Channel 4 have landed themselves in a spot of hot water by getting the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinenutjob to deliver their alternative Christmas Message (the Beeb gets to broadcast the Queen’s Christmas Message). One of Mahmoud’s complaints? George W Bush is insufficiently religious.
‘Nuff said, really. Cartoon (and amusing commentary, do check it out) via DeusExMacintosh.
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Channel 4 have landed themselves in a spot of hot water by getting the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinenutjob to deliver their alternative Christmas Message
??????????????????
What the fuck for?
Maybe they should have this guy hosting the Eurovision Song Contest next.
What the fuck for?
Because they can. Think of any better reason why not, Adrien?
The BBC has been making pots and pots of money out of the licence fee, so the government (in what passes for political wisdom these days) decided to spread the surplus around to the commercial channels. This means that Channel 4 is now partially state funded (it didn’t used to be — I have no idea who is responsible for thinking this was a good idea).
Of course inviting a dictatorial dickhead to do the Xmas message looks kinda ordinary when you’re being subsidized by the taxpayers — and under a user pays system, too, so they can really hit you where it hearts when they start complaining to the regulator (Ofcom in this country)
You really don’t get it do you.
If you care to look at the comments on UK newsblog sites about this you’ll find they are overwhelmingly congratulatory to accepting to thoughtful about the intent, content and impact of the Iranian President’s message. It’s a small sign, but an encouraging one. Never underestimate the intelligence of the populace.
And how good is it that the Brit media isn’t so monolithically bad, after all. I’ve recently revisited TV news and the BBC shits on the ABC and SBS.
Go Channel 4.
Lizzie, do you habitually turn up anonymously on other people’s blogs and engage in random rudeness? Just curious.
For those not in the UK, Channel 4 has always prided itself on an ‘intellectually racey’ reputation and since 1993 has provided an “alternative christmas message” for those who would rather watch ANYTHING than the Queen’s version. Normally it’s on simultaneously at 3pm (sort of like the one tv station that shows a movie while the football final is on the other three) but due to the controversy of choosing the Iranian President it was instead postponed until the evening.
The speech itself was utterly anodyne – nothing controversial and no nations or world leaders named individually. About the most biting it got was the observation that:
Full translation here.
Lizzie – Think of any better reason why not, Adrien?
Yes actually.
At the risk of boring people who know this, I spent the first years of my life in Muslim countries. I’ve known Muslims and Jews quite well. Just so’s you know.
It seems to me that Mr Ahmadinejad is not a good avatar of peace but rather one of divisiveness. After all this is a man who, until compelled to back down, advocated Holocaust denial. I wonder how the British Jews felt about that.
In his address Mr Ahmadinejad states that Jesus Christ “would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over”.
Which is interesting. I am very critical of the various realpolitik nastiness associated with the so-called ‘war on terror’ with its chauvinism and self-righteous nonsense that masks the same old games played for the same old reasons.
However I’m not foolish enough to buy into the Manichean nonsense that says that where any conflict obtains there are the good guys and the bad guys. It seems to me that opposition to the Blair/Bush excursions amongst the liberal-left have fallen for this simple-minded foolishness – especially in Britain. There’s an assumption that because Bush is a bully then perhaps those he’s against are virtuous. They aren’t.
Mr Ahmadinejad thinks that the “solution to today’s problems is a return to the call of the divine Prophets. The solution to these crises is to follow the Prophets – they were sent by the Almighty for the good of humanity.”
Well this is the call of the divine in Iran. And its not too dissimilar from the opinions of fundamentalists on US breakfast prayer shows where cheesy people sit ’round a hokey little ‘homestead’ looking set cheerfully discussing Armageddon. Perhaps Mr Ahmadinejad calls out to these people to unite in superstition against those of us who prefer the legacy of the Greeks to apocalyptic eschatologies that deem it moral to string up kids who’re gay or similarly hang a teenage girl because she had the temerity to defend herself against rapists.
The solution isn’t to be found in the words of some sunstruck wanderer who died in an archaic sinkhole of superstition, fear and pain millenia ago. It’s to be found in the entirely other traditions of reason and science that make conversations like this possible.
For me that’s where the line is drawn. And a message of peace would be entirely welcome from Iran if it was given by someone inclined to, um, peace. Ahmadinejad is not.
