It is a memory that I desperately do not want to lose.
I was – as I spent so much of the Games – sitting in the living room, my eyes glued to the screen. Oscar Pistorius – the Paralympics’ brightest star – had faced defeat and controversy. The Games had been fantastic, unbelievable: months that glitter in the memory even now. But if Pistorius lost in the 400m final now, it would be a duff note at the end of a flawless symphony.
There are moments in sport when true greats stand up. Lionel Messi, slaloming past the Madrid defence to break their resistance and send Barcelona through to the final of the Champions League. Muhammed Ali, unbroken and unbowed in Manila. Roger Federer rolling back the years against Andy Murray. It was now that Pistorius would join them.
It is important to start well. In the fourth lane, Oscar starts better than well: in the blink of an eye, he is level with his rival, Alan Oliveira. And then, just as suddenly, he escapes him. It calls to mind Jeroen Hennan’s description of another great, Dennis Bergkamp: ‘One moment the pitch is crowded and narrow…suddenly it is open and wide…a miracle!’. That is what Pistorius does next: one second the track is congested, the race a mass of bodies. The next, he is free, like a rat from a trap, his opponents left trailing in his wake. A miracle.
I wish that wasn’t the position I came from. I don’t really believe in apolitical or detached observers – most of the time, I think ‘apolitical’ is a word for people too privileged and too stupid to realise that they are actually ‘right-wing’ – but I would very much like to be one now. What I would like is to be able to honestly and sincerely want justice, whatever verdict that means. But I can’t; I’ve become part of the problem: I’m reducing Reeva Steenkamp’s death to the awful end in my own relationship with a sporting hero.
Of course, I was always part of the problem. Emotionally, I am a feminist because my father left and my mother didn’t. Intellectually, I am a feminist, because I know that the greatest driver of inequality is gender. Regardless of race, culture or nation, for every man, no matter how oppressed, enslaved or downtrodden, there is a woman who is even more oppressed, enslaved or downtrodden. But I know too, that being a feminist means that you are always a double agent: because misogyny is in the air we breathe, the television we watch and the newspapers we buy. We are, each and every one of us, part of the counter-revolution as much as we are part of the revolution. That is the great challenge for feminism: because while patriarchy has no shortage of uncompromised followers, feminism has not a one.
If Oscar Pistorius is found guilty, the most depressing truth of all is that he won’t be a special one. He’ll simply be one of the bottle. In this country, on average, two women are murdered by their partner every week. And that’s simply the worst and most violent form of gendered violence: from the way that female actors and presenters are sent to the knacker’s yard, to the toys children are given, to the fact that women are always left holding the baby and the blame.
We all do it: we might buy the Guardian, and gently nod our heads in agreement that the Sun’s coverage of the case has been awful: but, of course, we don’t fail to notice that the offending page has been reprinted. We might – as one LabourList post did recently – refer to parliamentary selections as a choice between those which are held under all-women-shortlists and those that are ‘open’ – which ignores the fact that there are no open contests and no level playing fields in a sexist society. Hilary Mantel’s LRB lecture was a brilliant, fantastic talk: but the opening sections are the oldest trick in the lecturer’s lexicon: an attack on someone famous to make sure the audience is paying attention by the time you get to the good stuff.
The language is ugly. It is offensively gendered. And so are all of us. That’s the awful reminder of the Pistorius case, whatever the verdict may be. We are fallen: we all of us have feet of clay. We might fight misogyny and sexism. But none of us that now live will ever escape it.
—————————————————————————————
Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb
—————————————————————————————