I’m willing to believe people ARE posting their views in good faith
Not JUST to be provocative
And here on INN topics range ALL over the place
I’m willing to permit that as well
What I DONT want is for things to turn into a flame war where I have to lock threads
That would really be counter to the ethos that exists
That’s not an accurate representation of British society. Rape convictions are low because in UK law the burden of proof is high and often victims are too traumatized to report an assault immediately which means by the time they do there are no forensics. It’s a hard crime to prosecute unless there’s cctv and/or forensics. It’s not because it’s a society that’s willing to tolerate such behaviour.
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Actually it’s more to do with a video that went viral in the UK that purported to show a nasty, racist, white boy bullying a Syrian refugee. Tommy Robinson contradicted that narrative on social media and once again became a target of the authorities. In his movie he goes to the school where the incident took place and talks to other pupils, parents, staff, governor, etc…
So we have alternative narratives, the official one - nasty, racist, white bully
Tommy Robinson’s alternative, that we’re not allowed to repeat in the UK
And a now banned ( in the UK ) movie, Silenced, which makes one seem more likely than the other
British society is not alone here - its not radically different here
The legal burden of proof is one aspect
And there is stigma associated with being a victim
Add in the additional trauma of having to go to court & recount the event AND then being cross examined
The trauma may be more than many victims care to take on and experience over & over
Its a crime that should be prosecuted more but often isnt for a host of reasons
That any of the “blame the victim” type stigma exists is disappointing
If it’s the video I can easily find posted it seems pretty clear that there was definitely an altercation.The basis of it I dont know.
There’s no audio to indicate that the kid who was the aggressor used any racial slurs towards the victim
So whether he is, or isnt racist I cant judge
There doesnt seem to me to it than they had some disagreement that the one used physical force to settle things
Seems to be a school yard fight and not a racist attack
Still doesnt make that kind of attack right - regardless of the reasons
Nor using it for political purposes by anyone
The reports I read for various UK media seemed pretty balanced and unbiased
All this said I dont know what Tommy Robinsons video said
But whats the chances it was a lot more political rhetoric than anything ?
Something like the right wing claim in the USA that X silenced conservative posts (which they never could substantiate) ?
Willing to admit I was unintentionally vague. Explaining what can seem like effectively encouragement can be verbose. I will try.
If the laws of the UK are not helpful, it’s contributing to an environment where the actions appear to be encouraged. For all the reasons you said. If change isn’t happening, the actions are tolerated, even if it’s only de-facto toleration.
This may also be my unavoidably US centric point of view. Rape convictions are hard here too because, “boys will be boys,” “you don’t wanna destroy a person’s life for one or more mistakes,” various reasons why one can never believe a victim, or even “men can’t be raped because they want it” which pairs with “if she didn’t really want it she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant”
Which leads to similar outcomes even if the reasons are different. Rape here has a low likelihood of consequences, and when those consequences come, usually an apology avoids most of them. And even though most will view rape as abhorrent – as it should be – it gets muddied in the actual process and leads to an environment where it is tolerated and encouraged. Although, here, there’s many places where it’s outright encouraged too.
tldr: I should have been more specific, and used environment instead of society.
Indeed the environment can in and of itself be an impediment to more charges & convictions