There has been a blast/earthquake/fire/traffic accident. The
media rushes in after the paramedics/fire engine/rescue services. In the
breaking/evening news there is a clip of a lone unconscious man with a bloody
bandage over his right eye. His trousers are still on him. They look
like military camouflage, only red.
He has been wounded in someone else's battle.
Does this happen in other places too, or only here: hapless
bodies filmed and their wounds archived for posterity without their consent? Did
the now-unconscious bodies sign a release to have their stitched-up torsos
photographed before oblivion came knocking? Does the journalists’ code of
conduct state that when a patient is incapacitated, the duty to report
trumps the patient’s right to privacy? How about conscious patients: how many
know they have a right to refuse to be filmed?
It seems that we are OK-ish with blood. Perhaps we are too
OK with blood and violence. Let’s swap the unconscious bloodied man with a
woman who’s given birth on the roadside. The first thing we do is smother her lower
body with Khanga. We must hide the juices of her labor. And you bet she won’t make the evening news. Birth
blood is not sensational. If anything, it is a source of shame. It speaks of
sloppiness, unpreparedness. A not-accident. Even though it’s been known that
some babies decide to pop out at the most inopportune time. Ask Akitelek.
Apparently not all haemoglobin is equal…
Never mind that the
business of bleeding makes billions of revenue dollars for companies such as
P&G, Johnson & Johnson, and many others.
Now, I would not
advocate that we flush out our sanitary towels with the same flair some do
their smart phones – in the same way we wouldn’t flash our toothbrush or nail
clippers. And I am not saying that menstrual blood is on the same level as mud
on our shoes or curry on our shirt. Still I wonder who makes the unwritten
rules about what body fluids we can watch at dinnertime.
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