On Lara Logan and Egypt
Ursula LindseyI wrote a piece for the Daily Beast yesterday trying to put the sad attack on CBS correspondent Lara Logan in context. (Logan was reportedly "beaten and sexually assaulted" by a crowd the night Egyptians were celebrating Mubarak's resignation).
A lot of US coverage has been, as far as I can tell, insensitive, sensationalistic or ridiculous (or some combination thereof). I have read incredibly inhumane comments focused on Logan's good looks; her supposed naivete in going into the crowds (never mind that she was just doing her job); and the ways in which she will supposedly milk this for her career (yeah, I wish it had happened to me, what a great way to advance).
Then there are those who have taken this incident as an excuse to trot out their (non-existent) knowledge of the status of women in Islamic countries. Ironically, even as some right-wing commentators say Logan should have expected this in a country full of Muslim "savages," they reveal the misogyny of American culture by looking for ways to blame the victim of a sexual attack.
Anyway, what happened to Logan is terrible--and it highlights the problem of sexual harassment in Egypt, which Egyptian women have been fighting for some time now. They may make more progress now that so many of them participated so fully in, and felt so empowered by, their country's revolution.
Reader Comments (9)
That's an excellent, excellent article in the Daily Beast. Thanks.
A prominent US journalist resigend over some derogative comments regarding the incident, obviously claiming Logan's status as a well known war monger made her susceptible to such egregious attacks. What happened to Ms Logan is completely unacceptable and wrong, but i cannot help but think that any US corespondent or journalist working in the region must be very naive to say the least and not expect retaliation. Furthermore the US has lost any nuggets of credibility still left in the region ten yeras ago, with her illegal war in Iraq. We have now confirmation from the German whistleblower to Colin Powell's infamous presentation before the UN, regarding his claims of the existence of mobile production facilities of biological agents in Iraq, were completely fabricated and wrong. It was a central argument for building the case to go to war. It is simply unacceptable that those perpetuating these lies have not been held accountable. In modern democracies based on the rule of law the end justifies the means mentality must not prevail, or we face moral decay examplified by US/Israel Middle East double standard policy today and ultimately resulting in instability which poses a danger to the intricate socio-economic-political global network.
Unfortunately this argument is not being upheld as forcefully as i would like it, but to any US journalists and correspondents i would suggest to prove their genuine intentions at home first before they go out and try to wipe clean the door steps of their neighbours.
Thanks for writing with balance, U. Appreciated by all females, but particularly those in Masr.
Great piece. The comments regarding Logan's responsibility in her ordeal are despicable.
This type collective sexual assault in Egypt have always puzzled me because they are collective and in public settings where you would think social norms would prevent them from happening. They tend to happened in settings where young men feel norms do not apply. When there is an atmosphere of anonymity and permissiveness. The festive character of the Cairo gathering probably contributed to this.
The two time I have witnessed group sexual assault were at mouleds settings whose festive characters probably let peple to believe social norms don't apply. In that sense they are similar to what Carnivals are in northern Europe. Historically mouleds have been places of sexual promiscuity. Not so long ago the tradition of the batania el-kebira (giant blanket) still existed. At night some tents were taken down and people would slip underneath the cloth and have anonymous sex (including gay sex).
One of the occurrence I witnessed at at Sayeda Zeynab's mouled, a popular neighborhood, a young well dressed Egyptian couple was walking down the street. They kind of stood out in the crowd. A group of young men, some of them probably no older than 13 or 14, starting cat calling the woman and then one went to grope her and everything went berserk. It seems that once the groping had started other felt it was fair game and more gathered trying to grope the woman. When the man realized that they could not just walk (well run) away it took his belt out and starting whipping the crowd away that allowed policemen to get closer (earlier they could not because the crowd was so tight) and whisk the couple away. No meninvolve in this must have been more than 25 years old.
The other occurrence was at Tanta's mouled. The minute we arrived the Egyptian female friend I was with started to be verbally harassed. We were just ignoring the cat calls but that somehow embolded the crowd of may be 15 young men that had started following us. Again, one tried to grope my friend as we were trying to get away and then the group went crazy. I had to throw a couple of punches to keep the crowd away until we reached the safety of a shop. After that we changed strategy, instead of walking casually next to each other. We held arms in the very proper way Egyptian couple do. It somehow sent the message she was spoken for and we did not get harassed anymore.
After both incident, including the one I was not involved in, older Egyptian came to me (I don't blend in) and apologize for their fellow countrymen's behavior.
Commenter Ragab El-Khawaga,
Thank you for taking the time to describe your experiences with such potent descriptions, descriiptions that are potent enough to be quite helpful to a sociologist, I would think. (Even this non-sociologist American feminist recognizes a certain syndrome from your descriptions.) Your additions at the end about success in using body signals to connote "spoken for" and about older people apologizing were points that really added to the whole.
The saddest thing is that this whole situation could have been avoided if CBS has taken some precautions: http://morningquickie.com/2011/02/18/why-lara-logan-raped-female-reporter-safety/
As a journalist could comment a little on perhaps what may have been behind Nir Rosen's comments. I'm not asking you to state condemn him and the comments. I would like to know if it may be an example of a type of machismo found among some journalists who spend a lot of time on the ground vs. the others who spend more time in studio. is there a cultural clash among the journalists?
@zinger - journos who spend a lot of time on the ground tend to resent the parachutists who get attention, plus if you've been in much hairier situations yourself, as Rosen has e.g. in Falluja and with Iraqi insurgents, I suppose it's easy to be macho and pooh-pooh more "standard" challenges that journos and women in general face in crowds in Egypt. Plus men have no friggin idea how it feels to be harrassed and felt up and generally intimidated in such situations. And I bet Rosen is overcompensating for the fact that he wasn't there, though he would have liked to be and probably was better placed than many of the big-name TV journos to comment.
Well put. I've been trying to put my finger on what bothered me about commentary on Logan's rape, and you expressed it perfectly.