Everyone seems to be asking this question. I want to offer two explanations.
One comes from 1977. I was 19 in that year. I was at Southampton University, and already an activist (a social democrat then, probably a little to the right of where I am now). There was a big debate in the students' union. I don't remember the precise motion, but the Liberals and Broad Left (pretty much Labour) supported a motion saying paedophiles had rights that had to be respected.
I was shocked and angry. I got the chance to speak as second main opposer of the motion. There were several hundred in the audience. It was the best speech I'd ever made at the time. It was the first time I realised I was carrying an audience with me. It was exhilarating. But best, the motion was defeated. That was better.
And yet it says something of the time that such a motion was proposed by those too liberal for their own good. That was the era.
But things have changed dramatically since then. So why, still, did no one speak? Here I speculate but it's not hard to do so.
Our society is obsessed with power, and celebrity. Mix the two and people believe a person is quite unlike other people. Though they're not.
And this society is massively hierarchical: power is afforded to those at the top. The rest are meant to obey. It's incredibly hard to break this rule. At work people want 'team players'. Those are the people who will obey, not rock the boat, won't question and know when to turn a blind eye. Because people have learned that this is how to survive we have large numbers of people in this country who know this is what is expected of them if they are to get on - especially if they are also told in no uncertain terms that they will never make it to the top. Far too many people are told that.
I suspect Saville knew that.
These are the people he picked on. They are the people he exploited.
Society does exploit people in these roles in so many ways. And it is power that does it: managers want people who will not challenge them, nor bring them news they do not want to hear. So they don't hear it as they're not told it.
It's why, of course, we don't flourish as we might as a nation. People are encouraged to be ordinary. I know that sounds an appalling thing to say - but it's true. Most of British education has this goal: we don't strive for excellence, the out of the ordinary or real thinking, we just aspire to the mean. And in that environment people will not speak.
Saville knew that too. And so he got away with his crime.
It's also how so much tax abuse happens too, unreported, but widely known.
And until we empower people - to speak out much more widely such abuse will continue.
We have to encourage people to believe they're anything but normal if we're going to stop abuse and encourage the exceptional in all of us, whilst ensuring the constraint within society to stop abuse happening.
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First of all the standard BBC contract at the time contained the following:
“You will not without previous written consent of the BBC:
(A) during your employment write for publication or speak in public about the BBC or its affairs; or
(B) during or after you employment publish or disclose in any circumstances whatsoever to anyone secret or confidential information relating to the business or affairs of the BBC which comes to your knowledge in the course of your employment.”
Secondly since the BBC was close to a monopoly provider of national TV and radio and did so largely free of commercial pressures (hence relatively lucrative salaries), anybody making a fuss was likely to fall off the gravy train.
You’re a lawyer: you impose these contracts
And this had nothing to do with the ownership of anything
Stop being ludicrous
In fairness to Bernard, I don’t think he is necessarily disagreeing with you. He seems to be pointing out part of the mechanism whereby the BBC employees were discoraged from speaking out.
Agreed
Richard, the clauses Bernard refers to are typical in employment contracts. I’d be surprised your own employees did not have similar confidentiality clauses in them.
Of course, such confidentiality clauses cannot be enforced where the employee discloses criminal conduct but perhaps employees did not know this, and where therefore deterred out of (misplaced) fear of being held in breach of contract.
However, Bernard’s point is that because the industry was then held in such small circles, employees would have been frightened about blowing the whistle, lest they be blackbanned from the industry. I think this is a very valid point to explain why nobody was willing to speak up about this.
Actually – no, I used nothing like so onerous
“encourage to believe they are anything but normal”.
I see a number of people who think they are not good enough. I start with ‘you can be normal and being is good enough’ . this doesn’t mean they cannot become more, it means we can be self respecting -and worthy of respect from others-(which is what you are saying, perhaps) being ourselves.
I remind people who describe themselves as Christian, that Jesus told as to love our neighbour as ourselves. So many interpret it as Love ourselves less than others or others more than ourselves.
Isn’t that why the early Quakers addressed others by the familiar pronoun of ‘Thou’ ? Modern English, unlike French or German, has lost this distinction.
