Current Affairs

Last week was a grumpy week I’m afraid, a lot of things have been making me rather cross, mostly things of a current afraid nature. I fact there has been so much bugging me I haven’t known where to start writing. At the beginning of the week there was the nonsense about the Welsh Rugby coach thinking about cheating was niggling with me. He thought about cheating, and that’s news, really? Then there is the prospect of weeks more speculation, surrounding friend of the now ex-defence minister Dr Liam Fox, Adam Werrity. It’s seems that some members of the press and government thought that treating us all to a drawn out process of whether anybody Adam Werrity had ever spoken to had done so improperly would be fun. It wouldn’t, it might however encourage me to get my DIY done so that I don’t have to be subjected to any more of this drivel. On Wednesday I was watched Newsnight and it nearly finished me off, as my twitter time line will attest to. Did the entire office indulge in a bag of shrooms and them leave the work experience kid alone with the sound effects? I though it was a news and current affairs program not a pantomime. However in the grand scheme of things all of these minor annoyances pale into insignificance compared to what I am going to focus here.

This week all other news item have been toppled from the top spot by the liberation of Libya and the death of Muammar al-Gaddafi. The world and more importantly the Libyan people are of the opinion that the end of Gaddafi’s rule is the best thing that could have happened to Libya, there is also a fairly wide spread view that the fact he was killed is no bad thing either, drawing a very final line under this period in the country’s history. There is however some debate about whether he was simply killed evading capture, or whether he was captured and then killed. I have to say I really don’t know what my opinion of his death is. What I do have an opinion on is the way in which the international media has been broadcasting images and footage of both his dead body and the moments before he was killed.

I agree that there is a debate to be had over the way in which he was killed and such footage will play a part in that discussion. To talk about such images is one think, but to show the one television and in the newspapers for joe public to gawp at is quite frankly sick. Of course I have the choice not to look at such things (for the most part) if I choose not to, but what does it say about the organisations that chose to show this stuff. Of course we see gruesome imaged in fictional programs, but these are stories and if people feel that is appropriate that is fine. This however is a real human being, and it does not mater who he is or what he is done, as those who are supposedly civilised it is our duty to show him dignity whatever we think of him. The would be outcry is such images were displayed, without some sort of family consent, of someone treated in this way if that individual were considered to be a victim.

I could really get myself on a roll on this vein, you may think I have already. Instead I shall leave it at that. I hope the majority choose not to look at these images, to not indulge in this degradation of humanity. Sadly however I don’t believe this is either a one off, nor the lowest point we can reach.