Rape And The Lynch Mob
By Asgar Hussein and Niranjala Ariyawansha-Monday, August 13, 2012
A glimpse into the 18th century “lynch mob”
Over the past several weeks, there have been howls by the public to reactivate the gallows. This, they say, is the ultimate solution for rape and sexual abuse of children.
The reasoning goes something like this – there are too many dangerous sex maniacs in our midst, so let’s hang them and build a safe and moral society.
We have experienced this kind of thinking before. It is a mix of ignorance, irrationality and morbid perversity. It is a national disease, and the symptoms are very clear – emotions overcome reason, and rhetoric clouds the real issues. It is the kind of thinking that fed the ethnic violence, and more recently, caused the Grease Yaka phenomenon.
Now we hear the shrill cries of the advocates of death. Their mentality is that of the lynch mob – no reason and rationality, only a perverse hatred. In fact, they have not even grasped the shadow of the problem.
The reasoning goes something like this – there are too many dangerous sex maniacs in our midst, so let’s hang them and build a safe and moral society.
We have experienced this kind of thinking before. It is a mix of ignorance, irrationality and morbid perversity. It is a national disease, and the symptoms are very clear – emotions overcome reason, and rhetoric clouds the real issues. It is the kind of thinking that fed the ethnic violence, and more recently, caused the Grease Yaka phenomenon.
Now we hear the shrill cries of the advocates of death. Their mentality is that of the lynch mob – no reason and rationality, only a perverse hatred. In fact, they have not even grasped the shadow of the problem.
