Fazl Muhammed Nizar has been asking if women should be blamed for rape. Now he stands accused of rape and abuse himself.
I know the accuser Ashwini and personally think she’s very brave for coming out. Rape is a crime and guilt should be determined in court, so I can’t judge what the author Mr. Nizar has done. I can judge what he says, and he sounds like a poster-boy for rape culture.
If you want to understand how people rationalize and perpetrate rape (or just enjoy feeling rage and nausea), Fazl Muhammed Nizar is recommended reading.
How Do You Justify Rape?
The main justification for rape, at least according to a recent WHO survey, is sexual entitlement. The idea is that women – by having bodies and putting them in men’s field of vision – are asking for sex, which men deserve.
For an example of how this thought process might go, you can read Mr. Nizar:
In all fairness to the men and more often than not, women too need to take responsibility for rape figures to reach astronomical heights.
Giving a hypothetical example, the need for a single or for the deprived woman to attract a good man should be accepted as her universal right. And while at it, she also has the right to show her cleavage or her legs as much to net the most eligible man around. The problem starts only when the woman attracts the wrong kind of man and unknown to her initially. Had it been a case where the man was interested in her only for her physical looks and for expectations of sexual gratifications, rise it does a situation where only the fittest survives, followed by the worst. (Colombo Telegraph
Mr. Nizar can’t seem to understand that a woman might wear clothing because she likes it, or because it’s warm out, or just because. In his mind a woman’s body is not hers, it’s something that affects him and other men and if it’s out there then she must be looking for sex. And if rape happens, well, survival of the fittest.
We don’t apply this reasoning to anything else because it’s stupid.
If someone parks a nice car in front of you, you can’t just take it. You can’t steal from the supermarket if you’re hungry. With rape we’re talking about human beings and their bodies. The reasoning is beyond illogical, it’s unethical.
How Do You Blame The Victim
Aside from the tortured logic above, Mr. Nizar also demonstrated some practical victim blaming when Ashwini bravely said that he had abused her since she was 11 years old.
You can read his whole frankly repulsive comment here, but I’ll put it into bullet points. When accused of rape and abuse he responded by:
- Calling her dad a drunk
- Saying she kissed boys
- Saying one of her boyfriends killed himself
- Saying she ended a pregnancy
- Saying she drank and smoked weed
- Etc
So basically, nothing to do with the allegations. The fact is that all of his accusations could be true and it would still be rape. He does nothing to address the actual allegation. Indeed, he later admitted: “I have slapped her a couple of times to control her, yes. And I am being honest.”
He also posted more recent photos of them together, which still doesn’t prove that there wasn’t abuse. Indeed, many people are close and remain close to their abusers.
What he seems to be practically demonstrating is the practice of blaming and trying to shame the accuser. Underneath that is the implication that whatever happened is her fault. A rape accusation is a serious thing and can be very damaging to a person. It hasn’t been proven in Mr. Nizar’s case, but his response certainly doesn’t make him look any better.
How Do You Reduce Rape?
So, given that we’ve gone through the torture of Mr. Nizar’s logic, what solution does he prescribe? Here are some of the more ridiculous options he proposes (also published in the Colombo Telegraph):
- Separation of men and women on buses
- Public flogging for cat calling, etc
- Segregated schools
- Knee-length swimming attire
- Registration of all men that move into a neighborhood
- The Department of Social Service to make house checks on women
I say ridiculous because it’s all based on a false premise. The premise is that men will rape if they see women, so hide the women. This is both insulting to men and dangerous to women. And completely illogical.
We don’t treat any other crime this way. We’re not like, oh, there’s been a murder in Nawala, don’t go to Nawala. Nobody’s like, oh, they robbed a jewelry store, don’t sell jewelry. No, the police investigate and people are arrested because these are crimes. Because it’s not the victims fault. Neither is rape.
Actual Culture
Rape being a part of human history is undeniable. Rape being a part of our culture, however, is a choice.
The attitude of people like Mr. Nizar is that rape is a part of our culture (boys will be boys) and that covering women up is the only way to deal with it. This is wrong and goes against the currents of history.
We don’t give into the desires of murders and thieves and work around their needs, we build a better society, even if it takes a long time. It’s insane that we would structure our society around the proclivities of rapists.
What Mr. Nizar proposes is a defensive and weak society, where women hide themselves because rape is their fault. What the vast majority of people are striving towards is a society where women are empowered and free and where no one has to be ashamed or hide. That involves more women in power, more women in public, more freedom, more education and less shame. That’s a culture worth working towards, and it’s certainly more compelling than a rape culture with 1920s bathing suits.
The painting used up here is Susanna And The Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi, herself a rape victim and an artist.
Mr Nizar is proffering Shariah law as the solution. Wonder what else he thinks are good ideas? Stoning and capital punishment?
When you say:
Sorry the part I wanted to put in block quotes went haywire and so reposting it here
When you say:
I remember people arguing the same way about the issue they had about fullface helmets. However, Do u think that every man can accommodate this point of view? For instance did u happen to see how Wijayakala the MP from Jaffna expressed herself on media as to how there were better conditions when LTTE ruled north and now once the previous regime reclaimed the authority in those areas, the mayhem just began? Why don’t u write a part 2 covering that aspect as well?
