From the BBC school of history: why everything’s Britain’s fault
Everything is your fault. But there’s no need to say sorry, because the BBC is busy apologising on your behalf. Barely a week goes by without its guilt-ridden liberals blaming Britain for all the world’s woes. Self-loathing is their hobby — it makes them feel better.
Film-maker gurinder Chadha, brought up in Southall, London, was at pains throughout India’s Partition: The Forgotten Story (BBC2) to emphasise that Britain alone was responsible for millions of deaths and decades of conflict following the separation of Pakistan in 1947.
She returned to this theme repeatedly, even though all her evidence contradicted the claim. Whenever the facts indicated that the sundering of india was due to ego clashes between its leaders or the aftermath of World War ii, gurinder nodded grimly and blamed Britain.
She especially accused Sir Winston Churchill, who she said despised hindus. he was the epitome of the British establishment, she sneered — though anyone who knows the first thing about Churchill will realise he was an outsider in every society.
the British raj deliberately promoted hatred between Muslims, Sikhs and hindus, she claimed, in a policy of ‘divide and rule’. But to prove her point she travelled to Delhi and Calcutta, two of the most multi-cultural cities on earth — a living legacy of British policies for a united india.
Unforgiveably, she claimed that when rioting broke out in Calcutta in 1946, the British government could have stopped the violence ‘like that’ — snapping her fingers. the hundreds of deaths were ‘a real victory for Divide and rule’, she jeered.
yet moments earlier, gurinder had been explaining that this country with its vast population was uncontrollable, and that the raj was hopelessly undermanned.
the historians she interviewed were just as biased. One claimed that the British ‘scuttled the ship of india and swam away like rats’. that’s very moderate language!
her family history seemed to fuel her anger: her Sikh mother and aunts were forced to flee Kashmir following partition. her Aunt Balwant said with tearful poetry: ‘People write in golden and silver words, but this history is written in blood.’ But the family sought refuge in London and found it. Britain welcomed them and saved their lives. Pakistan, on the other hand, still refuses to give gurinder a visa, even to film this programme.
if the Beeb blames Britain for everything, the yesterday channel’s documentaries, made mainly for the U.S., seem barely aware that we exist. Impossible Engineering (yesterday) felt it had to point out that Bristol and Coventry are in england.
Perhaps because they are aware that the show will mostly be watched by Americans, the writers also make sure that any complicated concepts are explained by animated cartoon characters.
i feel much more knowledgable about the economics of mass production, now that i’ve seen impossible engineering’s doodles of knights in armour and blacksmiths.
Much of the show, centred on the California factory where tesla electric cars are built, consisted of digressions.
But the comparisons between Fiat’s first production line, in an architectural masterpiece created in 1920s turin, and the visionary site set up outside San Francisco by internet billionaire elon Musk, were fascinating.
no doubt battery-powered automobiles won’t be able to reverse global warming. But there will probably be a BBC science show along soon, to explain why that’s all Britain’s fault too.