Silence in the Courts, Silence in Society

and Women at Peril

Featured image courtesy The Justice Project South Asia

by Lalith Gunaratne - on 01/07/2016

As I watched Silence in the Courts, a

documentary movie by award-winning Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna
Vithanage aired at the University of Ottawa Human Rights Film Festival on
3rd December 2015, the narrative was all too familiar the powerful man
and the powerless woman showing mans unchecked reptilian indulgence
for power, pleasure and to procreate, being played out. In this case, if not
for a couple of more enlightened men who believed the womans story
enough to share it with the world, this too would have gone unnoticed like
many other violations and crimes that some men in power commit with
impunity.
Silence in the Courts was a part of a series of international films
highlighting compelling human rights issues focusing on the theme of

violence against women.

This film is about two women from rural Sri Lanka, sexually abused by a
Judge nearly two decades ago who try in vain to seek justice. They were
assertive to report the crimes, even as they were stigmatised by their own
community. However, their plea is ignored and subverted by the countrys
highest legal authorities including the Attorney General who later became
Chief Justice journalist and publisher of Ravaya, Victor Ivan begins to write
in-depth stories highlighting their plight. No other media covered the story
and Victor Ivan is even ridiculed for his efforts.
The women have no recourse until finally, thanks to Ivan and a human
rights lawyer, some justice is meted to the perpetrator. The Judge is
subjected to an internal inquiry and interdicted with pay. The story ends
there for the women, who feel justice was denied as they did not have the
means to have their rights as a citizen recognised.
The film traces stories of these hapless women, the brave journalist and the
committed human rights lawyer, through court records and articles, to
uncover this shocking miscarriage of justice and how the powerful
collude to cover up for each others crimes.
Prasanna Vithanage was at the screening for a conversation with the
audience. When asked why he chose to make this documentary he said,
I have a keen interest in human rights and this narrative is symbolic of the
powerful acting with impunity in many facets of Sri Lankan society, which
has shameful repercussions for the country. He trusts the film will bring
this topic to the surface for reflection, conversations and for everyone
parents, educators, politicians and government to take action, to make
things different in Sri Lanka and most of all, in this case bring justice for

the women.
Our Nature and Nurture
At a fundamental level, human behaviour is predicated on nature our
physiology and chemical balance and how significant people in our lives
nurtured us. On the side of nurture What examples did we have in life?
What values were instilled in us? What kind of conversations did we have
with our parents, elders, teachers and mentors? What kind of a society did
we grow up in? How was our self-esteem shaped?
As we grow up as adults, we are supposed to move away from being selfcentered and impulsive, to control our emotions and primal impulses to put
off our need for instant gratification, so we may learn to live and share life
with others with decorum and in harmony.
Sri Lankan society has been caught in the whirl of a brutal war, where the
Emergency regulations gave political leaders and their bureaucratic cronies
unlimited power. This coincided with an open liberal economy where money
and consumption defined power and success rather than ones values and
integrity. This has enshrined a vested self-interest in Sri Lankas cultural,
political, economic and social institutions. When unchecked, this culture
breeds a certain reptilian selfish indulgence, in those who are in positions of
power.
Canadas Problem
Yet this is not a Sri Lankan problem alone, as Prof. John Packer Director,
Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa,
pointed out when he introduced the next documentary Finding Dawn by
Christine Welsh a Canadian Metis (mixed Aboriginal French heritage).

Dawn is one of an estimated 1,000 Aboriginal women in Canada over the

past 30 years, murdered or disappeared across Canada. The heart
wrenching movie illustrates the deep historical, social and economic facts
that contribute to the epidemic of violence against Native women in
Canada.
Again, the same narrative powerful against the powerless and Canada is
shamed by the inaction of the previous Conservative government of
Stephen Harper, who merely stated that these are crimes that the Police
have to solve. It is also alleged that these crimes happen within the
Aboriginal community, so mainstream society can stay above this as this is
an Aboriginal problem. The irony is that the Police had not solved many
of them.
The result is, as the documentary depicts, the Police and government
authorities do not put the same effort unless the missing women were of
European ancestry. Many of the victims families voiced their dismay about
this second class treatment.
In this dominant Canadian narrative, there is no acknowledgement of the
systemic racism that prevailed over the 400 year colonial history of
Canada, and in the last 150 years, plucking children away from Aboriginal
families to residential schools, which took away their culture, language and
self esteem.
Then I came across this bizarre story from Vancouver, British Columbia (BC)
in the 1990s of the fate of two lawyers a BC Cree woman, Renate AndresAuger and Jack Cram who brought forward allegations about the sexual
exploitation of children at the Vancouver Club and resorts in Whistler, BC by
some powerful men.
In 1999, Jennifer Wade, a founder of Amnesty International in Vancouver,

