A Question of Rape (by Jubal)

[Jubal]

A QUESTION OF RAPE
How the feminist movement should approach the Assange question

I am someone who is proud of my political viewpoints; as a social egalitarian, as a liberal, and - in so far as the term is used to mean the struggle for equality of genders - as a feminist. Removing age-old prejudices about what women can and cannot do, and what the acceptable roles of men and women in our society are, is  one of the most important causes of the last fifty to sixty years. Given this, it pains me to write the article I am about to present to you; I nevertheless feel that it is an important one to write.

Julian Assange, founder and prominent activist in Wikileaks, has - as we hopefully all know - been effectively charged with rape in Sweden. He is avoiding extradition by remaining in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, with the Ecuadoreans justifying this on the grounds that Sweden has refused to give them assurances that Assange will not be extradited to the USA. His profile - both as a high profile charged rapist and as a key figure in arguing for an almost totally transparent system of government - has attracted (rightly) a lot of controversy. When the Cambridge Union Society invited him to speak via videolink, there was of course no exception to this (he has since pulled out, in rather obscure circumstances). However, I feel that the controversy and strong feelings over this case, and over the issue of rape in general, are misdirected; I am firmly of the opinion that "no-platforming" people like Mr Assange is counter-productive. Furthermore, I have been incredibly concerned at the frankly vicious tone taken by many people in this debate, particularly from those in favour of no platform policies, and I strongly and genuinely fear they risk devaluing their cause by courses of action like the ones we have recently seen.

Firstly, I will come to the issue of rape. It is the key issue here, and there is no denying that, though as I will argue later it is important that it does not obscure all other issues of governance and policy. Does a blanket ban on rapists ever speaking in public on any issue help rape victims, or - more importantly - prevent or discourage rape in future? I would argue not. Inviting a charged rapist to speak does not in any way imply condoning that person's views, and I defy anyone to logically construe it as doing so. I am no friend of Assange, and believe that it would be the only right thing to do for him to go and face his accusers, and then if it comes to it fight extradition from Sweden. However, simply because I disagree with him does not make it wrong for me to question him or listen to him. On the contrary, it makes it more necessary. Rape is an incredibly difficult issue to solve societally, and if we let our revulsion get in the way of our ability to understand the problem and understand the people behind it then it is an issue we are less able to solve.

Furthermore, if we attempt to choke off these people's voices, we do not just alienate them but also their followers. We must deal with Assange with the people who support him in mind, and ask what will damage his credibility more - being silenced, so those who see him as a role model can continue to believe that, or being challenged on both his politics and his personal morals in the most public space available? I would strongly argue the latter. Feminism is not about trying to be more feminist than your neighbour - it is about trying to secure the widest possible acceptance of the principle that men and women have equal rights and are solely responsible for control over their thoughts and their bodies. Removing the chance for people like Julian Assange to be challenged publically strengthens their hand with their personal following - a lot of whom feel marginalised by no platform policies - and strengthens in these groups the idea that rape is not serious, that Assange's charges are politically motivated and ultimately that rape is just a way for societal  and political systems to threaten him. We have to show that this is not the case by showing that we can engage with him, that we can condemn him, and that our ideas and our morals and our arguments are the stronger. A no platform policy is therefore a deeply misguided one.

It is worth turning to why Assange is important - the "other" debate, in many ways. That is one of freedom of information, and the belief that politically it is fundamentally optimal to have minimum governmental secrecy and indeed minimal government. A form of anarchist libertarianism (or in some cases the slightly disconnected idea of anti-westernism or anti-imperialism) characterises the supporters of Julian Assange. Their activism has in many ways forced the tone of the debate over access to information, and it is a debate we cannot afford not to have any more than we can afford to ignore the real and horrendous issues of rape. We are increasingly living in a society where what you know, rather than what you own, is a real basis for political and social power. Wikileaks and internet activism may well continue to be an important factor in this, and so in many ways – whether we like it or not – we are stuck with the voice of Julian Assange until such a time as he gets sufficiently discredited that other movements or spokespeople get a chance to take his place. Refusing to hear from him also means refusing the only means any of us have of discrediting him or his views.

My third point, and the one that in many ways worries me most, is how people go about expressing their views on this issue. Our rush to condemn those we disagree with can often lead to a rejection of those we need to be persuading, but it can also lead to division amongst those who agree with us. The campaign against Assange's visit to the Cambridge Union was conducted at times with an underhand viciousness, particularly implying at times that there was a "women's" view on the issue and showing a mildly arrogant expectation that people of either gender would be - had to be - unbelievably horrified at the invitation. Little discussion was really given to what evidence we do or do not have of the effects of people in his position receiving public questioning, or indeed the effects on rape victims or lack thereof. It was given as an expectation that no conversation was necessary, but just as we owe it to victims of rape to do our utmost to find long term solutions to it and the low reporting and conviction rates we have, we also owe it to them to treat it as a serious matter for thought and discussion, and to focus on working together not denouncing large numbers of people as validating rape when they simply have a different view on how best to tackle the problem. Treating dissenters (regardless of their view on rape or their view on Assange) as the enemy – or in the case of women very much like class traitors – did the campaign no favours.

