ATTN: Teh Nooz. Countries Full Of Rioting Mobs Do Not Follow Social Conventions

[vaskidmark]

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Quote from: vaskidmark on Today at 09:09:53 AM


Trying to impose the values from home onto life in places where you are not at home any more can be dangerous.  I believe the saying is "the stupid should hurt"?

stay safe.

Think about this for a moment: Did you say that when the first soldiers died fighting for the American project to create a democracy in Iraq???  Would you have expected anyone else to dare say the same, ie, "Oh well, look, those Arabs don't want our democracy...if you get blown up trying to give it to them, the stupid should hurt!"

That would be offensive in the extreme, but here a woman wants to report on Egypt and, well, be a woman in a middle eastern crowd, and it's okay for us to say "eh, she should've seen it coming, the stupid should hurt"?

You are missing the point entirely.

Soldiers do not go unarmed, unarmored and unprotected by backup into the middle of a herd of the enemy.  At times they may do 2 out of 3, but very rarely all 3 options at the same time.  And when they do the results are usually Not Good^TM  Lara Logan certainly knew ahead of time the risks she was taking.  

A 2007 article in the Columbia Journalism Review exploring the threats to female foreign correspondents singles out Egypt: "The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example, cites rape threats against female reporters in Egypt who were seen as government critics."

The CJR article states, "Female reporters are targets in lawless places where guns are common and punishment rare." They face more sexual harassment and rape than their male counterparts. [emphasis added] They are subjected to unwanted advances and "lewd come-ons . . . especially in places where Western women are viewed as promiscuous."

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/16/lara-logan-assault-for-female-reporters-the-added-peril-of-tur/

Go back to my post and recall the rest of it.  Especially the part where I wrote

Knowing the risks and taking them in order to bring the news out gets my admiration and an open admission of great courage on her part.  But please refer to the first part of that sentence again.  She did not wade into that crowd wearing rose-colored glasses with a Polyanna attitude in her heart.

 Go back to the published reports regarding the crowds that day/evening, and the presence and influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on the crowds.  I am not acusing all Egyptians, or Arabs, or Muslims, or even all members of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Just the ones who used the opportunity to try to advance their agenda at the expense of someone who was actually trying to help move the idea of some democracy in Egypt forward.

And like a soldier, Lara Logan is not complaining about what happened to her.  Nor is she griping about the things others are saying about her deserving what happened because she is a "warmongerer" or "anti-feminist" or even "imperialist".  Lara Logan is trying to get back to her life of reporting.  Hopefully she will do so with a bit more discretion.  That does not mean "don't go to dangerous/risky places".  It means be a bit more prepared next time.

stay safe.

[HankB]

. . . This bizarre idea that this evil, monstrous act could not have happened among a bunch of drunken Serbians, Russians, Germans or inner-city Detroiters is just that - a bizarre, unrealistic idea . . .

Who said she would have been safe in a rioting mob civil disturbance elsewhere?   

[MechAg94]

Dumb question:  Does Egypt have the 3 witnesses rule when it comes to rape than I have heard of in a few isolated spots?  

Regardless of what advice I would give a woman, I hate to blame any woman who was raped.  At some point, the rapist is the sole culprit.  That is like saying that, Yeah, I should not leave my doors unlocked so the burglar's isn't to blame, anyone would have walked in and helped themselves.  I think it is important to separate good advice and behavior from blame for horrible crimes.  Men are not helpless.  

On another note, the woman apparently did have security and soldiers nearby so she wasn't running around alone in crowd.  

[gunsmith]

afaik a bunch of women came to her rescue, bringing some soldiers with them.
so at least there was a little silver lining to a horrible event.

[Lee]

As I told my pretty young niece a long time ago (under different circumstances) - never assume the people you are sympathetic to, don't hate your kind with a passion.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

A close friend of mine recounts a similar tale.  She spent semesters studying on all continents (even did a brief stint in Antarctica), living with the locals in almost a dozen different countries, getting to know more cultures than I can count.  She says the time she spent in Cairo was the only time she felt uncomfortable and unsafe.  Being a young attractive woman with pale white skin, blond hair and blue eyes, she was valuable.  And I don't mean she was valuable in the sense that ever human has an inherent dignity and worth that you can't put a price on.  I mean that people routinely offered to buy her from her male colleagues, offering scary large sums of wealth for that region. 

As she puts it, it's one thing to be attractive and get hit on by creepy guys you'd never date, it's something else entirely to know that people were lining up to make you their sex slave, offering more money than most people see in a lifetime. 

She left Egypt early, before her semester there was up.

