Today was one of those events that happens that receives plenty of coverage in the media. Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister, has passed away at the age of 87 of a stroke. It’s not quite one of those events that you can dub ‘you always remember where you were when X’ but has still covered news and social network coverage.
But if there’s one theme that has emerged is the almost callous coverage on services such as Facebook and Twitter in the light of her death.
It’s been a running joke for many years on panel shows and such that Thatcher’s death would be a source of celebration but something I didn't think would come true, but today proved to be true, with people posting images of celebratory bottles of Champagne or going out to parties to celebrate her demise.
I’m not going to defend Thatcher as a Prime Minister – it has been well recorded what her political career led to – but what is disturbing is the way people have actually marked her passing.
I’m not going to pretend I have a full grasp of her impact on the UK. I was only four when John Major took over her premiership but just as I can’t fully appreciate the problems her term in office caused, can people of my age also celebrate her passing? Do they realise what they are celebrating? Are they truly praising the death of an often hated politician or are they just caught up in the seemingly acceptable celebrations of someone’s passing, a whirlwind whipped up on the internet?
I could fully understand a feeling of everyone saying ‘I’m sorry for her family but I’m not going to mourn her as she caused a lot of problems for generations of people’ but people are actively celebrating the death of an 87 year old woman suffering from dementia who has had a stroke, years after she had any form of political influence.
It’s not as if she’s the only Prime Minister to ever cause problems on such a scale. Each politician has good and bad sides and hated by certain sectors of the public.
I’m not supporting Thatcher as a politician. In fact, a lot of what she did was horrible and I do not condone what she did. However, neither do I condone the seemingly public acceptance that people can run events or parties celebrating the death of an elderly woman of a stroke.
A bad politician maybe. A figure of hate, pretty undeniable. Her effect on the miners, tax, recessions and everything else shouldn’t be forgotten and I understand people’s anger at what she did as a politician.
However, anyone who is celebrating tonight in the wake of the death of a human being needs to consider what they are actually celebrating.
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