Leadership Lessons: Loosening the Knots of Corruption
Rape has been a way of life on many parts of this planet. Yet, there seems to be a loud roar of “no more” coming from people who in the past would have remained silent.
Something is happening.
In the Congo a high ranking Colonel was sentenced in a landmark case, sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity. This is a first time a commanding officer has been tried for such a crime.
Something is happening.
Women came to testify. Most spoke so softly it was hard to hear them, the pain and the shame spilling into the courtroom. Yet, they came and others listened. This mobile court was paid for by George Soros’ Open Society and aided by Lawyers without Borders and the U.N. Mission to Congo.
It is time for something to happen.
Several years ago I watched a wrenching film by a young film maker, Etienne Kallos, who went to Africa alone, rented a car, had a driver for protection, and interviewed women in villages where rape was simply a part of the day.
It was a film made for his graduate class at New York University. It never made it to movie theaters, although it was praised and he received a high grade. It was too soon. The world was not yet ready.
One scene came back to me when I thought about the colonel and the Congo. It was a quiet, shy woman nursing her son, just a few months old; the child was a result of rape. She talked with her head tilted to the side, away from the camera. Yet her soft voice was strong. Her dilemma, how to love this little boy who would never know a father, a father who had brutally beaten his mother as well as had his way with her. How could she raise this child who would grow to be a man one day and not be afraid of him, of what he could become?
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