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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Anticiganism and Madeleine McCann (again...)
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scuffleball
Shipmate
# 16480
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Posted
Link to article:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o03s7Z4GGFY
So a couple are looking after someone who is not their biological child; there could be any number of reasons for this, of varying degrees of legality (benefit fraud, inability to have children).
Why must it automatically be assumed that they are stolen. Indeed, why must family have anything to do with biological relations?
See the subtext if we delete references to gypsies - "The police searched Mr and Mrs Smith's house on suspicion of trafficking drugs, found a girl who was not their biological child and arrested on suspicion of traffiking." It all seems a bit dog-whistle racist to me? Indeed if I were being uncharitable I would say that "baby stolen by gypsies" sounds like something out of a Victorian penny dreadful.
[ 21. October 2013, 21:38: Message edited by: scuffleball ]
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SPK: I also plan to create ... a Calvinist Ordinariate
ken: I thought it was called Taize?
Posts: 272 | Registered: Jun 2011
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scuffleball
Shipmate
# 16480
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Posted
The other thing that bothers me about all of this is istm that Madeleine McCann gets undue media attention due to her parents' white middle-class privilege. Why over the past decade has the disappearance of one child taken so much attention when there are unfortunately children who go missing all the time? Can there be no closure? Do we not have to move on when people die? After however many years is it not a sign of dysfunction? I guess I cannot really talk too much about the lived experiences of others that are not my own lived experiences, especially not having children of my own though.
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SPK: I also plan to create ... a Calvinist Ordinariate
ken: I thought it was called Taize?
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I understand that Madeleine's parents have worked very hard to keep her case in the public eye. The level of interest would surely have waned otherwise.
In terms of 'closure', I really can't contemplate any parent truly wanting to give up on the possibility of finding their abducted child. In most cases parents probably don't have the means or the confidence to continue the search, but if I were Mr or Mrs McCanns, with their resources and degree of determination, I wouldn't listen to anyone who said it was time for us to give up on our daughter.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
I agree that there may be an issue of racism at work here. OTOH to give some more context, Greece has a big child trafficking problem, there were, to say the least, some other oddities quote:
The couple had registered different numbers of children with different regional family registries. The woman claimed to have given birth to six children within a 10-month period.
These match the pattern of the way child trafficking is conducted. Maybe they are guilty of no more than informal adoption, and creating false registration information for the girl. That is not the major crime of child abduction or trafficking. But nations which don't enforce adequate registration and adoption rules facilitate trafficking.
As for the McCanns, it wasn't only them who were in the news, it was also Ben Needham's parents from over 20 years ago. (The McCanns are v. much in the news now anyway because of the renewed investigation into Madeleine's disappearance and the Crimewatch reconstruction.)
My guess is that most children who go missing are usually of an age when it is quite reasonable that they are out and about on their own. I suspect that the number of missing and still unaccounted-for under 5s is really very small. So a suspected abducted child of this sort of age means that when the media look for parallels there are only a very few.
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
I agree that there may be an issue of racism at work here. OTOH to give some more context, Greece has a big child trafficking problem, there were, to say the least, some other oddities quote:
The couple had registered different numbers of children with different regional family registries. The woman claimed to have given birth to six children within a 10-month period.
These match the pattern of the way child trafficking is conducted. Maybe they are guilty of no more than informal adoption, and creating false registration information for the girl. That is not the major crime of child abduction or trafficking. But nations which don't enforce adequate registration and adoption rules facilitate trafficking.
Based on that article and a couple of others I've read about the case in Greece, my guess is that the search for drugs and weapons was a standard false flag operation, and that it was actually an investigation into human trafficking all along.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
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Laud-able
Ship's Ancient
# 9896
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Posted
scuffleball asks: 'Can there be no closure? Do we not have to move on when people die?'
The answer to both questions is - at least sometimes - ‘No.’
On Australia Day (26 January) next year it will be forty-eight years since the Beaumont children, Jane (aged 9), Arnna (aged 7), and Grant (aged 4), disappeared. They set off to spend the holiday morning a five-minute bus ride away at a suburban beach in Adelaide, South Australia, and never came home.
I was acquainted with their father, Jim, through an interschool program that was hosted year and year about between Melbourne High School and Adelaide Boys High School (as it was then).
