Put a stop to the fairytale reporting, please
The newspaper reports of the ongoing Simshar search have been a particular irritant this past week. They were all written from an angle that suggested the boy Teo might be found alive: “the search is still on for Teo”; “Teo’s fate is unknown”; “fishermen rented a plane to search for Teo”; “the AFM searched for 12 hours yesterday in the hope of finding Teo.”
At first, I thought it was simply poor English usage, that the reporters could be forgiven for not knowing that the English language (and for all I know, all other languages, too) makes a distinction between how to refer to a living person and how to refer to that person’s corpse. If John is hit by a car and dies, the corpse beneath the paramedics’ blanket isn’t called John. It’s called John’s body. This is a linguistic nod to our understanding that it is the embodied spirit that makes the person and not the body itself.
Then I noticed that the Maltese-language newspapers were reporting in the same vein, and so were the television newsrooms. The search was on for Teo, but not for Teo’s body. News reporters are supposed to report the facts and not to hold out false hope. Even more confusingly, buried in the depths of these news reports, usually in the penultimate paragraph and in a single cursory sentence, is the information that Simon Bugeja said his son had died, and that it was his body which slipped away from him and into the water. This information was reported by one newspaper as “Simon Bugeja told his rescuers that Teo had died.” Coupled with the news that the search is still on for Teo, rather than for his body, the insinuation here is that he might have been mistaken or, heaven forbid, lying. That Teo is dead is only something that his father said. We will have to see it with our own eyes before we believe it.
This, of course, is utterly ridiculous. If the boy’s father said that he died, then we should take this as the gospel truth, given the circumstances. If a father were at all inclined to lie in a situation such as this, it would be to tell the rescue mission that the boy was alive when he last saw him, giving a more determined impetus to the search. But commonsense is a nuisance when it gets in the way of a good story. And so the drama is being heightened by feeding the idea of a young boy floating alone waiting for the AFM and fishermen to find him. This is a Disney fantasy.
Or is it just ill-judged delicacy and a strange interpretation of the meaning of ‘sensitive reporting’? It helps nobody to refer to a dead child as though he is still alive, and to report on attempts to find him when he is quite clearly dead and cannot be found, and what’s more, his father said so. Yes, Simon Bugeja said that his son died the Thursday before last, which means that he has been dead for 11 days now and we are fast reaching the point where even talk of searching for a body will be deemed fatuous.
Every day of the past 11 I have done something that I almost never do, and prayed that against all the odds, that small body unmarked by a life-vest will be found for the sake of the parents, who need to have it. But prayer doesn’t achieve anything in material terms; its only purpose is to lend strength to the one doing the praying. And I’m not the one who needs strength.
I hope that over the next few days we will see an end to the silly reporting that suggests Teo might somehow be alive, and that it might be him, not his body, that is found. The people writing the news stories should also be quite clear about the fact that, if the body is not found within the next few days, it will not be found at all. No matter how long the search goes on, there has to be a body to find in the first place.
Reading the stories of the past week, I couldn’t help the sense of living in some kind of parallel reality, in which children die but remain alive, fathers declare categorically that their sons died in their arms and others don’t believe them, and people are unfamiliar with the ghastly reality of decomposition, though we hear the words ‘ashes to ashes’ at every funeral we go to. Do lots of people live in a fairytale of their own making? I sometimes wonder.
Somebody posted such an appallingly divorced-from-reality comment beneath one of the newspaper stories about the ‘search for Teo’, when he had already been dead for a week, that I felt myself forced to reply. This is what I wrote: “Unless the miracle you’re hoping for is one in which people are raised from the dead, there is no hope at all of finding the boy alive. Even if he were alive when he drifted off, there is no way on earth than an 11-year-old child can survive floating in open sea without food, water or sleep for two weeks. Common sense should tell you that, if not basic understanding of human biology. And Simon Bugeja was very clear when he said that his son had died. We have no reason to doubt him. So be realistic, please. You can rest assured that the boy’s mother isn’t hoping for anything but the body. I assume she believes her husband, even if you don’t. Mincing words and false delicacy never helped anyone or anything, and they are particularly out of place in news reports.”
