For a family living in the US, we view a surprisingly large number of BBC programmes. For the most part these are cheap imports bought by PBS, who stick to their format of having no adverts but as a consequence have no money either, so make pitifully few programmes of their own, and spend nearly as much time begging as mainstream channels do on advertising.
Sadly, the British imports are about as good as it gets here, if you discount sport and platforms like Netflix or Hulu. We may choose to watch an episode of As Time Goes By from 1990 for the tenth time, but that is an improvement on America’s Got talent or Yet Another Routine Terribly Acted Crime Show with no Character Development. Sometimes it does feel as though we are living in a time warp – I think we may be about five years behind on Midsummer Murders.
One bright spot on PBS is a one-hour evening news programme, though I do think it is time for Judy Woodruff to retire and hand over to the excellent Amna Nawaz. The news hour avoids sensationalism and covers foreign stories in some depth. In the Trump era they did occasionally fall into the trap of focusing on his daily horror show, but Trump made that trap hard to avoid. Sometimes it feels as though there is no news nowadays, deprived as we are of Trump’s one-man show.
To its credit PBS also shows a half hour world news bulletin from the BBC, a strong programme that complements the news hour well. But last Friday night a strange thing happened. I tuned in, expecting to see the perennially chirpy Katty Kay, but instead found a sombre broadcast from several dull old white men in dark suits and black ties. Prince Philip had died.
Even half an hour of this coverage was too much for me. It was like being transported fifty years, before even As Time Goes By and more like Pathé news. All other news was blacked out. Long fawning obituaries followed long platitudes about how sad the Queen must be feeling. Had these people never seen The Crown? What about all Philip’s love children: weren’t they sad as well?
Apparently the BBC received a record number of complaints about its coverage, and quite right too. I suppose they were caught by Catch 22, because anything lighter would be attracted the ire of Colonel Blimp, and Colonel Blimp often writes to his Tory MP.
The experience made me reflect about how far we have come as humanity and how far we still have to travel. Twenty years ago few would have complained, because the alternative TV fare might have been equally bland. We have been watching Peaky Blinders and The Great recently, and the crude and irreverent portrayal of history is so refreshing compared with Pride and Prejudice and its ilk. But Prince Philip dies and we are thrust back into the past. We hear of a lifetime of service and the grace of God and all the propaganda that used to be in our history books and brought back memories of singing the national anthem and Onward Christian Soldiers in freezing school halls.
Somehow we are supposed to still accept this guff. Life is simple. The British are good and everybody else tries hard but doesn’t reach our standards. We are known around the world for our sense of fair play. The old days were wonderful. Our army would never commit atrocities. Churchill is only a hero. Slavery was mainly about others and it was we Brits that got rid of it. The empire developed the world. The British Isles are a natural union of like-minded nations of shared values and mutual respect (except, temporarily, for the Irish).
Somehow all this persists. It seems to be a good substitute for serious thought, rather like a Hollywood blockbuster. It seems to win votes, and sell papers. It might feel like a threadbare coat, one where we must be careful to pick the frayed edges in case it falls apart but one that still keeps us cosy and reminds us of mum.
Of course we Brits think we are unique in all this, in fact we have to think that or it would all be exposed as ridiculous. But here is a secret. It is the same everywhere, to a greater or lesser extent.
In the US, no politician can wear a suit that does not have the flag displayed on its lapel. The most respected institution by far, admittedly among an unappetising bunch, is the military. Nobody stops to consider just how truly dreadful the track record of the military has been since 1945, both in its commanders’ choices and its execution. This week the announcement of an Afghan pull out, after twenty years of death and destruction and waste of precious treasure, was greeted with a collective shrug, even though nobody could think of anything positive the escapade had actually achieved. I have no problem with lauding veterans, as long as we remember to laud care workers as well, which we never do except for a few weeks in a pandemic.
There are still no go areas for the media. The Economist, brilliant in every other respect, still publishes its monthly rubbish from MI5. The news hour, balanced in most fields, did not pause to consider just how shameful it is that an ally, one that receives more aid than anybody else despite being quite rich, should brazenly raid a facility of another country, and then show off about it. How can the US lecture China about values and a rules based world when that is not challenged at all?
It is not just nation states; it is the churches as well. We listen to a gospel in which the primary message to love all others, and ten minutes later we pray, but only for our own tribe. How the Evangelicals can attend church with any sort of clear conscience is entirely beyond me. Yet on balance the Christians are probably less hypocritical than most others. Going back to Prince Philip, tomorrow his funeral service will make some very dodgy claims indeed about Britain and its royalty.
Does all this matter? Surely it is harmless, even good, if we all feel a bit proud of our nations and show respect for historical tradition? I believe it matters a lot. How can we learn across cultures if we are all stuck in our complacent bubbles? How can we take the best from different systems if each frames the other as an evil mortal enemy? How can we respond rationally to a shift in prevailing power? How can we disarm and stay safe while we glorify a militaristic approach? How can we effectively deal with the increasing list of issues that span the globe, such as economics, climate, cyber regulation and pandemics?
There I another specific risk. One large part of the political spectrum is tempted to build a platform around this stuff. It is far from coherent, and a situation develops where it becomes the entire platform. They then have no choice but to amplify it and stick with it. This is called nationalism. We have seen in the 1930’s how this can spread like a cancer, and it is happening again. This is how world wars happen.
There are reasons for optimism. Firstly, we can celebrate the EU a truly extraordinary human achievement and something to build on. Then there are many trends that work against nationalism, including education, the end of blind deference and reduction in class barriers, globalisation, mass mingling via migration, social media and sharing of cultures. Going back to PBS, we see more and more thoughtful series with subtitles, opening windows onto other viewpoints and cultures.
The nationalists are loud and proud and dangerous. The rest of us must counter this with our own pride, pride in humanity. We have ample weapons if we pause to notice them. If we stay lazy and smug and silent, we deserve the ugly consequences.
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