DEM – For those not in the UK, Channel 4 has always prided itself on an ‘intellectually racey’ reputation and since 1993 has provided an “alternative christmas message” for those who would rather watch ANYTHING than the Queen’s version.
That’s a cool idea. It’s a shame Bill Hicks is dead. But they can always run this
Adrien @ 7: very nicely said. couldn’t have said it better myself.
Group think, ain’t it grand. LOL.
Posey, you’re always welcome to express a differing opinion on this site, as long as you do it politely.
So, do tell – what do you think?
While I’ll admit that the Iranian President is a less than perfect person to deliver Xmas homilies, when you look at the unjustifiable body count from the actions of world leaders, and the abuses of extraordinary rendition etc, those who object to Ahmadinejad should equally protest about Bush giving Xmas messages.
But there is no hope of stopping hypocritical and/or hateful messages from politicians.
Dave, agreed. Neither Bush nor Ahmedinejad are particularly appropriate people to deliver Christmas messages of peace and understanding. Yah boo sucks to both of them.
This is pretty much my view as well, treating the whole thing as meta to Ch 4′s exercise. Thing is, I only care that they got Ahmedinenutjob because they’re now partly on the taxpayers’ tit. If they were a private concern, they could have Lapdancers Inc ™ for all I care.
The Beeb gets Queenie and has to be be very middle-of-the-road — just ask Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, plus their producers, plus just about anyone who’d ever had anything to do with their show. All of them sacked, fallen on their swords, shifted sideways or downwards etc. A clusterfuck of monumental proportions (one account is here, with lots of footnotes). If C4 wants water from the BBC’s well, then it should play by the BBC’s rules.
Actually, to qualify my statement above – I don’t mind if GWB gives an Xmas message to the Yanks or if Ahmedinejad gives an Xmas message to the Iranians. I didn’t realise KRudd gave a message to Australia until looking at Dave’s site, but I’d be fine with any channel broadcasting it. I tend to ignore Xmas messages from anyone (Queen, Bush, Ahmedinejad or KRudd alike).
But I would get pissed off if Channel 7 (just to pick a channel out of the air) suddenly decided it was going to get Ahmedinejad or Bush to deliver a Christmas message to Australia – why should I listen to what those bastards have to say when they’re not our heads of state? I find them both morally problematic on a religious and political level.
Still, if Channel 7 wanted to do it on their money, I’d just turn off. But I doubt a commercial channel would do it, because it would be commercially foolish. Whereas, as SL points out, Channel 4 is being publicly funded, and so it can afford to do stupid stuff… The question is whether it should have the same constraints as the BBC in circumstances where it receives public money.
LE – sorry for the delay in replying. Been working.
I don’t see how it is at all useful let alone relevant to label Ahmedinejad a “nutjob”. And it’s simply inaccurate to describe him as a dictator and Iran as a totalitarian society as SL and Adrien have done.
With a mind to the history of Iran, particularly in the last century, and the worldwide growth of religious fundamentalism in Judaism, Islam and Christianity, I am conscious of the fact that Iran, which Israel and the US demonise for their own geo-political reasons, is struggling to achieve democracy and embrace modernity at the same time as being fearful and rejecting of what it understandably sees as Western aggression, destabilisation, unacceptable meddling allied to societies marked by a destructive spiritual anomie.
In that context, I was quite happy without having a crush or anything on hearing and the world being given the opportunity to hear what Ahmadinejad had to say..
And as it turned out it was pretty non-inflammatory except perhaps mainly to people blinded by US State Department propaganda.
Oh, and it was also very interesting.
Posey, yuk, working over the Christmas break? Hope you get time in lieu later.
I can’t deny that Ahmedinejad’s message was interesting. And there was absolutely nothing to offend in the speech itself. Actually, the interesting thing looking at all the speeches on Dave’s website is the similar tenor of them. Many years ago, I sat in a synagogue and listened to a sermon, and was reminded very much of church services at school. “Same-same but different” as they say in South East Asia. Reading these speeches was similar .
Ahmedinejad is not a dictator; he is democratically elected, and his position will again come up for reelection next year. It is positive that he is the first President who is not a cleric since the Revolution. But Iran is not a place renowned for its freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of sexuality, freedom of association etc). [On the other hand, the observance of human rights were not much better under the Shah, who was not democratically elected, but was reinstated and supported by the US...]
