Yesterday I got an email about a petition to stop the execution of Akmal Shaikh, the mentally ill Asian man in China who has now been executed for drug smuggling.  Have no fear, I am not going to be making light of that or attempt to sarcastically explore any of the issues surrounding capital punishment, the culpability of mentally ill criminals or our relationship with China in this blog, don’t you worry about that…

What I do want to address, however, is the thing I noticed in the email asking for my support that I see mentioned an awful lot in things like this.  It stated the argument that if he was “white and from Chelmsford” then the media would have intervened and, at the very least, given a shit.  Now, I understand this attitude and there is a lot of truth behind the sentiment.  There is an excellent bit in the excellent Shooting Dogs where the war reporter explains the difference between Bosnia and Rwanda as being that in Bosnia all the dead people could have been her mother or her daughter but in Rwanda it’s just another dead African.  This sort of attitude does prevail globally so I understand the righteous anger of such a statement.  It’s just that, without wishing to sound unduly flippant, it’s a bit mean to Essex.  Essex always gets this treatment.  Any cause worth getting behind that is being ignored is often epilogued with “If this was a builder from Basildon/Hairdresser from Romford/Student from Southend then the media would be all over it”.

I know Essex is awesome and that everyone from Essex is the absolute embodiment of a National Treasure but it is ridiculous to expect anyone from Essex to gain preferential treatment in the media highlighting their cause. 

In fact, I can’t think of a single example of someone from Essex in trouble with foreign agencies being championed by the popular press.  There were two Egyptian Students that the Echo ran a piece about a few years ago but this cause was raised mainly due to all the hard work of the families and I saw nothing in The Guardian, Mirror or Mail about it…To be honest, I can’t even think of any examples of people from Essex who done wrong abroad and completely deserved their fate that have been condemned or even mentioned in the National Press.  Historically, culturally and legally I can’t think of any reason, let alone reasons, that Essex should always be considered an ignorant, white, den of iniquity with a media darling get out of jail free card.  Yet this is apparently how we are perceived throughout the rest of the UK.

Also, Championing in the press is largely the domain of the well to do middle classes and whilst Essex has some nice gentrified bits and a blossoming artsy population it isn’t anywhere middle class enough to get any broadsheets to give a shit about it.  Just compare the attitudes in the press to the Madeline McCann situation and the Shannon Matthews situation.  When both happened initially both appeared to be pretty much the same.  Only difference is that one was a tragedy, an awful disaster that befall two doctors on holiday in the Algarve and the other was only to be expected if you let people like that breed, it’s just what happens to those sorts of people.  Essex falls squarely in the latter category and, in case you are wondering, The McCanns are not from Essex.

The only other time I can think of any of the press really going to bat for someone British was the Louise Woodward baby drop thing in the US and that was years ago.  And that was really only because the world had just seen America let OJ Simpson get away with murder because the policeman who arrested him was racist.  Rather than deal with both issues separately they decided that they needed to pick the worst one and only deal with that and, unfortunately for the family of OJ’s murdered wife, racist cop beats murdering celebrity in American Law Top Trumps.  So, needless to say, when almost one week later (so it seemed) one of our girls was up on charges of accidental baby murder and the American legal system was gunning for her we sure as bloody hell weren’t gonna stand for another miscarriage of American justice regardless of whether she did it or not.  No Sireee!  We didn’t ask, we didn’t care, that wasn’t the point.  Our message was clear: you don’t let a clearly guilty murderer go and then try to throw the book at an English lady who may possibly not have done what you are insisting she did on purpose.  Also, again, Louise Woodward is not from Essex…

That’s it really, just think of us Essex folk next time you want to use someone as an example for lazy, disinterested attitudes of the popular press.  And rather than sully the good name of all Essex based manual labourers, why not say “if X was a doctor on holiday who irresponsibly and criminally neglected their basic parenting duties then the media would be all over it” or what about “if X was a white girl who killed a child through negligence right after a black man was acquitted of a murder he clearly did then the media would be all over it”.  Those two would be far more appropriate when getting your point across…

That is all…