Nobody was ever charged; no trace has been found. After enduring the police investigation, the useless interventions of at least one ‘psychic’, and a hoaxer, and years of unrewarded hope, Jim and his wife Nancy divorced. I doubt that there are many Australians of my generation who would suggest that they can have closure, or – as scuffleball so bluntly puts it – move on.
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'. . . "Non Angli, sed Angeli" "not Angels, but Anglicans"', Sellar, W C, and Yeatman, R J, 1066 and All That, London, 1930, p. 6.
Posts: 279 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Jul 2005
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by scuffleball:
quote:
Why over the past decade has the disappearance of one child taken so much attention when there are unfortunately children who go missing all the time?
This is a list of the UK's missing children. As you can see, most went missing at the age of 14 +. Of the nine children who went missing within the last month, three are 16, which is probably not what most people understand as a "missing child." A further three are 15, two are 14 and one is 13.
Of those who went missing at a significantly younger age, most come from split families where there is reason to believe the missing child is with a family member.
The statistic is that a child is reported missing every three minutes; but the vast majority of those are found within a few hours.
Madeleine McCann and Ben Needham are virtually unique amongst Britain's missing children in that they were both very young, there was no suggestion of family abduction and neither have been found.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Also both the Needham and McCann families have worked hard to keep themselves in the public eye; the Crimewatch edition last week being the latest 'bump' of the story by the McCanns.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
scuffleball: quote:
Can there be no closure? Do we not have to move on when people die? After however many years is it not a sign of dysfunction? I guess I cannot really talk too much about the lived experiences of others that are not my own lived experiences, especially not having children of my own though.
Before I had a child of my own I'd have agreed with you. Now that I am a parent myself I can understand the McCanns' behaviour perfectly.
No, they and Ben Needham's parents can't have closure until they know what happened. At the moment they don't; their children just vanished. Probably dead, as most people would agree, but they don't know for sure.
I daresay you do have to 'move on' when people die, but those of us who have lost someone dear to them don't forget. I still miss my grandfather 15 years after he died, and he was an old man who died peacefully of natural causes after a long and mostly happy life. It's harder to 'move on' as you put it when the person who dies is younger than you; harder still when that person died unexpectedly or as the result of violence.
If they just vanish without a trace it must be worst of all; you know the odds are they are dead, but you can't help clinging to hope.
It may seem dysfunctional to you, but I should imagine that everyone who's lost a child feels like this.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
The other thing that bothers me about all of this is istm that Madeleine McCann gets undue media attention due to her parents' white middle-class privilege. Why over the past decade has the disappearance of one child taken so much attention when there are unfortunately children who go missing all the time? Can there be no closure? Do we not have to move on when people die? After however many years is it not a sign of dysfunction? I guess I cannot really talk too much about the lived experiences of others that are not my own lived experiences, especially not having children of my own though.
I suppose there is a lot of significance in this particular case - and similar cases;
- emotional significance; a missing child, very young indeed at the time so completely vulnerable and unable to survive alone or escape. The parent/child bond. The lack of closure, in fact, because there is no knowledge of whether the girl is dead or alive.
- criminal significance; a heinous criminal act left unresolved, an apparently effed-up investigation with lessons to learn from that. And - should there be a link with organized trafficking - a hugely sinister significance in this one single incident which may have much wider implications.
There are also plenty of news agencies freely accessible if one wishes to put this particular case into perspective. We don't have to rely on the Daily Mail alone - or even just the British press - to draw our own conclusions about where the McCann abduction fits in to the wider scheme of things. And if this case has become tedious to us, there are any number of other news channels we can switch over to.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
What Jane R said: you can't move on, particularly if you don't have a body to mourn - look at Keith Bennett's poor mother.
[ 22. October 2013, 10:01: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
Another possible child trafficking case This time in Ireland. quote:
Interpol has been called in to try to identify a teenage girl found dazed in Dublin city.
Detectives have launched a major investigation amid fears the girl, who could be as young as 14, was smuggled in to the country by sex traffickers.
quote:
“This week the European Parliament will hear that over 270,000 victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation in the EU each year with ’Mafia-type’ criminal networks pocketing €25bn.
