Clare’s blog, aka rantspace

I don’t know whether this has been said before, but the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome has a darker side.  It’s rather similar to a child’s “I didn’t do it” when asked about something that shouldn’t have happened, but it’s more corporate, so it’s more like a WeDDoT (We Don’t Do That) syndrome.  It shows up when some corporate group distances themselves from nasty actions taken by their enemies (or even their associates).

I think the only way of proving it to be false is with a free press and people prepared to be whistleblowers, and the outcome of such publicity is usually a grudging and minimising apology.

The Allies did it during the two World Wars (“the Japs torture their prisoners, but we Christian nations always treat our prisoners humanely”) – see this article for a different story.

News Ltd are doing it at the moment here in Australia as they watch the implosion of News Corp in England (“just because that was the culture in News Corp doesn’t mean you’ll find anything like that here”) – see this article.

Christians do it almost constantly these days with regard to Muslim fundamentalists (“Islam breeds fanatacism, but Christianity is a religion of love”) – see the current breaking story about Anders Breivik for a different tale. In Breivik’s manifesto he styles himself a “Christian conservative, patriot and nationalist”, and in internet posts he “blamed Europe’s left-wing parties for destroying the continent’s Christian heritage by allowing mass immigration of Muslims”.  And of course Christians the world over will say “just because he claims to be Christian doesn’t mean he is, or that Christianity supports actions like his”.  Which is true, of course, but they fail to allow Muslims the same opt-out when it comes to Muslim terrorists.

And the Catholic Church is still doing it by offering such a reluctant apology to the unmarried mothers they forced to put their babies up for adoption.  (At the time, it was “we’re the ones doing the loving actions; you’re not, or you would do what’s best for your baby”; now, it’s “that was a different time, a different culture, and there were different standards”. Funny – I thought the church’s ethics were supposed to be set by God and never change!). And yes, we are talking force – threatening to keep them in hospital until they signed the adoption papers, or drugging them till their resistance was too low to keep resisting, are not the actions of a loving group of people empowering the vulnerable in their care.

The clue that the attitude is still entrenched is in the wording of the “admission by Catholic Health Australia that ‘a small number’ of church-run hospitals and women’s homes maintained unwanted adoption practices from the 1950s to the 1970s.” A small number?? ALL Catholic hospitals and mothers’ homes did it (and not just the Catholic ones, either; it was pretty standard practice throughout), and there were many of them. AAP says “CEO Martin Laverty said he is prepared to front a Senate inquiry to make an expression of sorrow and regret if such an apology brought healing and comfort to the women who had their newborns forcibly removed.” It’s not going to heal them, but it is going to help. But why does it take a Senate Inquiry to elicit the apology?

Remember, too, that this is the organisation which STILL (at least as its official line) insists on no abortion, no contraception, and ideally no unmarried parents. Those among the unwed who fall pregnant are still, by Catholic standards, left with few options and little choice, although not subject to such brutal force as those of 50 years ago.  (One suspects that any change since is more in society than in the church, though.)

The reality is that none – or all, depending on the way you see it – of the ideologies involved are the problem. It’s not usually ideology per se which dictates evil actions. It’s ideology combined with a love of power and/or a disregard for others’ opinions. That desire for power or disregard for others’ opinions makes the person or group think they can do something nasty and feel justified about it. Whether it’s a news magnate, a lone radical, a government or the church doesn’t matter.

I do happen to think, however, that it’s nastier when it’s standard policy in a faith group simply because a faith group almost always tries to authenticate its position by claiming that they’re following God’s will.

I blogged some 18 months ago about having gone to hear Geoffrey Robertson promote his book The Statute of Liberty, and the musing about that which followed.   What I didn’t mention in that blog entry was that I had asked Robertson a question afterwards about how human rights legislation might be used to provide justice for victims of clergy abuse.  Robertson, in the midst of a long queue of book signings, gave an off-the-cuff answer which, let me admit it frankly, I found somewhat disappointing at the time.  A moment’s logical thought, though, told me I couldn’t really have expected much more in the circumstances.  And so I didn’t.

