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COMMENT
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Friday 13 February 2009 palatinate.org.uk
COMMENT Comment Editorial
W
e appreciate the Vice-Chancellor taking time to respond to our news cycle. We also appreciate his noble Voltairean insistence that the university should not interfere with the content of Palatinate, regardless of how much it might disapprove of our news values. But it remains unclear from Prof. Higgins’s article what exactly there was to be sniffed at about the news story in question. In the Christmas edition of last term, we revealed that an academic event entitled ‘Iranian Theocracy and Democracy: Contradiction or Convergence?’ would be sponsored by the Iranian government. And so it was. The truth of the matter is not in dispute, merely whether to publish this information was to imply an unreasonable question. The question is simply this: Is it likely that the Iranian government would involve itself in a forum on the subject of its own political system if it expected that forum to ferment ideas dissenting significantly from the government line? If not, does this undermine the academic worth of such an event? These questions could be asked about any government funding academic events about themselves, but it would be strange not to notice that Iran is a country with a poor human rights record, with substantial government involvement in the media and with harsh treatment of dissidents. Additially, there are two aspects of the story which remain unexplored either by Prof. Higgins’ article or by Dr. Reza Molavi’s official statement last December. The first is the implication of the Islamic Republic News Agency press release we quoted, from which it is evident that the fact that Durham is hosting this event was used in Iran as propaganda for the government. Do we want it to be said of our university that, in however small a way, we acquiesced in the machinations of conservative forces within Iran? This in the run up to an election in which, fingers crossed, the reform candidate Khatami will defeat Channel 4’s darling, Ahmadinejad. The second is the fact that the listings for the event on the university website did not give any full sense of the subject matter. Only the first lecture of several, Prof. Melville’s on the Persian poet Ferdowsi, was included on the listings. To note this is not to impugn the motives of the compiler, but merely to request that in future - if it is firmly the university’s view that it is kosher for the Iranian theocracy to sponsor Durham academic events about Iranian theocracy - that the nature of such events be made clear in the listings. It’s not exactly Watergate, we admit. But to have raised such questions is a not a bad day’s work for an amateur student rag. It’s just a pity our Vice-Chancellor appears to disagree: perhaps he would like to run Palatinate in his spare time?
Matt Richardson
I
t is strange, the feelings some people provoke in you. Perhaps admiration for a glimpse of President Obama, worry over the craggy contours of Gordon Brown, a slight nose-wrinkling aversion to the oiled and oranged visage of Dale Winton. And then there’s Carol Thatcher: a being whose presence on this earth inspires such ire that words quite simply fail me. Not content with sweating it out in the bosky bug-fest of the I’m a Non-Celebrity…Get Me in Here, the offspring of the Iron Lady’s fatal loins has created another tricky situation for herself, one unable to be wriggled out of through fortitude, girning or a steady stream of imprecations. The story all began – according to the faceless minions of the rumour mill – backstage after the BBC’s The One Show. Good old Carol had done her gig as a roving reporter, was tanked up on a couple of glasses of plonk and descanting on her usual conversational topics – how’s Mum etc. – when somehow or other she happened to mention the word ‘golliwog’. Witnesses to this ill-advised choice of vocabulary were the presenter of the programme, Adrian Chiles, that model of clean-tongued respectability, Jo Brand, a senior Comic Relief charity worker and an assorted assemblage of journalists. As soon as the offending remark left Thatcher’s lips Jo Brand apparently pounced and so began the BBC’s songs of sanctimony that culminated in her hasty removal from the show. According to her spokesman Thatcher “never intended any racist comment”. Carol merely “made a light aside about this” – as-yetunnamed – “tennis player and his
Let private errors pass Even children of Thatcher should not be hounded
similarity to the golliwog on the jam pot when she was growing up”. It was just Carol being Carol: forthright, unflinching and thoughtlessly offensive. However, in true Thatcherite form, the issue has sparked a veritable inferno of debate with logs being thrown in by either side. Unsurprisingly, conspiracy theories have already started emanating from Maggie’s fan club. Lord Tebbit thinks it “is probably a bit of a way for the BBC to get back at Carol’s mother”, the corporation finally displaying its long-suspected radical left-wing stripes. Similarly Boris Johnson has expressed his disapproval, while even Will Young has jumped on the bandwagon: “Carol Thatcher used the word in a private conversation, they panicked,” pontificated the Pop Idol winner recently on Question Time. “I worry because everything is becoming a bit vanilla.” Well in true vanillary form, the BBC One controller, Jay Hunt, rebutted soon after, arguing that despite giving “Carol ample time to apologize for offence that was caused to key named individuals” no apology emerged. If only Carol had done the dignified thing, genuflected before the wrath of the ‘outraged’ PC masses and promised in penitential tones to keep schtum forevermore, then The One Show would have welcomed her back with open arms. But aside from the conspiracy theories and the lack of grovelling, ‘Thatcher-gate’ raises a serious issue. Can there now be said to be no divide between public and private life? Are the confines of the green room, staff canteen and gentleman’s club fit territory for the hounds of standards to roam?
Fair enough if Thatcher had taken to the screens liveried in promo gear for the BNP, done her piece running round twittering on about the threat of immigration and finished by screaming out racist slogans to millions of startled viewers. But her remark was made behind closed doors in an informal setting with the lubricating company of a couple of bottles of wine. This recent debate brings back the same old questions raised by the furore over the poet Philip Larkin in the nineties. A biography came out detailing Larkin’s various oddities: his closet racism, his proclivity for fleshy mags and myriad evidence for his position as one of the all-time screwed-up guys.
“Philip Larkin was obsessed with porn and a closet racist. But he was also a great poet.” But his poetry was brilliant. The PC brigade could pick apart his personal life and quickly try to re-evaluate his position as a ‘minor’ wordsmith, but in reality could never expunge the enormity of his talent. Fundamentally, he might have had his own behind-the-scenes problems, but on the page he was unbeatable. He wasn’t going to get sacked from his job or barred entry into the canon just because of these flaws. Now Carol Thatcher obviously isn’t banging down the door of the
literary canon or even going to be a recognisable loss to the TV world. But if anybody can be summarily dismissed from their positions on the basis of one alcohol-inspired slip then I imagine every CEO might start looking warily at the wine during their corporate dinners or swear their entire staff team to a loyal silence before daring to open their mouths. Similarly, Adrian Chiles might be the cheeky chappy onscreen, but my guess is there are a few skeletons in his confabulatory closet, while Jo Brand is infamous for her scatological and boundary-pushing act, some of which might look less than spotless when examined under in the remorseless gaze of the PC posse. And then there’s the actual word. Is it the Freudian slip that reveals the inner bigot within the Thatcher breast? Or to add even more kindling to the fire, could it be atavistic: an inherited, unthinking prejudice Carol copied from her mother, another pungent insight into the real brain of the lacquered Baroness? Or, to return to the plateau of actual possibility, isn’t it more likely just to have been a silly mistake by a garrulous and ditsy woman who meant little harm and was just too stubborn to bend the knee in apology? Obviously, there is no defence for racism. But if everybody now has to adopt this holier-than-thou attitude, no conscious being is safe. And, as much as it pains me to say it, Will Young was right: if said behind closed doors, it should remain behind closed doors. Because if a spotless private life is the mandatory requirement for public, unelected jobs then it is more than likely that every head at the BBC will have to roll.
C M Y K