“It is estimated that up to €250m of that is from Ireland.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
For all the occasional bubble that surfaces here on the ship for poor Madeleine her parents have lived and thought this for every hour since she was taken. They have thought through EVERY outcome a thousand times. Her very probable death, her very unlikely continuing abduction and everything in between, a million times.
But hope is a killer, they will not stop, they cannot stop. Lord have Mercy.
As a slight tangent (and as the father of a beautiful blond, daughter in this instance) and noting the boy mentioned above and the Maria/ Roma case in Greece. Also with a degree of rhetoric but why is it always blondes?
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
What Jane R said: you can't move on, particularly if you don't have a body to mourn - look at Keith Bennett's poor mother.
That was a particularly tragic example, though. There was no hope of his being alive. Even his mother knew that. She knew he was dead and buried - but not where. Her grief was focussed, I think, not merely on finding the location of his remains, but arguably more on also avenging his death, which of course she could never do. So she dedicated herself to hating his murderers. That poor woman lived the rest of her life spending her energy, time and spirit hating the two people who least cared what she did, least of all in respect to themselves.
There might be a few similarities with the McCann case, here, in the sense of imperfect closure. But the McCann's actions are a beacon of useful activity and hope compared to the dead-end misery of Keith Bennett's mother, who really and truly needed to move on in order to save her own life from the fruitless despair of simply living in order to hate her son's murderers - much as they may have deserved such hatred.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
scuffleball: quote:
Can there be no closure? Do we not have to move on when people die? After however many years is it not a sign of dysfunction? I guess I cannot really talk too much about the lived experiences of others that are not my own lived experiences, especially not having children of my own though.
Before I had a child of my own I'd have agreed with you. Now that I am a parent myself I can understand the McCanns' behaviour perfectly.
No, they and Ben Needham's parents can't have closure until they know what happened. At the moment they don't; their children just vanished. Probably dead, as most people would agree, but they don't know for sure.
I daresay you do have to 'move on' when people die, but those of us who have lost someone dear to them don't forget. I still miss my grandfather 15 years after he died, and he was an old man who died peacefully of natural causes after a long and mostly happy life. It's harder to 'move on' as you put it when the person who dies is younger than you; harder still when that person died unexpectedly or as the result of violence.
If they just vanish without a trace it must be worst of all; you know the odds are they are dead, but you can't help clinging to hope.
It may seem dysfunctional to you, but I should imagine that everyone who's lost a child feels like this.
No. It’s not the same thing at all. When a loved one dies, you never stop missing them, but you know what happened and where the grave is etc.
When someone disappears, you have no idea what happened, whether they’re alive or anything! I don’t think you’d ever come to terms with not knowing. Or not having a grave to visit. So the push to keep the case in the public eye is completely understandable. Someone might remember something that gives the police the breakthrough they need.
The parents of Lee Boxell, who disappeared aged 15 in 1988 have kept his room exactly as he left it. Lee would be 40 now. The family of Keith Bennett know he’s dead, but they still hope that his remains will be found so they can bury him properly.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
What Anselmina said re Keith Bennett's mother.
Tubbs, I agree with you really - the problem in the McCanns' case is that they don't know what happened and they don't have a body to bury.
I do know someone whose child died (of natural causes) when he was about 5. She still can't bear to talk about it, fifty years later. She has 'moved on' in the sense that if scuffleball met her he would not be bored by constant harping on the theme of the lost child - but she hasn't forgotten, either.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
I understand that Madeleine's parents have worked very hard to keep her case in the public eye. The level of interest would surely have waned otherwise.
It's a bit different, because it's the case of a boy who disappeared with his mother, but interest, at least locally, has not faded into the disappearance of Andrew MacRae.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
I used to be occasionally babysat by Alison MacDonald who went missing in 1981 while on holiday in India. As a child growing up the idea that someone could just disappear terrified me. I also knew the family quite well and the enormous toll it has taken on them. The not knowing is just so incredibly unbearable for all of them.
