When do we accept allegations of rape? I was pulled into thinking about this after an American woman recently accused a former interior minister of raping her and a former prime minister and another minister of making indecent advances at her.
Let me clarify first that I do not know Cynthia Ritchie, have never met her and only occasionally come across some of her Twitter content that floats into one’s inbox. That content, for the most, part is either very ordinary and forgettable or rude and polemical. I have no interest in either.
So, it wasn’t until my team sent me her Facebook video that I realised she had accused Rehman Malik, a former PPP interior minister, of raping her. Subsequently, I saw some reactions on social media. There were people who supported her. There were others who blasted her.
This would be normal and nothing to write home about but for two reasons: one, Ms. Ritchie has been travelling to Pakistan and working here since 2009 or 2010. In recent times, she has been doing public relations work for Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR). That should be unexceptionable, again, except that her detractors say she is deeply plugged in with the army, is guided by the ISPR and acts as the thin end of the wedge in dealing with detractors of the army. They also accuse her of being vile and taking politically-tainted anti-feminist and anti-minority positions.
Two, many people who would normally be sympathetic to a woman alleging rape, have chosen instead to attack her. Their responses range from accusing her of lying to slut-shaming her (i.e., alleging she has slept with many men in power here) to calling in question her motives and the timing of her accusations. In other words, they have argued that her allegations should be dismissed because she is lying or because the allegations are politically-motivated or both. As a friend said, “Cynthia has caused mixed emotions among our feminist icons with many men [and women] failing to meet standards of empathy or restraint expected of them.”
Let’s now go back to our original question, but formulate it differently: Should we accept rape allegations by a victim, woman or man, only when we can find affinities with her — political, ideological etc — or treat such allegations seriously regardless? Put another way, should we apply the #MeToo ‘principle’ or weigh externalities that have nothing to do with the allegations?
I decided to speak with some bright, feminist friends. Here’s the gist of those conversations:
The principle is to believe all women when they accuse someone of raping them. Reason: history and evidence show that women are rarely lying when they make claims about sexual assault. As the #MeToo movement has shown, sexual assault and harassment are far more widespread than we had imagined. Given these facts, one should believe Cynthia. We have no basis to exclude her and say this principle does not apply to her because we don’t like her politics and her past actions have been vile. Vile people are not immune from abuse and assault.
I found that interesting so decided to play the devil’s advocate: What about credibility? If we believe that Ms. Ritchie is not very credible and we can make a strong case on that because of her past actions and her frequent unsubstantiated claims against other women, why should we take her own accusations on face value?
The answer is that if we choose not to believe Ms. Ritchie based on our own subjective assessment of whether we like her past claims or not, we endorse the viewpoint that women lie for personal gain. We should not be comfortable endorsing that viewpoint because we know that women more often than not do not lie in such cases. Also, it is indisputable that abuse against women is rampant in Pakistan. It is highly likely that several men have made an inappropriate pass at her or done more and worse.
This view is clearly in line with how feminists approach allegations of rape and it has risen to the level almost of becoming a “principle”. In Ms. Ritchie’s case, however, many feminists in Pakistan have chosen to see the principal contradiction, if you will, differently — not in the gender divide or against “patriarchy”, but between their view of civilian supremacy and army’s control. That Ms. Ritchie, reportedly, is close to the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf and the army, the patron organisation of PTI, seems to decide the issue, regardless of the aforementioned “principle”. I mention this because while I find the principle problematic at several levels, I find it equally problematic that some feminists would choose to veer away from it in Ms Ritchie’s case. To that extent, I find the view of the feminist friends I spoke with consistent and principled within the context of #MeToo’s evolution.
