The Stray World

As SMBC com­ics advises me: the enemy of my enemy is my ally. So now I find myself in the pos­i­tion of agree­ing with the oth­er­wise syco­phantic MCA-owned news­pa­per pub­lic­a­tion The Star, and hop­ing this issue gets all the atten­tion it deserves.

A four-year-old video record­ing of PAS spir­itual adviser Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat say­ing women who did not cover up deserve to be raped has gone viral.

No it hasn’t. 7000 plus views is not viral, unless you are liv­ing in a vil­lage with its own Intranet server with a mir­ror of You­Tube. If that’s the stand­ard of being viral, my blog is viral.

That said, do note how smug the leader of Malaysia’s only unabashedly reli­gious polit­ical party speaks of women deserving to be raped for fail­ing to dress them­selves to Islamic stand­ards. The Star has already trans­lated the rel­ev­ant bits for those who do not speak Malay.

Nik Aziz said in the 5.47-minute clip that those who did not cover their aurat were tempt­ing men to rape them. (Aurat is part of the body that must not be exposed in pub­lic in accord­ance with Islamic belief.)

“She did not cover her aurat, and got raped. Serves her right for being raped (dah dia buka aurat, diro­gol, padan­lah muka dirogol).

“She is selling cheap… her calf, her face, her thigh…rape lah,” he said in his speech recor­ded four years ago.

Will he retract his state­ment? I cer­tainly hope he does more.

If he is to redeem him­self, an apo­logy and repar­a­tions made in the form of a huge dona­tion to groups like Women Against Viol­ence wouldn’t be unhelp­ful. Talk is after all, cheap.

This is clearly a guy who has no respect what­so­ever for women except in the reli­gious sense — which is the crux of the mat­ter. In Nik’s own words in the video, he is simply fol­low­ing Islamic pre­cepts and those who do not fol­low it deserve their just dessert.

This man is say­ing my mother deserves to be raped.

This man is say­ing my sis­ter deserves to be raped.

This man is say­ing my friends deserve be raped.

This man is say­ing every single woman out there who doesn’t dress accord­ing to Islamic stand­ards deserves to be raped.

This man runs a polit­ical party that is part of a coali­tion of sup­posedly more pro­gress­ive parties — that has a fair chance of win­ning the next election.

So DAP and PKR, will you put some pres­sure on the old fart? And while you are at it, do feel free to pull up more sex­ist remarks from the Bar­isan Nas­ional politi­cians. With luck, we can resolve this rape cul­ture prob­lem before we even elect a new government.