As I Quaker, I agree with your interpretation
On the R4 PM programme yesterday, Conservative MP Rob Wilson implied that it was a failure of the public sector as these abuses happened at the BBC and the NHS and that the poice did nothing.
For public sector bashing he really takes the biscuit!
Amazing….
“Most of British education has this goal: we don’t strive for excellence, the out of the ordinary or real thinking, we just aspire to the mean.”
I simply couldn’t agree more, this is a major failing of the state education system and almost every parent I ever speak to feels the same.
I think it is all education – indeed worse from what I see in the private sector – where the aim to have a homogenised product is very high indeed
Richard – can’t recall who said it – Betrand Russell, Friedrich Nietzsche?
“If you make people think they are thinking, they’ll love you; if you make them think, they’ll hate you”.
How I agree with your stricture on education – or rather, what the French call “formation” = shaping, moulding to confirm to the pattern.
I used to stress to my pupils and students that education is about freedom, (and not the dreary Right-wing interepretation thereof = freedom of choice defined as the right to decide which snake-oil merchant can part you from your money), but the freedom to become, to not have the wool pulled over your eyes, to know when it is being pulled over your eyes.
I’d tell them that the teacher’s role – like that of the parent – is to make themselves redundant, because the child/pupil/student has learned how to stand out his or her own feet.
And here we are in the midst of Gove’s assault on all of this, as he seeks to take over the whole education system (or at least to ensure it’s sold off to his rapacious chums, the private education chains that have already captured so much of what my taxes, and those of everybody over 16, built up over the generations since the state began to provide education for all), and to infect it with his own dreary “vision” of “freedom”, meaning the freedom to pursue “excellence and success”, defined in class and monetary terms and the efficiency with which you can trample on your fellow citizens in the pursuit of your own goals.
Orwellian, indeed, and a society in which monsters can stalk the land, disguised as benevolent do-gooders. To paraphrase Wordsworth, replacing “Milton” with Orwell:
London, 1802
Orwell! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Edward Herman wrote in ‘Beyond hypocrisy’:
‘The structure of power that shapes media choices and determines who gains access also affects truthfulness in the mass media.
Those who have assured access can lie; the more powerful they are, the more easily they can lie and the less likely it is that their lies will be corrected.
The higher the rank the more “credible” the statement; the more credible the speaker, the greater the freedom to lie.’
The Jimmy Saville silence by the mainstream media rather undermines their central argument to Leveson that they need press freedom to expose wrong-doing on behalf of the public interest. I only wish that they had, and would do so! The silence on the Health and Social Care bill, Hilsborough, phone-tapping, manipulation of Libor, tax havens, George Osborne’s claims, the list goes on, and now Jimmy Saville’s horrific trail of sexual abuse. Too much of the media offers unlimited sport, bedroom stories and regurgitated government spin. Talk about undermining the democratic process.
*Savile*
Indeed – but he won’t be suing
I hope that you mean you opposed the right to commit acts of abuse to children rather than taking away basic human rights from those who do, when you say you opposed pedophiles having rights.
As far as your other comments go it is true most people never want to question things that go on, they believe that it is someone else’s job to do that. Most people do not believe sufficiently strongly in their own ideas to confront ideas from others that are clearly at odds with their own moral feelings. It takes an act of bravery to be the first to stand up to something that should never be allowed to happen, that is why I believe the woman who campaigned so long to get the media to recognise these crimes should be honored.
I opposed their right to abuse
Mark Eaton wrote an article on this issue for the BBC this week. The comments were interesting – it is a minefield trying to write anything sensible about the issue. But he recalled his time as a cub reported in the 1970s, when a local councillor was charged with a paedophile offence. He went back to the office, believing he had a scoop, and his editor said “our readers don’t want to read about this sort of filth”. It reminded me of the famous response to the Sex Pistols being on telly (“this is stuff for people on council estates” type drivel.)
I think the truth is that the past is another country. What astonishes me about Savile is that nobody made these allegations in the last few years. I think it is especially poor that people like Sandi Toksvig and Liz Kershaw who could have spoken out in more recent times did not.
Savile has not been a celebrity with power for a long time. Louis Theroux did a documentary years ago exposing him as a sad wierdo, why did nobody speak out? What exactly has there been to be afraid of over the last 10 years?
