by Madeleine KandoI have been following the recent 'DSK affair' with fascination. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested on charges of attempted rape of a hotel maid in his New York hotel, is now held without bail at the Riker's Island prison, nicknamed 'the tomb'.
The French are shocked at pictures showing Strauss-Kahn, handcuffed and unshaved, forced to take the 'perp walk', a tradition of making a suspect walk by a row of media cameras.
Jack Lang, former French Minister of Culture and a good friend of Strauss-Kahn, is quoted as saying: 'The American Justice system is an inhuman system that crushes the individual that falls between its hands.' (translation is mine, sorry). And 'Nothing justifies a man being treated with such disdain and violence. Knowing the American justice system, it is not unimaginable that the judge is after smearing 'a Frenchman'.
Well, maybe French politicians could use a dose of healthy smearing. It's not like Strauss-Kahn is innocent of previous acts of sexual misconduct. For example, when Tristane Banon, a French journalist was allegedly sexually assaulted by him back in 2002, she wanted to file charges. But her own mother, Anne Mansouret, who is an important figure in the socialist movement, advised her NOT to. As a senior sociaiist figure she felt that Strauss-Kahn was too important and didn't want his name tarnished.
France, it seems, has very strong libel and privacy laws which allows public figures to reap the benefits of being public without bearing the consequences of misbehaving privately. In other words the French like to have their cake and eat it too.
It sounds like they are still stuck with their old, aristocratic moral code. The rooster is still king in the chicken coop. But the American justice system doesn't go for that kind of preferential treatment. Rich or poor, famous or obscure, it makes no difference.
Strauss-Kahn sounds like an arrogant, oversexed individual at best and a sexual predator at worst. He didn't suddenly become that way in a New York hotel. He is 62 years old. All this time the French must have ignored that side of him, all in the name of their 'don't ask don't tell' philosophy. What does that say about the French?
They are fond of making fun of America's puritan attitude towards sexual misconduct. But when it comes to allegations of attempted rape, it's a different story. They might not agree with the treatment that Strauss-Kahn has undergone, but hopefully they are as shocked as I am at this man's behavior. leave comment here
9 comments:
Madeleine,
How can you be "shocked by this man's behaviour" as you say, when no-one so far, including Madame the judge, knows how he behaved.
The French are shocked by the photos, because (and you fail to mention this) there exists a law in France that dictates the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, therefore photos that suggest a person as guilty before a trial, are ILLEGAL. This law has nothing to do with the importance of the person, it applies to ALL.
Making a TV show out of an arrest has nothing to do with democracy....
All the best,
Csaba
Csaba,
The French are shocked by the photos, as you say, and have published those same in their own newspapers. Where is the logic in that?
Publishing a photo is not the same as presuming someone guilty. I think we are all loosing sight of what this is all about: serious sexual misconduct.
I admit I should have said: "I hope the French will be as shocked as I am at this man's behavior, if he is found guilty'.
Last time I checked, American newspapers were not subject to French law. Therefor, they do not kowtow to French sensitivities as do French newspapers. Nor do French newspapers apparently follow the American custom of not publishing alleged rape victim's names. Now everyone has something to complain about. We're even!
Some French and some Americans have a boring habit of whinging and complaining about each other. Nothing new there.
If the choice is between publishing crude pictures that offends the sensibilities of French politicans and the lack of transparency and denial of their immoral conduct, I prefer the former.
Madeleine,
I echo the theme of some other commenters --- "Innocent until proven guilty". The justice system in the United States has become a travesty in which those accused of misconduct are tried by the media and found guilty in the courts of public opinion shaped by the media. Justice going forward becomes perverted and Innocent lives get destroyed.
Notoriously, allegations of sexual violations present especially difficult boundary issues with respect to definitions. In the U.S. we currently set the legal boundary line first at "consensual vs. non-consensual" and second at "statutory". The first is an inherently fuzzy line, requiring judges and juries to determine the state of mind of people at the time of a sexual act. More often than not, this involves one person's word against another's. The second is an arbitrarily set specification and outright pedophilia notwithstanding, it is often applied selectively in much the same way as the enforcement of speeding laws on American highways.
I am not saying that consensuality and statutory rules are wrong---in law lines must be drawn--but the fuzzy nature of lines pertaining to sexual behavior are hard enough for judges and juries to adjudicate, much less the media and public opinion.
