“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”
From Thurman’s Soapbox
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“The first thing I had to get used to was the institutionalisation… Establishments like orphanages are only able to function by dehumanising people so they will work as a single unit… It was impossible to display any individuality…
Something I especially hated about the institutions was how, at night,… the lights went out. They would dim slowly and then blackness, no matter what you might be doing… Since those times there have been a lot of exposes about what goes on in these institutions, and they were nirvana for paedophiles… In those dormitories, life was a multi-dimensional reign of terror – you were at risk of abuse from caregivers outside and gangs of boys inside. The longer the others have been there, the stronger their gang was and the more trouble you were up for when you arrived. I discovered quickly tat the more people there are trying to kick the living daylights out of you the better off you are because there’s no room for them to work up a good swing. If it is just two or three you’re going to end up with some serious damage. I learnt to stand up for myself early on. …
One of the few friends I made in all those years, when I was twelve, was a boy my age called Graeme. … He was very intelligent and we had proper conversations about life and what our aspirations were. That sort of bond was rare.
But Graeme was also very vulnerable. He was bit for his age and a very good-looking boy with a crop of blond hair and very pale, luminescent skin. He was a quiet, gentle boy and just the sort paedophiles find really attractive.
One of our caregivers became obsessed with him and sodomised him frequently in the dormitory…
I convinced Graeme that we should go to the head administrator and tell him what was happening. We told him our story and he agreed to follow up but advised that the teacher was well respected and a good teacher, which he was, and advised that he was confident that no further ‘incidents’ would take place and it would be best not to mention this again.
But like so many things, it was a political decision. I realised later the immorality of that: I had gone to somebody in trust to try to stop something bad happening, and I got a political response.
And, of course, this man felt rejected because his affection for Graeme was genuine. He had just taken it to the next level. So he felt betrayed and he took that out on the boy. And one day it got too much and Graeme went into the changing rooms and hanged himself.”
(from ‘Rebel with a cause’ by Ray Avery)
Otrazhenie 