VIEWPOINT

God's own propaganda

GEORGE GALE

Last Sunday I was one of the many—of the too many—who appeared on Malcolm Muggeridge's television programme The Question Why. At the end of the pro- gramme, after we had been faded out while an American demonstrator (picked, I reckon, because of his appearance) kept going on and on and on, the question most of us were left discussing was, 'Why did we agree to appear on The Question Why?' The other question we asked ourselves was, What is the point of The Question Why?'

We reached, I report, no conclusions satisfying to ourselves. Now I have no desire to usurp the role of television critic; and anyway no one would dream of seeking from a performer, however humble, a use- ful opinion of a performance; and indeed purists might regard it as churlish if not treacherous when such a performer turns on the performance and attacks it.

That, however, is what, in part I am going to do. I am strengthened in this resolve by the unanimous opinion of those who saw this programme and have discussed it with me. Their opinion is the same as that of us participants. In brief, the general conclusion is that The Question Why is a waste of time.

The audience, quite properly, feels that the issue has been evaded, or fudged. The participants feel likewise. And participants and audience alike are right. The issue has been fudged and in the fudging evaded: nor can this be otherwise, when eight or ten people are expected to discuss a com- plicated and contentious issue. The odd thing is that after the programme you can ask and ask and ask for an adequate explanation of why eight or ten people are dragged into a discussion programme which in every conceivable respect save one would be better—that is, more intelligent, more interesting, more valuable—if no more than four participants were involved: and you will get no satisfactory answer.

The programme each week treats of a serious question and, what is more, Muggeridge, in his very stylish and beauti- fully contrived and remembered and con- trolled introductions, sets out to treat each serious question seriously and, indeed, high-mindedly. This might well induce the innocent viewer to suppose that the ensuing discussion was also serious.

This, however, it cannot be and is not. Too many people have been invited to take part and each has his say: but each man's say is so short that no man says what he hoped to say, and each man's say is drowned in the next man's. There is no true conversation: there is no time for this to develop; nor is there any true argument or discussion. Instead there are a handful of assertions, punctuated by snappy little sermons, delivered by Muggeridge or one of his apparently obligatory clergymen.

Last Sunday, for instance, when we might With great interest and to our general advantage have listened to Professor Hugh revor-Roper and Mr Robert Conquest two of the participants) discussing the part ayed by demonstrations in Nazi Germany rid Stalinist Russia, and the use Made by

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Hitler and Stalin of such demonstrations, we were given some trite Muggeridge guff about Palm Sunday, 'the greatest of all demos'. An uncollared cleric chimed in with stuff about Christ kicking the money- lenders out the Temple: and a collared cleric said something about the police never interfering with his demonstrations for Jesus.

The more perspicacious (and persevering) of my readers, together with those who are knowing about television, will realise, of course, that The Question Why goes out during the so-called 'Holy Hour' and is part of the religious programmes output of the BBC. When I wrote that the programme would be better in every respect sare one if no more than four participants were involved, I was hinting at what I must now assert: that the programme is propagandist. In this respect it may well, I regret, succeed.

The object of the programme is, I suspect, to show that Christians are concerned as much as, if not more than, anybody else with the issues of the day. The programme will not, however, wish to reach a conclu- sion which might be distasteful or aggravat- ing to established Christians in authority. The best way to avoid this possibility is to make it impossible for any conclusion to be reached. The enterprise upon which we were all variously engaged last Sunday was not to come to any agreement about the place of demonstrations in a country with representative parliamentary institutions, but to demonstrate that the Church cared about demonstrations. The week before, they talked about education. The purpose then was to demonstrate that the Church cared about education.

I do not wish to suggest that the thing has been worked out quite as brutally as this. It may have been. It may not. Muggeridge, who is now moving with undoubted splendid majesty towards either the triumphant apocalpyse of his intellectual apostasy or the apogee of his dotage, would not, I think, engage in anything as sordid as a conspiracy with the religious bosses in the BBC to foist a cheat upon the public. He is a kind and good man, and a witty man, and if his intelligence, like others of his virtues, is not what it was, this is no reason to find him guilty of a mean and sordid endeavour to subvert the public.

The trouble is, that to acquit him of such an offensive endeavour is to find him guilty of folly. This is frequently the case, of course. Any man engaged in propaganda, if knowingly, is to be regarded with suspicion as a liar; and if unknowingly, then as a fool or dupe. It may well be asked, 'What, then, if this is your attitude towards The Question Why, were you doing appearing on it?'; and to tell the truth I would be hard pressed to give an answer. Not the money, certainly—one advantage to the sac of the programme appearing during the Holy Hour is that religious rates of pay are notoriously low. Is it then the fleeting fame? I suppose this is the temptation.

It is not a programme on which I would appear again, unless its form were radically changed. I imagine that few people would appear, if asked, more than twice, except for clergymen. It is, in fact, one of their shows. It is their biz.

And at this point I am left with the reflection of how successful the church is at getting free advertising. It gets far more than the political parties. Every Sunday it has its Holy Hour, and until quite recently every night used to have its Epilogue.

Daily, statements of opinion are uttered as if they were indubitable statements of fact.

No political party would dare to make the kind of statement the Church and its propagandists daily make. We enjoy talking, in superior fashion, of how the poor com- munists in their countries are brainwashed. From birth to the grave we are brain- washed by the Church. The amount of free advertising that the Church gets must surely make every song-plugger green with envy.

The Church, for reasons best known to itself (and probably very excellent reasons, too), wishes to disguise some of the Holy Hour Sunday programmes as entertainment or current affairs. I greatly fear that people like m■self who take part in programmes like The Question Why have become partners in this deceitful endeavour. We must learn to be more careful.

Much better to enjoy, as I do, straight- forward stuff like Songs of Praise, a wholly unexceptionable sac programme, which, I fancy, follows Muggeridge. On the commercial channel last Sunday I am informed that a religious programme called Stars on Sunday was the equivalent of Songs of Praise. Some children's choir sang `I'm getting better, better every day' to a paraplegic from Ipswich and someone paralysed from Hitchin. Bad enough; but worse, so I am reliably informed, was to come. Harry Secombe (in what was pre- sumably a pre-recorded snippet) was made to appear singing Rock of Ages to the Abergele Chest Hospital. Lines from that celebrated hymn include

While I draw this fleeting breath When my eyelids close in death.

Only on a religious programme would someone think of singing that to the Abergele Chest Hospital.