Society has changed over the past century or two. Religion and morality, once rooted in society’s very essence, its reason to unite us all as members of a group living together with purpose and responsibility to each other have become lost to many of our neighbors. While the law stipulates what is permissible and what is not, much happens behind our closed doors, things that should horrify us.
Incest exists today as it has throughout history. Sexual relations with a blood relative. There are people who are trying to change the law, making incest not a crime but allowed within our society. Statistics tell us that this is a hidden crime, but non the less it is criminal, Immoral, and needs to be recognized and stopped. It is believed that the most common form of incest happens between older male relatives and younger children. I was molested when I visited my extended family in Hungary (aged 8 yrs. old). Assaulted twice by an uncle, I told adults of this occurrence only to be ignored and even punished for impugning the character of the said relative. PTSD is often a result of incest, along with other coping mechanisms, including self-injury. While the first thing someone can do for a victim of incest is to believe them, most often a person will not challenge the aggressor, but rather the victim.
Incest as a form of abuse can be challenging, as it differs from culture to culture. Perceptions of incest vary across societies, and actions to stop it depend on what location the victim is in. In western society, the incest taboo is and has been the most common of all cultural taboos. Incest can be sexual abuse such as intercourse, sexually inappropriate acts, or the abuse of power based on sexual activities. This form of abuse is very damaging to a child’s psyche and will result in prolonged post-traumatic stress disorder.
The results of this form of abuse can be self-injury, substance abuse, eating disorders, issues with disassociation, or perhaps promiscuity. U.K. Studies have shown that the ultimate sacrifice, suicide can and has resulted from this form of abuse. The child may grow to adulthood but finds their place within the family and society challenged, or they may feel dirty, and unworthy of assistance, perhaps protecting their family member from legal repercussions. The victim is mentally unable to find an avenue for their grief, fear, and disgust towards themselves or the aggressor. When a family member assaults a child in this fashion, they have a hold upon the victim, a secret that is presented to the victim as self-destructive in nature. “You tell someone, I will deny it, say you lying” and “who will they believe, me or you”? A child abused like this, will often grow to adulthood and the abuse may very well continue unstopped by the victimizer.
Victims experience fear (they did something wrong), self-shame, and undue responsibility of perhaps disrupting the family should they announce this happening. Other family members can and do blame the victim as though the victim may have asked for it, similar to the trauma a rape victim experiences. Child sexual abuse impacts children more than AIDS, gun violence, and LGBTQ inequality combined, yet it is often publicly hidden, mentioned only when the Abortion issue is brought up as a reason for legalized abortions. Intentionally or not, children continue to protect adults who have claimed the child’s innocence, and probably changed their lives forever.
Incest makes people recoil, making them squirm uncomfortably. We are told by our public officials, church leaders, and moralists amongst us that incest is wrong, brutal, and manipulative, and should be stamped out. Then nothing is done. The religious and public authorities do not want to, or cannot enter our homes, our bedrooms, and our castles. They can only pontificate and teach the immorality of incest. Few are arrested and prisoned for this crime. The intentional manipulation, abuse, and sexual use of minors are often viewed as a mental health issue, with the attempt of public authorities to stay away from the uncomfortable legal avenues they have.
While society is shocked by the clergy abuse within organized religious organizations and what has happened to untold Aboriginal Children, the shock experienced does not follow the issues of incest. Why? It is easier to blame an organization that was once a bedrock of society like the Catholic Church, but entirely more difficult to accuse and bring to justice a family member. Whether unintentionally, unconsciously, collectively, or individually many of us are unwilling to accept and deal concretely with the depth and scope of incest within our society, community, or our very homes.
Incest is human evil, the manipulation and sexual use of an innocent, child. It is a mental health issue, but it is much more than that. It carries with it multiple rapes, assaults, and mental manipulation with a horrid human result in time. Incest is much like the murder of a child’s innocence, the child’s future potential. If I were to meet my uncle today, the man who sexually assaulted me, I fear bad things would happen. As a result of the two assaults, I became in time a man filled with rage, often not recognizing why. I believed the event had been hidden away in my memory. Like cancer, it leached into my subconscious only to result in violence perpetrated by me. The people who inflict their selfish wants and desires upon the innocence of this world must be punished, for desire is not a mental illness is it? And sexual desire unbridled by social conscience and morality is a serious crime.
