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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 9:30:57 GMT
I'm not sure if any of you have heard about what happened in Cologne on New Year's Eve, I only heard about it a few days later. It seems to have been quite scary and dramatic. Cologne sex attacksThere are lots of discussions going on, but what I find disturbing is that suddenly a lot of people seem to care about the women when they had never done so before. Admittedly, I think what happened was horrible, but a lot of people seem to claim that all the male refugees are dangerous and that we must expect this kind of thing to happen a lot more because of the refugees when actually, Germany men have been harassing women before and often enough, women were told they were just being over-sensitive. I myself often didn't dare to say when the behaviour of men in the bar that I worked in bothered me or made me feel horrible, just because you were supposed to be fine with men calling you a "bar slut" or saying they would like to F*** you. Women have been complaining about sexism for years, but now, because the men who attacked them were not German, people suddenly care about it. It's quite a difficult issue and my boss tried to discuss it with me lase week, but she also seemed to think it only haappened because we took in refugees and I just refuse to blame all the refugees, even if some of them were among the attackers.
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Post by raspberrybullets on Jan 10, 2016 9:53:48 GMT
Yeah, the idea is so stupid. As if white men never attack, harrass or rape women! Presumably it's making news because white men are telling the story.
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Post by raspberrybullets on Jan 10, 2016 9:53:59 GMT
Rascist white men.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 10:00:07 GMT
I agree with you. Actually, over 90 percent of the men who came to the bar that I worked in and said things that made me feel uncomfortable were white and German. But back then, it was my problem, I was just a prude and too sensitive. Admittedly, they didn't attack me like it happened in Cologne, but then there were usually some regulars who didn't want touble in "their" bar and who were ready to throw nasty people out and I was ususally behind the bar. Still, people now are talking as if German men hadn't been harrassing women for many years, as if that had only began on New Year's Eve.
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Post by Moose on Jan 10, 2016 17:52:00 GMT
Nonetheless, it does seem as though these were planned and organised sex attacks carried out in groups in large numbers. I am well aware that not all refugees - nor, I would hope, even the vast majority of them - are sex pests but the extent of these attacks is disturbing. Not to mention that they are doing a great disservice to their fellow refugees, who now find themselves being tarred with the same brush.
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Post by Moose on Jan 10, 2016 18:58:45 GMT
To add, I guess what i am saying is that i don't think that it's racist to say 'this is wrong and what happened was very serious and we need to be absolutely sure it does not happen again.' The trouble with being a white liberal is that by default we start to feel guilty if we make any suggestion at all that something a non white person does is wrong. But this WAS wrong and it was not a one off incident - there have been similar attacks in Sweden and Finland and ignoring it or pretending that anyone who comments is just xenophobic is not entirely helpful (I don't mean that anyone here is doing that)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 19:12:06 GMT
I do think what happened is really bad and they should be punished. But why was it not bad before when German men sexually harrassed women? Two and a half years ago there was the #Aufschrei campaign and women posted on Twitter and Blogs what they experienced (someone putting his hand between their legs in a crowd, a professor at university asking the women to sit in the back so he didn't have to smell them during their period). Many people, even politicians, called them too sensitive, said they should be happy they got the attention. Now even those who never cared about women's rights and these problems before suddenly speak out because it is so convenient. And that doesn't look good. I couldn't even say it botheres me when I was called a bar-slut, I had to accept it. It just shouldn't matter if German or foreign men do it, it is always bad. And I'm not sure if the reactions had been the same if German men had done this.
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Post by Moose on Jan 10, 2016 19:23:49 GMT
I would like to think that if German men had orchestrated a campaign of attacks and robberies then there would have been outrage too. I think there is, though, an understandable sense of outrage that it is really not cool to offer people hospitality in your country and have them promptly start planning assaults.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 19:46:19 GMT
It is a bit different then that. Some groups have been unhappy with the refugees for a long time, especially the AfD and Pegida. And they are using it to point out that all the refugees come from countries where men tend to do that kind of thing. If it was refugees (could have been different groups that have been causing problems for a while), those need to be punished, but only tose who did it.
