Rape: Polanski and the burqa

Last updated on: October 7, 2009 at 3:00 am by Ibrahim Abusharif

Rape: Polanski and the burqa 2009-10-07T03:00:20-04:00 Ibrahim Abusharif

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

No escape

When Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski pleaded guilty more than 30 years ago to having illicit sex with a 13-year-old girl, his legal counsel brokered a plea agreement, according to press accounts, in order to avoid incarceration. But then the judge (now dead) reportedly reneged, and Polanski, 43 at the time, was confronted with the possibility of serious jail time. So the director, like in good movie drama, fled the country and has lived in France ever since, frequently visited neighboring European countries.

According to a New York Times op-ed piece by a friend of his, Polanski dined privately with three French presidents and has lived a life unmolested by French political and law enforcement officials for decades. In fact, he enjoyed the perks of celebrity status as he continued his film career. According to a Slate “Explainer” article, France and the United States have an extradition agreement in which both countries must consent to transfer fugitives. The Americans wanted Polanski, but the French declined, hence the man’s freedom until Swiss law enforcement authorities finally arrested him two weeks ago.

While I make no judgment about this case per se, the following comes to mind: the French seem to have no problem granting freedom and privilege to a man who “drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in the home of actor Jack Nicholson” (according to Slate). Yet French President Nicolas Sarkozy may declare, with little public dissent, that a woman who wears a burqa is not welcome in France because the burqa is a symbol of a woman’s repression. In other words, the rape of a girl has no negative symbolism, and if there were such symbolism, then its expiration is rushed along nicely by a rapist’s association with the arts.

Is this what we may infer from this French quandary? To recap, a middle-age man who reportedly forced a girl to satisfy his lust in natural and unnatural ways repeatedly is welcome in France to live, work, sign autographs, and dine at high levels, but a woman who dresses like the mother of Jesus (God bless mother and son) is told that there’s no room at the inn.

It seems that once again the age of placid paradox hands us another controversy. Like others, this one draws attention to the unevenness of contemporary liberal discretion, if not neo-colonialist self-righteousness. Life mimicking his own art, Polanski has become a symbol of sorts, attracting commentary that ranges from insightful to truly bizarre, splitting even those who are of liberal-leaning persuasion. Hundreds of well-known men and women, mostly of the literati and cinema arts, have come to the man’s defense and have gone so far as to demand not only his release from Swiss custody but his acquittal for the reported rape and sodomizing of a little girl. Let us have a moment of reflection here: no one of repute would defend Polanski’s right to acquittal if the offender were Polanski the Plumber or, worse yet, Polanski the Afghani.

Instead, it is Polanski’s cultural status as a film director, a Western award-winner to boot (not the passage of time, the offer of forgiveness by the victim, alleged malfeasance of the judge, or any other “yellow cake” argument) that has the likes of Whoopi Goldberg (“It wasn’t rape-rape”), Salman Rushdie, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, and many others signing all kinds of petitions demanding Polanski’s release. Notes Ben Crair in The Daily Beast, “Like their forebears, today’s limousine liberals display a very special brand of class-conscious hypocrisy. These people would never rally around an admitted child rapist, unless that admitted child rapist made great films, won prestigious awards, and went to the same dinner parties they like to attend.”

More than 60 years ago, the Spanish philosopher and cultural critic José Ortega y Gasset wrote powerful essays under the book title The Dehumanization of Art. One of the many observations he made was the segregation of modern art from human purpose. He surely did not have in mind the symbolic meaning we find in the Polanski flap (this unholy defense of a crime because of the offender’s status as an artist). Still, one can’t help but recall Ortega y Gasset’s arguments and their tangential, if not inevitable, connection to the relationship between art and the defense of dehumanizing crime. It’s easy to recall recent cases over the years that were dismissed or diminished because of the shield of celebrity: shoplifting, DUI’s galore, underage sexual relations on video, and worse. This is not an esoteric matter. A kid on my old South Side neighborhood of Chicago will get more jail time for selling a lid of hemp than an actor charged with felonious theft, rape, or vehicular manslaughter.

Human beings are observant of precedent, which helps to inform our laws, whether sacred or secular. We also have natural enthusiasm for the arts and hold in high esteem those who produce it. But nothing betrays our enthusiasm for art more than this idolatry of conferring icon status and above-the-law zealotry upon makers of art, whose priests then turn around and find it odd that people should sign petitions and be offended by xenophobic political cartoons or a droopy novel set in wearisome prose that disfigures the wife of a prophet (I do not, of course, condone violent reactions, but I support the right of reaction, which the limousine liberals selectively find unbecoming).

As author and blogger G. Willow Wilson comments, “I find myself really irritated by the hypocrisy surrounding film director Roman Polanski’s extradition. Practically every day we’re bombarded by arguments that the Prophet was a pedophile for marrying Aisha, yet when Polanski drugs and rapes a 13-year-old, he is a misunderstood genius.” Universally people are averse to contradictions and acts of hypocrisy. The French decades-long hospitality to a confessed child rapist, especially when held up next to Sarkozy’s nasal exegesis of the burqa, drips with pretense and hypocrisy.

Still, we need to be clear that these drippings are not the patented product of Western Europe. They are, as mentioned before, part of our postmodern age that has no regard for boundaries. The controversies, overreactions, and strange applications of sacred law of the East are well known, despite the scripture of Islam’s strong censuring of hypocrisy, duplicity, and unevenness in evoking rules and consequences. Of course, it’s easy to spot contradiction when one thinks he or she is on the right side of the event. When we look at the world, East and West, the wind of irony and paradox fills many sails. This current flap, though, is particularly embarrassing, given the cottage industry surrounding the search for all things wrong and conflicting in the Islamic realms. As this current controversy plays out, we’ll see how some of Polanski’s defenders may “revise” the stands they have now taken, but only when they are shown the angst of the all-important public, which fortunately is not duped by the pretenses of this furor.

Ibrahim N. Abusharif is a writer and educator. He is an assistant professor of journalism at Northwestern University’s new campus in Doha, Qatar. His blog is fromclay.blogspot.com.

Commentary

Ibrahim Abusharif

Previous Post

October 5, 2009

Book "Stranger to History": An ambitious cultural journey loses its way

Next Post

October 9, 2009 Perspectives: Infidel in the mosque

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 2012 Elections 30 Dayd 30 Writers (2017) 30 Days 30 Writers 30 Days 30 Writers (2015) 30 Days 30 Writers (2016) 30 Days 30 Writers (2018) 30 Days 30 Writers 2017 Ali Asadullah Ali Eteraz Alper Bilgili Arthur Richards Asides Asma Uddin Black History Month Briefings Charles Turner Commentary Cyrus McGoldrick Eman H Aly Fatimah Popal Hajj Hajj and Dhul Hijjah Hesham Hassaballa Hisham Hellyer Ibrahim Abusharif Inas Younis Irfan Yusuf Jalal Baig Junaid Afeef Laila Alawa Laila Alwala Mas'ood Cajee Muqtedar Khan Nakia Jackson Newsmakers Parvez Ahmed Podcasts Rabia Chaudry Rafia Zakaria Ramadan Reviews Safiyyah Ally Saud Inam Shahed Amanullah Svend White The Opinionated Oncologist Visions Wajahat Ali Zahed Amanullah Zahir Janmohamed Zainab Khan

Select a Month November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Solomon David Moses Paul