Madeleine McCann: The Great War On Paedos
“SURROUNDED by a mass of yellow ribbons, he kneels alone with his thoughts and reads the countless messages from well-wishers.”
Of course, Gerry McCann is not alone, not even in the Mail. Amid the teddy bears, yellow ribbons and cards are the gentlemen of the press, massed in the McCanns’ home village of Rothley, Leicestershire. McCann is at the midst of swarm of media workers, well-wishers and the ghoulish who want to see the poor man. “FATHER’S PAIN,” says the Mirror’s front-page headline. “DAD FIGHTS BACK TEARS.”
The Mail says that local traders have supplied an estimated 14miles of yellow ribbon, to tie around old oak trees, a bench and a sign hand-painted by local children that reads: “Maddie. Please bring her back.”
Gerry McCann spends 15 minutes at the “shrine”. Says he: “The support is fantastic. It really does help us. The incredible support gives us strength.”
Madeleine McCann is now a public figure. The McCann family’s pain has been transmuted to our collective suffering. “Every parent’s worst nightmare” is the nightmare for all of us.
Lest We Forget
This shrine to a missing girl is founded on the village’s old war memorial, that memory to they who gave their lives in battle.
But Madeleine is not dead, is she? She did not die in a brutal war. The call to have Madeleine McCann brought back echoes the call for our boys to return from the dangers of Iraq. Who knew that one missing child was symbolic of so much? One tragedy becomes indistinguishable from another.
“BRING MADDIE HOME,” says a banner held up by the Liverpool football team. Madeleine, renamed Maddie by the press, is pictured. There are two numbers for anyone with information to ring.
But look at the cards and the flowers and the ribbons. And wonder if any information will amount to more than well-wishers keen to inform the world of their concern and anxiety.
In The Frame
If you want to help, the Sun says British police want anyone in the area at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance to check their holiday snaps.
Have you taken a picture of Madeleine McCann? Are you the kind of person who takes pictures of other people’s children on holiday? Are you a paedophile?
These photographs will be analysed by a computer programme that can pick out “600 facial features”. Detectives say they only want photographs that include strangers.
So look over your holiday snaps. And see if you can spot Madeline McCann. And then work out how you can get the shots to the police without giving the speculation-happy press a new name to talk about – yours…
Posted: 22nd, May 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (76) | TrackBack | Permalink
