Love Thine Enemies

"At times,
I watch you hold your heart
aloft from ruin-
us splendor.
Wielding words to fend off phantoms
Whose lives have long been disremembered."
-Kemba Saran, From A Dress of Steel Mesh

I hear theoretical talk in political, activist, and religious circles about "loving your enemies-" always at some theoretical remove, as if it is an altruistic or clinical decision you make to gain the moral high-ground. It positions the "enemies," presumably people who commit acts of injustice against you or build a world where you are oppressed- as somehow out there, external to your intimate world. A world of good-guys and anonymous bad-guys where your enemies come pre-packaged and labeled, perhaps even mustachioed, so that you might identify them easily as strangers behind a bush, or behind an ideology you despise. First you "other" them. Then you love them. This is liberal feel-good love-at-a-distance. I think they make an NPR mug for that if you donate $75 during the right fundraiser.

There are certain struggles for moral and social justice where this anonymous model may apply- "enemies" are faceless baton-wielding riot police who enforce segregation and don't live in your neighborhood, or bused-in basij you have never met. They do not live in your house. They do not sleep in your bed. They do not kiss you good morning and break-up with you because you glass-ceilinged your way to a raise and now make more money than them. They do not threaten to hit you when you are arguing about sex. A full half of the world's population is regularly targeted for political violence committed by "enemies" they know and likely love. 76% of the 1.5 million rapes and physical assaults of women annually in the US (to women over the age of 18) are committed by a current or former intimate partner, husband, or date.* Love-rs. That statistic doesn't include other forms of acquaintance rape or childhood violence where the perpetrator is likely someone else that woman may have loved and trusted- a friend, teacher, colleague, religious leader, or family member. So, the men battering and raping women- and I feel secure in calling those men the "enemies" of women's safety, lives, and well-being- ARE ALREADY LOVED by their victims. Intimately. Dearly. And yes, I called this violence "political violence." The presence of love does not make it a-political. Like slaves, women have been considered private property until recently historically. A man of privilege had the legal right to hit his slaves and his wife. To rape them. To expect them not to speak if it irritated him. We now recognize racist violence as political violence- but violence and power plays based on gender are still so normative culturally we barely recognize them at all. But male dominance is deeply political. Even if the perpetrator is your boyfriend. Even if he can't spell the word politics.

• Almost 40% of all men living intimately with women have used force and the repeated threat of force to control and dominate their partners during the course of the relationship. [Bathrick, Dick; Kaufman, Gus Jr, PhD. Male Violence and Male Privilege, accessed 11/02/08.]
  

• One in 12 college men admit to acts that meet the legal definition of rape. [Koss, Woodruff, and Koss, 1990. Statistics on Sexual violence Against Women: A Criminological Study.]

What the hell do we do with that?

According to the UN Commission on the Status of Women- globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. 1 in 3. Do you have a mother? A sister? A daughter? One of them has very likely been raped or beaten. I had a vivid dream last summer during an argument with a man that I care for deeply. I wanted him to understand my motivations. In the dream I was in his arms weeping- explaining that all I wanted to do was throw shattered glass and twisted nails onto the street in front of the oncoming basiji forces. It was as profound a feeling of powerlessness conjoined with unrepentant will as I have ever known. In the dream it did not represent my desire to literally blockade the agents of the IRI regime, but the forces of male violence. Patriarchy. The same intensity of rage, of instinct for self-preservation exists for women- the "weaker sex" as for men. When I hear that another friend is trapped in a marriage with a man who throws her against the wall, gives her carpet burns on her face from dragging, threatens her with kitchen knives, injures her so badly she is hospitalized- I am enraged. 1 in 3. It starts when you are young, the stories. "So-and-so was beaten black-and-blue in her fortress of well-being." Then another. And another. And another. 1 in 3. Treated differently, targeted with violence because she is female. Violence against women is the second leading cause of death among 20-24 year old American women, and the third leading cause of death among 15-19 year old girls. [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2004 Leading Causes of Death by Age Group, All Females- United States http://www.cdc.gov/Women/lcod/04all.pdf, accessed 11/02/08.] I feel as strongly about Azadi for every woman I know as I do about the freedom of Iran or any other tyrannical nightmare. When the story broke that political prisoners were being raped in Iran, it was met by global activist outrage. *Every woman who is raped by the man she lives with, is married to, or in a relationship with, is in prison.* 1 in 3. Where is our Twitter Revolution? Where is our trending topic? hashtag #1in3. If men were targeted this way we would have an armed uprising. We would have a volunteer militia and a Twitter Revolution. But they're not, so we don't.

Women are targeted. So, mostly, we have silence. We have "it's your job to _______ (listen to, agree with, fellate, tolerate) me," "if you don't ________ (fuck me, soothe me, shut up, etc) I'll ________(make you)." We have reporting rates of 16%, 37%, or less than 50%, depending on who's counting. We have rape shield laws that have actually had to be put in place to protect the VICTIM of the crime from accusations.

Boys who witness their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes. (Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, 1993) Abuse includes non-physical forms of force and coercion. Abuse includes disrespect of personhood. If you would wage an uprising if someone systematically did it to you, don't do it to women. Sometimes we "watch you hold your heart(s) aloft from ruin-us splendor." We know you were the little boys watching their mothers and sisters being tormented. Being demeaned. We know it tormented you, too: "Wielding words to fend off phantoms Whose lives have long been disremembered."

Azadi.