After the initial bewilderment and disbelief there’s grief, followed by anger, which drives people to ask questions. It won’t be long before there’s a backlash when the reality of what happened actually hits home. There will have to be somebody to blame, because that’s the way things go. I have no doubt, because that’s human nature and every woman in her position would probably do the same, that Teo’s mother will end up blaming her husband for the loss of their son. The worm of anger will emerge slowly over the coming months and years: he failed to do this, perhaps he should have done that, if only, if only.
Noel Carabott’s widow is already blaming Simon Bugeja’s wife for trying to stop her alerting the search-and-rescue services when neither of them could contact their husbands even before they were due home.
Some members of the disinterested public and groups of fishermen have found a temporary scapegoat, the Armed Forces of Malta, which will suffice until the situation gels and blame can be properly apportioned. You would imagine, from some of the comments that can be heard and read, that the AFM sank the boat after whipping away all the life-preserving and communications equipment.
Common decency and compassion prevented us, in the early days of this dreadful episode, from laying any sort of blame at Simon Bugeja’s door. After all, he was the heroic father who cobbled a raft together and kept his son afloat and alive without food, water or sleep for a week. The rumbles of blame are already being heard now, though my own view is that this man has already been punished in one of the most hideous ways possible, by being kept alive after watching the slow and agonising deaths of his father by drowning and of his son through starvation, dehydration and exposure to the elements. Even if he is found to have been grossly negligent on a score of counts, no further punishment can be humanely possible.
It is true that there are obvious questions which are raised by the chronological order of the deaths, but there is nothing that can be said here except that in extreme life-or-death situations we are reduced to the level of animals, ensuring that we and our young survive even if it means that others have to die first. Those who are quick to condemn would do well to paint themselves into the same picture. If it were me in that position, would I have fought off all attempts by desperate, drowning others to gain access to the tiny makeshift raft that keeps my young son afloat and to which my father, who couldn’t swim, clings? Almost certainly. Make that definitely. There is no way on earth that I would have said: “Oh, after you. You take the raft and we’ll just drown here.” Any suggestion that they took it in turns to cling to that floating sack is refuted by pictures of the sack itself. It’s a wonder it kept even an 11-year-old boy afloat.
It might be just pure coincidence that Simon Bugeja and his elderly father who couldn’t swim out-survived by several days a healthy 21-year-old who succumbed within 24 hours – we haven’t been told whether he could swim – and a 33-year-old who could swim but drowned. But then again, it might not. The truth might emerge slowly in dribs and drabs that cannot be proven or challenged, but then again, it might not emerge at all. What we should bear in mind, instead of persisting with our fairytale reporting, is that the combination of a small floating sack, four men, a child and the open sea leads to the worst kind of Lord of the Flies situation – most particularly when the man who cobbled the flotation aid together was also the father of the child and the son of the old man who couldn’t swim.
Meanwhile, we would do well to stop chucking blame at the AFM and remember that the boat had no functioning life-preserving equipment on board, not even the most basic of life-vests. It didn’t have any means of contacting land to raise the alert or give the coordinates, though there was time to do so before the vessel went down. In a situation like that, it is beyond amazing that three bodies and one living person were found.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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Daphne, this is what I like most about you – you say it how it really is, even if it is painful. I think that in a tragedies such as this one, plainspeaking does more good than the sugar-coated euphemisms. Of course, I do not in the least pretend to know what Teo’s family are going through, I can only imagine, but from experience of much lesser tragedies, it is only when I was told things plainly,warts and all, that some sort of sense was knocked into me.
To all others, that fact that by now Teo is dead may be obvious, even if, by some remote chance, what his father said was not the truth, assuming it would have been said to protect the mother from further anguish.
To Teo’s mother, at the very least, though also to his father, finding his body would mean closure. Not seeing – especially for a mother – is not believing. She will keep on torturing herself about what may have become of him until her death.
Daphne , your article deals with 3 issues – the fate of Teo, the search by the AFM, and interpreting the chronological timings of the deaths.
