My mate reckons the parents are guilty purely based on the guttural way he says "Maaadeleine" when talking about her. But, ya know, you can't hold his Scottish heritage against him, can you? And actually, this isn't in the least bit funny.
The whole McCann story is fascinating and tragic. I simply cannot believe that they killed their daughter. If they did then we have been witnessing theee most audacious cover-up in world media history. No? 21st century all pervasive media gone wild!
Gerry shuttled across Europe to give press conferences in order to distribute Madeleine's image widely and help find his daughter. He visited Washington and Morocco. He has setup a
website and blog. There is a
video on YouTube. David Beckham, J K Rowling, Gordon Brown, numerous top notch celebs and noteworthies have commented or made appeals. But also, Gerry McCann gave an interview at the Edinburgh Television Festival about how modern media can help people in their situation! The McCanns both appeared on the BBC TV religious and ethics show Heaven and Earth and, biggest of all, with their catholicism and church-going ever-present in the media coverage, they had an audience with the pope! Readers, they went all the way to papa in Rome, the closest thing to a living god in the catholic world, and he received them.
If they did kill Madeleine, deliberately or accidentally (the latter being far more likely if they are at all to blame), then the way it has played out since May 3 is just unreal. Was it they who started the media snowball? Or were they railroaded into it and couldn't really say "actually maybe we should play this down a bit". How would that have looked? There was such a lot of goodwill shown to them, perhaps they got caught up in it and simply couldn't say no for fear of getting rumbled. So much media around, so many different people wanting to do something, and so many people now being able to help thanks to the internet and 24-hour news operations.
They stayed in Portugal for over 4 months. They appointed PR peple, they courted and managed the media intelligently and professionally. They clearly had an extremely close relationship with journalists on Sky News for instance, you could kind of tell that journos were also trying to keep the story alive as the McCann's PR peple spinned and found new aspects, anggles and subplots for them all to report on. Sky had a poster on their website that they kept urging viewers to download and display.
YouTube video: Madeleine's mother now suspect You can see why the Portuguese police may wish to put an end to the situation. It's not doing them any favours, it's taking up too much of their time and resources, it's destroying their credibility and it's not helping the local tourism industry.
Giving them Arguido (suspect) status, throwing question marks above the parents heads, it rather takes the emphasis off the local police and muddies the waters. It also disassociates Portugal from child kidnappers and paedophiles.
But Gerry and Kate still drove around in the much discussed hire car presumably long after the police thought it a significant crime scene object. Why didn't they impound it? Why are they only now asking for Kate's diary? Why didn't they take copies of the pages previously? Why are they privately briefing the press in the way they are? But most of all, why did they not arrest Madelein's parents and keep them in Portugal? All this feels the wrong way to conduct a police investigation if they believe their evidence will stick and lead to a successful prosecution (could they ever have a successful prosecution anyway after all this apparent lack of haste and resulting contamination of crime scenes?) Maybe the Portuguese police are now winning the media battle after months of criticism aimed at them through newspapers and TV in the UK.
Suggesting the police have an agenda other than trying to capture the real Perpetrators of the crime is extremely cynical, though. This also doesn't feel right. Are the police just desperate bunglers as sometimes portrayed?
I'm just not sure what's going on here ... and some of it could be due to local cultural stuff with the portuguese police that I don't understand as an outsider. Not to mention the fact that I am undoubtedly influenced by the British media, who are now lapping this stuff up hungrily and who are arguably more interested in the sensationalist story partly because they are astonished at the idea the McCann's may have hoodwinked them as well as everyone else. I can only assume Hollywood are looking on interested ... well if they hadn't already unwittingly made a
similar movie which they now can't release in Europe.
I simply didn't see any of this coming, did you?
But getting back to reality. Madeleine's disappearance is a dreadful thing. If any parts of this blog entry appear to be tongue-in-cheek it's because of the way we are now consuming and living with this story. It has become an eyebrow raising deep breaths roller coaster experience that feels 'incredible' in the true sense of the word. The potential audacity has flung it into the comedy arena at least a little. I take no pleasure from this but I think you appreciate my point.
Assuming the parents are innocent - because I really want to assume this - they must be at their lowest ebb. Their soapbox and ability to campaign has been pulled from underneath them now they have arguido status. They can't easily rebutt accusations in the way they would want ... and sadly their silencing means they can't now easily carry on campaigning to find their daughter in the way they were able to just over a week ago. And would they be taken as seriously anyway? Worse, Kate's character is being openly dissected and questioned, they're facing a potential manslaughter trial in Portugal, and they have to be strong and brave for the sake of their twins - they must be terrified, heartbroken and utterly demotivated.
Above all, their daughter is still missing. What a dreadful dreadful situation.
I repeat, if this is a cover-up of some kind then this is the most audacious hoodwinking I've ever witnessed. But, in many ways, no matter what the outcome, I think I will still be feeling desperate for the McCanns.
Labels: madeleine mccann, media
