To state the obvious, today’s statement by Bristol City Football Club about the death of manager Liam Manning’s newly born son Theo should not attract anything but sympathy for the family’s heartbreak. Footballing rivalries across our city pale into insignificance at such terrible news. We of course respect the privacy requested by Manning’s family, allowing and enabling them to come to terms with this, the most tragic story imaginable, yet today someone tried to make things even worse.
On the BBC Bristol Facebook page, local people, including plenty of us from the other side of the river in Bristol, expressed our sadness at this tragic news, yet one person chose to see things differently.
I have kept screenshots of the offending comments so I know who made them, but essentially this person suggested that the reason Theo Manning died was due to vaccinations. He pointed out that Benik Afobe, who in 2019 was on loan at the City, lost his two year old daughter. The insinuation was plain: vaccines were killing babies.
There was, of course, no evidence that that vaccines had anything to do with either death but that did not prevent this person from doubling down on the lie. The usual conspiracy nonsense about Big Pharma. It was truly terrible. Several of us took the bait and responded. I am very sorry to have done that. It only shines a light on these people and not in a good way.
I should have ignored it. Allow the BBC Bristol moderators to deal with it, and not me. I was angry, which is no defence at all. When people are that wrong and, frankly, that mad, reason doesn’t matter. These are the same people who think 9/11 was an inside job, who think Joe Biden controls the weather, who believe in Chem Trails, who believe the moon landings never happened and, inevitably, that vaccinations kill people, when generally they do the exact opposite. People who cannot believe the truth, even when its is staring them in the face. All this goes on when a young baby boy has lost his life.
Wiser folk, I know, would have kept their cool. Just let this lunatic’s lunacy stay there on the internet. Most people understand the truth, that even if we, the lay people, don’t understand the fine points of vaccines, experts actually do. If you don’t believe in experts, then who do you believe?
Engaging in a phoney game of words with a lunatic anti-vaxxer did me no credit. If I could turn back time and look away, I would have. The subsequent apology of a debate was a distraction, a complete irrelevance of a distraction, and it helped no one.
Yet aside from my error of judgement, the fact remains that these people are among us, those who believe the conspiracies on the basis of no evidence at all. I have lost my oldest friend in the world because of conspiracy theories and on this, I am 100% right. Yes, 100%, because there is zero evidence to support the conspiracy theorists, not even a tiny fraction of 1%.
However, I am attacking one voice when thousands are sending unconditional love. That’s part of the reason I got it wrong in reacting. Everyone else was sending love and prayers and I may have made it appear that there was some kind of moral equivalence between both sides. There wasn’t.
Poor Theo. Poor Liam. This can be a very cruel world. Most of us are kind. Don’t let one misguided fool try to tell us otherwise.
