A missed opportunity.

An extract from The BBC Charter : :

.....to provide sound and television programmes of information, education and entertainment.......

I suppose I could read all sorts of clandestine motivations or institutional conspiracy theories into the travesty of investigative journalism that was broadcast last night under the laughable disguise of ‘Panorama’.

I suppose I could highlight to a great extent my own prejudices both conscious and subconscious in reaching my conclusion of a deliberately warped and unbalanced analysis of a cultural and historic thread which has shaped and fashioned many of the features both good and bad, which comprise the sociological hinterland of this small corner of God’s sod.

The above however would only be relevant if I had come out of the viewing and listening experience with even a modicum of additional illumination of the historic maelstroms which have resulted in many of the symptomatic experiences portrayed and pandered to BBC Scotland’s nasty little bigot’s guide to 800 years of oppressed Celtic (with a hard c) identity.

Where oh where was the definition of sectarianism, where was the distillation of the overlaps between unionism, republicanism, the catholic church, the orange order, the Irish famine, the mass exodus from Ireland, the inhumane treatment of all by the British governments down through the years, the bussing of majorities into the six counties of the north, the honourable and dishonourable intentions of those on all sides of the argument.

Where was the examination of the post reformation and pre-Irish influx institutional sectarianism and barbarity that was perpetrated on Scotlands native born Catholics.

Where was the attempt, to try and look at the causes and draw positive conclusions on where to go in future.

Where was the evocation of the spirit of those who travelled on that ‘floating bridge’ of boats of ‘heads and faces’ from a country where decaying corpses littered a land of hoplessness but where millions of tons of potatoes either rotted on the quayside in Dublin, or were shipped to the feed the landed gentry and their subjects in Jerusalem’s green and pleasant land.

Where were the views of the the calvanists, Knox, the Carsons and Connellys, the Pearces, and the Devaleras, the Paisleys and the Glasses, the H-blocks, the dirty protestors, the hunger strikers and the millions who sacrificed a quiet life for their chose cause.

Why why why was that cause so important and why did it find a fertile soil in the western environs of Scotland. How did so many strands of history which touched everyone irrespective of religion, race, gender, or colour result in a tapestry that became a Catholic and Protestant polarisation. Why was all this ignorantly depicted as the preserve of two football clubs in my home city.

Where was the cause and effect of each clubs historic identification with the community that claimed fealty?

Where was the honest analysis that apportioned causes, blame, and responsibility.

The answer is simple, it was nowhere to be seen, and all we got was a tabloid (or do we need to use the term ‘compact’ now) piece of populist nonsense which was only not deliberately Machiavellian because those producing it are obviously not clever enough to stage manage their desired message.

But the damage in many parts of these isles, though not easy to gauge, is as if the superficiality and damning populism was deliberate.

Because it was ‘Panorama’, many will believe that it was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because it was said at all (remember the Sun and the damning of Liverpool supporters) many will have had there own ill-informed prejudices further fuelled, and as a consequence the quest to find an answer has been ill-served.

I know that many will say that the programme was never going to be able to cover such a subject with any serious degree of rigour, and any considered viewpoint would agree with this.

Simply put then the answer was not to deal with it at all in the medium employed. To pretend to be treating such an encyclopaedic question with all the sensationalism of a page 3 hack resulted unsurprisingly in ....page 3.

So to go back to the BBC charter, I am afraid it definitely didn’t inform, it certainly didn’t educate, and in so far as entertainment goes well I suppose I did laugh at it quite a bit.