Trauma may be defined as a disturbing gap in the continuity of meaning. To live amid too much injustice and popular indifference … is a real trauma. In times ... where mania and intoxication pose as passion, where children learn that crazy is normal, the shrug is replacing the deep conscience and the password to the future is "whatever". -- Michael Leunig, "Gripped by mania posing as passion" - The Age, 30 September 2006
In the latest episode of life under John Howard, the weasel who mistook ethics for a communist plot, a gang of Werribee, Victoria schoolboys encircled a girl with "mild developmental delay," led her to a secluded place and urinated on her, set her hair on fire and forced her to "perform lurid acts on them". They then produced and sold a DVD of the crime, with "special features" showing them dropping flares on a homeless man and throwing eggs at taxis. The DVD cover says: "... the movie is brought to you by the teenage kings of Werribee. No one messes with us. We only mess with them."
These are the young men who will grow up to join the Howard Party or sympathise with it. They will become politicians, priests, bankers, cops and mercenaries -- in short, the worst possible people who inevitably rise to the top.
But they didn't emerge from nowhere. Here are their parents, presumably already members or supporters of John Howard's nation of relaxed and comfortable zombies:
"The two parents of the two boys that made this laughed it off and said it was just a bit of fun."
"A brother of one of the teens told the Herald Sun he thought the film was disgusting. Parents said they did not approve of the film but were aware of its contents."
It would appear that these parents have forfeited their right to be the guardians of their sons.
Could this have happened without the perverted influence of John Howard? Of course. These boys have doubtless tapped into various rape web sites that like to tout rape as a way of life rather than a crime. But ten years of reinforcement of non-core as the key word to values cannot have helped.
Hopefully, Sen-Sgt Paul Mullett, secretary of Victoria's Police Association, will take time off from defending his torturers in the Armed Offenders Squad to see that these little bastards and the genetic garbage who are their parents are given, as he says, "the full force of the law".
Meanwhile, our heartfelt sympathy goes to the parents of the girl. This is every mother and father's worst nightmare.
-- Olney Garkle
The girl's father speaks:
RealMedia, WinMedia, MP3
News links:
Father vows justice on DVD gang
Hunt on for boys behind sex abuse DVD
Students condemn attack DVD
DVD of girl attack sparks probe
Abused DVD girl met attackers online
DVD of girl attack sparks cyber-bullying warning
I expect that were John to comment, he would draw attention to the dangers on the net and warn us all to make sure we conduct ourselves in a ladylike manner, or something along those lines. The boys involved will probably have all sorts of attention paid to their privacy because "they don't want to pay all their lives for their youthful indiscretion". Nevermind that the DVD is probably on the net by now as a permanent reminder to the poor girl. Something like 90% of teenage boys surveyed in the UK ten years ago said they would rape a girl if they thought nobody would ever find out. Now it appears Australian boys are so immune to any threat of justice that they are proud enough to want to film it. The trend towards gang rapes here shows that it is middle Australia's attitudes to women's rights that need addressing, not just the attitudes of some small pockets of Muslim youth. Here's hoping those muslim gang rapers and these young film makers all end up in the same gaol cell... man would that make some sweet reality TV.
Posted by Punxie on October 25, 2006