@JamieBrysonCPNI
Editor@UnionistVoice.com
There has been a nauseating storm whipped up with many joining in as a means of demonstrating their own righteousness and moral nobility. It is, regardless of how it is dressed up, bullying.
Joining in to abuse the couple and amass around them with virtual pitch forks is the popular thing to do, indeed expressing your disgust is sure to gain you some likes and retweets on Twitter, but is it really fair? I say no.
Regardless of your views on what went on at the wedding, there are a few facts worth remembering. Let us go through them one by one.
[1] The wedding was a private function, with invited guests only.
[2] The wedding received no public funding.
[3] The bride and groom are private citizens. They are not, nor have ever sought to be, public figures.
[4] The couple did not broadcast their entrance into the room, that was published (rather foolishly) by a ‘friend’.
[5] The couple committed no criminal offence, a fact already made clear by the PSNI.
All of the above leaves us with a question that I think any media outlet would struggle to answer; where is the public interest in the relentless pursuit of this couple?
I am sure, in fact I know, that many journalists engage in foolish behaviour when socialising. Is that a story? I do not think so. People are entitled to private lives, and private functions and indeed to private weddings. Regardless of what went on, the young couple shouldn’t have to endure a public hanging, with many people who are less than innocent themselves I would imagine joining in the bullying mob.
Of course the liberal elite groupthink tells us we must be outraged, furious at the incident. I am neither outraged nor furious. I make no comment on the particular incident either way. I wasn’t at the wedding, I wasn’t invited to the wedding and I do not know the couple, therefore it isn’t really any of my business, is it?
Nor is it the business of mainstream media outlets who are engaging in a relentless pursuit of this couple for no reason other than it is popular and it is click-bait. They are using their platforms not for public interest journalism, but rather they are led by the Twitterati liberal mob into conducting their own Orwellian ‘Two Minutes of Hate’.
In George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four is describes the ‘Two Minutes of Hate’ in the following terms;
“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.”
No one was obliged to take part in what has been Two Weeks of Hate directed towards a newly married couple, indeed there was no public harm caused by their actions, and no public interest in the public hanging that has subsequently followed the publication of a clip from what was supposed to be the happiest day of the Bride and Groom’s life.
It is not right that their special day, regardless of what you think of its content, is diminished or that they are bullied relentlessly because some people were offended or disliked elements of their private function. They broke no laws, used no public money and held their function in private. Unless we really are in George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four, they haven’t really done anything wrong, have they?
It is worth also pointing out that today’s sensationalist assault on this young private couple was due to an image ‘discovered’ of the groom with a deceased relative. The relative had never been convicted of murdering anyone, indeed prior to his death the individual would have robustly denied any such allegations, yet he is shamelessly- in death- described as a ‘UVF murderer’.
It is easy, cowardly even, to libel the dead, they aren’t here to defend themselves. But they do have family and friends who loved the deceased person as a son, friend, brother, partner and father. Is it really in the public interest to retraumatise a whole family? And for what, to join in a popular twitter frenzy which will forever be remembered as the ‘Two Weeks of Hate’ directed against a young people.
Their actions may have been offensive, misguided even, but the people who should ultimately hang their heads in shame are those who, whilst sitting in their glass house, have lobbed a relentless barrage of breeze blocks at a young couple. It may feel good to join in with the bullying mob, but one day that same mob may turn on you. It is better to stand apart and make your own judgements.