I do not know if he is right in everything but it is not so much about the crime aspect of it. Entering another ones living space is a taboo because you know you are entering the place of a greater family (remember Egypt has bigger families than we have in the western world) And in this compound i can imagine there were whole clans sitting around. The Bedouin women were protected by cousins in the x-degree. No wonder the mob couldn't get at Lara.Every male member of the household and relatives and friends just jumped at the invaders.
Then is the circle refuted as place where she could have been returned.
When the only fences are at the edges (Construction site) then that further means there could have been much more mobility going on. One old argument stated that in dense packed crowds nothing is possible that is more than "mere" groping and stripping. With the action taking place near the periphery of Tahir there may be looser crowds and much more place and more mobility that would translate to more movement and place-changes.
Perhaps. Because "real" fences are normally there to stop somebody going over it. At least not going too easily over it. Whatever the Egyptians used in Tahir was cheap and easy to come by.
5 - Torture by the struggle with the wedged cat: it is a technique mainly used with female detainees in order to avow some information about the places where the activists are hidden. This happens by unclothing the woman of all her clothes, and enforcing her to get into a large bag of cannabis usually used to transfer compost or forage in Syria, and then letting a big cat in and wedging it with the detainee in the same bag so that the cat uses all of its claws and canine teeth in an attempt to get out of the bag in which it is wedged, the thing that causes absolute surficial and deep wounds on the whole body of the detained woman.
Seriously? I think IF someone will investigate this in university this thread here will be far more interesting to him/her than every cover-up. Science is not interested in "Who dunnit"s? They would be more interested in how it made people act and talk and feel. Some Internet science Guy will investigate how the internet reacted to LLs plight and ordeal. Just wait.
In my book the author states that it should be said in an "authoritarian voice". An order. The thinking behind is that in her state she would have probably followed it. The effect of course would be positive for her so its not something that is used to humiliate but to break the shock.
Good question. The "Fist" method is designed to work in the Shock/Realization-Phase in Emergency Trauma Psychology after the traumatized person is safe and extracted from danger. The flashbacks are more signs of PTSD and that happens in later stages. But i cannot think of why this method shouldn't work with flashbacks too.
I don't believe soldiers have something like that. Do they need it? Oh yes. I find it very sad and hurting that Lara was alone in her shock and nobody of her team could help her. We do not know what exactly happened only what Max did but maybe better support would have negated some of the later manifesting PTSD. Not all for sure. Her trauma incident was so horrible that it must have generated 100% PTSD. We already can assume very strongly ONE indicator for PTSD: Avoidance, its called, of situations that resemblance her ordeal: not going to Egypt ever again as she stated is one thing...the other thing is that she has problems going to Syria or Libya.
We do not know if she has two other ones: Intrusion (flashback) and Over-Sensitivity. Over-Sensitivity is: fits of great anger, trouble sleeping, very upset all the time, problems concentrating, Hyper-vigilance, easily scared
If she has Flashback, Over-Sensitivity and Avoidance she has full PTSD. If she has only two of these she has at least partial PTSD. We can strongly assume she has at least partial PTSD and has experienced hell the last few months. I hope the therapy eased some of it. Especially the flashbacks are cruel scourges that must be something Dante Alighieri or Peter Breughel should have used for their art in depicting hell.
PS: What do you think her CBS Team has? I guess they have at least partial PTSD too! Ray. Max. The Egyptians. The camera-man. How are they?
Interesting is also the bit about the "crazy baying mob". In every OTHER context that would have been racist and sexist and whatnot and would be regarded - correctly - as a dehumanizing remark because baying refers to animals. She didn't say "shouting" or "screaming".
Of course in her case in this context she has the RIGHT to dehumanize the mob. Because the member of the mob have dehumanized themselves first with their attack on her. That is particularly interesting for me. They degraded her to a piece of meat essentially. But in doing so...they dehumanized themselves to dogs.
That is your whole reaction to what i wrote? Banal cynicism? I will help you re-write this post of yours into something real constructive:
wow! when i read your post i thought to myself, too bad the CBS team had no proper schooling or training, cause then they would have been really useful in getting this traumatic situation under control. have Journalists of ABC or CNN, or hey! how about CBS ever thought of perhaps attending courses how to deal with extreme situations like rape and sexual assault of a colleague? The crew could travel, and if one of them gets gang raped while on assignment THEY would be ready to step in, prepared and trained, so that the aftermath of a mass violation doesn't have to be so catastrophically bullshit. What do you think?
And i would answer: I think that would be a GREAT idea. But you didn't write that. You did not.
What are ANY guys supposed to SAY and DO in such a situation? In Lara's Case these steps would have been helpful:
1. The helpers - in this case the CBS men of the Team - are also traumatized. They are:
a) feeling helpless towards the situation and their own feelings
b) feelings of guilt
c) inner freezing, unable to act or decide
2. In Lara's case they should have been schooled to do that:
a) dealing actively with her
b) sitting or kneeling so that the eyes are on the same level as Lara's (what Producer Max intuitively did)
c) telling her she is safe, offering help
d) very carefully and cautiously and slowly offering close contact to help her get up
Asking her: If she is still hurting. How much?
