I had written in May when the story broke that the world would be thrown against the Sofitel maid who charged Dominique Strauss-Kahn with rape. And it has. On June 30, the day before the solar eclipse, the prosecution’s case charging Strauss-Kahn with sexual assault began to fray when the victim’s credibility was found to be questionable.
During the course of discovery leading to the July 1 hearing, prosecution lawyers found she had dabbled in welfare fraud and tax evasion, was associated with drug dealers, and her immigration status was unverifiable — that she may have lied on her petition for asylum to the US. She had evaded interviews with the prosecution’s legal investigators for weeks and had an emotional breakdown during one of their few meetings, which led prosecutors to believe her rape accusation will not hold legal water.
Adding further to the diminishment of the case, the judge decided to release Strauss Kahn from house arrest without bail. This completed what amounts to a low and double body blow to the prosecution and office of New York’s District Attorney, Cyrus Vance. As an additional insult to the prosecution, Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman met yesterday to seek the dismissal of charges against Strauss-Kahn or a plea deal. Nothing yet has been been resolved.
I admit it’s hard for me — a woman of color and a child of new immigrants — to be objective about the accuser, an immigrant. If you’re lucky, you keep your head down and work your ass off for many years, and stay out of trouble until you’re settled in. But right now, this woman is vulnerable to the whims of the street as well as the halls of power. Like so many others who live in this country with residency status uncertain, she’s already easily exploitable and prey to the standard canon of epithets in American demonization: Welfare cheat. Drug dealer. Illegal immigrant. This trifecta defines perfectly the present-day ‘untouchable’ in America’s class system, fucking her long before she was raped.
The facts on the maid’s dubious credibility as reported to us last Friday came as no surprise to American women. Depending on the state you’re in, we have a legal system that reminds you that you should know better than to complain about a man’s abuse, let alone rape. Reading the Times on Friday, all you could do was shake your head and let the lack of shock register. It was a story so neat you didn’t need to write it, you’ve read it all before.
Entering the US as a political refugee, Strauss-Kahn’s accuser probably knows how rigged a game the US immigration system is better than most of us, doing and saying anything you can to get out of Guinea and over here. Vulnerable and exploitable like most new immigrants are in this country, this could explain her erratic behavior towards court authorities and investigators; people whose job it is to get her the justice she deserves aren’t usually on her side. This is just my conjecture, but as for her shadier connections — the drug money from the sales of pot deposited to accounts in her name, the lying to the city’s social services about the number of dependents — these are the petty crimes of the poor that say more about her being in over her head than being a criminal. I would imagine this woman is more than likely living in fear of everything surrounding her right now — facing her day in court, the press, the international notoriety. Include in that mix the circumstances of how most dark-skinned new immigrants are treated here, let alone being black in America. If she wasn’t feeling fear, I would check for her pulse.
I’ve read a young French female author, Tristane Banon, is finally pressing charges of attempted rape by Strauss-Kahn during an interview she had with him eight years ago. Because French law allows the accuser up to 10 years to press charges, her case will be pleaded within France’s court system. A young African woman from Guinea, a woman with no name, pressed charges against Strauss-Kahn in a matter of hours, and in America she will be guilty until proven innocent.
This is not about judging Mr. Strauss-Kahn before his trial. There is a judge and jury who will decide the merits of this case. No one knows outside of the two involved what happened in that hotel room. The actual trial has not begun, but there is a history in this country of economic, sexual, class and race presumption that tarnishes the entire situation and should be put on trial as much as the accused and the accuser are now. If there was a play written that would tell the tale of what it is to be in over your head, the story of the Sofitel maid — a woman who nobody has seen, nobody knows, and whose accusation against a man of great power and prestige may have changed the future of an entire continent — could be the beginning of an epic story. Perhaps ironically, a Greek myth.
Then again, that’s another tale waiting to be told.
Everyone:
Last weekend, while up in the mountains and on an internet blackout, the very thoughts shared by Green Star Gazer, phall, shebear and Brendan came up amongst us as well.
We’ve seen all of this too often for our tolerance to bear any more bullshit. Our meters are too damn high and something is too neat, too well-timed. It’s good that we’re in deep skeptic mode, given our social awareness and the extra tools astrology provides.
On that note, I want to share with you this email I received from a friend who was up in the mountains with me. While listening to Amy Goodman’s interview with Julian Assange, we all wondered what if the rape cases for Assange and Strauss-Kahn were transposed? She sent me this last night, an email from Global Women’s Strike, while I was writing this story:
“We all have a stake in her survival and redemption.”–Len Wallick
She IS us. You have nailed everything soiidly, Fe. Thank you. May it be tried in front of her peers. May her advocates (legal counsel) have lions hearts. May she feel the support of those of us who DO see her.