While I agree with you that Teo is certainly dead, your interpretation of the chronological deaths is flawed. Being pysically stonger does not necessarily mean you will survive longer. Perhaps one person was tempted to drink sea water which would have proved fatal, its also the will power to survive, or even someone decides it is better to swim off . So it is most unfair to speculate the darwinian theory in the circumstances!
Regarding the AFM , come on Daphne , is this the best search effort Malta could do !!! Clearly from Bondi Plus interview the Brigadier came across very evasive. In the last 4 mishaps it was always the fishermen who located the survivors not the AFM, something the AFM did not deny. Is this a record of efficiency ? – in my view its tragically scandalous. Indeed I would dare speculate if it was a VIP lost at sea, whether the AFM would have carried out exactly the same search procedures – come on Daphne and Meerkat, this is the painful truth !
The other important issue which you did not dwell upon is the comment by Noel Carabott’s wife who claims that when she called Simon Bugaja’s wife to alert the AFM, the latter told her not to do so ,because if its a false alarm the AFM will confiscate the boat !?! Now is that not a very suspicious comment ?
In plane English that means , if the AFM locates the boat and finds anything untoward or illegal the AFM will confiscate the boat.
Noel Carabott’s wife in fact delayed alerting the AFM because of this worry that the boat belonged to Simon Bugeja and if it was indeed a false alarm, they would confiscate her husbands employer’s boat.
Hopefully the public enquiry will find answers as to the cause of the sinking of the boat (without any time to send a distress signal, wear life jackets, take the life raft, collect flares ) and indeed the role of the AFM in the search mission.
oops “plain” English
I keep getting this thought .. is it possible that somebody tried to pull one over the insurance people and it went horrifically wrong?
The Paola tragedy comes to mind …
What do you think?
[Moderator – Forget it. The simplest explanation is always the most likely – lex parsimoniae.]
@ zizzu – u ok xbin? Too much sun jew? So he took his son along to make it more ‘real’?
zizzu: Are you nuts or have you simply read too many airport novels? Why would anyone go out to sea with their father, son and two friends or colleagues just to blow up their boat in an insurance scam, putting their lives at risk in the process?
Zizzu – If you are insinuating that there were explosives on board, than the sole reason they would have been there – if at all – would have been to catch fish.
@ all
a) i said “gone horifically wrong” which means … none of what happened was meant to happen
b) a comparable incident happened in Paola in the 80s. A guy wanted to burn his shop to make an insurance claim. something along the way proceeded as it shouldn’t have and the end result was an explosion that left a woman and her baby dead. He never meant to kill those people but he did.
c) Had there been any real explosives I don’t think anyone would have survived in one piece AND exploded bits of the boat would have been found.
d) I don’t know what an airport novel is. If you mean the modern equivalent of the “penny dreadfuls” then, no, I haven’t.
e)I don’t like the sun – so I can’t have stayed in it, BUT since he took his son he definitely wasn’t foreseeing any “danger” – like the paola guy. Would he have tried to fool the insurance had he known what his actions would produce? Your guess is as good as mine.
f) Please stop invoking Ockham’s (or Occam’s) razor or any of its corollaries. It’s a test devised some time in the 14th century to eliminate unnecessary steps from mathematical and scientific theories. The link to the issue at hand is at best tenuous.
g) I said it was a thought – speculation, in other words.
h) I am not trying to be a smartmouth. Just postulating.
i) my postulate is that the Simshar affair is not what it seems
it was a tragedy because young theo was with them. Else it would have been considered a wreckless and irresponsible adventure. It also reflects typical maltese work practice with no health and safety measurements.
It was a tragedy, not only because young Theo was with them, but because three more men lost their lives. It is plain to see that the health and safety measures available on board were not what they should have been, and it is a wonder that anyone would risk wandering off to such a distance away from terra ferma without them – especially with a child on board, and in addition to that, with members of the party who could not (it seems) swim.
