On the surface, it's pretty hard to understand why someone as beautiful, as successful, as wealthy and as sophisticated as British celebrity cook Nigella Lawson would tolerate for one instant the hands of her husband around her throat.
The British tabloids are all in a lather after Charles Saatchi, the founder of what was once the largest advertising agency in the world, was captured on camera choking his well-known wife several times at a fancy London restaurant. He paid a visit to Scotland Yard, where he was given a caution, meaning he was told that if he's caught in another "playful tiff" (his dismissal of the incident) like that, he'll have some explaining to do before a magistrate.
As is all too common in these cases, both public and private, the man is the one with all of the excuses and the woman is the one that has gone silent and into hiding, horribly embarrassed and worried about what people will think of her for allowing anyone to do that to her. That's how women become the victims in situations like this. To look at the pictures, it's hard not to ask why she isn't fighting back against a man 17 years her senior and who's maybe a couple inches taller than her. If she's not fighting, she's "allowing" it to happen.
Fear, surprise, humiliation or a combination stop women from fighting back. That's not an excuse - that's reality. A woman not putting up a fight shouldn't ever distract our attention from the act of violence and the man behind it.
As Hadley Freeman pointed out in an excellent essay in The Guardian, the shock of the assault goes far deeper than the pictures or Lawson's frightened and pained expression. For the rest of us common folks, we simply can't imagine domestic violence happening to the rich and famous. Even though there are many examples, both current (Rihanna) and long past (Tina Turner), there is a prevailing notion that women of means are beyond such real-world problems.
There is no truth to the wife-abuse stereotype. It's not just husbands with no teeth and less education who beat their wives in a drunken rage inside their tattered trailers on the outskirts of some backward hicktown. Lawson's beauty, success, wealth and sophistication did not protect her from the rage of her spouse.
Nor did her seductive depictions of a life of domestic bliss.
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Along with the stereotype that rich households are peaceful ones, there's also a stereotype that peace and unity prevail within Canada's First Nations community. There has been more than a few racially-motivated guffaws over the public tiff between the Lheidli T'enneh and the B.C. branch of the Idle No More protest movement.
While interesting and newsworthy, it's hardly new.
Area First Nations argue fiercely over politics, religion, land use and development all the time. In Williams Lake, the Tsihqot'in National Government, representing six bands, and the Williams Lake band can't agree on the boundaries of their respective traditional territory in the Cariboo.
Along with the external battles, there are many internal disputes. The battle between factions of the Yekooche First Nation in Fort St. James has become so bad that the federal government has cut off funding until their government mess is straightened out. The offices of the McLeod Lake Indian Band and the Burns Lake Indian Band (Ts'il Kaz Koh First Nation) have been blockaded by band members within the last 12 months.
The same internal strife runs rampant through the Metis community. The Metis Nation of B.C. made a point of contacting the Citizen to stress that the Metis Heritage Day celebration held last Sunday in Fort George Park was not organized by them but by the B.C. Metis Federation.
"Pretty bad when your own people don't want anything to do with you," posted someone by the nickname of "Imnoone" on our website in reaction to the story. "You would think they would work together."
The response from "Man Legend" was quick and concise: "lmnoone, this guy (Idle No More organizer Steven Kakinoosit) is not from our band and does not represent our views."