But it seems now that asking him that question may have sparked some thought about it on his part, to judge by these public statements by Robertson since:
Pope must answer for crimes against humanity
Robertson wants Pope to resign over child abuse
and even more fully in his new book, The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuses (see review)

I confess to being somewhat chuffed if my question 18 months ago brought two such significant things as clergy abuse and the attention of Robertson together.  But while I accept that the Catholic Church is in a somewhat peculiar position in terms of its claim to statehood, I hope that Robertson won’t confine his attentions to the Catholic denomination alone.  Anglicans, after all, claim the Queen as the head of their church, and she vowed at her coronation to “maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England”; does that mean victims of Anglican clergy could accuse the Queen of supporting human rights abuses – or, at the very least, turning a blind eye to them?  Will Robertson come to the aid of clergy abuse victims of other denominations and argue that ALL clergy sexual abuse (and its cover-up) is an abuse of human rights under international law?

The Vatican has castigated Irish bishops for covering up abuse, in the wake of the Irish report on the investigation into the problem.  Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, a right-hand man of the Pope, described the abuse scandal as “humiliating” and “abominable”.  I think that’s the strongest terms the Vatican has used yet!

There’s just one small point: the Irish report made it clear that the Vatican was complicit in the cover-up.  Presumably they hope no-one will realise that, and they’ll be able to place all the blame on the local bishops.

I confess to enjoying cop shows, despite having been an imaginative enough child that even listening to the suspense music in the ones Mum and Dad watched after I went to bed could give me nightmares!  I was a teenager before I could watch such shows with comparative impunity, and back then my favourite was Cop Shop.  Blue Heelers and Police Rescue both helped fill the intervening years, and now it’s The Bill.

Which brings me to my point.  Currently, a major character (Sergeant Smith) in The Bill is facing investigation for beating up a criminal who was, in turn, beating up a fellow officer.  And the only person who knows the truth of what happened (apart from the crim) is Smith’s fellow sergeant Calum Stone, who himself has been shown to be somewhat inclined to administer what we might call rough justice.

Stone is prepared to back Smithy up, regardless of the truth, because “the crim deserved it”.  And this brought me to musing on the “protect one of our own” mentality that prompted Stone to lie for Smithy.  Police are encouraged to think this way, and there’s good reason for it.  Watching and defending your fellow officers’ backs might save their life one day.  Or they might save yours.

And this is where the tension between truth and mateship pulls me in both directions.  Because it’s that “watch your mates’ backs” attitude that sets up this kind of situation, where protecting your mate takes precedence over the truth, and it seems that while the basic attitude can be life-saving, it can also – in non-life-threatening situations -  destroy those to whom justice is denied as a result.

Is Smithy still a good police officer despite stepping over the line on this occasion?  Hell, yes.  Is the truth more important than his career?  I confess I’m not sure.

And perhaps you can see where this is leading, because the situation isn’t all that different in the church.  Clergy step over the line, their mates close ranks, cover up and lie for them, and justify it on the basis of his career (and possibly the reputation of the church).  And I’m quite clear that that is wrong, but not so clear on it in the police force.

But I think there are two fundamental differences.  Firstly, that in the police force, they can and do face life-threatening situations.  In the church, they don’t.  So in the church, there’s no real justification on that basis for a culture of closing ranks.  And secondly, that the church supposedly puts morals first.  In fact, many denominations or church spokespeople argue that morality outside the church is necessarily deficient.  To argue for morality, yet not place primary importance on truth seems to me to be duplicitous.

In some ways, maybe, it comes down to who do you protect first – your mates, the criminals or society/injured victims?  I don’t support vigilantism, but neither do I support excessive societal protection of those whose actions put them outside society.  And I certainly don’t agree that anything less than the truth is appropriate in the church.

No, no… I’m not getting married again (I like the model I’ve got, thanks), or moving (god forbid!) or changing my diet (current one’s working well, thanks), or pregnant (god forbid that one too!). This is about my website.