Ultimately, I believe that feminism and the movement for gender equality should not be approached as a shouting match, or trying to be more feminist than my neighbour, or trying to get people to hold views simply by implying that these must be conformed to. We perhaps shouldn't have to, but we need to explain why. It's all very well to attack those we disagree with, but what do we achieve by this? What we need to do is engage – not with people like Julian Assange per se, but with the large worldwide following who support him. We need to show them that we believe rape is a serious issue, and a criminal issue, rather than allowing Assange to conflate it with political repression which he is doing extremely successfully. This is not a case where any of us can walk in believing that our views are so obvious we are entitled to simply be disgusted at those who disagree. All of the issues around Assange are arguments, and debates, and they are ones we can and must win. The very last thing we can afford is to shut the lid in revulsion and fear, and marginalise the people we need to be convincing of the seriousness of rape or the importance of equal rights for different genders. Freedom of speech and freedom of questioning for all is not the enemy of gender equality; it is its greatest potential tool. We have nothing to fear from Julian Assange - except perhaps fear itself.

[Marcus]

Interesting. Am I correct to assume that you believe the allegations of rape? If so, why?

I see your point, that rape is a far more immediate corporeal problem, but the question of FOI is pretty important as well. If in a rape case, or any criminal case for that matter, the defence/prosecution withheld evidence that swung the jury to a false conclusion, would that be a fair trial and verdict? And to be honest, I fail to see what this case has to do with gender equality, unless there is some significant information I'm missing.

[Jubal]

The gender equality thing is simply about the question of what feminism is for. The argument advanced by the CUSU feminists among others is essentially that since rape is primarily a crime committed by men against women, it's a women's issue, and that attempts to legitimise the position of those accused of rape or to downplay the importance of rape are inherently a more fundamental attack on the worth of women since this is an issue which affects men far less. I'm partly arguing that the idea of a collective set of "women's issues" is a profoundly anti-feminist one as it assumes women can't make up their own minds and have to be marshalled into some kind of proto-Stalinist campaign force by peer pressure. I think there is some kind of inherent link between gender and rape in the same way there is between gender and some social issues like abortion rights or use of contraception, but I agree that it's first and foremost a criminal issue - which is my other point, people are getting incredibly worked up on this when actually issues like the highly commercialised sexuality of early teen culture (and even earlier) require a lot of serious debate and work and have a much bigger effect on how girls and boys see themselves at a formative age (but don't allow angry campaigners to have a hate figure to shout at so don't get noticed).

In terms of the allegations of rape, I'm clearly not qualified to say, however it does seem likely. Primarily because Assange won't let himself be extradited, when the Swedish legal position is fairly clear that under Swedish law it would be unbelievably difficult to put together a cogent argument that allowed him to be extradited to the USA. The Swedes have pretty specific exceptions in their extradition treaty with the US for most political and information leaking crimes, and there's at least one case of legal precedent for someone who leaked US documents not being extradited from Sweden. Given that it would be pretty easy to avoid extradition (barring conspiracy theory scenarios, but there are so many eyes on his case I have great difficulty with any of those), it seems absurd that if he's innocent he wouldn't just go and prove it in court.

Finally, FOI. Yes, it's important to have freedom in terms of courts and indeed in any case which is clearly in the public interest. It's worth remembering, though, that that isn't what Assange is arguing for. He's literally arguing that no government should ever be able to keep a secret or indeed should be allowed to. Which sounds nice in theory until you remember that governments handle a lot of sensitive personal data about their citizens in order to provide social services, so if the government has no secrets nor do the rest of us. It would also paralyse governments in any form of diplomacy if no secret communications were available. If diplomacy was open it would have no function, governments would just broadcast their opinions publicly as it would have the same effect. That means that people can't posture and then decide to avoid a conflict or war; if all the channels are open war becomes a far more likely resolution to problems as it's much harder to negotiate with a set of competing interests in that situation. Also, we have representative democracy because not every decision is easy; sometimes taxes have to go up, sometimes government needs to spend a little less. If nobody has secrets, politicians will be more scared of making decisions for the good of the public rather than because a vocal media will have incredibly easy access to all their files and will publicly shred them if they don't.

Or in other words, Assange's views work in a world where there are no ongoing conflicts, where we live in an anarchic society where social institutions don't organise anything for us, where all sides can be guaranteed to avoid a war, where international conflict is a really simple set of situations, and where all the people in every democracy are perfect decision makers on every issue. It's in some ways a nice world, but it's not real and it's not the one I live in. Distrust in government is a good and healthy thing, but not to the extent that we pull apart all of the tools it needs to do its job properly. Assange and his supporters also focus a lot on government at the expense of the markets, which is intensely unhealthy. Investigating specific issues with the system is fine, arguing for a managed change to a system is fine, but Assange is just trying to burn the system down without articulating a replacement in a way which is profoundly dangerous for our diplomats, our troops, and civilians across the world.