[Viking]

A close friend of mine recounts a similar tale.  She spent semesters studying on all continents (even did a brief stint in Antarctica), living with the locals in almost a dozen different countries, getting to know more cultures than I can count.  She says the time she spent in Cairo was the only time she felt uncomfortable and unsafe.  Being a young attractive woman with pale white skin, blond hair and blue eyes, she was valuable.  And I don't mean she was valuable in the sense that ever human has an inherent dignity and worth that you can't put a price on.  I mean that people routinely offered to buy her from her male colleagues, offering scary large sums of wealth for that region. 

As she puts it, it's one thing to be attractive and get hit on by creepy guys you'd never date, it's something else entirely to know that people were lining up to make you their sex slave, offering more money than most people see in a lifetime. 

She left Egypt early, before her semester there was up.

Friend of mine experienced the same thing when she was there on vacation with her family...

[vaskidmark]

Oh, heck!  Now the story changes completely.

OK, not completely.  Seems she still was assaulted, but not by the folks who were first accused of doing it.  And not sexually assaulted.

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/2011/02/name-i-want-you-to-remember.html

In 2011, while covering the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Logan and her crew were arrested by the Egyptian army in Cairo on suspicion of being Israeli spies. Logan later said of the incident: "We were not attacked by crazy people in Tahrir Square. We were detained by the Egyptian army. Arrested, detained, and interrogated. Blindfolded, handcuffed, taken at gunpoint, our driver beaten. It's the regime that arrested us.

Oops!  Seems to be differing stories now floating about.

Cited sources of the mob not being the ones that attacked her:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/lara-logan-egypt-5219471 and
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110215/bs_yblog_thecutline/cbss-logan-suffered-brutal-attack-in-egypt

Or is this version accurate?   If I'm following things in a true linear fashion, Logan was detained by the police on 2/10/11 and held overnight 2/10-2/11, then released 2/11/11.  The mob attack was reported by everybody who reported it as taking place the evening of 2/11/11.  After she had been released from police custody.

I am perfused and conplexed.

So!  Who/what to believe?

stay safe.

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

just a week after her driver was beaten there and she — a CBS News reporter, one of America's most visible foreign correspondents — was detained and interrogated in secret along with her crew, by the army, in an undisclosed location, and told to leave the country, post-haste.

From the Esquire article. I think you're misreading it. It appears to me that she did jailtime last week, and was subsequently beaten/assaulted on the 11th.

Friend of mine experienced the same thing when she was there on vacation with her family...

Are the locals serious or is this just an act to creep out the tourists?

[SADShooter]

Valid question. However, if the locals routinely present that way, is it a place you want to be in any case?

[Jamisjockey]

From the Esquire article. I think you're misreading it. It appears to me that she did jailtime last week, and was subsequently beaten/assaulted on the 11th.
Are the locals serious or is this just an act to creep out the tourists?

Its not limited to men.  I had a coworker who was ex AF.  He was on liasion with the Egyptians doing some training.  Redheded fairskinned guy.  They wanted to bugger him and even offered him money to do so.  (yes, that resulted in some very serious jokes at work  )

[BlueStarLizzard]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 

'oh nooz, look that that poor poor little women, getting hurt cause she doesn't know any better. She shouldn't be doing something so dangerous!   We should stop her and explain, because we be big strng men and we know best...'

Yes, some of you sound like that. She is a reporter, she went to do the job, the job was dangerous, but she could have said 'hell no, I won't go', but she didn't. She went, she got assulted and raped in a country that was in shambles.

 she took the risk, she lives with the risk, and i'm pretty sure she knew what she was risking when she took the job.
Beleive it or not, us 'poor little women' are smart enough to figure it out, and you 'big strong men' can really just stop 'protecting us from ourselves'.

[Jamisjockey]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 

'oh nooz, look that that poor poor little women, getting hurt cause she doesn't know any better. She shouldn't be doing something so dangerous!   We should stop her and explain, because we be big strng men and we know best...'

Yes, some of you sound like that. She is a reporter, she went to do the job, the job was dangerous, but she could have said 'hell no, I won't go', but she didn't. She went, she got assulted and raped in a country that was in shambles.

 she took the risk, she lives with the risk, and i'm pretty sure she knew what she was risking when she took the job.
Beleive it or not, us 'poor little women' are smart enough to figure it out, and you 'big strong men' can really just stop 'protecting us from ourselves'.

I think the annoyance being displayed here is due to the outrage being displayed by the media.  People are outraged that a group of savages inside a mob in a culture that doesn't value women anyways decided to brutalize a woman.  Yes, its outrageous, but its also common practice in cultures besides our own.  Like you said, she put herself in a country that was in shambles to report on the story at her own peril. 

[SADShooter]

Where was all the outrage/hysteria over Greg Palkot and his cameraman getting bashed up? It was a news story sure, but I don't recall the same level of hand-wringing.

[RevDisk]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 

'oh nooz, look that that poor poor little women, getting hurt cause she doesn't know any better. She shouldn't be doing something so dangerous!   We should stop her and explain, because we be big strng men and we know best...'

