Feeding a myth

I recently read "Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two" by Maggie Smith-Bendell, at just about the same time that a Greek couple were being accused of abducting a child, and Irish police removed another fair-haired child from a Traveller family on suspicion that she too was abducted.  Two headlines, from opposite ends of Europe, that occupied a lot of media attention for days on end.

The fact that the true stories, as originally explained to the police by both these families, bore no relation whatsoever to the false accusations received very little coverage in comparison, and the fact that nomadic people everywhere have for centuries lived in dread of the state removing their children from them received no mention whatsoever that I saw.

An early part of Maggie's book reminded me of this truth, however - the very reverse of the impression that was then being conveyed by the media. Maggie's parents were thrown into a total panic by the news that a farmer and his wife would like to adopt their son, and immediately fled the farm, where they had hoped to overwinter, leaving behind some treasured possessions that they could ill afford to do without, including their precious "banties". In this particular case, the family eventually learned that the farmer and his wife had no power to take their son from them.  But the state always has had that power, and still uses it on occasion. A nomadic family is then completely vulnerable, and may have no resources to put their opposing case forward, nor to ensure appropriate care for their lost child.

The point I want to make, is that this is how a lie works.  The evil that we do, we attribute to the victim.  We widely publicise our allegations.  And then we let the story die away.  The victim's innocence may be proven later, but nothing can un-write the headlines that have fed the evil myth.