Bushra Irfan on the Big Brother controversy
In the Big Brother house the treatment of Shilpa Shetty by her fellow housemates have caused not only an uproar in public circles but also hit the political world as a national and international crisis with the Indian Government and MPs voicing their concerns and the funding future of Channel 4 in Parliament. In the house, there were obvious clashes of personality and temperament and jealousies which could be argued could happen between anyone. But you can’t hide there was the obvious victimisation and abuse on the basis of racial discrimination
In a country where racial discrimination is against the law and to incite it is a criminal offence, it is indeed surprising that Channel 4 did not take the necessary precautions to protect their contestants and the public from displays of behaviour which would be considered to be inappropriate and could lead to disciplinary action and would be censored from public viewing. After all, as with all behaviour, freedom of speech and expression is limited to within the boundaries of the law and so as not to upset others or infringe on their rights of freedom.
But then, Channel 4 is still claiming there has been no ‘overt racism’ despite the fact that over 30,000 complaints have been forwarded to Ofcom, advertising contracts for the perpetrators such as Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Joe O’Meara have been cancelled and names and pictures of them have been removed from websites in particular Jades from the anti-bullying campaign website, ‘Act Against Bullying’
To hear from Jade that she is ‘not racist’ is nothing unusual as most racists tend to be of that opinion of themselves. The BNP press officer whom I was interviewed with once was blatantly racist in his comments and was equally insistent that he was not a racist and attempted to turn matters around to make the person suggesting such a thing to be themselves unreasonable and racist in daring to say so.
The reality show, Big brother is designed to place people in such a situation that their true feelings and attitudes eventually come to play for all to see. Therefore when the veil placed for public view is lifted the true characters of the individuals comes into play and is unavoidable by them even when they are aware that there are cameras observing their every move. We have now seen the true colours of people such as Jade and her friends today in Big Brother.
Carphone Warehouse the sponsors of the show have withdrawn their sponsorship from the programme. Mr Dunstone, their Chief Executive publicly said that they are ‘against any form of racism and bullying’. The culture secretary, Tessa Jowell also criticised the programme saying that it was ‘racism being presented as entertainment ‘ and was ‘disgusting’. The advertising agencies have cancelled their contracts with the perpetrators and charities such as ‘Act Against Bullying’ have removed pictures of Jade from their website. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu has stated that the programme has shown an ‘ugly underbelly in society only too ready to point their finger at the foreigner’ and he stated that Dr Luther kings famous dictum that ‘ignorance is the root of all prejudice’ has proven in action for all to see.
Some may argue it is a good thing to be able to see the true colours of individuals and allow the public to see the truth of the inward feelings and reactions of people who live in our multi-cultural and multi-religious society. The reactions of Jade et al against Shilpa will be reminding many watching the programme of incidents they have been through in the classroom, in the workplace, in the business world, in the attempts of networking, with their neighbours in which they were the victims but perhaps too afraid to claim racism as the person who dares to raise that issue is made to feel as though he is the perpetrator and at fault. People who are not in this situation do not understand and are all too often willing to start accusing people of throwing the ‘race card’.
Perhaps there is some good then of showing such behaviour openly, unedited for the world to see so that they can also understand this situation and how it can rise as a means of educating the masses. Of course there is always the danger that the ignorant will use it as an excuse to follow in Jade et als footsteps to throw mud on the ‘foreigners’.
But what of integration? I started to go to Church on Sundays. The reaction from many was good and they were pleased to see that I was attempting to integrate and meet with them to show respect to their religion. Others, however, were offended by my presence there and raised strong objections. This proves to me, along with Big brothers recent programme that, no matter how loudly the indigenous community shouts that they want people to integrate they are actually resistant to it. People who have lived in this country all their lives and even be born here no longer wish to be insulted nor feel uncomfortable and therefore have eventually resorted to their own cultures, religion and mixing with people of their own background and understanding.
I therefore say to those who are too ready to point their finger at society for not integrating, turn the finger to yourself first, how willing are you to welcome and actually allow the others to integrate? Integration is a two way process and must be regarded as such. Hiding such real feelings and reactions from the public can lead to ignorance to the ones not directly affected and they will never be able to understand the feelings of upset, isolation and depression that Shilpa is having to undergo.
Whether such realities of human behaviour should be shown or not would need to be answered in context with other showings such as the covert police officer who uncovered racism in the police force etc. Clearly it is in the public interest to be shown but how they are dealt with is what makes the difference.
If their actions are wrong, as Jade, Jo and Danielle’s clearly were, then they must be punished so that the public is told in no uncertain terms that such behaviour is unacceptable. While Channel 4 refused to act on the matter, more than 30,000 of you made that judgement and rightly so.
