Tag: Jimmy Savile
The Enculturation Of Abuse: The Lesson The Savile Story Should Be Teaching Us
by John Walker on Oct.23, 2012, under The Rest
As a thousand new stories appear each day regarding Jimmy Savile, and the papers increasingly try to find someone else to blame in light of Savile’s being dead, one specific, sad fact is being ignored: It’s usual for others to know about a paedophile’s actions.
It’s a horrific fact, but the reason many paedophiles are able to abuse is because family members, friends, and of course victims*, don’t report it to anyone. For all manner of reasons, whether through fear, having been abused themselves, or for perhaps the most insidious – to “keep it in the family” – these abusers go to their graves with many knowing what they did. Lots of people know that Uncle X shouldn’t be left alone with the kids, but would far prefer not to have the lives of their whole families exposed. So they opt for not reporting it, for dealing with it themselves. It’s tragic, and it’s horribly commonplace. And in finding out that so many knew that Savile shouldn’t be let near the young teenagers, we’re not exposing a cover-up by hospitals or the BBC – we’re exposing an enculturated cover-up by the whole of society that allows so very many paedophiles to abuse.
And people don’t want to think about that.