Tournantes
Janet Albrechtsen: Talking race not racism
17jul02
THE French call it tournantes or "take your turn"
- the French term for the pack-rape of white girls
by young Muslim men.
For 20 years the French ignored the ethnic causes
of these barbaric crimes for fear of offending
multicultural man. Along the way, more innocent
young girls were pack-raped. Xenophobia divided
communities. And finally, voters punished a
Centre-Left government for assuming that the
electorate was not grown up enough to discuss race
without being racist.
Last year Sylvie Lotteau, a magistrate from
Bobigny, a northern Paris suburb, described
tournantes: "Their technique was to pick up a
young girl - a white girl - and once she had
become the girlfriend of one of the members, he
would allow his mates to make use of her."
Now it´s in Australia. Last week two Muslim
brothers were found guilty of the gang-rape of a
young Australian girl. The victim knew one of the
brothers. She was invited for a drive but taken to
a secluded park and gang-raped while 14 Muslim
boys watched.
Racially motivated gang-rape first hit the radar
screen in August last year. After the first trial,
ethnic leaders such as Sheik Tajedinne Hamed el
Hilaly, imam at Lakemba mosque, said the ethnicity
of the rapists was irrelevant and simply incited
racist attacks on Muslims.
But the Muslim community flogged the wrong racists
- those Muslim rapists played the race card in the
most horrific and demeaning way, taunting victims
with "you deserve it because you´re Australian"
and threats to "f--- you Leb style".
And when the judge in the first trial, Megan
Latham, tried to douse the flames in an
increasingly heated debate about ethnic crime with
her gratuitous comments about there being "no
racial element", she simply turned up the heat.
Since then, evidence on ethnicity-based gang-rapes
has mounted. Horrific attacks across Sydney´s
southwest reveal the same modus operandi as the
French tournantes. Our reaction? Like the French,
we pander to sensitivities about race and cultural
issues. And so we extend the social and political
nightmare of race-based gang-rape.
A year ago the barbaric French phenomenon looked
vaguely relevant. Now it looks scary and
prophetic. When 11 young Muslim men were accused
of pack raping a 14-year-old French girl in a
cellar, politicians, judges and sociologists
finally began to expose and explore the terror of
tournantes.
"It´s the group effect. They can´t let themselves
down in front of their friends, who are urging
them to commit the act," said a police commander
of a northern Paris suburb.
Pack-rape of white girls is an initiation rite of
passage for a small section of young male Muslim
youth, said Jean-Jacques Rassial, a
psychotherapist at Villetaneuse University.
"Fraternal bonding now dominates. It is the law of
the gang, shorn of any sexual morals," he said.
Denmark presents a similar story. Last year,
Flemming Balvig, a criminologist at Copenhagen
University, confirmed the French experience of
this barbaric rite of passage into manhood for
some of these young men....""
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5
942,4718201,00.html