Britain's Identity Crisis and the Role of Television

The article discusses how these television programs reflect and address a deeper national identity crisis in Britain. This crisis is particularly poignant in a year of patriotic celebrations like the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics.

Quote: "Britain has had - after decades of avoiding the question - to start facing up to the problem that it has little common idea of who on earth it actually is."

The author notes that it's significant and characteristically British that this process of national self-examination is primarily taking place through television rather than through official institutions.

Highlight: Television plays a uniquely important role in British culture, serving as a medium for addressing sensitive topics and fostering national bonding.

The article concludes by comparing Britain's use of television for national soul-searching to how other cultures might use late-night discussions or religious institutions to address societal issues.

Example: "Some cultures stay up all night talking and drinking to deal with their problems, others turn to the church - the British switch on the TV."

This observation underscores the central role of television in British society as a means of confronting difficult historical legacies and contemporary challenges related to national identity and multiculturalism.

Television as a Medium for National Self-Reflection

The article explores how television programs are addressing Britain's colonial legacy and its impact on modern multicultural society. The show "Make Bradford British" tackles the challenges of integration in a diverse community.

Vocabulary: Self-flagellation - The act of criticizing or punishing oneself, often excessively.

The program "Empire" takes a self-critical approach, describing the empire as one "on which the blood never dried." It aims not just to catalog imperial misdeeds but to show how understanding the empire is crucial to understanding modern Britain.

Definition: Guilt trip - A journey or experience characterized by feelings of guilt or remorse.

"Make Bradford British" uses a reality show format to explore ethnic and religious conflicts in one of Britain's most diverse towns. It brings together people from various backgrounds to confront their differences and find common ground.

Highlight: Participants struggle to define what it means to be British, reflecting a broader national identity crisis.

The British Empire: Confronting a Complex Legacy

The article discusses how Britain is grappling with its imperial past through television programs, highlighting the nation's reluctance to address its colonial history. Two shows, "Empire" and "Make Bradford British," attempt to confront this historical amnesia and explore its impact on modern British identity.

Highlight: The history of the empire is conspicuously absent from the British school curriculum.

The author reflects on their own education, noting how British schools often skip over the empire's history, focusing instead on less controversial topics. This avoidance is attributed to the potential for conflict in multicultural classrooms.

Example: Teachers preferred to focus on "the evils of Hitler and the greatness of Martin Luther King" rather than addressing how some students' ancestors ruled over others.

The BBC documentary "Empire" aims to confront Britain's colonial past critically, exploring both the negative aspects and the empire's lasting influence on British identity.

Quote: "The country we live in the United Kingdom is an imperial creation. It's to the empire that we owe our sense of ourselves as somehow special."