Meanwhile, Ms. Ritchie has stuck to her guns and her narrative, which skated on the thin edge of PG-13 is now inching up to NC-17. The PPP big guns she has accused have given statements denying any wrong doing, which is hardly surprising. So, I thought it was time to get to some legal minds to find out how this would play out. Here’s that view:
Looking at it legally, there are two aspects here: one procedural, the other substantive. The procedural entails that a woman or man making an accusation of rape or harassment should be taken seriously and a fair investigation conducted. This part should be uncontentious. The substantive issue is the weight that a court and then society accord to the accuser’s testimony. Should the accuser have a presumption of truth attached to his or her testimony? This is an issue that remains contentious.
So, what is the principle that should be adopted? That an accuser deserves a fair investigation and trial and also a presumption of truth as regards the accusation of rape or harassment? If the investigation results in material that merits a trial then a trial must be conducted. During the trial what weight is given to the evidence of the accuser will bring into play the accuser’s credibility in the eye of the court. This will depend to a large extent on the court’s prejudices and conditioning.
The last bit is very instructive and is obvious from the two opposing judgments written by Justices Saqib Nisar and Nasir ul Mulk in the Mukhtaran Mai case. If the trial ends in an acquittal for the accused but the society judges the accuser to be credible, public opinion may side with the accuser despite the acquittal of the accused. In the case of Ms. Ritchie, as determined earlier, a section of society, liberal for the most part, has already judged her to be not credible, not necessarily because what she is saying is false but because that liberal section doesn’t like the army and, by extension, the current PTI government.
My own position on this is close to what a friend said: Overall, the idea that an allegation must be believed at face value is problematic. While it helps the victims of sexual assault and harassment in some circumstances, as it must, it also opens the door to false allegations being used as a weapon, whether for political purposes or for settling personal scores or any other malicious intent.
This, then, is the grey area both in the court of public opinion as well as the court of law and it remains contentious, except for feminists who are prepared to take clear sides.
Corollary: the only losers in this instance are those feminists who have chosen to stray from their own “principle” and attacked Ms. Ritchie for reasons that have nothing to do with her accusations. What will they do tomorrow when someone they are close to ideologically brings such accusations against X,Y,Z? Go back to the ‘principle’ they have chosen to ignore in Ms Ritchie’s case?
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times and is fascinated by our many contradictions! He reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider
Let me clarify first that I do not know Cynthia Ritchie, have never met her and only occasionally come across some of her Twitter content that floats into one’s inbox. That content, for the most, part is either very ordinary and forgettable or rude and polemical. I have no interest in either.
So, it wasn’t until my team sent me her Facebook video that I realised she had accused Rehman Malik, a former PPP interior minister, of raping her. Subsequently, I saw some reactions on social media. There were people who supported her. There were others who blasted her.
This would be normal and nothing to write home about but for two reasons: one, Ms. Ritchie has been travelling to Pakistan and working here since 2009 or 2010. In recent times, she has been doing public relations work for Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR). That should be unexceptionable, again, except that her detractors say she is deeply plugged in with the army, is guided by the ISPR and acts as the thin end of the wedge in dealing with detractors of the army. They also accuse her of being vile and taking politically-tainted anti-feminist and anti-minority positions.
Two, many people who would normally be sympathetic to a woman alleging rape, have chosen instead to attack her. Their responses range from accusing her of lying to slut-shaming her (i.e., alleging she has slept with many men in power here) to calling in question her motives and the timing of her accusations. In other words, they have argued that her allegations should be dismissed because she is lying or because the allegations are politically-motivated or both. As a friend said, “Cynthia has caused mixed emotions among our feminist icons with many men [and women] failing to meet standards of empathy or restraint expected of them.”
Let’s now go back to our original question, but formulate it differently: Should we accept rape allegations by a victim, woman or man, only when we can find affinities with her — political, ideological etc — or treat such allegations seriously regardless? Put another way, should we apply the #MeToo ‘principle’ or weigh externalities that have nothing to do with the allegations?
