Is it a Hollywood movie or a real case? Did former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) sexually assault a hotel chambermaid as alleged? DSK has denied all seven charges against him. If proved, he’ll spend 74 years and three months behind bars. Let’s examine the shrieking can of worms let loose in this hot plot blending sex, money, politics, reputation, women, crime and outrage. Even the dress code of chambermaids has changed from skirts to trousers in New York’s Sofitel Hotel. Supposedly the mechanism of taking off trousers makes women less vulnerable to unwanted sexual advances.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, among the most powerful decision makers in disbursing international monetary funds, even to bail out countries in extreme recessionary crises, was arrested by New York police on May 14, 2011. How did they find him? He’d called his hotel to enquire after the mobile phone he left behind. The police heard, got into action, rushed to the aircraft about to take flight to Paris, entered the first class cabin and got kudos from a section of society for ‘retrieving a criminal from his escape bid.’ Paraded hand-cuffed before TV cameras in court, DSK was packed off to maximum security prison Rikers Island where die-hard criminals serve tough sentences. He was put on suicide watch.
Simultaneously, pandemonium broke loose internationally. The press ran amuck, detailing every move, speculating reasons, consequences, dissecting and bisecting DSK’s character, unearthing his alleged romps with different country prostitutes. Women’s groups found much to add in the cause of justice for rape victims. France was in utter shock, and severely criticised America’s judicial system. Strauss-Kahn was tipped to contest and win the next presidential election as a Socialist party candidate. The French can’t believe that on a woman’s protest, and sans any proof, American police are empowered to take the ferocious action of relegating a responsible, high-profile public official to solitary confinement, destroying his reputation, snatching away his job, even destabilising another country’s election process.
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