Austria's "missing white girl" story

Austria has had its own "missing white girl" story going for the last three weeks or so, the Natascha Kampusch story. I hope the Austria media don't repeat the mistakes of the American media for the last 15 years or so of allowing sensationalism and voyeurism to overwhelm more substantial news.

The Kampusch story is inherently interesting: a girl kidnapped at 10 years old escaped from her captor at age 18. But, in the end, her terrible experience is mainly of interest to her and her immediate family. As opposed to, say, the European intervention in Lebanon, which is part of a story that will resonate for decades, the establishment of a European foreign policy independent of the United States.

The story was definitely overplayed by the media in Austria. Natascha's face was all over the papers for three weeks. Or, more specifically, a computer reconstruction of how she would likely appear based on her earlier photos.

On Wednesday night, the ORF-2 channel in Austria aired an interview of 20 minutes or so with Natascha, who decided to appear on camera without a disguise, although she did wear a scarf covering her hair. The computer reconstruction that we've been seeing for weeks now was remarkably accurate, although her face is a little more rounded.

For all of my criticisms of the priority given her story in the Austrian media, both *boulevard* (tabloid) and mainstream, I found the interview itself riveting. I watched it with my wife and several in-laws, and all of us were transfixed. For having lived in a state of captivity, the young woman is remarkably articulate, insightful and assertive. She didn't provide any voyeuristic details, i.e., whether she was sexually molested in some way.

But the fact that she was able to escape on her own initiative after years of living in captivity and fear of death, her determination to educate herself via the newspapers and radio she was allowed to access, her realization during all those years of living in a situation of terrible abuse that what was happening to her was abnormal and wrong, is just amazing to me. I hate to use a corny phrase like *the strength of the human spirit* or something, especially since I know she's undergone a very traumatic experience over years and will have enough problems to work out without people expected her to be a plastic saint of some kind.

So let's just say her story is a reminder of the remarkable resilence and capacity for survival and resvitalization that our poor species occasionally shows.


I'm very conscious that it's all-too-easy in looking at the way things are done in another country to find confirmation for what you would like to be true. But with that caution, it does seem to me that at least the mainstream media, the *quality press* as they say in Austria, did a more impressive job on the Natascha story than one would expect from what we Americans generously call our *press corps*. I've been following the story almost exclusively through Austrian media, so I don't know how the American media have played the story.

But with that qualification, I'll still say that the media treated the story with more professionalism and provided more sober expert information from psychologists and others than I would expect from our American *press corps*. The two rightwing political parties have used the Kampusch case as a chance to demagogue about crime. But, on the whole, I haven#t seen the hysteria about it that such cases usleash in America.

It's noticeable that sex crimes against children, along with terrorism, are currently *respectable* excuses for people to give vent to their most sadistic fantasies about what should be done to the perpetrators. Maybe that's partially mitigated in the Kampusch case by the fact that the kidnapper killed himself after Natascha escaped. I should also stress that there is no reliable reporting at this point on whether sexual molestation was involved in this case. But fantasizing in public and on TV about all the tortures that one would like to see inflicted on Evil People doesn't seem to be as socially accepted in Austria as in America.

I even heard a radio program after the inteview where some caller who identified himself as being over 80 years old was rattling on about how he didn't believe the girl was kidnapped, that she willingly went with her abductor. After asking him a couple of questions, she finally just turned the senile old fool off and said, *I'm not going to listen to this nonsense any more.* And not in Bill O'Reilley style. She commented that she might be stepping out of a neutral role in doing that. But she said there was absolutely no factual basis for what he was saying, so she wasn't going to allowing him to keep talking trash.

The ORF interviewer, Christoph Feurstein, said on TV the night before that during the interview, Natascha was often very assertive, sometimes asking things like, *Why are you asking such a stupid question?* (*Warum stellten Sie so eine blöde Frage?")

Our Democratic politicians could take a lesson from this and start putting some of the Potemking reporters and Big Pundits they have to deal with on the spot like that.

I hope that soon the media sharks will leave Natascha alone so that she can go on to build a new life. But ORF's interview with her was done with good sense and good taste. It was impossible not to be moved by her personal story. The young woman deserves the best for the future, and I hope that she finds it.

See also:

ORF on the Kampuscha case (German):

Natascha Kampusch redete sich die Qualen von der Seele Der Standard 07.09.2006

"Ich träumte von Flucht und Freiheit" Oberösterrecichische Nachricten 07.09.2006

| +Save/Share | |