Dominique Strauss-Kahn was indicted by a New York court today on 7 counts including unlawful imprisonment and attempted rape – he was also granted bail despite prosecutors’ assertion that he could become “another Roman Polanski.” However, despite the severity of the charges no one seems to be showing any concern for the victim and everyone is trying to rationalize away the crime itself.
Only Strauss-Kahn and his victim, a maid at the French-owned Sofitel hotel in Manhattan where the crime allegedly took place, know what truly happened on Saturday. However, one would hope that if the charges are even remotely true Strauss-Kahn would be spending his time held in solitary confinement at Rikers Island prison reflecting on his life-long pathology of sexual misconduct and where it has now landed him. Rather, he has spent his time desperately trying to convince a judge to allow him to return to his life of luxury.
Since being held at Rikers after his initial court hearing on Monday, Strauss-Kahn has been sending a non-stop litany of concessions to Judge Michael Obus to try and convince the judge to allow him to be released on bail- and it seems to have worked as today he was released on a $1 million bail with conditions of 24-hour electronic monitoring and constant armed guard which Strauss-Kahn will have to pay for out of his own pocket.
The most surprising on these concessions, perhaps, was Strauss-Kahn’s claim that if permitted bail he would waive his rights to protection against extradition, something which France grants to all its citizens. Although it is not clear if this has been included in his bail stipulations, in theory this would mean that if Strauss-Kahn did flee to France the U.S. would have no problem getting him back. On the other hand, I doubt if France would have any problems with denying his extradition even if he had waived these rights.
Indeed, the French people seem to be ratcheting up their indignation since Monday, not over one of their politicians being a sex criminal but over the fact that another country would dare try him for sex crimes and the simply awful way he is being treated by the U.S. justice system.
News channels in France have apparently been experiencing record viewership as this story continues to dominate the airwaves in France. The French media-circus has been complete with psychoanalytic punditry weighing in on Strauss-Kahn’s motivations for attempting to rape someone (has anyone suggested he’s just a huge asshole?). While French media dissects Strauss-Kahn’s sexual history, a poll on Monday showed that close to 70% of the French public think that he is the victim of some kind of political plot to discredit him. All this despite Strauss-Kahn’s well-documented history of sexual misconduct.
Stéphane Rozès, a political analyst, claims that public opinion in France seems to be in one of two camps: either he is a victim of a political plot or he has a sickness of some kind. That’s right: even if the charges are true the French public seem fine with giving him a pass. Those afore mentioned psychoanalysts have even suggested that it was an act of self-sabotage. Being unable to handle the pressure of being the front runner for the French presidency, the story goes, Strauss-Kahn was driven by an unconscious desire to scuttle his political career. For a man who has been running the IMF for the past three and half years the suggestion is absolutely ludicrous.
And when Strauss-Kahn’s mugshots and a photo of him in his cell looking all pathetic in his blue “suicide watch” smock ( which is apparently too bulky to make into a noose and too tough to tear) that was the last straw for the French. French news papers refused to publish the photos and Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers threatened legal action against any that did, as per a French law that bars any photos being published that may “humiliate” someone standing trial. A French radio station argued that the cell photograph “breached the presumption of a man innocent until proven guilty.” Again, a completely ludicrous claim: people standing trial for crimes will be held in cells, this is what happens. If that fact messes with your ability to understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty then you should really check your own brain.
Others in France were outraged that Strauss-Kahn was subject to a “perp walk,” something which all public figures have to deal with when they stand trial and Elizabeth Guigou a former French justice minister suggested that because U.S. judges are primarily concerned with being re-elected Judge Obus would be more likely to convict Strauss-Kahn because the world’s attention is being poured on the case. Another ludicrous suggestion: by this logic it would be impossible to fairly judge a famous person but you rarely hear of wrongful convictions in such high profile cases.
And don’t expect the international political class to provide any sober reflection on the entrenched culture of sexual deviance in politics: since Strauss-Kahn officially resigned as the head of the IMF early this morning all they seem to care about is who is going to succeed him. Governments around the world are “battling it out” to try and get one of their own countrymen into the leadership position at IMF because all every asshole government wants to do is try to run the world.
But what of the victim? I have seen absolutely zero comments from politicians or other pundits that showed any sympathy whatsoever to the victim of a sexual assault. This entire fiasco has been a grotesque case study in the tragedy that is out victim-blaming attitudes toward sexual assault. The entire world seems to have an unbreakable tendency to completely disregard the victims of crimes if those crimes are of a sexual nature, a shameful tendency given the devastating impact that sexual assaults have on their victims (think Charles Bronson’s daughter in Death Wish). This all seems to stem from a perverse thought pattern that crosses all cultural boundaries, a thought pattern that seems to be a part of humanity in general and our oldest power-relation: between man and woman. The thought pattern is that women never truly don’t want to have sex and while we find sexual assault abhorrent, more than any other crime we have a desire to rationalize it: surely the woman isn’t completely without fault, she must have been flirting with him and things got out of hand or maybe the man actually hates himself because his mother didn’t love him. It’s all bullshit, who doesn’t hate themselves a little bit? What man hasn’t had an experience in which he was sure he was “in” only to have the object of his desire turn the cold shoulder on him in the end? Yet the vast majority of us don’t try to rape someone because rape is violence and violent attacks are crimes, it’s as simple as that. I hope that in time the French public, its politicians and its media will realize that their culture of turning a blind eye toward sexual misconduct, of even thinking of it as all a bit of roguish fun, is plainly just a culture of misogyny which makes the entire country look like a bunch of sleazy assholes. Is that what you really, truly want for your society? A culture in which women have to live in constant fear that if they’re sexually assaulted no one will give a fuck. Moreover, it’s something everyone needs to think about in regards to not only their own country’s political culture but their culture and society in general because this is a world-wide, deeply entrenched phenomenon.
Sources: The Telegraph 1,2,3; The Guardian, Bloomberg, Reuters. Image Flickr.