I am sometimes professionally involved in human trafficking cases and I don't think it is unreasonable to think worst case scenario when dealing with them. When you have a child in this situation your actions or inactions will have a tremendous impact on their life, health and safe future. I know I have dealt with one case where we could prove that three children under five were being brought into the country to be taken to India so their kidneys could be harvested. And another case which keeps me awake at night of a girl about four who didn't know her surname or what country she was from but was carrying a My Little Pony back pack full of condoms and sex toys. Thankfully those involved were locked up for a considerable period of time but the nightmare is the errors you make - the ones you don't pick up, the errors you make that could lead to a horrific experience with a child. Therefore as far as I'm concerned going with the worst potential case is always the way forward.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
Also, when someone dies when they’re a good age, there’s the comfort that they lived their life and done many of the things they wanted. When a child dies, there’s an additional sadness that they never got to live their life and get married, have a family, build a career, see the world etc. I’d imagine there’s a big pile of what ifs to work though as well, which makes things a whole heap worse.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Francophile:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_MacRae
A namesake of the little boy Andrew MacRae.
I am convinced that Willie was murdered.
Tangent// Oddly enough, I was talking about him only yesterday; he was mentioned in a blog I read. But he has nothing to do with missing children, only missing briefcases. // end tangent.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs
When someone disappears, you have no idea what happened, whether they’re alive or anything!
Not only that, but you're not sure you should hope they're alive. What if they are suffering horribly somewhere?
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
quote:
posted by scuffleball
So a couple are looking after someone who is not their biological child; there could be any number of reasons for this, of varying degrees of legality (benefit fraud, inability to have children).
Trouble is, if the couple are "looking after someone" as a temporary thing, where are the parents?
If the child has been properly adopted where are the papers? Who is the mother? When was the child handed over?
"Inability to have children" - fine, but no explanation at all. quote:
Why must it automatically be assumed that they are stolen. Indeed, why must family have anything to do with biological relations?
Because with no formal adoption papers, not even a hand-written note from the mother, no coherent story, what other reason is there?
No one is saying that family must have biological links, but if they don't there should be a legal process for a non-related child to be living in that family - and if the child is with the adults with the permission of the natural mother, why don't they know her name, nationality, how to contact her: they can't (won't?) even say whereabouts in Greece (or perhaps elsewhere in the Balkans) they were when the child began living with them.
The fact that they're lying about the child's age is not insignificant either.
As for your assertion quote:
See the subtext if we delete references to gypsies ... It all seems a bit dog-whistle racist to me?
Unfortunately there does come a point where you have to mention the fact that these people are living in a Roma camp and are part of the Roma community. And it is significant that they are, bearing in mind that there have been cases elsewhere in Europe (including in the UK) of Rome - or Travellers or Gypsies - being involved in people trafficking, false imprisonment etc. Hell, you only have to go to Gloucester to find a case where vulnerable adults were enticed, imprisoned, tortured, in at least one case died of neglect (at the very least - Post-mortem results yet to be released pending CPS decision on charges) having been in the Traveller "community" for years.
And I put the word "community" like that because when it comes to patent wrongdoing by their own, the Roma/gypsies/travellers are extremely hostile to any investigators and, in the case of the Connors family, still refuse to acknowledge that the enslavement of others is wrong.
The fact is that a far higher proportion of Roma/travellers/gypsies seem prepared to either break the law themselves or cover up for those who have than is the case of people in the general population.
And why on earth should the fact that Madeleine McCann's parents are middle-class be dragged into this? One abducted child has parents who are doctors, another abducted child may have parents who are not - the linking feature is that the children have been stolen from their parents.
Kate and Gerry McCann will NEVER "get over" the abduction of their daughter, there can be no "closure". Whether or not you are a parent, I'd have thought that any reasonably empathetic person might realise this.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I was just intrigued by that point about Roma being more criminal than the general population. I grew up in a tough working class area, where police were hated by some, nicking stuff was widespread, drug-taking likewise - anyway, we were not Roma. Well, my uncle was, but by marriage.
So are there are any stats on this?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I was just intrigued by that point about Roma being more criminal than the general population. I grew up in a tough working class area, where police were hated by some, nicking stuff was widespread, drug-taking likewise - anyway, we were not Roma. Well, my uncle was, but by marriage.
So are there are any stats on this?
I haven't looked for any recent stats, but a few years ago I went to Eastern Europe to attend some workshops with some Roma women who were mostly in social work and associated professions. I discovered that there were some serious issues among the Roman communities in the region, and the economic downturn has probably made things worse since then.
