SHOCK? WHAT SHOCK?

‘Shock’ was the reported widespread reaction to an accusation against a high-ranking politician, a Member of the Westminster Parliament representing a Northern Ireland constituency and the leader of his party. The man is contesting the accusation.

What’s shocking about a middle-aged man being charged with the alleged rape of a young woman?

Due legal processes will follow, with the accused considered innocent of all charges until found to be otherwise.

Something so commonplace cannot be shocking.

Dreadful, horrific even, yes. But no one could be shocked, given the dreadful horrors perpetrated on women everywhere.

We are not shocked by mass-killings of women, who are confined to a small enclave of territory by modern hi-tech military might, supplied, in large part, by nations founded on ethics of charity, love and mercy. 

There is nothing to be shocked about when an atrocity is committed on the basis of an appeal to freedom or on the basis of democratic rights. Such atrocities are commonplace and widespread.

Countries, who rest their political ethics on a God of Love, continually bomb, blast, invade and destroy other countries, invoking a God of Revenge to validate their actions.

There is nothing shocking in vicious acts by anti-state groups enacting violence for political or religious reasons. They are commonplace, across the globe. We cannot be shocked, yet we use shocked reactions as pretexts for acts of vengeful mass killing and destruction, that are modern, medieval and ahistorical at the same time.

Who can be shocked by the commonplace?

Countries do not act like they are shocked. They act as if untouched. 

Inured. Removed. Scot-free.

Righteous.

Though they are not.

The woman who was allegedly raped. The man who allegedly raped her. They are in and of us. The shock is the persistence of the act and the lack of impact in our lived experiences.

We continue perpetrating horrors on women. By rape and by war.

Shock? What shock?

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