It Takes a Village
Spotlight is a 2015 movie based on a true story. It was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture for that year. It is based on a story published in The Boston Globe in 2002. The Boston Globe, a Boston-based daily newspaper, has a team that engages in investigative journalism. This team is called the Spotlight, and it is on an investigation done by the Spotlight team in 2001 that this movie is based.
Where the movie begins, the Spotlight team, consisting of its editor Walter Robinson and three investigative journalists, was investigating some issue pertaining to the Boston Police Department. There was about to be a major change in the newspaper, with a new executive editor coming in. The employees were afraid of job cuts in the organization.
On his first day, the executive editor Martin Baron, introduced himself to the senior staff. He was Jewish, unlike many of the staff members who were Christians. Many of the employees were local, including Walter Robinson, who was born and brought up in Boston. Baron had never been to Boston before. He was a little bit of an odd one out. Yet, having read a small piece in the Boston Globe about allegations of sexual abuse against a local Catholic priest, he asked for a Spotlight investigation on the issue.
He was immediately and repeatedly warned of the consequences of the same. Such an investigation would mean a virtual war with the Catholic Church. And the Church meant a lot to the readers of the Boston Globe. However, it helped that all the members of the Spotlight team were, in one way or another, lapsed Catholics. They probably took up the job with less trepidation than a practicing Catholic could. So, in 2001, the Spotlight team started investigating the allegations of sexual abuse of children made against a priest in one of the parishes of the Catholic Church in Boston.
As the investigation progressed the team faced opposition not only from the Catholic Church, but also from many of their colleagues and friends. In the eyes of most people the Catholic Church was above the law. As more and more witnesses were interviewed and documents studied, it became clear that higher leadership within the Catholic Church was aware of the staggering extent of the problem of sexual abuse by priests. Not only did they not act to curb it, they took countless measures to cover it up.
One of the important sources of information in the investigation was the lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian. Initially Garabedian was not willing to talk to Michael Rezendes, one of the Spotlight reporters. He had suffered a lot at the hands of the Catholic Church while trying to get justice for the victims of abuse.
However, on seeing Rezendes’s tenacity and genuine interest in the welfare of his clients, he slowly opened up. In the movie, while talking to Rezendes, Garabedian poignantly summarizes the core message of the film:
“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.”
Innumerable people, from all walks of life, were complicit in the massive cover-up. They were aware of the abuse, and in one way or another, looked away.
Sadly, it is not just institutions that cover up sexual abuse. Institutions are, after all, made up of people. Sometimes the rights of the small and the weak count for nothing against the maintenance of the status quo.
The 2001 movie, Monsoon Wedding, directed by Mira Nair, discussed this subject. The setting of the movie was a fictional Indian household headed by the father Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah). The movie took place during the days leading up to a typical Indian marriage in the Verma family. Being a wedding movie, there were bound to be plenty of characters: there were more than 60. There were songs, a lot of laughter, a lot of hustle and bustle. And friends and relatives meeting each other after years. So, there were a lot of stories going on in the lives of the people within that household.
One such subplot was that of Ria Verma (Shefali Shah), the daughter of Lalit’s deceased elder brother. Having lost her father at an early age, Ria had been brought up by Lalit as his own daughter. She was molested as a child by a highly respected member of the family, Tej Puri (Rajat Kapoor). She never spoke up. Children usually don’t.
However, when Tej Puri returned after several years for gracing the occasion of the marriage, Ria saw him trying to repeat similar behaviour with another young girl in the family. She revealed the sad reality of her childhood sexual abuse to the family while trying to protect the little girl. That subplot has been clearly depicted in this video.
The best part of this story is, that after some initial hesitation, Lalit Verma supports Ria completely. He is greatly indebted to Tej Puri for his financial support, and has spent years of his life respecting him deeply. Yet, he politely but firmly asks Puri to leave. Verma says:
“These are my children, and I will protect them from myself even if I have to.”
In his book, ‘The Body Keeps the Score’, Dr Bessel van der Kolk, mentions an excerpt from the Roland Summit, regarding the Child Sexual Abuse Accomodation Syndrome:
“The average child never asks and never tells.”
Children often blame themselves for tragedies that befall them. They feel shame and don’t disclose these events to their caregivers. When they do, in many instances, they are either ignored or actively ridiculed. Who can blame them if they never mention it to anyone ever again?
In the movie, Spotlight, during one of the victim interviews, we hear of another such experience. The victim was an adult at the time of the interview. He clearly recalled the day when a bishop of the Catholic Church had come to talk to his family to not press charges against the priest who had committed the crime. Instead of standing up for her son, the victim’s mother served the bishop a plate of biscuits. Like there was nothing wrong with the world. As if life was going on as it always had.
The compulsion behind these actions is understandable. Life is tough. Parents and caregivers make a thousand adjustments and sacrifices to keep the family running. Nobody has the will left for putting up any fight. The perpetrator is usually a powerful member in the family or in the community. If the family decides to fight, they instinctively know it will be a tough and dirty battle. People try to maintain the status quo. People try not to rock the boat.
But silent sufferers are sufferers still. Children suffer lifelong trauma as a result of sexual abuse. And parents and caretakers who blame the child or refuse to stand by him/her add to the emotional injury.
Of course, prevention is better than cure. Children need to be educated about good and bad touch. They need to be assured by words and actions that their parents and caregivers will listen to them when they feel endangered. But even the most well-planned and well-managed lives get derailed by bad luck.
The least any parent or caregiver can do for their child in such a situation, is listen to him, stand by him, and protect him from further assault. They need to stand up to the perpetrators, powerful though they may be, and remove them from their child’s life. All of us may not be warriors who can change society; but at least we need to make our corner of the world safe for our children.
What Lalit Verma does, despite being a soft-spoken and agreeable man, is what many a men and women all over the world have failed to do. Because he truly loves Ria. And love is not just a word to be spoken over and over and meaninglessly. Love is as love does.
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes, we must interfere.”
Elie Wiesel