Firstly, that I was asked to write an article for the WA Uniting Church’s The Transit Lounge website, on the recent release of the Ferns Report (Irish Catholic) and the Australian Anglican research into abuse allegations in their dioceses. However, the end result raised “concerns that there could be some sections that might be defamatory and/or damaging to our ecumenical relationships”, and Assembly therefore declined to publish it. I’m proud to prove that despite maintaining useful connections with people in key places in various denominations, I can’t yet be accused of selling out my principles

And the second half of that news is that I chose to post the article on my website rather than see its punch severely lessened by the diplomatic editing that would have been necessary for it to be published in The Transit Lounge. The direct link is here, but I have also added (and will continue to add, supposing I’m disciplined enough) various other articles I’ve written along the way, which you can find by going to the main page of the website and clicking on the “my articles” link which has been added to the menu.

And the second major thing I’ve added to the website is something I’ve been meaning to add for a long time – perhaps the most momentous piece of church documentation I possess after my ten-year fight with them, and that is the Notice of Relinquishment which proves that Vic Cole relinquished his holy orders as a result of his sexual abuse of me. I have also added the letter of apology I received from Peter Jensen at the end of the negotiations with the Anglican Church, wherein he also refers (somewhat obliquely) to the refusal of Harry Goodhew, Donald Cameron, and Vic Cole, to make similar apologies to me. Both can be accessed via links contained within my story.

<sigh> It’d be nice to have time to scan every letter I sent to, and every letter I received from, the church, but that’s still a long-ahead dream.

There’s a very incisive article at New Matilda about the power imbalance in the NRL/Matthew Johns/”Clare” episode (Disclaimer: In that case, Clare is a pseudonym, and I am not 19 years old ) and how that power imbalance affects the issue of “Clare”‘s consent. However, I think there are a couple of points that the writers fail to make.

Firstly, that when consent is apparently given in an environment of coercion and/or power imbalance, it is, by definition, only after the event that the victim can really say whether she consented or not. And understanding that is crucial to appreciating why “Clare” did not object at the time, but only afterwards. In other words, only complaining afterwards is not necessarily an indication of a changed mind, but of a victim freed from the power imbalance or coercion and understanding properly just how that power imbalance prevented an informed consent at the time.

The other point that I feel the writers do not adequately explore is the label “group sex”. They rightly point out that “group sex” is a bad term for what happened, but fail to say why, or what would have been a more accurate description. Extrapolating from the rest of the article, I think that their perspective would be that “group sex” implies a degree of mutuality that is contradicted by the circumstances being the presence of several high-profile men and one young woman. A more accurately descriptive term might be “pack sex”.

According to Matthew Johns’ account, after it was over, he went to “Clare” and apologised about the others coming into the room. (According to quotes from Johns, initially “Clare” went to the room after an agreement to have sex with him and one other player, and he was unaware when others entered the room, and stepped away from the bed when he became aware of them.) However, that fact alone makes it very clear that “Clare” had NOT consented to their presence beforehand. But since “Clare” says there were six male participants and another half-dozen or so spectators, (and this number has not been denied by the police, who investigated the allegation at the time, or the club, who must also know the names of those involved), and given the public behaviour of footy players in the context of their sport (an emphasis on group activity, spurring each other on, on-field brawling, and egos fed by cheering), it seems very likely that whatever “Clare” consented to initially became something completely different when an extra 10 or so men entered the room. In such a situation (and particularly if the young woman had previously suffered some abuse), it is extremely unlikely that she would have been able to call a halt at the point where she felt that things had gone further than she wanted.

I think it highly likely that it was the cheering (each other) of the first few men that drew the others’ attention to what was happening in the room and caused them to enter and so “join in the fun”. And I also think it likely that if “Clare” had objected at some point, the guys would simply have ignored her, or possibly even have prevented her from leaving.

Personal qualities:
1. Pre-eminent in courage, strength and skill
2. Loyal to an ideal.
3. Gentle and kind.
4. Much greater courage, resolution, strength of character and generosity than ordinary humans.
5. Comparatively short adult life.
6. Does battle against evil.
7. Dies as a sacrifice in order to win the battle.
8. Ventures into a different world, at great personal peril.
9. Performs some great feat and/or acquires immortality as a result of being in that world.
10. Returns triumphant to his own world, and brings back something that enhances human life.
11. Demonstrates that human life can be richer, more intense and fuller than we think.
12. Ends up being considered divine.