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Post by spaceflower on Jan 11, 2016 1:32:04 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2016 8:18:04 GMT
To add, I guess what i am saying is that i don't think that it's racist to say 'this is wrong and what happened was very serious and we need to be absolutely sure it does not happen again.' The trouble with being a white liberal is that by default we start to feel guilty if we make any suggestion at all that something a non white person does is wrong. But this WAS wrong and it was not a one off incident - there have been similar attacks in Sweden and Finland and ignoring it or pretending that anyone who comments is just xenophobic is not entirely helpful (I don't mean that anyone here is doing that) I really do think what happened was absolutely horrible. And it doesn't get better if refugees were among those who did it. What annoys me is that some people now seem to think that every male refugee will do things like that and some right-wing groups are using that to support their opinion that we shouldn't allow more refugees to come here. I think it is very unfair to judge an entire group of people according to what some of them did, even when it was a horrible thing. I do, however, think that those who did it should be punished, even if they were refugees. The other thing I find annoying is that some politicians are suddenly interested in the rights of women when they used to say sexist things - I read about the Austrian politician Marcus Franz who once criticized that grabbing a woman's butt (to see if it is what it seems to be or someting like that) is now sexual harrassment according to the Austrian law. In a way I think it is unfair o the women as well because they are using what happened to them for their own purpose, which is usually right-wing politics. Admittedly, I'm really glad I don't work in a bar anymore because since I stopped working there, I haven't really been out by myself late at night and I'm glad I don't have to. I did find it scary to hear about what happened in Cologne. Here in Bremen, there are some problems with groups of north-African men who steal handbags, wallets and smartphones - mostly in the "Viertel", the area where lots of people like to go out on weekends. That was a problem before the refugees began to arrive, though. They are one of those groups of criminals who use the open borders in Europe for their criminal activities, not refugees, but they have been causing a lot of trouble. And even the lift-wing owner of the bar wrote a warning and he also wrote that he didn't like saying that, but that those criminals were northern-African men. That in itself doesn't really have anything to do with the refugees, though.
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Post by spaceflower on Jan 11, 2016 15:33:40 GMT
There is a group of refugees, "unaccompanied minors" (who are scornfully called "beard children" on the net, b/c many say they are not minor at all, they are lying b/c Sweden don't send minors back to their countries, unless they know that parents or other relatives are threre so receive them). Now some of the seem to have behaved badly during a youth festival in Stockholm. An the police did not tell the press, probably to avoid racist propaganda. www.thelocal.se/20160111/police-reinvestigate-sex-crimes-at-teen-festivalIt is no use covering up nowadays, it will all come out in social media on internet, and the racist propaganda will use it. "How much more are they covering up?"
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2016 21:02:16 GMT
According to one article in a Germany newspaper, Donald Trump heard about what happened in Cologne and has been using that. And yesterday, several Pakistan and one Syria men were attacked nd injured by right wing hooligans. Two Pakistan men were injured badly and I'm pretty sure those men didn't even have anything to do with what happened on New Year's Eve. I feared things like this would happen.
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Post by raspberrybullets on Jan 13, 2016 19:23:50 GMT
I think these right wing white men are actually more concerned that other men are imposing on "their" women. It's OK if they rape them, no issues there, nobobdy making a fuss about how horrific it is. It's still thinking of women as objects needing to be defended while they themselves (the white men) can do what they want to women. From what I've heard, the amount of rape happening at Octoberfest each year is horrific but doesn't make international headlines because that's white blokes doing it.
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Post by Moose on Jan 13, 2016 19:47:39 GMT
I've read reports of rape at Oktoberfest .. was quite shocked.
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Post by spaceflower on Jan 17, 2016 15:22:49 GMT
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