Sunday, January 27, 2008

"We Don't Have Child Molesters Here in South Africa"

Or so said Thomi, one of the scholars who came to speak to us about African philosophy.

Yeah, Thomi, and there are no gays in Iran, either.

1 comment:

Ricky said...

I actually have a friend who wrote her dissertation on child sexual abuse in the Caribbean, and while I agree with you that it probably happens almost everywhere, there is an important cultural distinction in places and cultures without the *privacy* that we have here in the United States, all closed off from the world in our suburban homes. In more traditional cultures, there are people around constantly, and adults don't have so much alone time with children. Child-rearing is a more communal enterprise, and very, very different from the U.S., where the the dominant paradigm is "it's my child, I'll raise her/him how I choose." Just food for thought.