Yes, some of you sound like that. She is a reporter, she went to do the job, the job was dangerous, but she could have said 'hell no, I won't go', but she didn't. She went, she got assulted and raped in a country that was in shambles.

 she took the risk, she lives with the risk, and i'm pretty sure she knew what she was risking when she took the job.
Beleive it or not, us 'poor little women' are smart enough to figure it out, and you 'big strong men' can really just stop 'protecting us from ourselves'.

Funny thing, back during my experimental dating, the female I went on a date with was telling me about how excited she was to visit Detroit, because the crime brought such a vibrant art scene, etc etc.  I slowly explained that I had visited Detroit the previous week.  It was a hellhole.  She took it as "me strong man, you weak woman.  urg!  Throg smash!"   

...

::shrug::

I could have explained that I felt more comfy in third world "hostile fire zones" than Detroit.  Or that when you play with fire, you can get burnt.  Some folks are being sexist.  Others are not being sexist and saying a bad idea is a bad idea, no matter how smart you are. 

Personally, I have no problems telling folks everything from "That's a stupid idea" to "Good luck, hope you survive."  It's not based on their gender, but their skillset and experience.  If someone told me they were going to participate in unruly mobs in Egypt, not blend in with the locals, not speak the local language and not use situational awareness, I'd do the same thing and just shrug.  I'd have actual sympathy for someone that knew to keep a low profile, tried to blend in with a crowd, knew the language and used good judgment.  They did their part, as best they could.   Murphy just happened to win in that case.   

I obviously do not endorse bad things happening to decent folks.  But if you expect more support than a shrug and "use better judgment next time", you are mistaken if you consider that being sexist.  Plenty of reporters, mostly male as I recall, have had their head hacked off in the Middle East.  Honestly, most of them that did so did not use the best judgment.  They took risks chasing a story, and paid the butcher's bill when the risk didn't pay off.  That's life and free will.  My attitude towards the headless male reporters is the same as the lady in question.  I'm sorry you lost your roll at the table, but it was your choice to play there. 

[BlueStarLizzard]

It might be a bit sexist to say, but I hope it gives other women in journalism pause, when it comes to covering stories in the midst of Civil War, riots, war zones or other places of lawlessness and violence.

Rev, this is one of the comments I take issue with.

Why is it the female journalist who should take the warning?

Male journalists seem to be getting beat up too.

I also find it sexism when the media/people find a women getting beat up so much more offencive then a man in the exact same circumstances.

Basically, you and I, same page.

[Balog]

You may not care for it, but women are more desirable targets for attack. Take it up with the "sexists" who enjoy a spot of gang rape. To say nothing of the human traffickers. It is inherently more dangerous for a woman to be in violent third world mobs, because they are preferred targets. Kind of like walking in a bad neighborhood in Detroit as a white guy listening to an ipod while talking on an iphone and wearing lots of jewelry makes you a more attractive target than if you're a black guy who looks homeless. I'm sorry if that's offensive to you, but it's true regardless of how you feel about it.

[AZRedhawk44]

BSL:  I guess I am a bit sexist, then.

It may be old-fashioned, but I don't like the idea of women being in the middle of a war zone or lawless environment.


All you wimmins are certainly legally allowed to go out to dangerous places and interact with dangerous people.

However, your feelings above in no way contradict the reality I spoke, here:

Dude.

War and lawlessness is THE ABSENSE OF LAW.

These wonderful social conventions we have (drive on the correct side of the road, wait for stoplights, pay for things, don't rape random women) are a paper-thin veneer that isn't much of a shield against savagery.

When the savagery is out... the veneer is gone.  

When countries are trying to throw off their government for whatever reason, you must take into account that opportunistic animals will be present and active.

Assuming that the flimsy social conventions we have in the West will still protect you as a woman in the midst of a revolution in a foreign culture, is the height of hubris and ugly-Americanism that foreign nationals love to point out about us so often.

I ain't saying it's right... I'm simply saying that it IS.

"Is" and "should" are two very different things.

The reason the female journalist should have even more heightened cautiousness than a male journalist, is because she is female.  Like it or not, she is a target for rape or abduction or sexual slavery because:
-She is female
-She is attractive (she's a TV personality so she has to be attractive)
-She is easily absconded with in a lawless environment and made to disappear
-She has less physical strength to resist attackers than a man
-She has higher resale value on the black market than a man
-She is an American liberal journalist abroad, so she is unarmed and unlikely to put up much of a fight

All of your feelings you cite, in no way refute the above realities.

Perhaps you're one of the women that fully understand those realities.  Perhaps this reporter is one of the women that fully understands those realities.

And perhaps she has a different perspective now.  Or perhaps not.  I don't know.