Society
Cristina Odone on grief for Holly and Jessica
Published 26 August 2002
Why do the chatterers try to make us feel ashamed of showing grief and sympathy?
It was an extraordinary fortnight. You couldn't meet a friend or get into a cab without talking of Holly and Jessica. In the office, at the shops, on the bus, the girls' names floated like the melancholic refrain of a popular summer song.
It was a rare moment of real collective sympathy - and yet no sooner had the story of the missing ten-year-olds developed into the murdered ten-year-olds, and then into the murder inquiry, than a chorus of disapproval arose. The public displays of concern and now mourning were branded mawkish, bathetic, voyeuristic. It was as if the media and the pundits had come to their senses, and stood embarrassed now by their earlier wailing and breast-beating.
Why are the British so scared of showing emotions? The feelings that were tapped by the disappearance of those two girls were deep and sincere - why should we hang our heads in shame now for having experienced and, worse, expressed them? It's a chattering-class thing. The working classes don't mind bursting into tears at a football loss or a royal funeral; characters in EastEnders are always sobbing and shaking, dabbing their mascara or burying their head in their hands as life deals them yet another heavy blow. Not so the chatterers: they still squirm at the memory of the Diana funeral and call it "madness"; they try to shrug off the sentimental celebration of the golden jubilee as "lots of old people and lots of tourists". Emotion is inarticulate and irrational, and therefore has no place in the chatterers' ideal world, where everybody conducts themselves as though part of a smooth-running panel discussion. Feelings make for an uncomfortable spectacle, and risk turning us into one of those dishevelled, hysterical Palestinians who ululate at suicide bombers' funerals.
Some criticisms of what happened over the past two weeks are justified: the newspaper offers of rewards for sightings, which got in the way of the police search; the probability that the press would have all but ignored the story if a spotty black boy from Brixton had gone missing rather then two pretty, white, blonde girls. And yet, for a few days, we took time from our summer fun to think of others. We worried about something other than our holiday plans, our airplane fares, ourselves. We followed a story that involved someone else's heartbreak. We showed, in short, that there is definitely such a thing as society.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
