| May. 12th, 2009 @ 05:46 pm Everybody has an agenda, no exceptions. |
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Current Mood:  contemplative
I am referring to a certain interesting turn of events involving a feminist women rights group known as Equality Now based in the US, and a Japanese hardcore porn developer and publisher, Illusion. Several articles pertaining to the situation can be found here (mature content warning, the site contains real life and hentai pornography):
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/05/12/equality-now-we-should-censor-other-countries/
Basically, this feminist group managed to harass Illusion into pulling a certain game called RapeLay from stores. The subject of the game is pretty straight forward, it's a drama filled game where you rape females. One could argue that sexual overtones within stories have existed for millenniums within human society, taboo or otherwise, and that this game is just an evolution from those times, but I'm not going to talk much about the content of the game.
I'm more interested in the reasonings and motivation of the the group, Equality Now, and the implications of their actions. The question that immediately comes to my mind is, do they have the right to do this?
While they use 'studies' as evidence that these games encourage rape, other people are easily able to call up statistics that argue for the opposition. Another reason they give for their actions is that the game 'violates' women rights worldwide and so on. I always have to remind myself that these people are serious when the pull this argument. They are so sure that they're in the right they do not stop to consider differences in beliefs.
When we're moving towards globalization where the world continues to become smaller, there is this very real danger than extremist groups such as these may enforce their will upon others. Nobody is not guilty of this. The site contains arguments that call into light the machinations of world respected organization UNICEF! As always, these people do good work, more often than not they make real differences in the lives of many individuals that change them for the better. But there is also the rule that 'authority corrupts'. There are times when these people have, and will, cross the line, and when that happens, who can say no to them for long?
This applies to us over here in Malaysia, because I can see things like this happening all around us too. This latest episode with the 300 stray dogs being shipped off to Pulau Ketam. The animal rights groups are quick to act on this to save as many dogs as they can; a noble gesture. But, some of these animal rights groups are willing to ostracize the Pulau Ketam islanders in order to gain support. The islanders themselves have their own reasons for exiling the dogs, saying that their small island is being overrun by an estimate of 2000 stray dogs, and that instead of putting down 300 of those dogs, they decided to give them a chance at survival by exiling 300 of those dogs.
So, now the question that comes to my mind is 'should the animal rights groups be allowed to knowingly let their members ostracize the islanders?'. In a topic I posted in the Comic Fiesta forum, the support gathering effort there seemed to only report half the story. The person who started the thread only mentioned the dogs being exiled, and nothing was mentioned about the state of the stray dog problem on Pulau Ketam itself. People had already made posts proclaiming their hatred of the islanders and still nothing was mentioned until I myself pointed it out. And when I did, the TC then replied that she knew all along.
Why was this information left out? This happens everywhere. I'm always distrustful of charity organizations at first because of this alone. They are trying to gather support, and it's no surprise that they will go to certain lenghts to get that support. But is this okay? Is it okay to knowingly, or unknowingly, mislead people into helping your cause if your cause appears just? When you do overstep the boundaries of tolerance, mutual respect, and cultural respect, how far is too far?
Author's note: Although I made mention to a very particular topic in the Comic Fiesta forum and the people taking part in it in, this blog post was in no way meant to be a personal attack or insult to those involved. I merely used that as an example to illustrate a process involving human beliefs, social interactions, and charity organizations. I mean no offense to anyone who is posting in that topic. |
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