Madeleine McCann: Hairdryers In The Bath And Paedos
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
ONLINE OPINION – This his “Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate”
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word”
If it is our biological imperative to make babies, it is our most basic instinct to protect them. Baby-makers and baby-carers everywhere know what a challenge it can be to shelter a tiny human being from the dangers of the world … from the cold, the rain, the sun, the road. Sharp objects, moving vehicles, heights, fire. Hairdryers in the bath, knives in the toaster, fingers in the electric socket. Things they could fall off, fall into, have fall on them.
Save the children… Who will save the children? Might we pray?
How will we know where Baby is all the time, without eyes in the backs of our heads? How do we stop Baby falling from a great height in a flaming vehicle? How could we live with ourselves if we left Baby alone long enough to take the hairdryer swimming in the rain?
We would all die, surely?
What happens when we have to protect Baby from ourselves?
Social services?
“Our Maddie” is emblematic of the fear that pervades the Western psyche and the media’s propensity to play into it. Her parents have made a website complete with daily blogs, links to donate money and a timer to count how many days she has been missing. British tabloid papers have paid the McCann’s $60,000 compensation for accusing them of killing their own child. Busloads of tourists have arrived in Portugal to see the places where Maddie slept and where her parents ate.
They have?
Consider Madeleine McCann herself, whose angelic face has been seen by anyone who has watched TV, read a paper or been on the Internet in the last year, whose parents have been accused of her murder and whose trauma has been exposed for all to see. If she were to be found, she would grow up a morbid kind of celebrity whose personal horror held the world captive during her formative toddler years.
Media coverage of the “Maddie” case has misrepresented the significance of the story and implicitly suggested that foreign abduction is a perennial concern. This is a terrifying notion for parents, but because of their underdeveloped grasp of empathy children have far more difficulty in qualifying that kidnapping is not an ever-present threat.
A blonde Russell Grant?
The writer has the mind of a six year old. She knows.
Similarly, how are children to know that babies are not left by dumpsters, killed by their axe-wielding grand-fathers or gassed to death in a car with their brothers and father every day?
It doesn’t?
Posted: 25th, August 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (169) | TrackBack | Permalink
