You are probably wondering what a couple of stone beads have to do with Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party.
These beads may be thousands of years old. They turn up in the sands of the Sahara and are sold to foreign collectors by the hardy people who live there. A very long time ago someone used very primitive tools to drill holes through two attractive pieces of stone and polish their surfaces. One is probably a piece of agate with some tiny quartz crystals that, even now, sparkle in the light, the other may be a piece of petrified wood. I love them because they are tiny and affordable pieces of ancient history and because they are a connection with my most distant ancestors - Africans.
One of the few intelligent and serious comments made by a member of the studio audience on the BBC’s “Question Time” was in response to the BNP leader’s suggestion that white English people are now aborigines in their own country. She pointed out that, as we are all descended from the first humans who came from Africa, we are all members of minorities now.
I did not plan to watch it. I haven’t in years and I don’t need to see Nick Griffin in person to know that I don’t agree with his views. In the end I watched it online because I had heard so many comments about the programme that I felt I had to see it for myself. Unfortunately my love for the BBC has now cooled a little because what was considered a smart attempt to undermine the BNP‘s growing influence has probably backfired.
Those involved in the decision to invite Griffin to take part in a debate alongside other politicians are clearly out of touch with the sort of people inclined to vote for a party generally regarded as racist and beyond the pale. They made the mistake of treating him differently to any other politician. There was an obvious and open lack of respect from the very beginning. I understand that the audience was carefully selected - I am not sure what criteria were involved in this selection but the impression I was left with was that they chose anyone prepared to boo and shout. The atmosphere was such that I expected to see girls with trays of ice cream (or rotten eggs and tomatoes) wandering up and down the aisles.
Jack Straw has been criticised for his performance on the night. It is easy to forget that, while we often see images of politicians seconds apart on our TV screens, in reality they don’t always meet face to face. It may have been one of the few times that they had been in each other’s presence and Straw was clearly already very angry. Having Griffin raise the fact that his father was a conscientious objector imprisoned during WW2 couldn‘t have helped. It must have taken some guts to do what his father did but Griffin’s comment was a crafty and subliminal message to anyone watching who has sympathy with his views. They won’t remember the fact what his dad did had little or nothing to do with today‘s politics. All they will take in is that, in their opinion, Straw is not made of the right stuff unlike Griffin whose daddy was in the RAF during the war.
The fact is that Nick Griffin came across as a reasonable, well mannered, clearly spoken individual - if you ignore what he was actually saying - compared to the programme’s presenter, most of the panel and the studio audience. What I saw was a gathering of arrogant liberals (with the exception of Bonnie Greer, who I felt was respectful to him) having a night out at the circus, the sort of circus where lions eat people. Griffin has had a lot of practice saying all the things he said on the night. He has said them a hundred times before to television cameras. He would have had a much harder time if he had been asked for his policies on the environment, Afghanistan, Iraq, the postal strike.
More importantly, the people who have some sympathy for his views on immigration and its impact on the availability of resources (as pointed out by Baroness Warsi this, not race, is the issue) will have seen someone they feel represents their views being howled down. It would be an enormous mistake to assume that the average BNP type is still a skin head with a swastika tattooed onto his forehead. It is unlikely that those who make “Question Time” have experienced life in a tower block, waiting years for a transfer to more suitable housing, or been in the queue at the post office watching someone who can’t speak English collect substantial benefits as they wait to get their own meagre pension. I suspect they pay occasional visits to this alternative reality. They don’t have to live there. They can afford to be open minded.
To me the worst thing of all about that broadcast was the complaint made by a woman in the audience at Jack Straw’s repeated use of the term “Afro-Caribbean”. It seems that he should have said “African-Caribbean”. Surely that night of all nights was an occasion for what is a very tiny failure in protocol to be overlooked. A group of people who should have been united against racists have shown themselves to be divided by semantics. I suspect that this woman, who struck me as someone I would like to know in spite of what she said, would regard me with some suspicion for stating my love of things African. Perhaps she would find me patronising. Sometimes you just can’t win but the taste in my mouth is all the more unpleasant for a realisation that the BNP have gained more than they have lost because of the BBC’s lack of judgement.
This Griffin now has wings and claws. The dangerous fantasy of a country run by racists may now become reality. Thanks Auntie Beeb…
These beads may be thousands of years old. They turn up in the sands of the Sahara and are sold to foreign collectors by the hardy people who live there. A very long time ago someone used very primitive tools to drill holes through two attractive pieces of stone and polish their surfaces. One is probably a piece of agate with some tiny quartz crystals that, even now, sparkle in the light, the other may be a piece of petrified wood. I love them because they are tiny and affordable pieces of ancient history and because they are a connection with my most distant ancestors - Africans.
One of the few intelligent and serious comments made by a member of the studio audience on the BBC’s “Question Time” was in response to the BNP leader’s suggestion that white English people are now aborigines in their own country. She pointed out that, as we are all descended from the first humans who came from Africa, we are all members of minorities now.
