Heath’s dead. What about it?
By Kim Cain
Director of Communications
Uniting Church in Australia / Synod of Vic Tas
Now what do we make of Heath’s tragic death?
Inspirational artist, who like so many creative people before him, died before his time?
A legend in the making, cut down in his prime; paradoxically ensuring his fame?
A rising star, who has been taken from us, before his Hollywood nebular has really flared to its full magnitude?
Or, is Heath Ledger, just another young man tragically lost young, along life’s way?
No doubt there are those who genuinely grieve his death.
Those who actually knew him: his family, his school-day friends, those who worked with him, those he lived next to — they will all actually mourn his death, as is their right.
And they will feel his loss for months, years yet.
But what of the rest of us? If we have pretty well ‘gotten over it’ in a few days, then it’s a fair bet to say, he didn’t really mean all that much to us.
Some emotion, yes, real grief, not really!
Somehow, with the world of celebrity it feels as though we actually know people, but all we have is the sum of their acting parts and paparazzi inspired gossip. As if we can really make judgement about ‘flesh and blood people’ based on that?!
Mostly we know an image, and that’s about it.
Our grief is about as fickle as is the celluloid image we know of them as real people. In reality it could not be anything more because we don’t have more than that ‘depth’ to relate to. And yet there is so much made of this one person…
Now, here’s the problem with celebrity death, for me. (Other’s may not have this problem..!)
Heath has died. Sad. Last month 54,000 people also died in the Congo, Africa, of malnutrition, diarrhoea and crappy water. And about that many people have continued to be killed in this way, every month, in the Congo since 1998.
All 5.4 million of those Congolese people, mostly children, are just as dead as Heath. From want of food, basic medicine and clean water.
And as we all know, no eight page features in the daily papers, not a lament, not so much as a prayer for one of them let alone all of them. It has been said it’s the worst humanitarian diaster in the world – and it has pretty much slipped us by.
Each one of them, a Heath. Each one as loved by God, each one as much made in the image of Christ, each one as grieved over by real families, real neighbours, work mates and real school fiends.
This is not to make us feel guilty – we are all the same when it comes down to it. We get distracted, we begin to believe that what appears in the papers is actually important. Only some of it is.
But the imbalance between the one and the many is hard to take.
The one person seems somehow much more important, valuable – and that’s not to say he’s not important. But what about the many?
Should the world not be somehow disturbed by the pathetic, tragic, suffering death of the many?
Should not the church, those who believe in the dignity of the individual, not at least know and so pray? Should not the media, who have such lofty ideals about the role of journalists, at least be mentioning the many?
And an even tougher question: am I not as responsible as anyone for letting the death of so many pass by without so much as a whimper?
What to do? Now there’s the next hard question, and with no easy answer. Maybe at least one small gift to an aid agency may mean, at the end of the day, that one more ‘Heath-Ledger-type-kid’ will survive and make the day brighter for those who love him or her.
LINKS:
BBC on the Congo, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/africa_surviving_congo/html/1.stm
Uniting Church Overseas Aid: http://www.uim.uca.org.au/ucoa/welcome
Christian World Service: http://www.ncca.org.au/cws
Medecins sans Frontiers (Doctors without borders): http://www.msf.org
May 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I am concerned in two ways. Firstly that in the majority of the world’s population human life is regarded as disposable, except by the “near and dear”, and death hardly rates a mention, despite the teaching of our churches that we are all of equal value, and all matter to God, and indeed to society,
But also I have disquiet about the notion in our society that human life is to br preserved at any cost - it seems the pendulum has swung too far. I feel unqualified to make much of this as I am not yet faced with a choice between expensive high tech medical intervention and death, but wonder what it says about our faith that we try to prolong life to the degree that we do, as if there were nothing else but the here and now. Those who have the foresight and thought to decide in advance how they want to be treated in the event of life-threatening illness or trauma and let their decision be known are surely making the task of those who may have to make decisions on their behalf easier.