The murder of the two Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was greeted with a major display of public grief.
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The country stopped for a semi-official minute's silence; flowers, notes and other tributes piled up in the Soham graveyard and a site near where the girls' bodies were found; thousands have emailed their condolences to specially established websites.
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In their emails, many said how much they had been affected by the girls' deaths, how they themselves had experienced a deep sense of loss. Why did so many people, who had never met nor heard of the girls before, seem so deeply affected? And why, only a week after the two girls' funerals, have these displays of grief died away?
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The reaction to the Soham murders cannot be explained by the deaths themselves. Rather, it follows a pattern of public mourning that has been established over the past decade. It seems that our contemporary culture is increasingly finding meaning and significance in individual moments of suffering. The media, politicians and the public are mobilising around rare tragedies in a way that stands in marked contrast to the past.
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Think back to the Hungerford massacre in 1987, when 14 people on the street of this Berkshire town were shot dead by a lone gunman in a random act of violence (1). This event shocked the nation, but it did not spark the masses of flowers, teddy-bears and condolence books that make up the rituals of public grieving we tend to see today. The death of 96 Liverpool fans in a crush at the Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield in 1989 caused people to come together and mourn on the streets of Liverpool, but this was a localised reaction that was defined as much by anger at the crowd-control methods used by the police as it was by grief and horror.
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The murder of Liverpool toddler Jamie Bulger in 1993, by two 10-year old boys, precipitated a more widespread reaction. The story dominated the national media and became the background to moral fables and renewed fears about child safety. The horrific murder of 16 schoolchildren at a school in Dunblane, Scotland, by a gunman provoked a highly emotional response - from the public but especially from politicians and the media. Politicians of all parties visited Dunblane, and details of the families' grief filled the newspapers.
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It was following the death of Princess Diana in a car accident in 1997 that new rituals of public mourning began to be established, with several thousands of people queuing to sign the condolence books at Buckingham Palace and leaving bouquets of flowers and mementos, and the UK press filling its pages with Diana-bilia for weeks on end. By the time of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando in 1999, and the murder of schoolgirl Sarah Payne in 2000, these public responses had become routine. The candles, the flowers, the phrases used to describe grief are recycled and spread ever more widely - across the internet, and the national press.
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Such moments of public response to private tragedies have been greeted as showing the British people at their best. After the death of Diana, Tony Blair said that the response to the funeral had made him proud to be British. After Dunblane, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said that the events had shown Britain as 'not a nation of individuals living disconnected lives in pursuit of self-interest, but a people united by a sense of fellow feeling' (2).
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At a time when society is bound by few common experiences or ideals, these moments of tragedy are reinterpreted as moral parables that can unite people. We can all agree that the murder of Holly and Jessica was an evil act. In our capacity to feel sorrow at this waste of human life, we are apparently reaffirming our bonds with others, and showing that we are not just out for ourselves.
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There are some decent, and timeless, human instincts bound up with public expressions of grief. As the poet John Donne put it back in 1624: 'any mans death diminishes me/because I am involved in mankind/And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls/It tolls for thee.' (3) It is a mark of our humanity that we can feel empathy with others, and sorrow at loss of life.
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But the public grief rituals that we saw around Soham, Dunblane and Diana twist this spontaneous empathy into something rather less genuine. Cases of private tragedy are preyed upon by national institutions, in an attempt to affirm our connections with each other, and to prove our decency.
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It is one thing to express regret at someone's death; it is another to read a huge spiritual significance into their dying from an act of senseless violence. At the funeral of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the vicar said a remarkable thing: 'In their short lives, Holly and Jessica achieved about the same as most 10-year-olds - perhaps just a little more - but in their deaths they have certainly achieved more than any of us will manage in our lifetime.' (4)
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In being senselessly murdered, these girls achieved more than any of us will manage in our lifetime. Like Diana and Sarah Payne, Holly and Jessica are in the process of being canonised. But while story of the saints is that they died for their Christian beliefs, and so in some sense made a choice to die, Holly and Jessica were the victims of a random attack.
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The Soham girls' deaths are seen as spiritual, not because of the reasons they died, but because of the effect on the world of the living.
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As with the reaction to Sarah Payne's murder, the focus is not on the lives of Holly and Jessica, but on the emotional response that their deaths stimulated in people. 'I hope the Payne family can take a little comfort in the fact that their beautiful daughters death was not in vain, her smiling face will forever be in my mind', said one person contributing to an online 'guestbook' in the memory of Sarah Payne (5). Other contributors claimed that the deaths had changed their lives, and remained imprinted forever on their hearts. 'They are candles in the darkness.... their wee lives have touched the world', a woman from Australia wrote in the messages of condolence section of the 'Remembering Dunblane' website (6).
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In Soham, as with Dunblane, the site of the tragedy has become a place of pilgrimage that can evoke deep emotional responses in its visitors. One person said that visiting Dunblane had been 'the most moving experience of my life'. Another even claimed that 'Dunblane has become one of the most expressive words of the 20th century' (7).