What will you do about this issue? Allow it to hide within the shadows or fight the good fight? Should you witness such an event, or fear someone is being victimized contact someone with authority or call the Police, or Child Protective Services. It is your duty to do so.
OTTAWA – Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok is expected to face a confidence vote today in the territorial legislature.
In a surprise move on Monday, Aivilik MLA Solomon Malliki gave notice that he’d present a motion calling for Akeeagok to be stripped of his premiership and removed from cabinet.
In Nunavut’s consensus style of government — in which there are no political parties — the MLAs elect a premier from amongst themselves.
If the motion passes, Akeeagok would be the second premier in Nunavut’s history to be ousted by the Legislative Assembly.
In 2018, Paul Quassa lost a confidence motion midway through his term.
MLAs ousted him in part because of lavish government spending at an Ottawa trade show.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
HALIFAX – Today is the final day for candidate nominations in Nova Scotia’s provincial election campaign.
Under the province’s Elections Act, nominations must close 20 days before election day on Nov. 26.
The Progressive Conservatives confirmed in a news release last week that they will have a full slate of 55 candidates.
The NDP and Liberals confirmed Tuesday that they will have a full slate of candidates, though there was no immediate word from the Green Party.
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill has a housing announcement planned in Halifax, while NDP Leader Claudia Chender is scheduled to hold an event today in the Halifax area.
Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston will be campaigning in the suburbs of Halifax Regional Municipality.
At dissolution, the Progressive Conservatives held 34 seats in the 55-seat legislature, the Liberals held 14 seats, the NDP had six and there was one Independent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
CALGARY – There’s a darkness in the work of venerated Canadian war artist Bill MacDonnell, who has spent three decades travelling the world as a self-described silent witness.
MacDonnell’s paintings document the impact of conflict from Bosnia to Afghanistan as well as revisiting atrocities of the past.
He has inspired other artists to follow in his footsteps, and an exhibit of his work is on display at the Military Museums in Calgary through Remembrance Day and into 2025.
“Bill’s very much into the idea of watching, very quietly. You don’t see many people in his works,” said curator Dick Averns, who has met and written about MacDonnell, and was inspired to travel to the Middle East as part of the Canadian Forces War Artists Program.
“A lot of Bill MacDonnell’s work is around the theme of cultural amnesia. They draw attention to histories that are in danger of being forgotten.”
Averns said it was MacDonnell’s example that encouraged him to apply.
“My drive was to have that first-hand experience. My theory in making the art and having a critical eye similar to Bill’s is ‘What are the unseen areas?’ I was interested in relationships between oil, the war in Iraq and 9/11.”
Lt.-Col. Bill Bewick, now retired from Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, had taken over as commander of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment when he took MacDonnell to Croatia with the United Nations Protective Force in 1994.
“He’d been over to Europe and various places before, but I think that was his first combat experience,” said Bewick, who took art lessons from MacDonnell years later at what was then called the Alberta College of Art and Design.
“We found a stone building that collapsed with old people and some others incapacitated in it.
“It was a low priority to dig the people out because they were all deceased and we saw that, and the odours associated with that. Those kind of experiences for an artist are pretty intense.”
MacDonnell went back on his own a few months later and visited Sarajevo.
MacDonnell could not be reached for an interview and was unable to attend the opening of his exhibit.
Of the two dozen paintings on display, many depict the aftermath of war with destroyed buildings.
His 1995 painting “Mined Churchyard” show a bombed Serbian church in Bosnia.
“They’re all rather depressing. They’re not happy paintings. There’s no happy paintings,” said Bewick.
“There’s a couple with colour. There’s a nice green grass over there but there’s some other stuff that’s not so happy.”
Averns said the two patches of colour are both of mass graves from eastern Europe and Kyiv when it was part of the former Soviet Union.
In Babi Yar, almost 34,000 Jews were murdered and dumped in a ravine by the Nazis in 1941 as they made their way through Europe.
“They were either shot at the edge of the ravine or they were marched in to lie one on top of the other and shot in the back of the neck,” said Averns.
The mass grave is now a memorial site.
“There was no marker at this site for decades. You can see (on the canvas) here one of the monuments — a ramp with tumbling figures meeting their demise as they went down into the ravine.”
Averns said the second painting shows the mass graves commemorating the German siege of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days and saw 800,000 deaths.
The exhibit is MacDonnell’s first in Western Canada since 2006.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
