I was in London yesterday. Swept up by the media hoo-ha, I found myself making my way to Tower Bridge to gawk at an American. A so-called magician/illusionist who had willingly enclosed himself in a glass box. By the time I was there, he had already been suspended in midair and gone without food for 43 days.
David Blaine – Above the Below.
Maybe it was just a typical Saturday evening crowd on the bridge, packed with camera-toting tourists (none of which were Japanese), but the number of people – practically hundreds, certainly shocked me. All around, I heard the same words exclaimed, “Look, there he is!”
There were people pointing, people taking photos, people posing for photos and people simply standing there and staring. I stayed on the bridge for about 5 minutes, looking at the motionless body lying in the box.
The enclosure beneath the box, fenced off after all those hurled eggs, was full. The surrounding paths were also crowded with people who shrieked at Blaine. Whether it was of a hormonal female-groupie nature or a homicidal golf-ball hurling nature, I have no idea.
Suddenly, he moved. He actually sat up, turned around and waved weakly at the people behind him. The lady beside me immediately instructed her young daughter, “Quick, wave back at him! Wave!” There rose a chorus of encouraging shouts as well as a series of excited waving.
Amazing how a simple gesture by one starving person hanging in midair can generate so much reaction. Amazing how many people are interested in the condition of one man who wanted to be locked up in a glass box with just water for sustenance.
Thousands are expected to turn out today to watch Blaine’s exit, which will be broadcast on television and streamed to paying subscribers on the Internet. Sky One, which has been filming the whole thing, says a quarter of a million people will have seen Blaine for themselves by the time the box is lowered to the floor at 9.30pm.
In all honesty, I am ashamed to say that I contributed to that statistic. Not because I think Blaine wanting to prove through his stunt that “we can endure much more than we think we can”, is merely a publicity tool, or that it was an easy feat.
I am ashamed of the quarter of a million people, and the many more watching their TV or computer monitors.
Imagine our reaction if instead of a starving Blaine, we had a starving Ethiopian in the box. Or maybe a starving North Korean. Too far away? What about that hungry and homeless guy who begs at the train station you go to work from? What about…guess what? The choice is limitless because there are so many hungry people all around the world!
But do we see Mr. Starving Ethiopian on TV? Would we make that trip to the Orient to wave at Mr. Starving North Korean while he lay weakly on the floor? Would we pay to see Mr. Hungry and Homeless on the Internet?
Granted, if it does come to that, I am sure that countless of kind-hearted people out there would be making generous donations to help alleviate the pain and suffering of Mr. Whoever-is-Starving-and-in-the-Limelight. But that’s just it isn’t it? If it’s not in the limelight, we pretend it doesn’t exist.
David Blaine willingly starving himself is generating more media interest right now than the numerous of civilian Iraqis suffering from America’s search for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nine out of ten times, a mother would shield her child from watching on the news, heart-wrenching scenes of children dying from hunger.
And yet, we applaud Blaine for his incredible feat of endurance. But he had a choice. Our starving friends from the rest of the world don’t.
A spokesman for Sky One has revealed that “[Blaine, after his exit from the box] will then be put on a stretcher and taken to a private hospital,” where nutritional experts will begin his re-feeding programme and monitor his recovery for approximately one month.
I do not deny the fact that Blaine’s stunt poses real threats to his life. It poses a real threat to the Ethiopian and the North Korean too. And guess what? They do not always have a private hospital to go to after 44 days. They have no nutritional expert to monitor their recovery. And they do not usually go hungry for just 44 days. In fact, after months of starvation, they usually die.
Do I see tourists flocking to photograph this phenomena? Does the media even take coverage of such events?
No. Because it’s the harsh reality of life and none of us want to see it. We want to see Blaine. We want to see a man starving, but with the full knowledge that he will get help if his life was in any serious danger (Blaine’s medical team analyses his urine daily to check for kidney and liver failure and will intervene if he stops moving completely for two days).
And we want to call him a hero, for enduring such an ordeal. We forget that everyday, hundreds of others go through the same thing, without hope, without support, without encouragement. And we forget that some 2000 years ago. Jesus Christ not only fasted for forty days and forty nights, he had the devil to contend with after that.
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