bosnian, Croatian and Albanian women was for the purpose of attempting to impregnate them with the rapists’ semen. With the aim of creating ‘Serbian’ children according to patriarchal mythology.
Deliberately collapsing two different acts of crimes against humanity serves once again to ignore the fact, these pernicious and inhuman acts of mass rape and sexual torture were carried out by men against women. We must not collapse these crimes into one because in doing so, it once again ignores how mass rape is a crime specifically used by men against women – NOT MEN.
Yes this criticism is noted especially in comparison to theorists such as Weber who actually draws distinctions between patriarchal and bureaucratic power and goes on to see pat power as unique.
“collapse” is an excellent way to describe what we know was a concentrated attack on women to be impregnated with ‘Serbian’ children. Why is it too much to acknowledge? rhetorical question.