‘Savile’s activities don’t belong to a dim and distant, sexist past but very much to the present.’ Photograph: Alex Maguire/Rex Features
My own experience has convinced me this is the case, having had the misfortune to know someone who was accused and found guilty of sexual abuse of children. He had successfully deceived his family, friends and community and created a trail of grief and suffering, some of which lasts until this day. Yet when his crimes emerged I witnessed a community that chose on the whole to push it under the carpet as a bit of an aberration by an otherwise successful man. Indeed, several people expressed sympathy for the abuser and some dismissed it in terms of “everyone gets groped in their childhood”. None of these people would condone abuse or were in any way responsible, but neither did they want their worldview or existing relationships ruffled by what was obviously considered embarrassing and which threatened to disrupt the status quo. There was a bizarre sense that it was the children who had blown the whistle who had caused the disruption, not the abuser.
Even in places where you might expect most awareness of these issues and support – paedophilia doesn’t get taken as seriously as you might hope. In 2004 at the time when I was writing regularly for the paper, the Guardian obituaries carried a glowing obit for this very man. As soon as I saw it I contacted the paper and complained but was told that, as a well-respected musician, it was his public life being acknowledged. Exactly the same reaction presumably that met nurses or disabled children who tried to mention the unmentionable about Savile. Don’t disturb the status quo, just look at all the good things he does in public, look at all the money he raises.
At the time, the Independent carried an obit for this musician but chose to mention the conviction. Empowered by this, I came back to the Guardian asking it to carry at least a correction or an addition. I was told again, a bit more regretfully, it’s the public life we are commemorating. Revelations that John Simpson was effectively told to mind his own business when he challenged the BBC about the obituary of a highly valued entertainer suspected of abusive behaviour brought back painful memories.
What does that attitude do to those affected? It tells them that sexual abuse is a private, embarrassing, dirty secret that only difficult people raise and make a fuss about. People who can’t raise themselves above the squalor and appreciate the good things a person does. I felt embarrassed and awkward about having made a fuss, as if I wasn’t behaving professionally. I also felt hugely and personally betrayed. I knew this man. I knew what he’d done. Why wouldn’t anyone listen to me? Imagine what children might feel about trying to say to figures of authority who rate an abuser: this was serious; it affected me; I don’t like to see this person lauded.
If anyone is in any doubt that paedophilia is still dismissed by influential groups, let me remind you that in certain liberal circles, there’s a belief that paedophilia is “a moral panic”. I meet it all the time in media studies. This goes far beyond the entirely reasonable view that campaigns like the News of the World’s name and shame campaign are a dangerous and inflammatory way to approach a problem. Or that demonising paedophiles makes it more difficult to recognise the respectable ones in our own communities. The views I meet go much further than this critique; these views see sex abuse is an exaggerated problem. When I hear this, I always wonder why are people so keen to close down discussion of abuse. This, after all, is a subject that has taken centuries to dare to speak its name, which is not uncommon, and which has devastating consequences. Sex abuse only seems exaggerated until it affects you or people you know directly, until you see its devastating effect. Until you come close to someone whose behaviour distorts your ordinary perceptions so badly that it makes you doubt yourself and makes other people doubt you.
Over the past few days there have been some excellent interviews on the radio and in papers with people running groups for survivors of abuse. They have talked about the strategies abusers use to cover their tracks, the way in which denial comes into play when someone so profoundly breaks the rules of normal behaviour. I’ve found those discussions illuminating and helpful. The affair is also provoking some interesting reflection among media professionals. Paraic O’Brien on Channel 4’s website, for example, challenges the idea that it was just the sexist culture of the 70s that allowed Savile to get away with it. “This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding (and a touch of snobbery) about what the Savile story is about,” he says. “It’s about the abuse of power. It is about the tyranny of celebrity. It is about how the weight of a powerful, cleverly-branded persona can steam roll over the weak and vulnerable.”
Discussions like these make me think something positive can come out of the Savile affair. Perhaps it is helping us think about these issues in more sophisticated ways, in particular understanding more about the complex psychological and sociological web which abusers create and which blinds those whose main concern is the status quo and not the children. Because the real issue isn’t conspiracies but complicity – the little decisions that in pushing away embarrassment and disruption make the victims carry the blame.