Thank you for this piece Fe,
it brings home the fact that behind the “characters” in this drama (could they be any more polarized???!!) are two very real people who’s life trajectories have been slapped hard by all this pathos. When I think of the arcs of their lives, the vast universes of difference that these two people have traveled, to arrive at that one point of choice (destiny? dharma? karma?) in space-time, in a hotel room, it boggled the mind.
Whatever they did we will probably never know, even if there was/will be a trial… anyone can lie on the stand, we know that. The clash of cultures, status, gender, power/powerlessness are monumental here and if it does go to trial we can expect that it will be exquisitely timed to take our attention off something far more crucial and important. PLEASE understand, I am NOT defending DSK… I am only acknowledging that both of the individuals in this drama may be pawns of a much bigger puppet show… it has that feeling to me. Someone wanted DSK disgraced and de-powered at this crucial moment in time and they knew just how to do it. I would not be surprised to find that the puppet strings wind thru the halls of power in France before reaching their ultimate destination.
These two people are now acting out something for this collective… and as much as we may think we know how this will shake out, we can’t be too sure. No doubt bigger, darker, more secretive powers have engineered DKS’s fall, and no doubt his accuser has not been given a second thought in their plans, she is just a tool for their game… but we must remember, we are in a new world now. We all passed thru the portal into the unknown with this last Eclipse cycle…and forces even larger and more unpredictable than the *puppetmeisters* are really running this show now, so we can still be surprised here. After all, Pluto in Capricorn is just getting warmed up and with all that Uranian and Chironic juice getting pumped into that great cosmic roto-rooter we can be sure that more entrenched gunk and goo will be purging the system soon.
Yes, the ripples from this particular pebble are big and reach far, and they are still going out. Truly we are in a time when we can say “Tomorrow’s plot is not yet written”. But your story brings it all back home, Fe, to remind me/us that while the Grand Play is being acted out, these are also human beings, with very real human lives getting played out on the public stage, and for them, their pain and fears, gains and losses (whatever they may be for either of them) are real enough to them.
And like Shebear 13 reminds us, the saga of Bradley Manning is right up there too and he must not be forgotten as things spin fast and furious in the great cosmic blender we call Life.
I’ve been disgusted at the one-sided coverage of this story in the press. For anyone who hasn’t listened to her lawyer’s statement here’s the video clip –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ5QanQtCd8
There was little coverage in the press of what he outlines.
A very good and timely rundown, Fe. Glad to have you back too, it’s been too long…
I was deflated when word of the problems with this case came forth last week. I feel that the prosecutors should press on, since there is documented evidence of her claim. If her prior (albeit dubious) actions are enough to cause “problems,” what about his prior, well-noted acts of sexual aggression? Tit for tat: let the jury and judge work it out, she should have her day in court.
The pictures I saw of DSK leaving court showed him smirking, as if he’d pulled a fast one on absolutely everybody. A smirk worthy of GW Bush, if I may (and I will!). That alone makes me feel that he’s conned the system once again, and he’s learned that he can get away with it on this side of the pond as well. Gah!
You’re right Fe. “Nobody Know Her” and nobody wants to know her. There’s the drub. We get beaten relentlessly over the head with “economic, sexual, class and race presumption” and then quickly bury our heads in the sand; heavens forbid we should speak up and affect change. Power to poverty we’re all too familiar with and sadly we also know which system lords high and mighty over the other, pun intended.
There’s lots more to this story *without* a doubt but who has the moxy to step up to the plate and deliver it? I’ve been saying to myself for months now that if we can let Bradley Manning languish in a prison cell in spite of the fact he had the courage to do what he did on all our behalves, seeking and acting to carve out a more honest and free world. If we haven’t moved to kick up a stink about getting *him* out of prison there’s little hope we’re going to cry out for a fair and honest trial in the DKS/Sofitel maid story which is the only way for some the truth of this story to see some light of day. Now we’ll never know with conjecture winning over the day.
The Bush administrations greatest achievement with two illegitimate tenures was that people slunk away into paralyzing apathy and not much has changed since to indicate we know how to kick up a stink on the national stage and get fair and proper attention and change.
This is a great article, btw, thank you for writing it and so true what you say: “If she wasn’t feeling fear, I would check for her pulse.” It’s a very sad, sorry, sordid mess of a story, highly indicative of the turbulent times we live in.
Len:
Absolutely right. She is more than a symbol. And thanks for putting it in compassionate terms.
Fe,
Welcome back. Yes, you had this story nailed from the beginning. Your synopsis today is right on the mark. Your point about the accuser’s engineered vulnerability is topped only by your noting the “lack of shock”.
You are right. This is an important story of mythological proportions. The accuser / victim is and will be many of us unless her importance is seen as more than symbolic. We all have a stake in her survival and redemption.