I think blaming Kershaw and Toksvig is well below the belt on your part
It really isn’t meant to be. But if public figures with easy access to the media won’t speak out, what chance do ordinary people have of getting the truth heard?
Why did no one talk about Jimmy Savile?
Because he was protected, and any whistleblowers were afraid of his protectors.
I heard stories about him at least 30 years ago, though they were necrophiliac rather than paedophiliac.
His activities seemed to have transcended health, punishment and youthcare oversight.
What everybody is afaid of is admitting that paedophilia is not the conserve of the weirdo in the bushes,but an organised. traditional predatory elite.
If you’re in a position of responsibility — whether a boss, head teacher, bishop or whatever — and you get a complaint from someone (adult or child) to whom you owe a duty of care about sexual abuse they have suffered at the hands of someone in a powerful position for whom you are also responsible — a senior manager, celebrity, teacher, priest, whatever — you really have 2 options.
1) Follow through with the complaint. If you do this, you can expect a big fight on your hands. The person against whom the complaint is made is unlikely to simply accept it. The stakes are enormous, with likely police involvement, reputations and egos involved, publicity implications, and no scope for compromise once the process is initiated. It will be draining of time, resources and emotional energy. A ‘fight to the death’ if you will.
2) Kick the problem into the long grass.
Now 1) is obviously the right thing to do, assuming you’re satisfied the complaint has foundation. But it requires a lot of guts and it frankly doesn’t surprise me that a lot of people — whether BBC managers, head teachers, Catholic bishops — have not found the bottle to take this option.
For any of us (and I openly include myself) to know for sure how we would act before we have faced this very difficult situation requires quite a bit of presumption about our own courage.
Have you been put in this position where faced with a complaint of this kind against (say) one of your senior managers within your accounting firm? If so, how did you act?
Kind regards
I did face a not directly similar but none the less serious allegation in a company where I was a director. We went to the police and gave all assistance we could
Richard – I think that would be the case in all the professional services firms (apart from one man band small ones probably), because all have systems and processes to deal with complaints. I think the issue was probably that the BBC didnt have any process to deal with this type of thing (as well as lacked the courage to address it obviously)
I’m sorry – that’s an extrapolation that is ludicrous
The idea that there could be no abuse in a professional services firm is – might I put this kindly? – just a little far fetched
I’m disappointed, Richard, that you’ve followed Fleet St’s lead so unerringly.
Firstly, JS is dead. There were many opportunities, if what is said is true, to bring him to justice while he was living.
They were not taken.
Everything said now is, & this should be remembered, merely hearsay. Whatever the “red-tops” may infer, allegations remain that until they are PROVEN in a Criminal Court< & these allegations never will be proven, so they remain ALLEGATIONS.
Look at Michael Jackson. The allegations against him were v damning. When the full facts came out, in a Court of Law, the position looked quite different!
The fact that Saville is dead, so can’t suffer any undeserved calumny, is surely the best of reasons to take this forward. The comparison with Jackson, who was very much alive at the time of the allegations, is unjustified for that reason alone, but the allegations were also on a different scale and quality.
I’m not posting on here again.
You might, quite reasonably, feel you’ve lost nothing so, there you go.
The comments on JS were gratuitously nasty &, IMO, unacceptable. I’m old school – a man is innocent until he’s proven guilty. It is alarming that, when it comes to sexual activity, the right & left are as one. I guess we should’ve seen it coming when poor old Mike Tyson went down. So far as the right are concerned, the criminal classes are bound to be guilty of something.So far as the left are concerned, all men are rapists, black men doubly, so why even bother having a trial ?