Yes, and from today’s report in The Times we know for certain now that Mrs Carabott, when she got no response from the satellite phone and no joy from Mrs Bugeja, took the initiative of persuading Datatrak to ‘ping’ the system to give the boat’s position. The boat was still showing up at that point but no contact could be made. It was about the time it was sinking. She knew something had gone wrong and she was right. But Mrs Bugeja only reported the boat missing A FULL TWO DAYS later, on Saturday, by which time the tracking system couldn’t find any sign of the vessel. There was an interview in Malta Today last Sunday, with the director of fisheries, who said quite clearly that the vessel’s owners had received EUR40,000 in EU part-funding to install safety and communications equipment, and that they would have to supplement this with EUR60,000 of their own money. It doesn’t take much imagination to see what might have happened here.
Zizzu: The “Paola guy” was not related to the woman and child who were killed. They were someone else’s wife and someone else’s child. Who knows? He might have acted differently if they weren’t.
Zizzu : to claim for insurance money he wouldn’t have taken his father and his son with him and he would have checked the life raft before leaving.
Still ,the story is fishy (excuse the pun).
Daphne, I find your last post particularly depressing.
If there was indeed an explosion then where was all the wreckage and dead fish that one normally expects to find floating around in such circumstances at the site of the alleged explosion? No reports of such sightings were made.
I cannot understand how they did not have a simple VHF in order to send out a Mayday and an epirb (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon) which should be the first thing purchased with a boat (and which by the way normally cost less then 500 euros).
The presence of an epirb often transforms a Search and Rescue mission into a Rescue mission, and obviously enough automatically transmits a distress call!
And I know everybody’s clever afterwards but shouldn’t the MMA conduct inspections to verify that safety equipment (like maintained liferafts) are on board?
When I brought my little boat over from France I underwent an inspection by the French authorities as I was travelling a certain distance from land.
And yesterday’s case of that poor child killed in a traffic accident is another example of OUR crimminal laid back attitude to safety.
What was a three year old doing travelling in a front seat (obviously – no other seats) without even a car seat.
I see it too often here in Malta – children on the seat, not even with the seat belt, let alone a car seat. As usual a tragedy has to occur before we hopefully do something about it.
…and the VRT test on the brakes which failed ! Are the police verifying the VRT test and the garage that did the test ? (commercial trucks have an ANNUAL test )
The Simshar tragedy has got so many shady aspects that Dr. Anne Grech should seek to order the retrieval of the sunken wreckage of what remains of the boat – if the boat has gone down !! This would give many answers……..
I understand the fishing boat didn`t sink immediately so I wonder how they had time to make a raft but not to put on lifejackets, collect some drinking water , send out alarms etc.
Of course if there was an explosion all the above could have been impossible.
Was there a fire or an explosion ?
@Sybil and Marika – there was a fire in the hold and it burnt through, letting in water. The boat sank, not exploded. That’s why there was no floating debris or wreckage.
@Joseph: it’s Anne Fenech, not Grech. It’s all very well asking for the retrieval of the wreck; easier said than done. Nobody has the exact coordinates for where it went down, and lifting a wreck and towing it over a long distance to shore is a huge and costly exercise. The benefits of gaining knowledge from a forensic examination of it have to be weighed against the vast expense involved. Spending hundreds of thousands of euros to search for survivors and retrieve bodies is one thing (and that’s how much the AFM spent) – but for a forensic examination? I hardly think so.
@Joseph
Yes:) It took them decades to find the Titanic, how long do you think for the Simshar?
David S – It would also be interesting to know who carried out the VRT test on the car that caught fire in High Street, Sliema last week. (See attached link)
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080725/local/driver-escapes-burning-car
If it is the car I am thinking it is, then I’d be surprised that it passed a VRT test at all!
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897
One of the things that I cannot understand is how it was possible for a boat to burn fiercly for 6 hours and yet not be seen by any other vessel. Even a small boat on fire leaves a smoke trail easily visible from 20 miles away. Is it really possible that there was no vessel anywhere within 20 miles of the Simshar?
How is it possible that no remnants of the fire and sinking were left floating? What happened to the fuel and engine oil – why wasn’t an oil slick observed ?