Sunday 13 February 2011

the missing men

People disappear all the time, most but not all of them young, most of them single, and many of them are never seen or heard from again.  Samy Haikel, a young man from Strasbourg whom I did not know, disappeared after a night out on 7th January.  Yesterday a body, identifiably his by the clothing and jewellery, was found in the river Ill by a canoe club group.  Here there has been huge publicity, his father appeared regularly on local TV and radio, flyers were put up all over town, and there has been a great deal of concern.  Nationally though, nothing.  Two blonde little girls were killed by their father, and there was huge publicity.  A girl was murdered on a train and the President of the Republic got involved, kicking off a judges' strike (this is France),  When a woman or girl goes missing, especially if she is blonde and attractive, everyone wants to know.  When a man disappears, no-one outside his immediate community seems to care.  I don't have an answer to this, I only ask the question why.  All people prefer looking at pictures of  women to pictures of men, that is why newspapers of all persuasions and politics publish so many of them.  But that is not the whole story, surely?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Same in this country as well - no need to meniton the cases that have attracted attention and those that haven't.

The unfortunate effect, however is that it suggests that some lives are mroe valuable than others.