Louise Macdonald / It’s Our Baby
This blog will be short - mainly because I’m so angry and will probably cry. I’ve just been reading the story of “Baby P” as he has been christened in the media - the latest child to be tortured to death in London by those who were meant to love and nurture him. The story is beyond awful, beyond words - that any human being would inflict such injury on a baby is bad enough, but that there were so many missed opportunities to save him by doctors and social services, just makes me want to scream out loud.
This story breaking in horrific detail across the media just after I got back from our latest Natural Change weekend has thrown up in stark relief the key question arising from our latest discussions. It’s a big question, and I’m not sure I have the language to express it properly, but hopefully you’ll make sense of it. It’s why, when we as human beings are capable of such joy, love, creativity, compassion and beauty, why is it that cruelty and suffering exists? Why is it that human beings allow themselves to be consumed by hatred, or the desire for power? When we extol the virtues of amazingly compassionate human beings, such as Mandela and Mother Theresa, why do we not aspire and commit to emulating them? What is it about the human condition which means we allow greed and evil to “win” so much? So many of the traumas we face as global citizens stem from this, not least our destruction of the planet.
There is probably some link to be made about about the gap in human values and the interconnectedness of things, but I can’t think straight. I just can’t stop thinking about Baby P - and I know there are thousands of others, believe me, you don’t have to remind me, I work for a young people’s charity - and how much he must have cried. And nobody, nobody saved him. I can’t bear it.
There are 2 comments on It’s Our Baby:
Louise, I feel the same horror at the actions of his parents/torturers, the same pity and despair about his short and so painful and terrible life. It makes me cry deep from my heart. I think “forgive them Lord for they know not what they do” but when I hear a child cry it is like a knife in my heart. I can’t read or watch any “news” now that preys and picks over the horrifying bones of this terrible murder, holding it up to society as “evidence” of a needed witch hunt of social workers and doctors. I’m sure mistakes were made, but they were not intentional. They did not inflict these wounds on the poor child. No-one wants to become social workers any more because of media witch hunts like this that destroy more people’s lives. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:48 pmI don’t have m/any answers to the question “why?” but perhaps some lie in another question - how do we respond as a society when people inflict terrible cruelty on others - especially our children?
In shared horror, grief and sorrow
Thanks Louise for a truly compassionate blog. Baby P haunted me this week too and it was the story I didnt want to read but felt that I should. Something about confronting evil is important here, if we sweep it under the carpet, we dont solve the problem.Reaping the whirlwind springs to mind too. These terrible things are rooted in previous generations actions (abuse) or ommissions (withheld love)
November 13th, 2008 at 7:21 pmIts back to trauma. The perpretrators of this were damaged traumatised, brutalised people whose inner anger and loathing is being lashed out senselessly because no-one has taken the time to make sense of them and give them a sense of self worth.
The worrying aspect of this is the trend towards sociey looking to systems and blamestorming ,rather than collective shame and outrage and determination to be better. That Hargingey services have clearly failed is not in doubt but the swiftness to look for blame outside ourselves is I think a major attitudinal problem of our time. Our loss of rootedness in the world, the envornment and community are at the root of a lot if this I think.
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