There appear to be a number of interrelated problems that work together to exclude the East European (and probably South European) Roma from healthy and productive participation in the wider society, and which frequently lead them into dependency and, in some instances, organised crime. I'm hoping that governments around the region are encouraging the development of community workers to help communities work through their issues, but I suspect that most of the funding and motivation will come from NGOs.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
L'Organist - the media is more interested in nice middle-class children from nice middle-class backgrounds going missing than children from council estates going missing.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
L'Organist - the media is more interested in nice middle-class children from nice middle-class backgrounds going missing than children from council estates going missing.
April Jones and Shannon Matthews got pretty extensive media coverage, didn't they?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
L'Organist - the media is more interested in nice middle-class children from nice middle-class backgrounds going missing than children from council estates going missing.
Any statistical evidence to support this?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
L'Organist - the media is more interested in nice middle-class children from nice middle-class backgrounds going missing than children from council estates going missing.
April Jones and Shannon Matthews got pretty extensive media coverage, didn't they?
Actually the Shannon Matthews case is a prime example - that case got far, far less coverage than Madeline McCann (Shannon hardly got appeals in the latest Harry Potter book, did she?), as did the April Jones case. The McCanns are also sufficiently wealthy enough to pay for publicity, something that poorer families can't do. We live in a classist society, I'm not sure why it's such a massive shock that the media (run almost entirely by the middle classes for the middle classes) might be biased in favour of middle class families.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
L'Organist - the media is more interested in nice middle-class children from nice middle-class backgrounds going missing than children from council estates going missing.
Any statistical evidence to support this?
Given that class isn't something you can understand from statistics, no (and I'm not sure why you would think that class could be understood from statistics). However, there have been a number of cases of missing children in the UK in recent years and the McCanns (nice middle class people) have been treated very differently to the other families involved.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
There's something of the other about the McCann case though, isn't there?
There's the foreignness of it for a start. This happened in a holiday resort, where people expect to unwind and relax. The juxtaposition of a child kidnap and palm trees is always going to get attention.
Madeleine's age presumably has something to do with it, too. This wasn't a child who could really interact with adults in the way an older child, like Shannon perhaps, could.
The Matthews family obviously has problems in the way that a family like the McCanns don't. Some of that is probably projected, rightly or wrongly, on to the child.
So I think there are lots of reasons why the Madeleine McCann case justifiably had a lot of publicity. I still can't stand the sight of their parents and wish they'd be done for neglect, but that's a separate matter.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I take it then that the answer to my question is "No", and that all we have are your assertions.
BTW, how can your last sentence stand in support of your assertion? Perhaps the McCanns are middle-class; what of the other families you refer to?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
The Matthews family would be called 'troubled' by some and 'a bunch of scumbags' by others. They lived in a rather decrepit council house on a rather grim estate in Wakefield, if I recall correctly.
April Jones had, I think, a normal upbringing in a working class area of a small Welsh town. She was murdered by a neighbour after playing out in the street one evening. I think he was a van driver.
[ 22. October 2013, 22:05: Message edited by: Anglican't ]
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
I have been intrigued by the lack of mention of the other children in the same home. On one news report I saw a video of the large number of ‘siblings’ and they couldn’t possibly be the biological children of the couple because of birthdates. The home video showed a lot of children who were of similar colouring to the ‘parents. But I can’t find any reference to what happened to those children.
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
When it comes to comparing cases, Shannon Matthews was found alive and so far as most of us are aware, remains so.
Although all of April Jones's body that has ever been found were a few fragments, and Bridger has refused to say what he did with her, he has been convicted of her murder. It's not a case where there seem to be any question marks about the conviction. Since he was imprisoned, a fellow inmate has been convicted of slashing him across the face to try to get him to say what he did with her body.
Both cases were widely reported and aroused a large amount of concern, shock and outrage both in their own areas and nationally.
So neither of these cases are now relevant comparisons when it comes to Madeleine McCann.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
... a far higher proportion of Roma/travellers/gypsies ...
Why do you conflate those three very separate and different groups?
(Yes "Roma" in the sense used in southern and eastern Europe share a cultural ancestry with British and Irish people who'd call themselves "gypsies" but they have been distinct from each other for centuries. And Travellers are completely different.)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
No. It’s not the same thing at all. When a loved one dies, you never stop missing them, but you know what happened and where the grave is etc.
