GENERATION TERRORISTS

In the Western world like to imagine that we live in a very free and open society. We’ve finely airbrushed our colonial roots, mopped up our Imperial footprints and embraced the MOR tailoring of Benetton. But I sometimes feel it’s an oppressive kind of freedom the UK enjoys.

We’ve increasingly come to fear extremism in all it’s forms and for some of us, our government’s attempts to protect us from it. But I think the UK is guilty of its’ home-grown brand of terrorism, that is the tyranny of so-called good taste and over-censorship.

The debate of what is and is not acceptable to say, write or show in the media has recently exploded onto our screens and bled onto our fingers in print. See Sachsgate, Thatcher’s daughter and the controversial Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, recently denied entry into the UK.

But being very liberal can go also go very wrong. When people seek things out to be offended by they encourage a culture of complaint. Lots of these issues, like racism, relate to complicated ways of life that some of us cannot fully understand and we end up harming others’ causes in the process.

Take the recent controversy over Thatcher and the Golliwogs comment. I don’t think I can righteously claim that a Golliwog is offensive to me, personally, because Golliwogs are a cruel cartoon of black people, and I’m white. That’s not to say I don’t care, it is wrong because it is offensive to others, our generations (should) know this. But I think it would be hypocritical and condescending to argue that Golliwogs actually offend white people, when they were a form of propaganda that empowered white supremacy.

Take the Spike Lee joint, Bamboozled, a racial satire about a satirical Black and White Minstrel TV show gone wrong. It shows how both black and white people can very quickly learn to enjoy a racist skit show without stopping to think what it means. This is how racism starts, if you accept racist media portrayals and graffiti on the walls it all blends into the background of our social furniture. Then, like swearing, racism will seem ok.

As a media event, Bamboozled is a grey area (no pun) chiefly because you have to show racism to fight racism. But Lee’s aim was to draw a line in the sand about our modern perception of race issues and the golliwog history. By comparison, Carol Thatcher’s “joke” in a time when Golliwogs have long since been put to bed, emerged as nothing but a slur, her only defence being Conservative ignorance.

I think we’re better to speak openly about almost any issue, from immigration to sex with pensioners’ granddaughters, because you can’t prevent offence and comedy is a great way to do this (if it’s funny: discuss) But I think there is no room for blatant racism, either in the BBC or on the streets. However, if you white-wash-censor every example of controversial material that might offend someone, somewhere, from the Amazon to the Igloos, then I don’t think we can say that we are a free and open-minded society and so we the terrorists have already won.