I was watching a rather interesting programme last night
on the life of the late Conservative, Sir Kenneth Clark who was an authority on
Art that was brought into millions of ordinary people’s living rooms in the
late sixties through a television documentary series called Civilization.
Although I was aware of the series, I certainly did not
know that the programme was commissioned by Sir David Attenborough who was
controller of BBC 2 at that time.
It was a programme which sent an awful lot of working class
families to Radio Rentals to rent their first TV sets. It really was a very much talked about
programme of its time and so compelling for family viewing in an age when
travel was the preserve for the rich, so little wonder that everything Sir
David Attenborough has done since has been equally compelling, almost
infectious to watch.
However, ten minutes before the end of this engaging programme
a phone call from a rather stunning looking lady in the village wanting to know
if we could help with the removal of a tick from just below her little dog’s
right eye. The gorgeous creature in question jogged down from her cottage to
ours with her two mutts in tow. The tick
was soon despatched amidst the odd growl and seriously dirty looks and I don’t
think I am going to be on that particular mutt’s, dog tail wagging list for
some considerable time to come.
I got back to the television set as quickly as possible
but to no avail, the programme had gone off into the ether.
In a week that has seen the most distressing news again
come out of India with the raping of two young teenage girls who were then hung
from a Mango tree for no other reason than the gratification of upper caste Indians
honestly believing that they can behave and treat the lowest caste of all in a
fashion akin to their own domestic animals.
Also in Pakistan, the most liberal city in the country,
Lahore, a young woman was stoned to death by her family outside a courtroom where
passers-by and the police looked on and did nothing, almost taking it to be the
norm and when all came to all the husband of the three month pregnant woman had
strangled his first wife for no apparent reason than him fancying a
change. His sons forgave him for
murdering their mother and this seemed to be enough to permit him to carry on
unpunished in that society.
Civilization, the programme of Kenneth Clark’s and Sir
David Attenborough’s of the late sixties kicked off with Kenneth Clark’s immortal
words, “What is Civilization?” Well, it certainly isn’t India or Pakistan with
the way it conducts its society with this wretched caste system. An outdated, barbaric, feudal, totally unjust
and baffonic system, where your treatment in life depends solely on how far up
the social ladder you happen to be born in. So very true of so many countries
around the globe.
The upper caste of India and Pakistan are the Judges, the
Doctors, the Police Commissioners, the Law Makers, but what is so fundamentally
wrong to me from these countries is we have companies that in around about way
put bread upon the table of our own British workers, Land Rover, Jaguar, the
Tata Group, World Steel, the owners of which are some of the richest people in
the world. In our own NHS, some of our Doctors
and Nurses are selected again from these upper caste families. There is a hypocrisy here that would be in
India’s, Pakistan’s and the United Kingdom’s interest to rectify.
The newly elected Prime Minister of India has said he
will be looking into these atrocities, as if it is something so very new. Who could forget the brutal rape and murder
of a young girl on a bus last year? His persona is of surprise, disgust and
dis-belief. Where has he been for the
last fifty years? There has been no
change as the establishment of the day has seen little mileage in trying to
make life better for the lowest castes in India.
All these atrocities were brought to the world’s
attention by the devastating, shocking images on a modern, everyday
smartphone. Somebody just happened to
have one around all the hullabaloo and commotion at the time. These images were
sent around the world for people to see, to judge for themselves and then make
up their own minds on just how far civilization has penetrated these particular
worlds.
On a lighter note, this year’s cubs in my Badger sett are
going from strength to strength. Daddy
Cool and Mother Badger looks after them in quite a divine fashion. Life seems to be very good. Food is plentiful and for me their whole
existence and the way they conduct their lives throughout the woodland is a
civilization that I would be proud to be a part of.
Please watch my short film of Daddy Cool and his young brood playing and having fun.
Daddy Cool looking over his sett.
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