I did not plan to watch it. I haven’t in years and I don’t need to see Nick Griffin in person to know that I don’t agree with his views. In the end I watched it online because I had heard so many comments about the programme that I felt I had to see it for myself. Unfortunately my love for the BBC has now cooled a little because what was considered a smart attempt to undermine the BNP‘s growing influence has probably backfired.
Those involved in the decision to invite Griffin to take part in a debate alongside other politicians are clearly out of touch with the sort of people inclined to vote for a party generally regarded as racist and beyond the pale. They made the mistake of treating him differently to any other politician. There was an obvious and open lack of respect from the very beginning. I understand that the audience was carefully selected - I am not sure what criteria were involved in this selection but the impression I was left with was that they chose anyone prepared to boo and shout. The atmosphere was such that I expected to see girls with trays of ice cream (or rotten eggs and tomatoes) wandering up and down the aisles.
Jack Straw has been criticised for his performance on the night. It is easy to forget that, while we often see images of politicians seconds apart on our TV screens, in reality they don’t always meet face to face. It may have been one of the few times that they had been in each other’s presence and Straw was clearly already very angry. Having Griffin raise the fact that his father was a conscientious objector imprisoned during WW2 couldn‘t have helped. It must have taken some guts to do what his father did but Griffin’s comment was a crafty and subliminal message to anyone watching who has sympathy with his views. They won’t remember the fact what his dad did had little or nothing to do with today‘s politics. All they will take in is that, in their opinion, Straw is not made of the right stuff unlike Griffin whose daddy was in the RAF during the war.
The fact is that Nick Griffin came across as a reasonable, well mannered, clearly spoken individual - if you ignore what he was actually saying - compared to the programme’s presenter, most of the panel and the studio audience. What I saw was a gathering of arrogant liberals (with the exception of Bonnie Greer, who I felt was respectful to him) having a night out at the circus, the sort of circus where lions eat people. Griffin has had a lot of practice saying all the things he said on the night. He has said them a hundred times before to television cameras. He would have had a much harder time if he had been asked for his policies on the environment, Afghanistan, Iraq, the postal strike.
More importantly, the people who have some sympathy for his views on immigration and its impact on the availability of resources (as pointed out by Baroness Warsi this, not race, is the issue) will have seen someone they feel represents their views being howled down. It would be an enormous mistake to assume that the average BNP type is still a skin head with a swastika tattooed onto his forehead. It is unlikely that those who make “Question Time” have experienced life in a tower block, waiting years for a transfer to more suitable housing, or been in the queue at the post office watching someone who can’t speak English collect substantial benefits as they wait to get their own meagre pension. I suspect they pay occasional visits to this alternative reality. They don’t have to live there. They can afford to be open minded.
To me the worst thing of all about that broadcast was the complaint made by a woman in the audience at Jack Straw’s repeated use of the term “Afro-Caribbean”. It seems that he should have said “African-Caribbean”. Surely that night of all nights was an occasion for what is a very tiny failure in protocol to be overlooked. A group of people who should have been united against racists have shown themselves to be divided by semantics. I suspect that this woman, who struck me as someone I would like to know in spite of what she said, would regard me with some suspicion for stating my love of things African. Perhaps she would find me patronising. Sometimes you just can’t win but the taste in my mouth is all the more unpleasant for a realisation that the BNP have gained more than they have lost because of the BBC’s lack of judgement.
This Griffin now has wings and claws. The dangerous fantasy of a country run by racists may now become reality. Thanks Auntie Beeb…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nft24#synopsis
Posts
This is the second blog that I came across on the topic of Nick Griffin and BNP. I don't know too much about his views except for what I have read in the two blog posts since I don't live in your country but, in tough economic times, immigrants are usually blamed for everthing that ails the country.
ReplyDeleteThese are some interesting thoughts - many thanks.
ReplyDeleteI think you should be more critical of Greer, though, who seemed to maintain a calmer presence initially but grew gradually more condescending and, to be honest, faintly ridiculous as she invoked the spirit of the Roman Empire as a symbol of multi-cultural enlightenment!
Such a disingenuous argument really did her no credit (though makes me wonder quite what the Department of Greece and Rome in the British Museum looks like), and by the end f it Baroness Warsi stood out as the single exception to the grotesqueness of the whole affair (so long as you are willing to forgive her thinly veiled revulsion at the idea of homosexual couples).
However, the most shocking aspect of this debacle was the appallingly pathetic performance of Jack Straw. Evasive, shifty, with faux emotion so blatant it made me cringe, he has done untold damage to Labour. The irony is that he did so on precisely the matter which exercises the BNP the most, immigration.
The pivotal point in the debate, i thought, was when Straw was asked whether Labour policies on immigration were the reason people have turned to the BNP. Instead of answering the question, the fool talked about a war, and therefore rather than allowing Nick Griffin to fall on his own sword (which he seemed to be heroically capable of doing single-handed), he has gone some way towards equating a vote for the BNP with a direct protest against New Labour's woeful record on that issue.