So has legal action being taken against this fellow? He deserves to be handed over to BBS!
He is sick. I know him. He should be castrated.
What is even sadder about this article, a part from the injustice done to rape victims, is the racist response it receives. God! It is just wheels within wheels. “hand him over to the BBS”. How embarrassing and degrading is our society? So much said in that article, and that is the response. So much of information to ponder on, and here we have racist fools who just can’t get past a Muslim name.
The truth is that we are all looking at Fazal to throw our pent up anger upon. instead let’s get real here. Most of you men here have abused a woman emotionally or physically. You have had indecent thoughts of a girl passing by, maybe eveb shared a joke about what you’d like to do to her. Fazals article sickens me but all you men here acting like saints, that sickens me too. I know some of you personally and I know what you’re talking or writing about. Dogs barking at dogs, shut up and let the women who can fight stand up and fight. Some of you pretend to be active feminists but all you want to do is get laid when you go out clubbing. Such sickening jerks making holy comments. Geez.. such a superficial bunch of people. And all you gullible women fall for that nonsense.
Spot on, Indi.
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Ah, my quote didn’t work. So:
Originally posted by Logical Reality: “Most of you men here have abused a woman emotionally or physically.”
Speak for yourself, pal.
@Logical Reality
Don’t be an idiot. Women would never achieve anything without men dumb enough to do the work for them. No group of people are more supportive of status quo than women. In conservative countries like Saudi Arabia, they are more conservative than the men. In liberal countries like Sweden, they are more liberal than the men. It’s always men who actually do any kind of significant change, good or bad.
Reading these comments… They’re quite amazing actually.
First off, this isnt like in ‘western’ countries, where rape is actually taken far more seriously, and womens rights are far greater. The context of false rape accusations in those countries is completely different than in a country like SL. In the US, in most cases, when a woman accuses a man of raping her, it is taken more seriously and the woman is protected far more. In SL, as evidenced by the responses by Fazl and the comments here, a woman is often portrayed as the bad person.
Any Sri Lankan here who knows female friends: Please ask them what will happen, 9 times out of 10, if they went to the police and reported being harassed or assaulted by a man. Every case I know of, where a woman has reported a man to the police has resulted in the police either not taking it seriously, or the woman being dismissed completely.
In the case of Ms. Aiyar, she made a claim that she was sexually assaulted by a man, who clearly has no moral problems with raping a woman, on her status. Rather than dismissing her, the right course of action would be to both support her, and get the accused’s side of the story. Well, Fazl was given the opportunity to address the accusations, and his response was as followed:
-Mention Ahwini’s family problems
-Mention Ashwini’s abortion
-Mention her supposed promiscuity (not anyone’s business but hers)
-Suggest that she caused the suicide of one of her significant others
-Imply that she has sex with dogs.
So Fazl’s way of defending himself was to outright attack Ashwini in the most henious way possible.
Please look at this as an example of why, in Sri Lanka, a woman will not take the risk of falsely accusing a man of rape.
On a side-note, CT editor should be ashamed of himself. Giving a rape apologist a podium to get website hits is such a disgusting thing to do… I just have no words. Fuck Colombo Telegraph, seriously.
What a dumb ass, he should be behind bars for what he has done…. Lunatic.
top kek,
There was a guy who used to regularly comment here, who called himself “The Way of the Dodo”. I thought he actually went the way of the dodo, but by any chance, are you him? Because not only he was entitled for his opinion, he was entitled to his own facts. Show me a single comment here that portrays the accusing woman as a bad person. I didn’t read all the comments in the Facebook page, but unless she didn’t delete hateful comments, every comment except those of Nizar himself are taking her side. She’s even thanking her for that in one of the comments.
So what exactly is your point? That Nizar shouldn’t attack her? Are you nuts? That’s how anyone would defend himself against something like this. You want to portray your opponent as unreliable, dishonest, hateful or completely mad. That’s part of the defense, just like bringing up past crimes is part of any criminal case. You won’t go anywhere but jail if you start off saying your opponent “is Virgin Mary, but she’s still lying about this”. His main problem is losing his temper. He should have either calmly articulated why he thinks she’s unreliable, dishonest, or has malicious intent against him, or even more prudently, only tell her that he might take this to court, which he does at the end of his tirade.
Talking about portraying people as bad, there are lot of commenters who’d like to castrate the guy, or throw him to the BBS, or throw him to the dogs. One would think that you’d give them a trial, with the presumption of innocence, before you castrate a man. But, apparently no. They are perfectly willing to castrate a guy they don’t even know, based on what’s said by a woman they don’t even know, without testimonies from anyone other than those two, and without any kind of physical evidence. How about some restraint?
If you look at the comments under his CT article, most comments are those that heavily criticize his article. Then there were multiple opinion pieces, on CT itself, that criticized his article. And rightfully so. His opinions on the issue are outdated to say the least, and needs to be attacked. Yet you think people are not taking the issue seriously?
