Sexual
harassment and rapes were never discussed in Egypt before 2006. The public used
to blame the western influence which intruded Egyptian culture. Mass sexual
assault in Egypt was first reported in detail during the Egyptian
constitutional referendum on 25 May 2005, on what is known as 'Black
Wednesday'. The matter was first time reported by the 'Egyptian Center for
Women's Rights.' A large number of men sexually assaulted women and the police
remained mute spectators.
Again such mass
molestation pulled the global attention during the holidays of Eid al-Fitr in
2006, when on 24 October a mob of young Muslim men who were not given
free-entry in a movie show in Cairo, indulged in a five-hour mass sexual
assault and rapes in Talaat Harb Street. Police again remained the mute
spectator. Even no bystander tried to protect the women.
The first
time, such mass molestation was reported outside Egypt or any Muslim countries
in February 2011 when the reporter for the American network CBS, Lala Logan,
was sexually molested by hundreds of Muslim men in now notoriously famed Tahrir
Square. According to a famous Egyptian newspaper the Al Akhbar, such
molestation is a 'permanent feature' of religious festivals in Egypt.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_sexual_assault_in_Egypt#cite_note-AndersonCBS1May2011-18)
'Taharrush,'
also known as the 'rape game' is originated in Arabic countries in which
non-Muslim women or enemy women are surrounded by mobs of Muslim men and
sexually molested. Only after the 2011 riots in Egypt, the world came to know
about their existence.
'There remains debate about what defines
'taharrush' - some still insist it is a reference to flirting - though scholars
argue its definition changed after the attacks seen in Egypt from 2011 onward.
(Daily Mail: The Arabic gang-rape 'Taharrush' the phenomenon which has spread to Europe)
'The Arab phenomenon first came to the attention of the Western world when South African reporter Lara Logan, working
for CBS, was set upon by a large group of men while reporting on celebrations
in Tahrir Square, Egypt, in 2011.'
(Daily Mail:
idem.)
Lala Logan,
the CBS correspondence that was the victim of sexual molestation in Egypt in
2011, described the horrifying nightmare:
'Logan recounted her ordeal in Egypt several
months later on a 60 Minutes broadcast, describing how the baying crowd 'raped
me with their hands'.
The
44-year-old exposed petrifying facts of the 40 minute-long February assault in
Cairo's Tahrir Square, narrated how she was pulled out from members of her
group after somebody in the furious 200-strong mob shouted 'Let's take her
pants off.'
She said: 'Suddenly, before I even know what's
happening, I feel hands grabbing my breasts, grabbing my crotch, grabbing me
from behind. I mean, and it's not one person and then it stops, it's like one
person and another person and another person.'
(Daily Mail:
idem).
In Cologne,
Germany, on December 31st, 2015, a crowd of around one thousand Muslims men who
were African and Arab infiltrators, molested women. By the end of January 2016,
over one thousands such cases had been reported of mass sexual assaults.
(Wikipedia:
New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany)
A swift
search of 'Taharrush' will give dozens of examples and videos on the Muslim
festival. One can see so many videos on YouTube about this.
(YouTube:
Taharrush Gamea - the fun sex game of the Muslim world)
So in
quintessence, what Taharrush is when a mob of Muslim men enclose a female or
females and forcefully pulls out them from their colleagues and then start to
pull her clothes off the victim(s) while molesting them bodily and sexually.
This generally contains both groping and rape by multiple attackers. Their real
faith appears when they are in groups. Taharrush is a testimony of that.
Taharrush jama'i
or gama'i (Egyptian like transliteration) التحرش الجماعي just means sexual harassment that is
done by a group of men. The world came to know about the dark side of Islamic
nations after the so-called Arab spring when a mob of men exploited the situation
and raped and molested the women during a demonstration at Tahrir Square in
Cairo.
Abhishek
Saksena writes, in Taharrush - The Sickening And Terrifying Arab Rape Game That
Is Spreading Across Europe, August 02,
2016, 'when the first incidents of women being assaulted by crowds of Arab men
came out of Cologne, Germany, during New Years, the news was being suppressed.
Realisation…Yes, a disgusting game, brought to Europe by the hordes of refugees
seeking asylum.
…similar
incidents have occurred in Berlin, Hamburg, Bielefeld, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf
and Stuttgart…other European nations such as Austria and Switzerland have also
reported similar cases.
(NEWOBSERVERONLINE)
Taharrush is
about large groups of Arab men surrounding their victims and then subjecting
them to sexual assault. They form circles around women, and if there are enough
men, drag the women along with the mob, rip their clothes off and physically
assault them…
(REUTERS)
Women cry
but nobody comes for help. The game is an Islamic game and common in all other
Arab nations. In most of the cases, women from other faiths and sects are the
victims. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, local Christian and foreign journalists were
the victims.
The Mail
Online published a full report on Saturday, Jun Ist 2019, 'The Arabic gang-rape
'Taharrush' phenomenon which sees women surrounded by groups of men in crowds
and sexually assaulted... and has now spread to Europe.'
Corey
Charlton, writes in Mail Online, 12 January 2016/ Updated, 1 February 2017.
1-The Arabic term 'taharrush' roughly translates to
'collective harassment'.
2-It refers to sexual assaults carried out by groups of men
in public places.
3-Surrounded by dozens of attackers, lone women are groped or
raped.
4-The phenomenon was first seen in 2011 when a reporter was
attacked.
5-Lara Logan endured an assault while reporting on the
protests in Egypt.
6-Police say attacks in Cologne marked Europe's first
instance of taharrush.
7-The attack usually goes unpunished because of the large
number of perpetrators and chaos of the attack.
Still, due
to overdose of human rights and influence of Wahabi donations, western
countries are not taken this problem seriously and rapist are neither arrested
nor punished. In Cologne city centre in New York, hundreds of German women were
sexually molested but none of the criminals was punished.
It was
revealed that as she was pulled into the frenzy the camera recorded her
shouting 'Stop.' It was revealed that someone in the crowd falsely shouted out
that she was an Israeli Jew.
Angie
Abdelmonem, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, recently
published a study into the instances of 'taharrush' seen during the Egyptian
Revolution.
'This
[perception] shifted on February 11, the day Mubarak stepped down, with the mob
assault and rape of CBS correspondent, Lara Logan,' she wrote.
'Between
2011 and 2013, sexual harassment became common at protests in Tahrir Square,
exemplified by several highly publicized violent attacks that demonstrate how
women's bodies became objectified and dehumanized during the uprising.'
A teenager
named only as Michelle (pictured), 18, described how the New Year's Eve
celebrations in Cologne a fortnight ago turned into targeted and coordinated
attacks on women.
The chaos
outside the Cologne cathedral saw fireworks launched into the crowd and hordes
of drunken Arab or North African men assaulting women, German police said.
Leaked
police reports later emerged showing officers were unable to stop the disorder
and they were swamped by upset women at the scene claiming they had been
sexually assaulted. German police believe it was 'taharrush' committed in
Cologne and other cities at New Year by Arab and North African men that led to
hundreds of police complaints in the following weeks.
It was the
first instance of the phenomenon has reached Europe, and as the scale of the
attacks in the city slowly emerged, other centres, such as Zurich and Salzburg,
reported similar crimes. A report from the Interior Ministry in North
Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state, where Cologne lies, said 516 criminal complaints
had been registered, 237 of which were sexual.
A separate
report from the Cologne police gave graphic descriptions of the crimes, listing
case after case of women surrounded by gangs of men who put their hands in the
victims' pants and skirts, grabbed them between the legs, on the buttocks and
the breasts, often while stealing their wallets and cell phones. A total of 19
suspects have been identified, all foreigners.
Now, it is
also a subject of tension in far-east India. 'Why we need to worry about
'Taharrush gamea' - the Arabic gang-rape game.
As per the
police reports, following that 516 criminal complaints had been registered out
of which 237 were sexual. Cologne Police, in a separate report, also presented
the graphical descriptions of the crime. It listed the pictures of men grabbing
women between the legs, on the breasts, buttocks, and men having inside women's
pants and skirts.
'Goblin
Market' by Christina Rossetti (1839-94), is probably the most famous poem which
has resemblances with 'taharrush.' It is a long narrative poem in which
molestation of Laura by strange looking creatures is one of the important
themes. The fruits in the poem which goblins sell have been described as the
eroticised powers of the exotic fruits as symbols of sexual temptation, with
Laura as the victim who was molested by masculine wiles and raped. This draws
parallels between Laura's molestation by the wiles creatures and the experience
of 'taharrush gamea'.
In Islamic
nations, molestation of women is a real socio-religious problem. Some
commentators note that Laura and Lizzie live alone, with no parents or
guardians – a rather eccentric set-up for two young Victorian sisters. Partly
for this reason, and partly for the bad social conditions, the male-female relationship is described as 'forbidden,' the poem prefers female homosexuality
safer in 'Goblin Market.'
The narrator
of the poem tells that Lizzie thought
their dead friend Jeanie 'should have been a bride' so that could be protected
in the game of 'taharrush gamea.' Laura and Lizzie remained unmarried until the
end of the poem, years later they got married when they are noticeably older.
Same problems were faced by the poet Christina Rossetti herself, although she
was courted by numerous suitors, never married.
The 'market'
of 'Goblin Market' the Victorian marriage market and the goblins the ugly and
rapacious suitors who lecherously use their wealth to attract a young wife can
be compared with the 'taharrush gamea' and the lawless molesters who
lecherously use their religion to molest young girls. Marriage in the Victorian
era, as it has been today in Islamic nations, is often a financial and sexual
arrangement and nothing to do with love and romance, and represented the only
chance of financial and sexual stability and security for most of women.
The juicy
and unusual fruit the goblins offer for sale representation of all that is
wrong with Islamic practices of 'taharrush.'
Then there are the elements of sexual violence in the poem which can be
compared with the game of 'taharrush.' In the poem, they are offered
symbolically but in 'taharrush' they are molested really, but which, upon close
analysis of key passages become rather clear. Look at the way the (male)
goblins treat Lizzie:
Lashing
their tails
They trod
and hustled her,
Elbow'd and jostled her,
Claw'd with
their nails,
Barking,
meowing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her
gown and soil'd her stocking,
Twitch'd her
hair out by the roots,
Stamp'd upon
her tender feet,
Held her
hands and squeez'd their fruits
Against her
mouth to make her eat.
(Goblin Market)
This
emblematic gang-rape – forcing Lizzie, whose 'stocking' has been 'soil'd', to
'open lip from lip' against her will (lips being sexually evocative, of course,
of other female body parts) – exposes vile sexual violence in the poem which
reminds the readers of Lala Logan, the reporter for the American network CBS
who was sexually molested by the mob of Muslim men at Tahrir Square, Egypt.
In this
analysis, it has tried to condense a new critical debate – and new
interpretations – of 'Goblin Market' into one short article. Ultimately there
cannot be 'one' analysis of 'Goblin Market': the poem is too richly various for
that, too elusive, its use of fantastical imagery and symbolism not meant to be
reduced to simplistic allegory or social commentary. 'Goblin Market' will
always prompt endless debates.
'In 'Goblin
Market', Christina Rossetti experiments with language, form and imagery to
create a world of temptation and mystery.'
(An
introduction to 'Goblin Market', Dinah Roe, Published: 15 May 2014)
Set in a
world of myth, and discovering themes of temptation, sacrifice and salvation,
'Goblin Market' takes us to the fraught encounter between sisters Laura and
Lizzie and evil goblin merchants just like Lala Logan at Tahrir Square. Goblins
attack Lizzie violently when she tried to be friendly in a hope to be an
antidote to Laura's melody. According to John Ruskin, many identities are the
greatest strength of 'Goblin Market.' Rossetti creates a disorienting fairytale
atmosphere that is simultaneously seductive and alienating. The incantatory
replication of 'berries' and a seductive sibilance hints at the fruits' dark
properties can be compared to the scenes of 'taharrush'.
Rossetti
wrote 'Goblin Market' in 1859 while working at the St Mary Magdalene
Penitentiary for 'fallen women' in Highgate. It was mainly for the reforms and
rehabilitation of prostitutes and victims of rapes. She might have come to know
from those victims about the 'taharrush gamea' types games as she came to know
about the themes of temptation, sexual exchange and sisterly redemption in this the poem which is directed influenced by its poet's knowledge working as an
'Associate Sister' at Highgate.
Initially,
this poem was written as a warning to women about the dangers of temptations
and rapes. In the 20th century, the open opened the floodgates for Feminists,
Lesbian empowerment Theories, Incestuous yearnings, Marxists, Queer Theory, and
Freudian which gave a clear warning about the safety of women in this new world
system. The poem continues to attract critical interpretations as diverse as
the goblin merchants' wares, challenging Christina Rossetti's surely
disingenuous claim that she 'did not mean anything profound by this fairytale'.
