The tragic events of October 22 at the Parliament in Ottawa have caused many reactions. The government has jumped on it as an opportunity to crack down on potential persons who might see it fit to hurt people in the name of a certain cause they believe in. The general population has become more patriotic, as though that will protect them from such persons. The members of parliament seem to have become quieted. Their responses to having been locked down for the day of the shooting seems to have intimidated them into submission. I'm speaking particularly of the opposition members whose duty it is is to ask hard questions in order to keep the ruling party in check. I haven't seen this happen so far, although a call for a reasonable response has been made.
This is where I'm making the leap from men's violence against women to this incident. Violence works. At least in the short term. It keeps the recipient of violence afraid enough to keep quiet in order to avoid possible further injuries. My guess is that the same phenomena is occurring with our MP's in Ottawa and in our nation's capitals.
Having worked for 18 years with men who were violent to their wives I got a good sense of how this happens. While working with them I had to learn to overcome my natural fear of their possible behaviours towards me as well.
Too often we judge women for not simply leaving their husbands after being violated, or at least speaking out. So, perhaps I'm being too harsh on our opposition members for not speaking out and setting an example as to how to overcome these natural fears and to address their own needs for comfort and reassurance.
Let's put it this way. If we paid as much attention to stopping the violent behaviours of men towards their partners as we appear to be towards potential violators of the public in the name of whatever, we'd stop up to 100 deaths and many injuries a year in Canada alone. Interesting priorities we have. One's accepted as "normal", as in "common", while the other is treated as an anomaly that's worth spending billions of dollars to stomp out. So, I'm naturally asking myself why this seems so important. Is it normal to cause violence against one's partner, but not against one's citizens or soldiers? Both are violent. Both are intimidating. Both cause irreparable harm.
Why not view all violence as unacceptable and come up with help-based solutions rather than with more violence?
Our PM made the statement that we will not be intimidated by this horrible act. What did he mean? What if women weren't intimidated after being abused by their husbands? What would be the appropriate response? Fight back? Fight fire with fire? Kill or be killed? That seems to be the answer to most violence. Why isn't that the answer for women? I'm not suggesting that. What I'm saying is that violence may work for a while but if both parties participate in the violence it follows that each party will have to up the ante until mutual destruction is inevitable. Violence does not stop violence. If it did we'd be over it by now. Right?
Why can't "we won't be intimidated" mean instead that we won't be tempted to lock down the country and take away citizen's rights in order to attempt to end this kind of violence? Why can't it mean that we'll put our resources into caring for our people by making sure they have their basic needs met? Why doesn't it mean that we'll make democracy a real word instead of a euphemism for what ought to be? What if we ran our country based on what will be best for the overall good, rather than what will increase the GDP?
If we have the ability to know that we can be otherwise we can choose to do so. What's stopping us?