What makes Ahmedinejad look like a nut job in the eyes of the West , I suppose, are his anti-Semitic statements and sentiments (although I should note that he denies them). Certainly, he hosted a Holocaust denial conference, at which there were people whom I would classify as dyed-in-the-wool nut jobs (the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, for example).
On a personal level, I find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and it is hard for me to take a man who seems to espouse such a theory seriously. Nonetheless there is a shrewd political purpose behind any anti-Semitic statements; namely, to increase the standing of Iran and Sunni Muslims in the Arab world by standing up to the dominance of the US and Israel. Indeed, Ahmedinejad’s speech, while not offensive in any way, says, “If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly He would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers.” The inference is clear.
I’m not going to get into a deep debate on Middle Eastern politics here, but no one has covered themselves in glory in the way they have conducted themselves in the Middle East, whether it be the US, Israel, Palestinians, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Egypt etc, etc. None of those nations can point the finger at another nation without a high degree of hypocrisy. And none can talk of peace and loving one’s fellow humans in any meaningful way unless it is acknowledged that each of these nations has waged war and made other human beings suffer.
I’m not going to get into a deep debate on Middle Eastern politics here, but no one has covered themselves in glory in the way they have conducted themselves in the Middle East, whether it be the US, Israel, Palestinians, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Egypt etc, etc. None of those nations can point the finger at another nation without a high degree of hypocrisy. And none can talk of peace and loving one’s fellow humans in any meaningful way unless it is acknowledged that each of these nations has waged war and made other human beings suffer.
Good stuff LE. The whole debate is a shambles and only continues the bloodshed. Endless finger pointing and claims of moral superiority are hardly going to create a solution. I have no idea what the solution is. In my darker days I don’t think there will ever be a resolution to that whole damn region. Years ago I used to joke with friends: fence all those nations off, set up some geo stationary satellite, ban all those countries from our weapons, and then watch them beat each other to death with clubs and sticks. The best reality TV show ever.
Shades of The Running Man…
I’ve always wished to lock up militants and terrorists in a room to fight it out amongst themselves so that they don’t bother ordinary people just trying to live their lives any more. The problem is that the longer a dispute like this goes on, the more ordinary people are polarised, and start to believe that the “other side” is to blame and should be wiped out. So it would be hard to work out who should be in the room and who should be out of it.
The latest Gaza conflict fills me with despair; I do not believe it will achieve the aim of curbing Hamas militants. Rather it will just increase hatred of Israel because innocent civilians and children are dying in the attacks…a surefire way to convert the relatives of those who died into militants themselves. And Hamas will feel totally justified in its attacks against Israeli civilians. And so it goes on…
Posey – And it’s simply inaccurate to describe him as a dictator and Iran as a totalitarian society as SL and Adrien have done.
Yes it would be inaccurate if such a description had been made. I believe Skeptic said he was dictatorial. John Howard was also dictatorial. Being dictatorial doesn’t make one a dictator.
Likewise Iran is not a totalitarian state. It is a confusing mixture of theocracy, illiberal democracy and military dictatorship that have even experts confused over how things actually run there.
I didn’t say that Iran was totalitarian. I made specific comments on its theocratic practices and Mr Ahmadinejad’s views and attitudes which I believe are accurate. I believe that Mr Ahmadinejad is part of the problem not the solution. That the American Neocons are likewise part of the problem. That Mr Ahmadinejad and his ilk are in a state of mutual hostility with these latter does not make him the ‘good guy’.
The territory of geopolitical conflict is rarely as smooth and straightforward as the topology of classical Westerns. Everyone wears a black hat.
This is illustrated by the possibility that if the CIA hadn’t nixed Mossadegh in ’53 we might never’ve had to deal with this bullshit. Iran might actually be a functional place.
Oh well. Live and learn. (Or not).
Iran is not totalitarian but it is autocratic. The proof of both propositions can be found in this interview with Samira Makhmalbaf viz her film Blackboards.
The contemporary Iranian cinema is like Italian Neo-Realism. Harsh and beautiful and necessary. That Makhmalbaf can make films proves that Iran isn’t totalitarian, that she makes these films proves, however, that it is Fubaria.
Blackboards check it out.
Skeptic, you think teaching underprivileged kids in the UK was tough? Luxury.
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