Just as it is with the Occupy Wall Street protests, one of the seamier aspects of the Arab Spring protests has been the sexual assaults against female protesters that have gone unreported. The glaring exceptions of course were those occasions when a member of the American media was the victim.
Such was the case last February when reporter Lara Logan was preyed upon by a mob of rabid Egyptians. Here is how her news organization described the assault in a press statement back then:
In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel, and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.
(CBS News, February 15, 2011)
But when I read that Logan was determined to return within weeks to the fray – where she stood out like a stranded gazelle in the midst of a pride of lions – I was compelled to make the following observation:
[This] suggests that she is psychologically disassociated not just from her body, but from her maternal instincts as well… I just find it more than a little peculiar that a mother would be so eager to get so far away from her practically new-born child to cover this story with all of the obvious dangers it entails.
(“Egyptian protesters sexually assault U.S. reporter,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 18, 2011)
Well, it will probably come as no surprise that this pithy bit of amateur psychology incited such wrath that I’m still suffering (virtual) posttraumatic stress disorder.
But now comes my belated vindication. Because Lara herself finally admitted last week that she was (and still is) suffering the kind of trauma I implied would (and should) make it prohibitive for her to continue covering the Arab Spring protests:
People don’t really know that much about (posttraumatic stress disorder). There’s something called latent PTSD. It manifests itself in different ways. I want to be free of it, but I’m not.
It doesn’t go away. It’s not something I keep track of. It’s not predictable like that. But it happens more than I’d like… Your family is critical… My children are my life. They’re so spectacular. They’re also so young.
(New York Daily News, January 22, 2012)
Lara is a very good reporter. But she will do well to limit her reporting to more prosaic topics from the relatively safe confines of the United States – as she did last night with her report for 60 Minutes on African game hunting … in Texas.
I wish her well.