How many of you said Jesus? You’re wrong! Or at least, only partly right. That’s the summary of qualities of the quintessential hero of myth and legend I found in a book about the symbolism of the Arthurian legends. Jesus isn’t really so unique after all, is he?

A discussion with a family member brought me to musing on the “I am the good shepherd” analogy. And you can bet that, having grown up in a conservative evangelical church, I’ve heard it all before – what a shepherd did (and does) to protect the sheep and lead them in safety and good supply. But what I realised I’ve never heard is the other side of the analogy. If Jesus is the shepherd, then christians are the sheep, right? Now start thinking about the characteristics of sheep:
1) They do everything as a group
2) They’re pretty defenceless
3) They don’t think for themselves, they just do what the sheep in front does.

So the extension of a shepherd analogy is neither complimentary nor a portrayal of intelligence. Perhaps that’s why conservative christians hate people questioning their beliefs… because it’s a signal of a sheep who doesn’t obey the unspoken rules.

Of course, encouraging sheep-like behaviour suits the church down to the ground – and when I say the church, I mean the organisation. Obedient, unquestioning followers make for order and safety of those higher up the hierarchy. But – as with many of the church’s policies – it also makes for a member-mass that’s ripe for abuse.

I’ve been musing on PSTD and its symptoms, and this may turn out to be a multiple-entry thread, hence the no.1 in the title. But this first entry I want to explain a rather obscure symptom described in the DSM as “a sense of foreshortened future”. Now that doesn’t mean that I can’t visualise a tomorrow. But someone once put it this way: suppose you thought that your life would end tomorrow, or the next day, or even in a week’s time, what would you do differently? Ironically, that question is often used by christians to spur them to greater obedience and witnessing activity (though it’s not usually asked as one’s own life ending, but Jesus returning). And the point is not dissimilar. It is this – that your priorities would change. You would do things differently, and you would place emphasis on different things. And that is the reality that PTSD sufferers live with. One might almost say their priorities are skewed, and in a way they are. Some things seem pointless, while others take on a disproportionate urgency.

From this skewed perspective, and looking at one side of its coin – why push yourself to do the vacuuming if you’re not going to be here to enjoy the result (or suffer the consequences)? Why make an effort to keep yourself healthy, or looking good, if in a week’s time it isn’t going to matter? But the second side of the coin is an urgency to getting things done. When a PTSD sufferer thinks that something needs doing (in other words, something moves to the top of their priority list), that sense of foreshortened future compels them to do it NOW.

And that’s what a “sense of foreshortened future” means. On the one hand, it brings a lethargy, an apathy, over doing things that would otherwise be merely part of life’s routine, or part of self-care, because the ongoing sense of purpose in them that would see them done is simply not there. But on the other hand, it brings an urgency to dealing with things – often very small matters – that can push the imbalance even further off-centre, as normal priorities make way for a compulsion that often makes little sense, even to the sufferer themselves.

I don’t know how many times some well-meaning christian has said something to me along the lines of “but God has used your experience of abuse to bring good out of evil”.  And the “good” has usually been identified as one of the following: 1) it made you stronger, 2) your website is a great good, 3) your action has changed the way the church deals with abuse allegations… or something like that.

But what those things really mean, albeit often unconsciously for those who say them, is an attempt to make some kind of sense of what happened to me.  And many christians feel the need to make sense of abuse because there’s no other way of accounting for such evil being done while god is in control of the world.  But the cold harsh reality is that abuse doesn’t make sense.  And attempts to rationalise it as somehow part of god’s unfathomable plan simply don’t make sense either.  If god was really so great, and so much out for our good, then s/he could bring good without such evil being necessary first. Far better to see and acknowledge abuse as it is – an act of wanton aggression (once or many times) perpetrated on a defenceless victim.

In my opinion, seeking to make sense of it actually violates the enormity of the abomination it is.