Chips on my shoulder

I never for once ignored the rape of Rebelyn. I just felt that people who claim her as their own are the ones in the best position to take it up, issue a statement, call women to arms.

I have chips on my shoulder and I have my own ideas about women and war, about men at war. Which are what I think of right now as I write or reinstate what I once thought about Rebelyn. What I feared was, that what I might have to say then, and now, would not sit well with what Rebelyn's father stands for.

I know, of course, that Rebelyn's father must have known enough to know where to place his griefs. Coming from where he comes from, he must also have read enough and known first-hand about war. He must have been reading Lenin's treatises on war and peace, and must have read that one which says that if women do not take up arms to defend themselves, they deserve what's coming for them.

That's not supposed to be same as saying women get raped because they ask for it.

Had Rebelyn's mother and other siblings gone underground and taken up arms too, I wouldn't be so surprised. I might even be happy. The NPA might not be a women's army, but women bearing arms have better chances of defending themselves than those who are carrying laptops wearing stiletto heels.

If I didn't happen by Rebelyn's funeral and had not shaken hands with her orphaned mother, I would probably have just dismissed her case as another number added to the rape statistic. Or maybe as another number added to the list of left-affiliated people killed by the military.

I did wish I had a claim on Rebelyn's death. I did wish she wasn't just another number gone by.

Because women get attacked everyday, get threatened, beaten, resisting or not, working-class or petiburgis. And it's not everyday that we raise a voice in protest or cry for justice from a streamer. Often, people don't always care if one woman survived, went crazy, or got killed. Sometimes it had to happen to the daughter of someone we know to be brave and good and famous before we hurt on their behalf.

For anyone in the street rally circuit, it's hard not to note how well-timed the assault was. Four days before IWD, which nationalists in the city commemorated a day later, on a Monday, because it would encroach on our weekend break? Forgive my impudence, and my rage, but if we cannot rise up on a Saturday or a Sunday to raise our fists for women, what else would we not rise up for? I can not remember anyone ever rescheduling celebration of Labor Day a day earlier or later.

If I were in the women's bureau of a people's army, I would have taken it as a gift especially given for me and the women in my army, and perhaps I would be so honored by the gift that I would return the favor by gathering a women's squad and set it to chopping military dickheads.

But I have no army and I am in a quandary, as some of the women in the NPA might also be. Because I don't even know Rebelyn, never got to know her, and all I ever heard from those close to her or at least knew a little about her, was that she was innocent too innocent for anything that was done to her and what I know is, being innocent has little to do with women's defense against rape.

I wouldn't know, would never know, if Rebelyn would ever be with me or anywhere near me, politically. I would never know if Rebelyn would ever be around women's defense just because she was her father's daughter. Being petiburgis of course made her an easy target. Being a good girl all the more didn't help. And while petiburgis is looked down on by any proletarian army, being a good girl commands its respect, even draws on its protective impulses.

But to call a warrior's daughter a ptb is to misunderstand the dialectics of a revolution and to misconstruct the world. That she served as stand-in target in lieu of her father's head is proof where she stands in the logistics of defense.

If I were one of those women feminist activists who are now sitting in Congress or the City Council, I would have taken Rebelyn's death as a personal affront. To happen at a time when women are making waves passing landmark legislations for women's rights? What are they trying to tell me, that I should forget about rape and repro rights and start passing laws providing separate CRs for gays and stiletto-friendly stairs for women instead?

But I am neither and nor, so I dismiss my ifs and my hopes. And because I am neither and nor, I must be getting it all wrong. Because it could have not been rape, as nobody calls it rape, and it could have not been a crime against women, because nobody calls it that. It was only a crime against the proletarian revolution and family happens to be just there, a soft target in its phalanx of defense.