Det kan kanske Daniella Mestyanek Young svara på.
Hon växte upp i den destruktiva sekten Children of God (The Family), beryktad för bland annat övergrepp mot barn. Hon lyckades fly ifrån den när hon var femton år.
Sedan rekryterades hon till USA:s armé, men kom snart att uppleva att det definitivt finns stora likheter mellan livet i armén och livet i sekten... Hon har skrivit en bok om sina erfarenheter.
Läs mer här.
Boken heter "Uncultured: a memoir" och kan bland annat beställas här.
/Från min huvudblogg/
När jag hade en hemsida dominerades dess innehåll mycket av ett ämne som
rituella övergrepp. Även om jag efter ett tag försökte ändra
terminologi och använda andra ord för detta. Min blogg däremot skrev
till en början väldigt lite om rituella övergrepp, men när min hemsida
lades ner kom det mer om detta ämne i bloggen än tidigare. Men de
senaste åren har jag haft extremt lite om detta.
Sedan har jag en
speciell blogg om rituella och organiserade övergrepp, men även i denna
hade jag successivt skrivit mer om organiserade än om rituella
övergrepp.
Kanske kommer bloggen att bli mer intressant om jag
fokuserar mer på rtt ämne som rituella övergrepp. Då kommer jag att ha
den enda bloggen i Sverige som fokuserar på detta kontroversiella ämne
och det kan mycket väl leda till ökat intresse.
Varför lämnade
jag det ursprungliga fokuset? Lämnade jag det som en eftergift till
samhället i stort, som inte vill höra talas om sådant? Lämnade jag det
på grund av rädsla för vad som skulle kunna hända mig om jag skrev
mycket om detta ämne? (!!!)
Det är obehagliga tankar.
En intressant artikel i den socialistiska tidningen "Socialist Worker" om sexuella övergrepp utförda av poliser i Storbritannien. Jag delar inte de drastiska slutsatserna mot slutet av artikeln - parollen "Abolish the police"! - men den innehåller värdefulla fakta.
Detta är artikelns webbadress.
David Carrick used his role as an armed Met police officer to rape and sexually abuse 12 women. He told his victims, “You are my slave,” describing them as “fat and lazy” as he urinated on and whipped them. He locked some in a small cupboard under the stairs without food and forced them to clean his house naked.
Carrick told them when they could eat and sleep, and controlled their finances. He refused to let them speak to friends, other men or their own children. And if his victims dared to speak up, Carrick told them they would never be believed as he was a police officer.
One woman came forward in the wake of Sarah Everard’s kidnap and murder by serving police officer Wayne Couzens in 2021. Carrick has now pleaded guilty to 49 charges. Both Carrick and Couzens were members of the Metropolitan Police’s elite armed parliamentary and diplomatic protection command.
Southwark Crown Court this week heard that from 2003 to 2020 Carrick abused some of his victims on multiple occasions over months or years in his home county, Hertfordshire. Many attacks involved physical violence that left victims injured. His disgusting character was widely known by his colleagues, as he was nicknamed, “Bastard Dave”. He was only suspended after a second rape accusation was made against him in October 2021.
The Met Police has now said a total of 1,633 cases, ranging from arguments to the most serious sexual crimes, involving 1,071 officers and staff, will be reviewed. But it won’t fix the institutionally sexist nature of the cops. Carrick’s sexist crimes aren’t an isolated event. He and Couzens aren’t just bad apples—the whole orchard is rotten.
Between 2019 and 2020, 160 Met officers were accused of sexual assault, harassment and other forms of misconduct. But just four have been “suspended or restricted” as a result. Since 2009 at least 15 serving or former officers have killed women in Britain, with the true figure likely much higher. The police are institutionally sexist because their job is to reinforce the power structures and the role of the state.
Because police uphold the system, they reflect its ideas. That’s why Carrick, Couzens, racists, bullies, homophobes and sexists are pulled towards it. Now it is even more clear that the police don’t protect us. They abuse us. Police reform, inquiries and reviews aren’t enough. We must abolish the police./Från tidningen "Socialist Worker". /
Instead, they tell us about how the organisations are run, who is likely to be in them, and their wider function within capitalist society. Last month charity Salute Her UK said that 177 women have come forward to say they were raped at the elite Sandhurst military officer training centre. It described an “epidemic” of rapes across the military.
And it came just a month after a host of allegations about the Royal Navy showing that women were subject to endless sexual intimidation and violence. One allegation detailed that submariners compiled a list about in which order women would be raped in the event of a catastrophic event. Former lieutenant Sophie Brook said, “The best thing I ever did was leave the Navy, but I worry about the women I left behind. It was a constant campaign of sexual bullying.”
It comes against a backdrop of court cases for cops accused of everything from multiple rapes to being part of WhatsApp groups containing sexist and racist content. A running thread through these instances is that women’s complaints were not treated seriously.
Capitalist societies rely on arms of the state, such as the secret service, cops and armed forces to protect what they see as the normal running of society. Capitalism is also riven with oppression, and within these institutions it can be particularly sharp.
For instance, the cops’ role in society is to suppress working class people and protect the interests of the rich. They reflect the worst sorts of oppressive ideas that are pushed from the top of society. And the toxic culture becomes an endless cycle of fresh bigots rising through the ranks. They are attracted by an environment where racism, sexism and homophobia runs rampant.
But it’s not just a case about how sexist, bigoted individuals within their own ranks are treated, but how these political outlooks inform practice. In December, the independent review into the dramatic fall in rape prosecutions described “explicit victim blaming” within the police.
Authors of the review, which looked at 80,000 cases across five forces, found that “officers don’t think” that sexual offences “should be a priority for policing.” The day-to-day role of the army and navy are different in practice. But the ideological framework that shapes the institutions, alongside the hierarchal structures, are similar.
They reinforce internally the rotten power structures that encourage and amplify an abuse of power.
This is added to a pressure put on victims of sexual violence. They rely on the myth of mutual service to “King and country” to help hush up allegations of violence.
The details in each case are utterly horrendous. The case of cop Wayne Couzens is a good example of how some of the most violent people in society are comfortable within institutions of the state.
Sarah Everard’s rape and murder may have been shocking to the general public. But it probably wasn’t to Couzens’ colleagues at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, who nicknamed him “the rapist”. The wider sexist, racist and homophobic behaviour within these organisations is not an isolated problem for individuals. These institutions of the state use their systems of rank and hierarchy as an effective tool to shut down complaints in the first place.
Victims are told they’re unlikely to be believed. And organisations don’t like to scrutinise their own behaviour. The culture of sexual violence within these organisations is about the function of the institution in capitalist society.
The behaviour and culture of the arms of the state is no accident. It’s indicative of the wider rot of oppression under capitalism as a whole.