I decided to speak with some bright, feminist friends. Here’s the gist of those conversations:
The principle is to believe all women when they accuse someone of raping them. Reason: history and evidence show that women are rarely lying when they make claims about sexual assault. As the #MeToo movement has shown, sexual assault and harassment are far more widespread than we had imagined. Given these facts, one should believe Cynthia. We have no basis to exclude her and say this principle does not apply to her because we don’t like her politics and her past actions have been vile. Vile people are not immune from abuse and assault.
I found that interesting so decided to play the devil’s advocate: What about credibility? If we believe that Ms. Ritchie is not very credible and we can make a strong case on that because of her past actions and her frequent unsubstantiated claims against other women, why should we take her own accusations on face value?
The answer is that if we choose not to believe Ms. Ritchie based on our own subjective assessment of whether we like her past claims or not, we endorse the viewpoint that women lie for personal gain. We should not be comfortable endorsing that viewpoint because we know that women more often than not do not lie in such cases. Also, it is indisputable that abuse against women is rampant in Pakistan. It is highly likely that several men have made an inappropriate pass at her or done more and worse.
This view is clearly in line with how feminists approach allegations of rape and it has risen to the level almost of becoming a “principle”. In Ms. Ritchie’s case, however, many feminists in Pakistan have chosen to see the principal contradiction, if you will, differently — not in the gender divide or against “patriarchy”, but between their view of civilian supremacy and army’s control. That Ms. Ritchie, reportedly, is close to the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf and the army, the patron organisation of PTI, seems to decide the issue, regardless of the aforementioned “principle”. I mention this because while I find the principle problematic at several levels, I find it equally problematic that some feminists would choose to veer away from it in Ms Ritchie’s case. To that extent, I find the view of the feminist friends I spoke with consistent and principled within the context of #MeToo’s evolution.
Meanwhile, Ms. Ritchie has stuck to her guns and her narrative, which skated on the thin edge of PG-13 is now inching up to NC-17. The PPP big guns she has accused have given statements denying any wrong doing, which is hardly surprising. So, I thought it was time to get to some legal minds to find out how this would play out. Here’s that view:
Looking at it legally, there are two aspects here: one procedural, the other substantive. The procedural entails that a woman or man making an accusation of rape or harassment should be taken seriously and a fair investigation conducted. This part should be uncontentious. The substantive issue is the weight that a court and then society accord to the accuser’s testimony. Should the accuser have a presumption of truth attached to his or her testimony? This is an issue that remains contentious.
So, what is the principle that should be adopted? That an accuser deserves a fair investigation and trial and also a presumption of truth as regards the accusation of rape or harassment? If the investigation results in material that merits a trial then a trial must be conducted. During the trial what weight is given to the evidence of the accuser will bring into play the accuser’s credibility in the eye of the court. This will depend to a large extent on the court’s prejudices and conditioning.
The last bit is very instructive and is obvious from the two opposing judgments written by Justices Saqib Nisar and Nasir ul Mulk in the Mukhtaran Mai case. If the trial ends in an acquittal for the accused but the society judges the accuser to be credible, public opinion may side with the accuser despite the acquittal of the accused. In the case of Ms. Ritchie, as determined earlier, a section of society, liberal for the most part, has already judged her to be not credible, not necessarily because what she is saying is false but because that liberal section doesn’t like the army and, by extension, the current PTI government.
My own position on this is close to what a friend said: Overall, the idea that an allegation must be believed at face value is problematic. While it helps the victims of sexual assault and harassment in some circumstances, as it must, it also opens the door to false allegations being used as a weapon, whether for political purposes or for settling personal scores or any other malicious intent.
This, then, is the grey area both in the court of public opinion as well as the court of law and it remains contentious, except for feminists who are prepared to take clear sides.
Corollary: the only losers in this instance are those feminists who have chosen to stray from their own “principle” and attacked Ms. Ritchie for reasons that have nothing to do with her accusations. What will they do tomorrow when someone they are close to ideologically brings such accusations against X,Y,Z? Go back to the ‘principle’ they have chosen to ignore in Ms Ritchie’s case?
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times and is fascinated by our many contradictions! He reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider