JOIN US#MeToo: Let’s no more be the ‘Invisible Majority’
Your blood boils to see the politician kicking the nurse, it freezes to see the cop’s son beat up a girl for talking to another boy. Your fists clench to see the warden hitting orphans, and your stomach churns bile to see the filmed rape of a child. The man shot dead the school girl — stripped, stabbed, molested, dead. The unceasing drumroll of violent crimes. In our midst. Within our sight. Within us.
But here’s your morning tea and biscuit. You switch off and start your day. What else can you do? What else can I do, after all? Ah yes, I can forward the videos, upload to my social media platforms and add a comment on how enraged I am at the sheer injustice I’ve just witnessed.
Later in the day, I get a Change.org petition. I sign, I forward and then I must get back to my life. What else am I supposed to do? And the next day, the whole process starts again. That’s inevitable, another rabid man, another violent crime.
You want to do more. But what can you really do? Surely, the time has come for us — you and me — to stop being the WhatsApp, .org, # (hashtag) generation and move towards action. Positive action. If we can’t, who will? There is something terrible that ails us and we – you and me – have to find a cure. Our horror is not enough. Not anymore.
A great change is sweeping already. Sweeping the cockroaches from under the carpet. The hashtags, the MeToos are powering women to come forward, speak up and name their attackers. And stop burdening themselves with shame that is not theirs.
The change has come in our films, where raped women no longer have to commit suicide as the only recourse. Yes. All of this. But more remains to be done. It cannot be up to a few brave women to speak up. Now, it needs to be us. You and me.
We need to step out of being the invisible majority and become an invincible majority. Because, this is the key word here — WE are the majority, so we have the bigger presence, the louder voice. If we can have a collective voice. That is the choice that we — you and me — need to make. We need our blood to boil over — into helping hands and voices of courage.
We need to re-educate our young, especially our boys, to be better. Not better doctors and bank managers, but better human beings. We need to remind ourselves that our privilege comes with great responsibility.
The nurses in the recent video of the politician are obviously frightened. They try and stop the vile man from assaulting the nurse. But, if you have seen that video, you will have seen how he literally puffs up with his sadistic macho-ism. The more they stop him, the further he goes. There were three. There was one person filming the incident.
It happened in a hospital or a spa. There would have been ward boys, guards, doctors, etc. If someone had dialled 100, or the local women’s helpline. If someone had screamed at the top of their voice, there could have been at least 10-12 people. Then the nurses would have had more arms, more voices to bring the rabid man down.
As it is, however, their efforts were so feeble that it fuelled his courage and sadism. Eventually, the attacked woman seems to just give up and take the beating. As though it was the only thing she could do to satisfy his blood lust. But if more had stepped forward. IF.
We need to multiply ourselves and our voices. So that the rabid men, and sometimes women, can no longer live in the comfort of our inaction. We need to charge our apathy with empathy, and from there to action. It can no longer be a few ‘them’ and an impotent, invisible ‘us’.
We are potent, we are a majority. We need to start acting like one. We have to go from being that invisible majority to being so loud and visible that the people like that politician, that cop’s son, no longer have the courage borne out of our invisibility.
For if we don’t stop them now, collectively, if we allow them to continue getting away, they could be coming for us. Yes, for you and me.