Getting Morocco And Children To Empathise With Madeleine McCann
YESTERDAY, the ferry from Spain to Morocco was full of tabloid journalists on the Madeleine McCann trail.
The Mirror and Sun were amazed at how easy it was to travel by car from Portugal via Spain to North Africa.
Valuable information for geographers, people smuggles and hacks on limited expense accounts, but overlooked by the McCanns who made the trip by jet plane.
Now in Morocco, the McCanns are greeted by 100 Moroccan children carrying posters of Madeleine.
The Express watches Kate McCann and sees a “huge smile spread-across her angst-ridden face”. She sees the posters. She reads the messages: “All Moroccan children are with you, Madeleine” and “Madeleine: Back home.”
She hears the chants. The Sun says that for an entire hour the children chanted Madeleine’s name.
Nothing creepy here. Nothing to upset and disarm parents looking at so many pictures of their missing daughter. Nothing to make the young children at the National Observatory for the rights of Children wary of strangers.
Good that children know of a missing girl. As Gerry McCann says: “Children are more likely to notice a child that is out of place or they don’t recognise.” Mr McCann means the blonde English-speaking girl in Africa, stood among a sea of swarthy faces. Who but a world-wise child could spot the difference between brown and white?
“Our Maddie” (Mirror) is now the world’s Maddie. We are all personally affected by Madeleine McCann. But we are not. This is the public spectacle that will run longer than Big Brother. We’re all voyeurs tuning into the show.
The Sun says the McCanns are “overwhelmed”. Kate McCann says: “It highlights how beautiful and special children are.”
And how they can be coerced into doing just about anything…
Posted: 12th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (37) | TrackBack | Permalink
