bbc green paper
I was just thinking about the recent government Green Paper on the future of the BBC from 2006 to 2016. We are heralding it as a success for internationalism, since after four years or so of campaigning, it will now be part of the BBC's core mission statement to "bring the world to the UK" - that is, to make the UK public aware of international issues and of how people in the rest of the world live their lives. A lot of sweat went into getting that one phrase inshrined in the legislation proposals.
I'm really getting quite into institutions like the BBC - it's such a substantial feature of the British cultural landscape and of huge importance in the overall battles of culture and politics in this country. Yet I wonder if all these core mission statements, guiding values and state watchdogs are the way to do it. Sometimes I wonder if it is all playing into the sterile hands of modern management – the BBC as just another cog in the "cultural industries" that constitute just another political economy described and measured by bureaucrats.
Hopefully not. Let's hope a few institutions remain independent from Tessa Jowell and New Labour, and a few artists retain their integrity. I was thinking as well of around the time when the US invaded Baghdad two years ago, and Iraqi people were looting their museums and burning their National Library, even as American soldiers stood by and watched. Ben Okri wrote at the time that when people begin to tear up their ancient mythic pathways and burn their own past, then you know they have been truly dehumanised.
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