Paris Hilton, a difficult martyr

Raffaels Angels

Scanning Google news, a headline caught my eye: "Paris Hilton arrested on cocaine possession charges in Las Vegas, police say". And I ask myself: why is this news and why should I care? But it's the weekend and I had an idle moment so I decided, for once, to read a gossip page.

True to form it painted Paris Hilton as a very bad girl. She had 2 drug charges thrown at her before, according to the article. One in South Africa and one in France. The first was dropped because the pot was not hers and in France she was charged because she was "having less than a gram of pot in her purse". Come on, in our local coffee shop that amount of pot is swept off the counter as dust.

You see, what pisses me off is the tone of crucifixion - and I don't care what you think of Paris Hilton - for possession of drugs. "Drugs! Oooooh, scary!" said the drunk as he downed another Bushmills and threw up on the barmaid.

I know that drugs are a problem. The whole infrastructure of drugs, the growing of the raw materials, the manufacture and the distribution, are all part of a system that abuses people. But have any of the people who cry foul over this latest drug arrest ever wondered where their jeans and T-shirts are made? The ones replaced, not because they are worn out but because they are 'out of fashion'? Those clothes are probably made in work houses where women and children work 16 hours a day for a pittance. Does anyone ever wonder how much harm that big car or that massive TV do to human society? Especially when you reckon the entire route, from raw material to the product in your possession. It almost makes Paris Hilton's drug charges look as innocent as freshly fallen snow.

The problem is that Paris Hilton is a prime example of someone who is difficult to defend and easy to begrudge. She's eternally young, extremely rich, I doubt she ever wore a pair of jeans more than once and anything she does is turned into a media event, in many cases by herself. So as a figurehead for the above call for an introspective look at yourself she is rather a poor choice. Pity Mother Theresa was never caught with a pinch of white substance sticking to the olfactory summit. It would have been a much more suitable martyr.

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