I think your comments are rash: I was discussing why people did not bring the allegation
I did not say the allegation was true
But you are at liberty to disagree
I am surprised that your debate was about the paedophile’s right to abuse, because I have never seen such a case being made. What I have seen is the denial that paedophilia is abuse: and it seems to me that discussion of that proposition is not a sign of “too liberal for their own good”. It is certainly far preferable to the demonisation of paedophilia which is now the norm. I get a bit tired of the manichean world we are invited to live in. Things are a bit less clear cut than that
From my very limited experience of paedophiles it appears that their sexuality is no more a choice than is my own. It comes upon them in just the same way as it comes upon everyone else, and it really doesn’t matter if it is nature or nurture, any more than it does for the rest of us. Unfortunately for the paedophile they are attracted to people who cannot give consent, and therefore their only legitimate choice is celibacy. That is a very hard road to travel even for those who freely embrace it, such as priests. And paedophiles are not saints: they are as open to self deception as any. Their position is not made easier by the double standards which allow The Sun to “countdown” the days to when a young girl is “legal”; or by the rapist’s defence of “she looked older”, a defence which many accept even now. Any “age of consent” is somewhat arbitrary and there are many who blur that line when it suits.
A little compassion for those who face a life long struggle against desires which are strong and which must be denied would not come amiss: instead we see paedophiles monstered and this can only make a bad problem worse.
I do not wish to be misunderstood: the issue is consent and it cannot be diluted or fudged: but support to travel the celibacy road is the least we should offer to these individuals and at present they cannot even speak their name for they are dehumanised for no obvious reason that I can see. Our fear is not sufficient justification: paedophiles have always been with us and there are better ways of coping with the problem than the self righteous hatred we now foster. It makes things more dangerous: because the accusation is so serious it is less likely to be made by decent people who may have suspicion but no proof. I would certainly hesitate knowing the consequences for that person if I turn out to be wrong: because there is no defence in the current climate: there is only “no smoke without fire” and life of hell to follow
Perhaps that is part of why people did not speak out.
I think my recall of the subject of the debate is correct
Remember this was a student debate some long time ago
I have reflected further on your comment
I cannot, of course, recall every nuance of an event thirty five years ago: it would be ludicrous to claim I could
I am sure the debate did not have the tone you represent. If it had then it would have sounded remarkably the debates then prevalent in the same student union, promoted by the Christian Union, on homosexuality where their claim was much as you have stated here, that chastity was the only option
Curiously I now wonder, as the paedophile debate pout forward to parody that? If it was then it certainly did not follow the same lines – for that would have given the CU some legitimacy in their argument and I know that did not happen and I am quite sure that was never on the agenda of those proposing it.
So I regret the tenor of the debate was I think as I suggest. This was about the rights of paedophiles, but ignored their obligations.
I have much sympathy with your argument, but do not think it was heard that day.
But I may be wrong: this was, as I say, 35 years ago
I bow to your recollection, for you were there and I was not. But it is my understanding that such debates were not put forward to parody the arguments which surrounded all sorts of “sexual liberation” at that time: rather some paedophiles argued that their position was exactly the same as that of homosexuals. As always with such changes in society the situation is not clear when they are first addressed. There really were similarites in the two cases, and once homosexuals (and women) began to make some progress some paedophiles made the case for the similarity. It is not wrong that they were heard and I think that it may even have helped people to understand some of the complexities. After all the attitude to homosexuality is better than it was, arguably: but it is not as if the antipathy and fear has gone away altogether
The case that paedeophiles were subject to oppression and discrimination in the same way as homosexuals ultimately founders on the substantive difference: which is consent. But that was not so obvious then, because there were many who wished to show that the problem was the same in both cases and the principle was masked by other arguments and other issues. There is still a body of opinion which conflates homosexuality and paedophilia: and that is dangerous to the gains which have been made for gay people in terms of acceptance: it is much more dangerous for all of us because such debates cannot now be easily held: and so the true difference becomes obscured.
If we, as a society, need to protect our children (and we do), we need to have very strong reasons for the lines we draw as they affect individuals. And there is a very strong reason in the case of the paedophile: not that they are monsters but quite simply that they cannot obtain consent. That is the problem: and if we do not know that or do not argue that then guess what: the paedophile swims in the same water we do and if we do not understand what is wrong with his desires then neither will he (or she). Objections to homosexuality on the basis of a “yuch” factor are still present: objections on the basis that it is not “natural” are heard less often now than they used to be: but are still in play nonetheless: objections on the basis of bibilical prohibition also come up. None of those is a good argument for censure: and you and I and homosexuals and paedophiles can all see that. Once they are stripped away the substantive difference is made plain: but how easy is that with hindsight? Fairly easy: and getting harder all the time.