When someone disappears, you have no idea what happened, whether they're alive or anything! I don’t think you’d ever come to terms with not knowing. Or not having a grave to visit. So the push to keep the case in the public eye is completely understandable.
I think it might be even worse than that if, especially if, you thought they had been kidnapped by someone who was not intending to kill them but might be wanting to look after them as a member of their own family. Or keep them alive in some kind of subjugation or slavery. So you really beleived they were alive, or might be.
Because maybe you could never stop thinking about them. Any more than a parent of a living child who has grown up or moved away can stop thinking about them. Maybe every time someone knocked on the door you would think it might be them. For the rest of your life. Every time you saw someone in the street whop looked like them, or who looked a little like you thought they might look now. Every time the phone rang. Every car that passed in the street and slowed down outside the house.
Maybe they are walking up the path home right now, this very second, about to knock on the door and explain what happened. Maybe they are in the street outside, or walking down the road a few miles away. Maybe they can't get home, maybe someone or something is stopping them, their fear, or their captor, or their embarrassment, or their shame, or something they have to do, something really important that you don't even know about, but it will be alright in the end, as soon as its done, if its ever done, they can come home. Maybe they are trapped somewhere, wishing they could come back, maybe they are hoping every moment that you will find them and erscue them and bring them home. Maybe they have forgotten about you entirely.
It happens, it really happens. Missing people turn up unexpectedly every day. Sometimes after years, decades even.
It must be bad enough if the missing person is a friend, a neighbour, a brother or sister, a spouse. But your own child? I don't see how you could ever really stop thinking about them.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I was just intrigued by that point about Roma being more criminal than the general population. I grew up in a tough working class area, where police were hated by some, nicking stuff was widespread, drug-taking likewise - anyway, we were not Roma. Well, my uncle was, but by marriage.
So are there are any stats on this?
I haven't looked for any recent stats, but a few years ago I went to Eastern Europe to attend some workshops with some Roma women who were mostly in social work and associated professions. I discovered that there were some serious issues among the Roman communities in the region, and the economic downturn has probably made things worse since then.
There appear to be a number of interrelated problems that work together to exclude the East European (and probably South European) Roma from healthy and productive participation in the wider society, and which frequently lead them into dependency and, in some instances, organised crime. I'm hoping that governments around the region are encouraging the development of community workers to help communities work through their issues, but I suspect that most of the funding and motivation will come from NGOs.
I would think poverty is a factor - which is why I drew an analogy with where I grew up, which was also poor, with plenty of thieving, contempt for police, drug-taking, refusal to grass people up, blah blah blah. Very naughty people!
But I suspect Roma and gypsies also have racism to contend with, (my uncle did). This might connect with other groups - for example, there seem to be more black and Muslim men in English jails than would be proportionate to the general population.
I am still intrigued by L'organist's claim that Roma are far more criminal than the general population - where does this claim come from?
I actually live near a guy who shot and killed a young gypsy who was thieving - many locals thought he was a hero, which I find disturbing. There is certainly plenty of anti-Roma, anti-gypsy sentiment out there.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
There's certainly the factor of discrimination and racism, which feeds into poverty, poor attitudes to education, employment and life chances in general. And apparently the situation worsened for the Roma after the fall of communism.
Roma culture in Eastern Europe seems to be distinct from what we used to refer to as gypsies in the UK. Maybe its because the numbers are much greater there. Of the 7 - 9 million Roma in Europe, 6 million are in central and eastern Europe. (For example, Roma make up 10% of the population of Bulgaria.) While the long-standing gypsies of England may have faced similar problems, their smaller numbers, and perhaps the larger presence of other minority ethnic groups to absorb some of the unwelcome attention, have eventually made it easier for them to 'assimilate'. The continental Roma, by contrast, have maintained distinctive languages and are organised in clans, with the large majority living in communities together rather than being in mixed neighbourhoods.
Regarding crime, the problem isn't that the Roma are intrinsically more criminal than other people, but considering the conditions in which they live in Eastern Europe, it's unsurprising that certain criminal activities have become associated with them.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Actually the Shannon Matthews case is a prime example - that case got far, far less coverage than Madeline McCann (Shannon hardly got appeals in the latest Harry Potter book, did she?),
Shannon Matthews went missing on 19 Feb and was found on 14 March; that's not long enough to put out appeals in published books.
