HISTORY AND AMNESIA
I watched a programme last night about the TV series "Roots". People talking about the effect it had on them and their peers at the time. I too remember watching and enjoying it, though to be honest it was well acted hokum. What I remember most was the reaction of the Americans to this piece of entertainment. "We never knew that!" "It's hard to believe that such terrible things happened in the land of the free", etc.
Well how could they not know? I knew about it as a kid living thousands of miles away. But, in last night's programme, British contributors of Afro-Caribbean origin, descendants of slaves, described how they had had their eyes opened by "Roots". They were recovering their lost history in watching this entertainment.
Maybe it was living in the birthplace of Wilberforce that gave me an advantage. The struggle to abolish slavery and its attendant evils was a story well known to Hull schoolchildren. We had Wilberforce House to visit, where we could gaze on the instruments and implements of subjugation and control. Alongside these manacles, shackles, hooks, barbs, etc., were illustrations of how they were applied. Semi-clothed captives and field workers were depicted writhing under the lash or dangling from trees secured by one limb or another. We had seen it all long before Alex Haley's work was filmed.
Later there was "The Holocaust". Today there is only one holocaust, THE Holocaust. If you asked anyone today the meaning of the word I reckon most would say that it was what Hitler did to the Jews. I imagine the latest edition of the OED will feature something of the sort as one definition of the word. And all because of one rather poor TV serial. Again the American reaction was "We knew nothing of this". How the hell did they miss it (the genocide not the TV show)?
While I wonder at people's ignorance, speculating whether it is wilful, I remember a similar gap in my own knowledge. I had never heard of the Amritsar massacre before it featured in the film "Gandhi". When the film came out, as I recall, a lot of Colonel Blimp types emerged from their deep armchairs to deny that the massacre ever took place, or to accuse Richard Attenborough of exaggeration. The exaggeration line was taken up by our monarch's consort, ever the diplomat, on a visit to Amritsar not long ago.
The annoying thing is that I'd read a great deal about India's history as a lad, my interest awakened by the photographs and souvenirs my father brought back from his stint in the 14th Army during World War II. I suppose Amritsar was not yet acknowledged in the history books, particularly those directed at the young.
And the moral of the story ... when we read history we should always ask what has been left out; just as when we listen to a politician, we listen to what (s)he is not saying, because what (s)he is saying is worthless.

The Office of Fair Trading is to investigate excessive bank charges. I anticipate another voluntary code from our business-friendly government.