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As public mourning becomes ritualised, a grotesque kind of competition is begun, where everybody tries to prove the greater depth of their feeling - and therefore the greater depth of their humanity. 'Words cannot express our sadness', read one note on the Cambridge County Council's Jessica and Holly condolence website, signed 'All staff at Costessey Medical Practice' (8). 'We are shocked, horrified and saddened by what has happened….You are constantly on our minds', said another. 'Never before have two beautiful little girls touched my life before. I feel have no words to express how I just feel', said Jane from Yorkshire.
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Public figures quickly got in on the act. Australian prime minister John Howard sent a spray of roses on behalf of the Australian people. Prince Charles sent two handwritten letters to the girls' parents, saying how he had 'agonised' over their loss: 'Anyone who has children can understand something of what you are going through and of the heart-wrenching despair that you must be experiencing.' (In a self-effacing touch, Charles added that he felt his contribution to be 'hopelessly inadequate'.) (9) Footballer-cum-gangster act Vinnie Jones sent the parents a letter, saying how he felt 'totally distraught about these very sad losses' (10).
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It is this need to prove emotion to others, and to feel part of something, that explains the importance of ritual. The minutes' silences, the offerings, notes, and candles - all of these are public ways of demonstrating our emotions. It is not enough to feel upset, or to cry when you hear the news - you have to show other people how upset you are, and to join in with others who are feeling the same.
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After the murder of Holly and Jessica, we saw the profusion of these kinds of gestures. One football team played without their number 7 shirt, as this was the number on the two girls' Manchester United shirts when they disappeared. United's star player David Beckham dedicated his first goal of the season to the girls. Vicky Whatley from Bristol built a shrine outside her city church: 'As a mum, thinking about what happened to these two girls is terrifying. I felt I had to make some sort of tribute.' (11)
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To paraphrase psychologist Oliver James' response to the Diana grief-fest: there is no doubt about the sincerity of such gestures, but there is a question as to their authenticity. How authentic is this kind of collective grief, when it disintegrates so quickly? Contrast the national grief-fest surrounding Diana's death at the time to the fact that, on the recent fifth anniversary, it went practically unobserved. Despite the apparent intensity of the reaction at the time, there was no real, lasting bond between the figure of Diana and the public that mourned her passing.
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These transient moments, in which a nation seems to unite in grief, tend to break up rapidly into sniping, as different groups issue competing claims in the emotion stakes. We saw this in Diana's brother's tirade against the press and the Royal Family at her funeral; in the fights between different groups after the attack on the World Trade Centre (WTC); and in the Vicar of Soham's attacks on 'ghoul tourists'. As the anniversary of the attack on the WTC approaches, one journalist reported how New York society had become organised into a 'psychological hierarchy of suffering' - those who had suffered most being placed at the top (12).
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And far from being genuine spontaneous outbursts, these displays of public grieving are often orchestrated and policed. Not showing the appropriate kind of emotion is not an option. By refusing to take part, you are shown up as an outcast from the community of mourners - an unfeeling selfish individual among the compassionate many.
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Throughout the Soham tragedy, the media urged people to participate in the hunt for the girls and to empathise with the parents' feelings. 'We urge all 10million Sun readers to stand in silent memory too as a mark of respect for the girls', said the Sun on the day of the minute's silence (13). David Beckham was shown as a role model, with his head bowed - under the headline 'United in grief'. After the girls' bodies had been found, Cambridgeshire police and county council both set up websites for the public to send their messages of condolence. Papers enthusiastically reported the tributes that were flowing in, prompting others to send more.
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It is a sad day when the murder of schoolgirls is required for us to express our humanity and feel part of a community. It is equally disturbing how the grief roadshow preys upon the emotional responses of the bereaved.
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Holly and Jessica's parents were constantly being asked how they felt, and how they were coping - and even the most mundane of their actions were held up to the cameras. A journalist for Sky News reported talking to one of the mothers on her first shopping trip after the bodies had been found. Papers speculated whether the parents or the town of Soham would ever recover from the loss. The girls' school friends were pictured holding up their personal tributes to the girls, their private notes and personal momentos.
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For weeks, Soham was taken over by the international media. In the face of this publicity, it must be difficult to respond in a genuine or heartfelt way. Villagers who had a microphone shoved under their noses were more likely to have given the response they felt was expected than to have articulated what they were really going through. When millions of people want to know how you feel, you probably no longer know yourself.
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The frenzy around Soham is dying down now, but it is only a matter of time before it re-emerges around another case. In the meantime, we should try to find more noble ways of expressing our common humanity - and leave the bereaved to grieve in peace.
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Read on:
After Soham - mourners and 'the mob', by Mick Hume
Turning tragedy into trivia, by Jennie Bristow
These mawkish tears are an insult, by Mick Hume in The Times (London) , 19 August 2002
(1) Massacre in High Street, The Guardian Century, August 20, 1987
(2) Quoted in Culture of Fear, Frank Furedi, Cassell, 1997
(3) See John Donne's Meditation 17
(4) 2,000 at Ely to grieve and to look ahead, Guardian, 31 August 2002
(5) See the online guestbook for Sarah Payne
(6) See the Remembering Dunblane website
(7) See the Remembering Dunblane website
(8) See the of the condolence section Cambridge County Council website
(9) Daily Mail, 24 August 2002
(10) Daily Express, 25 August 2002
(11) Daily Express, 25 August 2002
(12) The Times, 5 September 2002
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