I was fascinated to listen to the TED talk of Throdis Elva from Iceland and Tom Stranger from Australia. She's the victim of rape and he was the rapist and it happened 21 years ago!
Preamble.
At the time of the assault:-
* Both were 16 years old.
* Tom Stranger was an exchange student in Throdis Elva's native Iceland for one year of
high school.
* He was her boyfriend.
* One night, he forced himself on her when she was drunk and unable to fight back.
* And how did she pass through the horror? I quote her because it's vivid and explains her
helplessness, "In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock and
ever since that night, I've known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours!"
* She says that the incident did not fit her ideas of rape which were and I quote:-
- "He wasn't an armed lunatic.
- He was my boyfriend.
- It didn't happen in a seedy alleyway.
- It happened in my own body causing irreparable damage to the relationship".
The Healing Process.
At 25 yrs, as she was heading for a mental breakdown, she sat down, wrote and sent a letter to him as to how she felt. It was the beginning of an eight year long e-mail correspondence that culminated in a meeting between the two, 21 years later, at a neutral point - Cape Town in South Africa, the 'midpoint' between Iceland and Australia.
Throdis Elva was, then, married and the mother of a 9 year old boy.
The Achievement of Peace.
They'd talked and agonisingly gone about the "darkest moment of their lives".
The TED Talk.
At the talk, they describe their collaborative process of reckoning with Stranger's action and jointly transferring blame for the rape from Elva to Stranger! They've co-authored a book, "South of Forgiveness", which has since been published.
My take.
A matured effort to go through a very sensitive issue and come out of the trauma for the rape victim. The rapist's direct involvement in the healing process is laudable, indeed.
Tailpiece.
And that brings me to the anger that wells in me against protagonists who advocate the marriage between the rapist and the victim. To me it amounts to giving legal sanctity to the rapist to rape the victim, at will, because she has become 'his property'.
Preamble.
At the time of the assault:-
* Both were 16 years old.
* Tom Stranger was an exchange student in Throdis Elva's native Iceland for one year of
high school.
* He was her boyfriend.
* One night, he forced himself on her when she was drunk and unable to fight back.
* And how did she pass through the horror? I quote her because it's vivid and explains her
helplessness, "In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock and
ever since that night, I've known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours!"
* She says that the incident did not fit her ideas of rape which were and I quote:-
- "He wasn't an armed lunatic.
- He was my boyfriend.
- It didn't happen in a seedy alleyway.
- It happened in my own body causing irreparable damage to the relationship".
The Healing Process.
At 25 yrs, as she was heading for a mental breakdown, she sat down, wrote and sent a letter to him as to how she felt. It was the beginning of an eight year long e-mail correspondence that culminated in a meeting between the two, 21 years later, at a neutral point - Cape Town in South Africa, the 'midpoint' between Iceland and Australia.
Throdis Elva was, then, married and the mother of a 9 year old boy.
The Achievement of Peace.
They'd talked and agonisingly gone about the "darkest moment of their lives".
The TED Talk.
At the talk, they describe their collaborative process of reckoning with Stranger's action and jointly transferring blame for the rape from Elva to Stranger! They've co-authored a book, "South of Forgiveness", which has since been published.
My take.
A matured effort to go through a very sensitive issue and come out of the trauma for the rape victim. The rapist's direct involvement in the healing process is laudable, indeed.
Tailpiece.
And that brings me to the anger that wells in me against protagonists who advocate the marriage between the rapist and the victim. To me it amounts to giving legal sanctity to the rapist to rape the victim, at will, because she has become 'his property'.
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