The BBC has a wonderful device that gives it carte blanche to rewrite history or at the very least to put a preferred spin to it.
Programmes or projects like the ‘New Elizabethans’ for instance…’To mark the Diamond Jubilee, James Naughtie will be presenting 60 profiles of men and women whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character, for better or worse.’
A list of 60 Brits who have had some sort of impact on Britain….all ostensibly chosen by the public but the final choice was the panel of historians selected by the BBC…and then it was down to the old lefty Jim Naughtie to write and present the biographies….so no chance of any left leaning re-interpretation of history then?
I have only heard a couple of programmes but, perhaps I was just unlucky, it seemed that being a left wing activist was a sign of heroism and saintliness whilst if you were a right winger, well you’re not really someone to praise but you did do some good work regardless of your politics.
A remarkable omission is of course Gordon Brown….a man who for whatever reasons kept Britain out of the Euro whist also managing to destroy the economy….shurely shome mishtake to omit the man who for 13 years bestrode the world like a colossus and then went on to save it? Perhaps the BBC would rather we just forgot what’s his name and transfer our allegiances to the New Pretender, the offspring of Marxist aristocracy, Red Ed.
Another such programme is ‘A History of The World In 100 Objects’. Whilst it may have originally been a programme intended purely as one of historical interest it is simplicity itself to change the narrative and emphasis slightly so that each object is now a device to illustrate the scientific genius of medieval Muslims, the artistry of ancient Africans, the building talents of ingenious Incas and so on whilst contrasting that with the greed and violence of European colonisers whose own artistic, scientific and architectural achievements were only made possible by robbing the defenceless natives of conquered lands.
This is made all the easier because many of the objects have little or no ‘provenance’, they are what they are and you may have little idea or evidence as to what that meant at the time they were made and used.
So how do you interpret how they were used or their significance to their own society?
Reading the book based on the programmes (and it is a very good book worth shelling out for) you find that deriving a meaning from an object is not so easy….discovering its social, cultural and ‘industrial’ impact is often based upon inspired guess work….or what the book calls ‘The necessary Poetry of Things’.
If you wish to reconstruct what went on in times past you must ‘interrogate and interpret the object as deeply and as rigorously as any written evidence.’
How is that done? By using considerable leaps of imagination…re-imagining cultures by relying on our intuitions, imaginative interpretations and a capacity for poetic reconstruction of the past.
They also tell us that ‘A startlingly large number of objects bear on them the marks of later events…frequently later interventions which were designed deliberately to change meaning or to reflect the pride or pleasures of new ownership. The object becomes a document not just of the world for which it was made, but of later periods which altered it.’
Who can argue with that? The objects certainly do become something new in the hands of the BBC…small time bombs from the past targeted to destroy our beliefs and confidence in our own culture and history and undermine the basis of society.
As the BBC is fond of telling us….everything you thought you knew about your past is wrong!
The 60 profiles of people will all no doubt have had some sort of love affair with the BBC.
As for the 100 objects, well they would be working for Aunty wouldn’t they ?
Looking forward to the ONE OFF SPECIAL about the BBC renegade empoyee who actually enjoyed and approved of the Diamond Jubilee.
What a pity that the brilliance of the Incas didn’t extend to inventing the wheel. They were more interested in fattening up peasant children – such sacrifices serving to show the underclass who was boss.
I suppose there’s scant chance that Auntie will credit the Raj for at least trying to eliminate Hindu child marriage. But at least we stamped out the burning alive of widows – again, despite the Brahmins’ best efforts.
Not much coverage of the news that the stone ruins called “Zimbabwe” weren’t evidence of an old black civilisation after all. They were the remains of an Arab slave trading fort. Guess what colour the suppliers were.
What BBC Democrat misses out on Obama.
Glenn Beck and Dinesh D’Souza on Obama’a insult to British people
and to Winston Churchill-
(12 min video)
http://web.gbtv.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=22985443&source=GBTV
I think more than that, it was Churchill, more than anyone around, who had Islams number in those days, and by that i mean more than just its a supremacist, violent ideology,(which it was and is) … but, also the inner workings of why Islamic societies were such an abject failure,
and that hasn t changed, as the 20th century progressed, it became more obvious than ever that Islam had failed, Islamic civilisations could not compete with non-Muslim civilisations, in fact, if the Saudis could not dig money out of the ground now, they would be stone age, (they are not far off intellectually), …
But … imagine you are a religious Muslim, if you look at that; and if you believe that you were mean t to rule the world, that your way is best, that your way is right; you are supreme, then how? can the infidels have all this?
How can their culture be superior?. and that is where the hatred of the west comes from … their own retarded ideology
This is Churchill on Islam … prescient 😀
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
oldie but goody and yup!
I do wish he would stop sitting on the fence 😀
thinking about it, if i was a muslim President i might send it back too, who wants to be reminded of that. 😀
Odd isn’t it that Cleggie, in an ouburst of chutzpah brought in Churchill as the clincher in the LibDem case for perverting the constitution. I don’t think Cleggie (or Cameron or any rep of the political class) would dream of repeating that Churchill quote were Islam’s contribution to the present state of Britain ever to be a subject for discussion.