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The Madeleine McCann affair: first impressions
The Madeleine McCann affair: firstimpressions
First impressions of a relatively open-minded newcomer to the case, two years after the event.13 May 2009 Article history: 13.05.09 19:31 & 21:46 Minor text additions with grammatical and layout alterations.Clarifications added to some sentences.Original document at http://www.fotdmike.me.uk/writings/madeleine.html
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Inspiration
Just over a week ago I blogged[1] about that little girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappearedin Portugal in 2007.It was a very short post, principally referencing a video ("Maddie: The Truth of the Lie"... seeNote 1) that I'd stumbled across. Yet I found the content of that video sufficiently intriguingto prompt me to look rather more closely at the whole affair, which is what I've been doingsince that initial post. And that, in turn, has prompted these present observations. The purpose of them being,
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The Madeleine McCann affair: first impressions
aside from the obvious one of sharing my thoughts with whomever may chance by and beinterested, to help clarify my thinking on the matter so far. As much for my own benefit asanything else.It wasn't long after Madeleine had disappeared that I, along with probably tens of thousandsof other people, became aware of the event... courtesy of the massive media coverage. And, like so many other people, I ended up including an image of Madeleine and a linkback to the findmadeleine.com website (seethis article[2]) on a social networking page that Iused to have.But I have to confess that I hadn't paid a great deal of attention to the case, and certainly hadn't followed it particularly closely.I was aware of course of the continuing failure to find her and if I'd thought much about it atall it was from the standpoint that with the passage of time it seemed to me increasingly unlikely that she would ever be found alive. Call me a cynic if you like.Other than that I knew or thought very little about the matter. Just one more crime in a world that is, alas, far too full of wrongdoings.Then, two years on, I watch the previously mentioned video... being drawn to it by thetagline that it had been "censored in the UK". Well, red rag to a bull really. I just
had
to watch it to find out
what
was being censored, and why. And the watching of it drew me in, inspiring me to try delving a bit more deeply into the whole affair. Only to discover just how many words have already been written about it, how many theories postulated... and just how few verifiable facts seem to be actually
known
.I also discovered, to my great surprise, how many people don't buy into the "official version"."To my surprise" because I'd assumed that, aside from the initial and inevitable speculationthat the parents were implicated, it had subsequently resolved into a fairly straightforwardabduction case.How little did I know!But at some stage in this brief journey of discovery I seem to have decided to do rather morethan study what's currently available; a decision to extend my delving into a more proactiveposition, sort of thing. To take it on board as an issue meriting some actual research on my own part.I think what truly motivated me to embrace this as yet another issue with which to engage(alongside the many that already occupy my thoughts) was the presence of particular"aspects" that appear to tie in (maybe) with certain other "interests" of mine.Bells were set to ringing in my head; I was reminded of certain other cases at other times.Cases that carried the implication of far-reaching and highly disturbing ramifications.It would be far too premature to discuss the nature of those "aspects" just yet... I'm just notsufficiently familiar at the moment with all the details of the case. Yet it appears that almost without conscious volition I've added myself to the ranks of those
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The Madeleine McCann affair: first impressions
who are still digging into the whole sad affair and, with this preliminary setting out of my thoughts, adding yet more to the seemingly millions of words that have already been written by others far more knowledgeable than I.
Credentials... or the lack of!
I cannot claim any special expertise in, or knowledge of, child abductions. Nor, I have toadmit, have I ever had any particular interest in the topic. "Yes, to abduct a child is
wrong
"...and that's been about the extent of my opinion on this type of crime. Although I have a bit of a weakness for arcane research and the activities associatedtherewith (the ferreting out of buried facts and connections etc), and am a keen observer of human nature behaviour and motivations, basically I'm just an ordinary guy possessingabsolutely no superior abilities or skills that render me especially fitted to engage with this.So what can I possibly hope to bring new to all the digging that's clearly been going on forquite some time by seemingly numerous people? And is that my intention?Probably not. And indeed if that
were
my intention then perhaps the only thing I
can
contribute is a mind fresh to the affair, relatively free of preconceived notions, anduncluttered by all the "stuff" about which there's already been so much speculation.One of the problems that invariably accompanies any event or situation attractingpassionately-held yet opposing views is the tendency for folk to become, quite unwittingly perhaps, blinkered to any fact or feature that doesn't fit their own particular theory. Thingsthat
do
fit are used to reinforce the theory, and things that don't are all too often eitherdismissed or simply ignored. A further problem is the transformation, in the mind, of beliefs assumptions andspeculations into "established fact"... a mental process that can be so subtle that the victimthereof may not even be aware of its occurrence. And it seems to me that both of these phenomena are present to some extent in the case of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.If we lose sight of the known and established facts; if we ignore those facts that don't fit ourown favoured theory; if we instead reach conclusions based on little more than speculation, belief, and assumption then we run the very real risk of falsely accusing the innocent and,more importantly, distorting or even preventing the justice that Madeleine so rightly deserves. We remove ourselves from the possibility of ever reaching a true and accurateconclusion.Hopefully my "fresh and open mind", devoid of any real theories and with no allegiance toeither the pro- or anti-McCann camps, will help me avoid those pitfalls... initially at least. Which is of course another reason for setting these thoughts down now... so that some way down the road I can refresh my memory about what my "starting point" actually was, anduse it to "test" any conclusions I may eventually be tempted to form.
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