More News From Beyond the Pale
2007-02-27 14:48:43
By:
Gene Bromberg
A few weeks ago there was
an abusrd story going around about a Russian man who lost his wife in a
poker game. At the time I poked some fun at the situation because, well, it seemed so ridiculous that I didn't believe it was true.
Now there's
a story that's getting more and
more press about a Pakistani man who, 16 years ago, lost his 1-year-old daughter in a
poker game. Now the man who claims he "won" the girl has shown up demanding that she marry his son. Fortunately it looks like Pakistani law enforcement has stepped in to protect the girl and her mother and go after the men who tried to seize her.
Both of these stories are quite disturbing, because trafficking in human beings is about as loathesome as it gets. It's even worse when there's a child involved. But something I also find disturbing is how the media has treated these two stories as if the
poker angle was actually important. A man trading his daughter to pay off a debt, any sort of debt, is horrible. But would it have recieved any attention if the debt had been, say, an unpaid business loan? It probably wouldn't have a mattered to the girl and her mother, but would the story have gotten any attention in the press?
I ask because of the curious graphics that accompanied the CBS story. It shows a
poker hand (four aces and a deuce) along with the Pakistani flag. I fail to see why poker warrants more than a casual mention in this story. The central issue isn't that a man lost his daughter in a
poker game--it's that a human being was bartered back and forth. The "how" isn't important, it's the "what" and the "why".
Perhaps this is just another example of how deeply ingrained poker is our society, that no matter the circumstances, when poker turns up in the news the story gets additional attention. And it also shows how skewed our perceptions and priorities are, that the stories seem to focus more on the sensational aspect of a man losing his daughter in a poker game, and less on the truly terrible act of treating a human being like an object.
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