Asking her: What she needs? Whom does she want to speak first?
Letting her voice feelings. Giving her the security blanket of safety and support. Not leaving. Keeping the contact.
Making her feel comfortable/giving her something to cover/something to drink (water) Shielding her from other men giving her back freedom of action and decision
She was in Shock so:
Telling her she should make a fist with a hand. Because that is how she felt in the situation it would have been easy for her to do that
Keeping Fist for 30 to 60 seconds. Telling her to try harder to keep the hand a fist until it feels stone hard
Then: Changing the tone and telling her to relax. Relaxing the first relaxing the whole body relaxing everything.
Telling her to close the eyes to try to relax as good as she can.
After 3 to 4 minutes she should have been out of shock and possible to take part in support and helping herself.
You didn't READ carefully enough what i wrote: "There is a good reason the timeframe NEEDS to stay around half an hour. Half an hour...FEELS not bad. It sounds not too serious. It has another character and nature.
1 Hour?! Horrific. More than 1 Hour? Gruesome. Grisly. Ghastly."
Do you get it now? Hint: FEELS. It sounds not. That transcends to: 1 Hour?! Horrific. (And so on)
Meaning: It was about what one FEELS or THINKS about time-frames. NOT about how damaging or horrible 25 minutes or 1 hour or more REALLY IS.
Come on. READ IT AGAIN. Carefully now. It is about how TIMEFRAMES are sounding and make you feel. 20 minutes is sounding less horrible than 1 hour+
And that is no coincidence. The timeframe given was designed for the public for a specific purpose.
PS: I already know that 25 minutes hand-rape is horrible enough. But when i meet Lara someday i would also know that far more happened than that...and i would act and talk to her accordingly.
Nobody in their right mind will EVER lightly cite or acknowledge the correct timeframe if it was indeed more than 20 - 40 minutes. When it is true that it was 1 hour to more than 1 hour than that alone would generate a HUGE explosion of shock and trauma in the US and beyond. There is a good reason the timeframe NEEDS to stay around half an hour. Half an hour...FEELS not bad. It sounds not too serious. It has another character and nature.
1 Hour?! Horrific. More than 1 Hour? Gruesome. Grisly. Ghastly.
They do not believe the public is ready for it. It is funny...i mean bittersweet somehow. Journalists have a very bad image right now. I mean...nobody gives a journalist the benefit of the doubt anymore. For many people Journalists are cynical lazy incompetent hacks that do not even research a bit anymore.
On the other side the Journalists are thinking negative of the public too: That these are lazy irresponsible largely an-alphabetic people who are easily turned on by sensation but do not adhere to the basic standards of morality or ethics anymore.
Neither trusts the other. Great. Just what we fucking need...
You project your own selfish tiny shrunk Thinking and Feeling to a person who is obviously better and finer than you will ever be. The notion that even a mediocre parent would speak like thus to his or her child is laughable at best. You described a psychopath talking to a kid. Maybe because you can relate to that, huh?
Very likely, yes. But in her case I would say "oral rape"
Blowjobs i consider voluntary. Nothing of that sort happened with her. It is unfair to distribute the good word Blowjob for something she was forced to do even if it shares some characterics with it. Semantic pedantry? Perhaps. But it feels right somehow.
hospital leak? Perhaps. If this is true...i wished everyone would hear or read that because it really showed how savage and cruel the attack on her was. How much she suffered. I hope there are no long term physical challenges because of this. That would be so unfair.
You may be right there. There may be many different reasons for what she meant with "I was now fighting for my life"
1. Maybe during her ordeal she gave herself up for a moment and desired death. Maybe even contemplated hurting the attackers somehow during the sexual assault to speed up her death. But she decided otherwise.
2. She surrendered to the sexual assault but tried to stay alive by surrendering to the wishes of her attackers to avoid critical wounding. It must have been a fight with herself to do that.
3. She surrendered to the sexual assault but also fought off attempts at killing her. Now that seems contradictory but maybe there were some attempts at killing her she could ward off. And the attackers let it be or some attackers did.
In ANY way that does support YOUR Theory that she fought fiercely and unrelenting: Against her resignation. Against direct murder attempts. Against her pride and dignity. Sitting now comfy in my chair in front of my monitor it is easy for me to point that out. But she had to go through all of this! What a remarkable woman. I do not see her as a helpless victim at all. Maybe surrendered is a the wrong word in describing her actions. She TRADED willingly her dignity and sexual integrity for a chance to see her family again. Lesser women and weaker men would have just given up or fought until there was no tomorrow and just died in the street.
She did not. She made a heroic effort to live for her family. A great deed from a proud and strong woman.
