Penn Raine: Who’s a naughty boy, then?

Such a fuss being made about Elon Musk’s criticism of Britain’s establishment for shrugging its shoulders at the grooming gang scandal. (Some would say ‘cover up’ and use a more specific word than ‘grooming’!)

The howls of outrage, enthusiastically revived and newly focussed since the US election news has gone stale, home in on Musk’s alleged reprehensible business practices, such as his refusal to allow unionised labour and whole other catalogues of corporate malfeasance and character flaws.

Such a surprise that the globe’s wealthiest human has not always played the game with a straight bat.

I am neutral about Musk and know next to zero about him apart from all his money and the Tesla. I’m not convinced that the mining of rare metals for the batteries of the electric car is either sustainable or ethical but that’s entirely another squabble with the Greens. Perhaps this means I’m not really neutral about Musk, but I defend his right to have an opinion on racially targeted sexual abuse of children.

Although the majority of sexual abuse in Britain is perpetrated by white British people, unsurprisingl, considering the racial makeup of its populace, the British Pakistani community is heavily over-represented in these statistics, and although Pakistani Muslim girls have been abuse victims, the majority have been white British working class girls.

To be incensed that a renowned global figure is elbowing his way into the affairs of a nation of which he is not a citizen is to be ignorant of history, ancient and modern. The Pope of the day excommunicated Henry VIII for being murderously careless with his wives and our allies -and we- have intervened bellicosely in places like Viet Nam, Afghanistan and many other countries who had their own governments through which to make decisions, thank you very much.

The character of the person shining the light is irrelevant. As far as I’m concerned it could be Taylor Swift, Kamala Harris or that woman married to Prince Harry.

The important issue is that thousands of police, council and social workers, politicians, journalists and leaders of inquiries have variously denied and minimised the fact that gangs of Muslim males drugged, raped and trafficked children, and in a reprehensible effort to maintain ‘community cohesion’ and avoid being labelled racist, people in charge tried to make it go away.

Victims are thought to be in the tens of thousands and none who have the courage to speak up feel that their experiences are even now of interest to those who should mind.

In Britain they estimate that around 1.3% of reported rapes result in a charge and far fewer in a conviction. This speaks to the continued dismissal of rape victims’ credibility. Even the Israeli women violated on October 7 and later have had their claims rejected because in all the live recordings of the Hamas pogrom there have been no actual rape videos. Footage of dead women with their legs splayed and their underwear removed and many firsthand accounts of rape- but no film evidence!

Remember how rightly pleased the world was to accept the testaments of Me Too claimants? Perhaps the narrative has shifted now, and we should change the hashtag to #MeToo-unless you’re a Jew or an underprivileged white girl from a British council estate.

Penn Raine is an educator and writer who lives in NZ and France.