Why are you chiding CT for publishing his article? It advertises itself, saying that “The right to free speech means nothing if it only sanctions politically and socially acceptable views. It is the right that allows us to defend all other rights.” So if they are actually serious about this, they should allow for socially unacceptable views, and rape apology is one of those. Or do you have something against free speech? Many liberals these days are against it in many ways, so I guess it’s only natural for you to be against it too.
Finally, are women you know insanely poor? Because if their fathers were rich and respectable enough, and had the right connections, they could’ve pulled off anything. If you’re middle class, nothing you say would be taken more seriously than a rape accusation. The real problem, as far as I know, is the fact that only few women choose to report. This is not necessarily because they police don’t take these things seriously, but because they know if the word got out, that’s the end of their dreams of having a normal married life. Most of the White Knights here won’t blame them for getting raped, but neither would they ever marry a raped girl. So at least a little bit honesty is required from liberals. Admit it. Your real target shouldn’t be the police or the courts. It’s the very culture and religion of this country.
Great article, thanks Indi. Totally disgusted and appalled by some of the comments it generated. What’s happening to our country or was it always like this?
Thought I’d quote a portion of an article which explains consent very clearly and concisely.
Quote-
It seems a lot of people really, REALLY don’t get what ‘consent’ means. From the famous “not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion” to the student that (allegedly) thought he’d surprise his partner with some non consensual BDSM to that fucking song to almost every damn comment on any article by anyone that suggests that yes means yes; it seems people really have a problem understanding that before you have sex with someone, and that’s every time you have sex with them, make sure they want to have sex with you. This goes for men, women, everyone. Whoever you are initiating sexytimes with, just make sure they are actually genuinely up for it. That’s it. It’s not hard. Really.
If you’re still struggling, just imagine instead of initiating sex, you’re making them a cup of tea.
You say “hey, would you like a cup of tea?” and they go “omg fuck yes, I would fucking LOVE a cup of tea! Thank you!*” then you know they want a cup of tea.
If you say “hey, would you like a cup of tea?” and they um and ahh and say, “I’m not really sure…” then you can make them a cup of tea or not, but be aware that they might not drink it, and if they don’t drink it then – this is the important bit – don’t make them drink it. You can’t blame them for you going to the effort of making the tea on the off-chance they wanted it; you just have to deal with them not drinking it. Just because you made it doesn’t mean you are entitled to watch them drink it.
If they say “No thank you” then don’t make them tea. At all. Don’t make them tea, don’t make them drink tea, don’t get annoyed at them for not wanting tea. They just don’t want tea, ok?
They might say “Yes please, that’s kind of you” and then when the tea arrives they actually don’t want the tea at all. Sure, that’s kind of annoying as you’ve gone to the effort of making the tea, but they remain under no obligation to drink the tea. They did want tea, now they don’t. Sometimes people change their mind in the time it takes to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk. And it’s ok for people to change their mind, and you are still not entitled to watch them drink it even though you went to the trouble of making it.
If they are unconscious, don’t make them tea. Unconscious people don’t want tea and can’t answer the question “do you want tea” because they are unconscious.
Ok, maybe they were conscious when you asked them if they wanted tea, and they said yes, but in the time it took you to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk they are now unconscious. You should just put the tea down, make sure the unconscious person is safe, and – this is the important bit – don’t make them drink the tea. They said yes then, sure, but unconscious people don’t want tea.
If someone said yes to tea, started drinking it, and then passed out before they’d finished it, don’t keep on pouring it down their throat. Take the tea away and make sure they are safe. Because unconscious people don’t want tea. Trust me on this.
If someone said “yes” to tea around your house last saturday, that doesn’t mean that they want you to make them tea all the time. They don’t want you to come around unexpectedly to their place and make them tea and force them to drink it going “BUT YOU WANTED TEA LAST WEEK”, or to wake up to find you pouring tea down their throat going “BUT YOU WANTED TEA LAST NIGHT”.
Do you think this is a stupid analogy? Yes, you all know this already – of course you wouldn’t force feed someone tea because they said yes to a cup last week. Of COURSE you wouldn’t pour tea down the throat of an unconcious person because they said yes to tea 5 minutes ago when they were conscious. But if you can understand how completely ludicrous it is to force people to have tea when they don’t want tea, and you are able to understand when people don’t want tea, then how hard is it to understand when it comes to sex?
Whether it’s tea or sex, Consent Is Everything.
Unquote
http://rockstardinosaurpirateprincess.com/2015/03/02/consent-not-actually-that-complicated/
@Illogical Reality
Really? Women dont achieve anything without men? You must meet some very unfortunate women. Most of the women I meet have achieved a great deal, some against amazing odds. Maybe women like that avoid men like you? I know I would. As an example, I would refer you to look up Dr Bhavani Thuraisingham, originally from Sri Lanka. https://www.utdallas.edu/chairs/profiles/thuraisingham.html. I am proud to say that I knew her personally when we were both at school together.