Clearly the head of the IMF is a rich and powerful man. He may be an arrogant misogynous asshole or a foolish victim of an ambitious acquaintance, but given the wide range of possibilities he and his alleged victim should be protected until a determination can be made.
The Julian Assang denunciation for rape is another case in the public eye. Is he a weirdo rapist and traitor or is the accusation of sexual impropriety an attempt to discredit and destroy him in the court of public opinion?
I can't resist an aside...
In our puritanical, victim-centric society one of the easiest ways to destroy a human being is to publicly accuse him or her of rape or some other sexual impropriety or perversion. A public denunciation will do the job and the outcome of a subsequent trial---guilty or innocent--is irrelevant.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Marc:
Thanks for your very astute comment. I agree with you that the American Press is often eager to convict before due process has taken place. I don’t know enough about the legal system to know whether the ‘mistrial law’ is adequate protection for the accused.
Be that as it may, what I have more of a problem with is the French attitude towards (male) sexual misconduct.
Just today, Jean-Francois Kahn, a French journalist, said that he did not believe DSK was guilty of attempted rape. That he was guilty of an ‘error in judgment’. This was a case of ‘un troussage de domestique.’ (The word ‘trousser’ means tying the legs and wings of fowl before you cook it.)
The expression ‘Un troussage domestique’ is apparently still in use in the French language to refer to the custom of maids being at the disposal of the male gentry for sexual services.
This, of course, prompted Jack Lang, ex-minister of Culture, to say that he didn’t understand why they didn’t let DSK out on bail, ‘alors qu’il n’y a pas mort d’homme’ (seeing that no-one was killed). ‘Pas mort d’homme’ in French lingo means that something is not serious.
Michele Sabban, another politician in the French socialist party, is convinced that this is an international political plot to discredit her good friend DSK and that the people responsible for this have taken advantage of his ‘weakness, his ‘fragility towards seducing women’.
I am sure that the American legal system leaves a lot to be desired. But it seems that the French and the Americans are living on two different planets when it comes to tolerating sexual harassment and their attitudes towards women in general. Especially amongst the rich and powerful.
Madeleine,
How right you are! The French and Americans do live on different planets! And so too, Muslims, Hindus, Polynesians and the matrilineal Kuna indians of the San Blas who live and love in communal huts with the males submissive to females (I spent some time living among them.)
Like you, I lean toward American culture's idealized view of basic human rights as they apply to sexual conduct. Satisfying sexual urges though coercion, physical and/or mental (can these ever be separated?) is morally wrong, but paradoxically, all culture is in and of itself, coercive.
In all cultures, laws, mores, norms and taboos circumscribe what are deemed appropriate and inappropriate relations between the male and female members. Attitudes toward arranged marriages, romance, concubines, geishas, prostitution, honor killings, male and female circumcision, erotic art, pornography, erotic role-playing, sex in advertising, breast implants, cosmetic surgery, body piercing, hormonal therapies, and titillating or modest clothing are all constructed against the backdrop of the powerful and generally pleasurable reproductive instinct.
In human sexual behavior (actually all behavior) we are never truly free agents acting on a level playing field. We most certainly cannot legislate away the differences between males and females.
Our mating dances cannot be reduced to conform to the myth of fair exchange-value economics rooted in Western contract law and this is the crux of what may be an intractable equation. At the extremes, right and wrong may be obvious, but in my mind at least, once inside the outer limits of harmful actions, things become terribly fuzzy.
This fuzziness was the point of my first comment. We need to be careful when making any accusation of criminal or immoral behavior, but especially so in sexual matters. In the hormonally charged atmosphere of sex is there an ideal form of sexual interaction to which we should aspire and towards which we might legislate? It seems to me that were we to move in the direction of such an ideal we might all find ourselves in some way or another, victims of denunciation. This is currently the case in many other cultures and stands out in horrific relief throughout the history of Christendom.
I came across an interesting video series produced by the BBC in 1999 --- Pornography: The Secret History of Civilisation . Most amusing was the segment on the "Secret Museum" maintained by scientists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ_wyy8fkSQ&feature=related
Was the Roman ideal of matters sexual superior to ours? How about the Polynesians or the Kuna? I suppose there's no way of knowing for sure.
While I personally think he looks guilty as heck, I would agree that his status must be determined by the courts. However, freedom of the press means that we will not always like what it says. The price you pay for being a public figure is that your a target for the public interest. While you may not always like the way you are portrayed, unless you can prove falsehoods were disseminated with malicious intent you are out of luck.
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