I'm not saying she would have, had she remained missing, but you can't compare the case of a girl who was missing for less than a month, with the case of a girl who's been missing for over six years.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
L'Organist - the media is more interested in nice middle-class children from nice middle-class backgrounds going missing than children from council estates going missing.
It's something that Owen Jones picks up in his book Chavs
I can't help feeling that there would be many more questions asked of the McCanns if they'd been from a council estate and had left their child alone while they boozed at Butlins.
Somehow being a Doctor and eating at a Tapas bar overcomes a child protection issue ......
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Actually the Shannon Matthews case is a prime example - that case got far, far less coverage than Madeline McCann (Shannon hardly got appeals in the latest Harry Potter book, did she?),
Shannon Matthews went missing on 19 Feb and was found on 14 March; that's not long enough to put out appeals in published books.
I'm not saying she would have, had she remained missing, but you can't compare the case of a girl who was missing for less than a month, with the case of a girl who's been missing for over six years.
There was a big difference in coverage while Shannon was still missing. Not just the amount of coverage but the tone - the Daily Wail was especially unpleasant about the one and kind about the other.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
quote:
posted by Exclamation Mark
There was a big difference in coverage while Shannon was still missing. Not just the amount of coverage but the tone - the Daily Wail was especially unpleasant about the one and kind about the other.
Whether or not the DM was "kind" or not I don't know - not a newspaper I read. But certainly some of the coverage was bound to be different because of varying factors, especially- the age of the children - 1 nearly a teen, the other not yet at school;
- 1 missing in the UK where she spoke the language, the other in Portugal where she might be able to ask for help and be understood;
- one found within 4 weeks and the other still missing 6 years later.
For the media in the Shannon Matthews case it was difficult for them not to allude to the fact that Shannon and some of her siblings had been on the "At Risk" register since (a) this was fact, and (b) neighbours referred to it.
One could question whether or not newspapers should repeat local gossip, but the fact is that journalists were given a string of "gossip" about Karen Matthews that was fact - that her children had different fathers, that she'd been accused of neglect, that her children had appalling attendance at school.
None of these things were said about the parents of either Madeleine McCann or April Jones because they would not have been true.
The fact that coverage almost ceased after about a month in the case of April Jones was because a man had been charged and then much information was sub judice - and even our media wouldn't be so crass as to imperil a prosecution for murder just for the sake of headlines and speculation.
As for "class" being an issue: the disappearances of Daniel Nolan and Damien Nettles still attract widespread publicity - granted not as much as Madeleine McCann but they were 14 and 15 when they disappeared - as does the search for what happened to Ginette Tate: all of these missing teens came from working class homes.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Actually the Shannon Matthews case is a prime example - that case got far, far less coverage than Madeline McCann (Shannon hardly got appeals in the latest Harry Potter book, did she?),
Shannon Matthews went missing on 19 Feb and was found on 14 March; that's not long enough to put out appeals in published books.
I'm not saying she would have, had she remained missing, but you can't compare the case of a girl who was missing for less than a month, with the case of a girl who's been missing for over six years.
There was a big difference in coverage while Shannon was still missing. Not just the amount of coverage but the tone - the Daily Wail was especially unpleasant about the one and kind about the other.
The McCanns stayed in one of those massive family friendly gated communities where you don’t really have to go outside to do anything and there are lots of other holiday makers and staff around. It easy, in those circumstances,, to get a bit complacent about it being okay to “leave the kids to sleep while you pop out”. At the time, I remember a few people saying they’d been there and behaved in a similar way. (Including one friend who had been there the same week!)
Social services did speak to them after they got back IIRC. What the McCann’s did was stupid, but they’re going to have to live with the consequences of that for the rest of their lives. I’m not sure that punishing them any further is going to help. It won’t bring their little girl back.
That said, I agree that there would have been a very big difference in the tone of the coverage if they hadn’t been a nice, middle class family. Tia Sharp is another example of this. In other circumstances, the papers would have been howling with rage that it took that long – 7 days! - To find a body hidden in a family member’s loft.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
...
