Austrians lack a good sense of humour, but I guess that's no news to anyone. All in all, their only funny moments are when they try to say something smart.
The frequency of such attempts increases dramatically in times of disturbing newscasts - and that's when the pathetic jocularity of philosophizing Austrians turns into pure agony.
Since media decided to actually cover those omnipresent occurrences of rape, people start to occupy themselves with this topic - and the outcome's mostly of depressing nature.
Someone brings up the issue of another girl having been raped and the reactions are still the same as they might have been half an eternity ago.
'She's probably provoked/asked for it'
'I don't think she has actually been raped'
'People overreact. If there'd really be that many rapes that'd mean that most men are rapists. Humans aren't that bad'
Uh-huh... I find it quite a bit interesting that there're still people out there believing in the good nature of humanity.
But let's think about it for a minute...
Fear is one of the most natural feelings we got, it's sometimes essential for our survival. As children, we don't know yet what to be afraid of in life so we make up monsters waiting in the dark, under our bed, in our wardrobe, to grab us and do horrible things to us, though we haven't got a clue what those things could be.
As we turn older, we find out that those monsters we're afraid of are actually all the people surrounding us. Relatives, our parent's friends, neighbours, they all could suddenly be the creatures we're so scared of.
When we need to go outside, to perambulate a dark forest, an unlit street, a parking garage or a narrow, secluded corridor, we don't fear any animal, virus or alien jumping 'round the corner in order to attack us. It's always humans we're afraid of.
In the newspaper, you'll hardly read about anything else killing, hurting, raping or whatevering humans than...?
Right. Humans.
So why always defend them? Because we're frightened of admitting that we belong to the most fucked-up, cruel and unscrupulous species of predators there is?
Oh, and why always defend the culprit? Because our minds are still stuck in the oh so holy bible, stating that women are to blame, like it was the case with Eva or the whore of babylon, for example?
I don't get you people.
And one other thing that bothers me like hell is that even those who don't go with the 'the victim's to blame'-theory consider these issues just as short-sightedly.
I came to overhear a guy suggesting to castrate all the sex offenders, that'd sort out this problem.
It was really hard for me to not tell him he should go to his son and cut off his balls this very instant.
As much as I myself would support lynch law for rapists, this is a thing that'll never be able to happen. Not with our laws, not with our politicians, not with that kind of people predominating the world, the kind of people being convinced that women are inferior and belong to men, that people aren't that bad and that everyone they know and like is a saint and could never do anything like that.
It'll take another ten thousand years until legislative authorities finally grow the idea of prosecuting sexual crimes in an adequate, serious way... if they ever will.