referred to this in a keynote presentation at the Global Conference on the

Commercial Exploitation of Children and Youth.
She said Ms. Auger and her lawyer, Jack Cram, were first not listened to in
the court, and then were handcuffed and dragged out of the courtroom to a
jail cell. When Jack Cram eventually did speak, he put before the judge
some of his allegations involving cover-ups by the head officers of the Law
Society and the judiciary to aid and abet pedophiles and drug dealers.
When he insisted on giving more details on radio, Jack Cram was met by ten
policemen upon his return from a radio station. He was then put into an
ambulance and taken to the psychiatric ward of Vancouver General
Hospital. He believes he was injected again and again with mind
disorienting drugs.
I was so shocked to hear of this happening in Canada, as it coincided with
me reading the same story in Anthony J Halls well researched book, Earth
into Property (pp 389-390);
No public investigation into the treatment and accusations of Andres-Auger
and Cram ever took place. We can only speculate, therefore, on the
circumstances behind such a dramatic collapse of dignity and due process
in the criminal-justice system. Certainly it is made to seem probable that
some highly placed group or individual believed that he, she, or they had a
great deal to lose if Andres-Auger and Cram had been able to press
charges.
It was then quite poignant, as I was reading Earth into Property, allegations
were made against the Quebec Provincial Police in October 2015 for abuse
and sexual assaults against aboriginal women in Val-dOr, north of Montreal,
made public in a report from Radio-Canadas investigative

program Enqute.
Responsibility and the Power of Position
On October 22nd, 2015 in addressing these issues, Quebec Premier Philippe
Couillard stated, There is no tolerance in our society for any act of
oppression of any kind particularly not from people who hold positions of
power and especially not toward segments of the population that are
already in vulnerable positions due to their status Aboriginal womens
status in particular.
This is exactly it people who hold positions of power have to be the most
responsible, as they epitomise the law and the duty to safeguard every
citizen. If they do not take this responsibility seriously, their immense
power enables them to manipulate the system as they wish over powerless
people. When the power of position is misused, even by one person going
astray, it plays havoc with society, as it creates fear and vulnerability.
Then, when the perpetrators are protected by the very system that is
supposed to enforce the law, it adds insult to injury.
How do we bring this conversation to the surface to examine the root
causes? This conversation needs to cover values, parenting, schooling,
culture, gender, class, governance, the will to uphold and enforce the law
and the importance of leadership. When the political process has eroded
with expediency for the powerful, a culture of impunity pervades and is
endemic as it is in Sri Lanka and in Canada, when it comes to
disadvantaged parts of society.
In todays age of information and social media, the emperor is exposed
without clothes, as the powerful cannot hide their misdeeds using the

system anymore. Now these stories are coming out, and the credibility of
our governments and political leaders are at stake.
The question is, how do we change this situation?
The moral compass of people also depends on culture, history and the
socio-economic situation.
In any society, there is a certain percentage of psychopaths and sociopaths
on the bell curve to different degrees of affliction. First of all, it is
governance, as laws have to protect people from these crimes and they
have to be enforced.
The other side of the coin comes from nurture. Positive parenting and
teaching is crucial to build self esteem and to reduce sociopathic
tendencies. Self esteem leads to personal responsibility that comes from
values and conscience.
Crucial Conversations
It is really true that it takes a village to raise a child.
It is those conversations I had with my mother and even more with my
grandmother, about being a man of honour, about the importance of
respect, that I know became the voice of reason that tempered my
behaviour, to control my primal reptilian impulses in certain situations.
Gaining the space to think of the consequences, the bigger picture of how
my behaviour and actions impacted on others helped to bring some
rationality to highly emotional situations.
That is why I believe we have to go back to those basics. We have to catch
abhorrent behaviour at a young age. Parents are best placed to notice and

correct behaviour patterns and next come the school and then the
community the neighbours and our spiritual guides.
However, there has to be a framework for a positive society in place that
respects man and woman alike as distinct partners. If mothers and
grandmothers and other female elders, siblings, friends are to have an
influence on young men, society has to respect women and this should be
reflected in the media. Only then can the significant women in our lives
influence us as sons, grandsons, nephews and brothers, husbands, fathers
to respect ourselves first, so we can respect the women in our lives to
form our true partnerships to make this world a better place.
Riane Eisler, in her book Chalice and the Blade says we live in an exciting,
dangerous time in which we can overthrow our hierarchically controlled
patriarchal system and replace it with a technologically advanced model of
the partnership system in which both genders work together to emphasize
the nurturing side of life.
The only way to make that happen is to make movies like Silence in the
Courts and Finding Dawn mainstream so more and more people can have
these crucial and important conversations.
Posted by Thavam