I think you accurately summarise what the confusion was at the time, and now
Thank you
Fiona, I must say that I fully support your argument. I must particularly applaud you for saying it when it is so often the case that to try and understand the cause of a behavior is misconstrued as condoning it.
I have great sympathies for those with so called “deviant” sexuality because I have far too little understanding of how these are formed. I hope that one day some unbiased research is done on this that can help these people avoid doing harm to children.
Richard:
My recollection of the debate around 1977 suggests that Fiona is right. It was about paedophiles’ right to discuss their sexuality, their problems and how to deal with them, not about their ‘right’ to abuse. There was an organisation called the Paedophile Information Exchange which promoted these rights, and was assisted by Liberty’s forerunner, the NCCL, whose Chief Executive and Legal Officer at the time were the then Bennite duo Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman. There were issues of double-jeopardy and being “persecuted” for the sexual attraction they felt rather than any unlawful act in pursuit of that attraction.
With hindsight, we (I was part of the ‘we’) were far too liberal at the very least in setting our priorities – we now know that children were being abused in children’s homes, schools and churches up and down the land and children’s rights were so much more urgent an issue that the rights of paedophiles. However, Liberty have certainly redeemed themselves since not least with their efforts on behalf of whistleblowers.
As well as the evident ack of protection for whisteblowers at the BBC highlighted by Bernard, I also think that the failure to challenge so many acts of male chauvinism was still endemic even on the Left, and likewise acts of sexual harrasment. That certainly provided plenty of cover for paedophiles.
I do not accept the characterisation of “too liberal” in setting our priorities. I do not know of anyone who condones abuse on the basis of “liberal” values, whether social or political (if such a distinction can be made). I think that the position wrt children’s homes and churches was more akin to Queen Victoria’s attitude to lesbians: she did not believe in them, and so the laws against gays did not apply.
From at least the time of Dickens we as a nation believed in physical abuse in institutional settings: and in exploitation. But we did not and do not believe in the sexual exploitation of children as a widespread phenomenon: it is far too uncomfortable and so we confined our “belief” to the lone weirdo and the rapist in the dark alley. We still struggle to accept that most sexual violence occurs in the home or is perpetrated by people known and trusted by the victim.
Nor do I think you are correct in saying that the issue was not about the right to abuse: At least some were arguing that paedophilia was NOT abuse: it was an expression of sexuality and the focus was on sexual liberation of the paedophiles concerned. That is no great surprise: we have not, even yet, truly changed the underlying belief that men have a right to sexual expression which in some instances overrides the need for consent. We have made progress, but we are far from a situation which separates sex from power and even from reward for success, however defined. Nor have we left behind us the “ever-ready” notion of male sexuality and the total responsibility of the woman to protect herself by limiting her behaviour and her freedom in serious ways.
There were and are many paedophiles who despise their own leanings and who do lead celibate lives, or who marry, or use prostitutes who pretend to be underage: these are people, and they have the same range of values as all the rest of us. Despite what you read from time to time a person is not wholly defined by their sexuality. There are still gay people who indulge in self loathing as well. Yet we have no choice in our sexual preferences and that is fairly widely accepted nowadays: except for paedophiles. I do not even see that question much posed in their case.
In the muddy thinking of the time there were many arguments about the right to free sexual expression for women and gays: it was in a context of genuine questioning of much which had formerly gone unchallenged, including racism as well. People were struggling to identify the issues and to see where it was legitimate for law and social mores to interfere with individual freedom: that line was shifting as I think it needed to: and still needs to. We are ever in flux between the value we place on individual freedom and the value we place on social right and responsibilities. I personally think that is because we are dual in our nature: we are selfish and altruistic in equal measure and any belief system which denies either strand is fantasy: and ultimately self defeating: but that is an aside
What was truly valuable about all those debates is they did help to sort out what the issues actually were, when stripped of unexamined certainties about what was “natural” etc: and in the end they did demonstrate that the case of women and gays was substantively different from the case of paedophiles despite the overlay of identical prejudice. Thereafter the case for similarity disappeared, but so did the compassion and the grown up approach to paedophilia which was also a strand and which you rightly say was concerned with the right to discuss their sexuality and the problems they faced because of it. And we are left with childish demonisation which is detrimental to us all, in my view.