As for "class" being an issue: the disappearances of Daniel Nolan and Damien Nettles still attract widespread publicity - granted not as much as Madeleine McCann but they were 14 and 15 when they disappeared - as does the search for what happened to Ginette Tate: all of these missing teens came from working class homes.
Race seems to be an issue though - all the examples of missing children and young people quoted on this thread are white. And, thinking about it, I can think of very few cases of black children disappearing that have made the jump from local papers to the national ones.
Tubbs
[ 23. October 2013, 11:47: Message edited by: Tubbs ]
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
...
As for "class" being an issue: the disappearances of Daniel Nolan and Damien Nettles still attract widespread publicity - granted not as much as Madeleine McCann but they were 14 and 15 when they disappeared - as does the search for what happened to Ginette Tate: all of these missing teens came from working class homes.
Race seems to be an issue though - all the examples of missing children and young people quoted on this thread are white. And, thinking about it, I can think of very few cases of black children disappearing that have made the jump from local papers to the national ones.
Tubbs
But that's probably in part due to them being a minority in Britain. If they are normally small in number you can expect them to also be a small proportion of missing child cases. Keeping in mind that statistical science is all based on the false premise that dice have memories, you would have to go a much longer list than the four or five we've had on this page before you could confidently draw that conclusion.
Or maybe it's just that black kids in Britain disappear less often because their parents are better at the core parenting skills than white parents like the McCanns?
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
...
As for "class" being an issue: the disappearances of Daniel Nolan and Damien Nettles still attract widespread publicity - granted not as much as Madeleine McCann but they were 14 and 15 when they disappeared - as does the search for what happened to Ginette Tate: all of these missing teens came from working class homes.
Race seems to be an issue though - all the examples of missing children and young people quoted on this thread are white. And, thinking about it, I can think of very few cases of black children disappearing that have made the jump from local papers to the national ones.
Tubbs
But that's probably in part due to them being a minority in Britain.
African-American children also get MUCH less press when they disappear than blond-haired blue-eyed younguns.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
[QUOTE]Social services did speak to them after they got back IIRC. What the McCann’s did was stupid, but they’re going to have to live with the consequences of that for the rest of their lives. I’m not sure that punishing them any further is going to help. It won’t bring their little girl back.
That said, I agree that there would have been a very big difference in the tone of the coverage if they hadn’t been a nice, middle class family. Tia Sharp is another example of this. In other circumstances, the papers would have been howling with rage that it took that long – 7 days! - To find a body hidden in a family member’s loft.
Tubbs
No, I'm not into punishing nor pursuing them: they have suffered more than enough and they will live with their decision for the rest of their life.
I'm simply observing that with different family dynamics the response from statutory authorities would, in all likelihood, have been very different. Not to mention the seemingly generally accepted assumption that we all pop out for a few minutes and leave our children unattended: some may do, others don't. If ever I was tempted to do that I remember a funeral I took for a young girl who died in a house fire whilst left on her own.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I can't help thinking that the McCann / Needham cases always have a shred of hope because of the very occasional discovery of young adults, who were abducted as children, being found imprisoned in a basement somewhere (some who have even gone on to have children of their own at the hands of their abductors). Until a body is found, there is always hope, although usually the outcome is much less happy.
It must never be forgotten that, however neglectful the parents might have been, the wrongdoer is the person who took the child. Young children are excellent escapologists and most people have had a scary memory of one of their children going out of sight for a few moments when toddlers - it could so easily be a case of it happening at the wrong time when someone of ill intent was about.
The other thing to bear in mind was that a generation ago it was considered bad parenting to keep your children up with you until late in the evening when on holiday. Under this reasoning, all children should have a nursery tea and be put to bed by 7pm with the hotel childminding service listening in on them while their parents have a quiet meal. It doesn't take much imagination to realise that anyone of ill intent could find a way around this system, but it was very widespread and very much approved of as the 'right' way to do things.
Do you lock your door when you have a meal in the evening and the children are in bed? Could you swear that it would be impossible for someone to creep in through the front door (or through a window) and up the stairs without you knowing, while the TV was on, or while you are all chatting? Particularly on a hot day? Someone with ill intent will often find a way - parents can never be completely complacent that it will never happen to them.
It is so easy to accuse the wrong people and overlook the deviousness of a criminal mind.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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