India

Oh brother
Jan 19th 2007 Economist.com. A row over reality TV says more about class than race - or does it?

MORE magazines documenting the ups and, better, the downs of celebrities are sold in Britain than anywhere else, relative to the size of its population. The reasons given for the country’s vast appetite for celebrity vary from the historical (Brits like having a class system and have created a new one on the embers of the old) to the sociological (people no longer know their neighbours well enough and so gossip about famous lives instead). The result is benign, most of the time. British celebrity culture is tolerant: ethnic minorities and homosexuals feature prominently. And it is democratic: no discernible talent is needed to enter the aristocracy of celebrity.

Not this week, though, when the unpleasant, even racist, treatment of Shilpa Shetty, an Indian actress, on Celebrity Big Brother, a reality-television show, has been at the top of news bulletins. The format of the programme resembles a performance at the Circus Maximus, though with the lions given the week off. Ms Shetty herself has said that her bullying was not racist in the fully fledged sense of the word. Instead, it showed something of how British society is changing thanks to globalisation. The television programme put a wealthy, well-spoken Indian together with some white working-class Brits, who decided that she was not just different from them, but more upper class. One called her a princess, and meant it as an insult. All of which should, if the sociologists are right, inject new life into Britain’s fascination with celebrity

TONY PERRY remembers the first time he saw a black child. So exotic did the baby seem in mid-1950s Dagenham that locals flocked to see what they described, without malice, as a “piccaninny”. These days, strangers of all hues are moving to the working-class neighbourhood in east London. The white natives, who blame everything from stabbings to the difficulty of obtaining public housing on immigrants, are not pleased. Many of Mr Perry's friends talk about leaving. What is worse, the new arrivals are more qualified and have better prospects than the people among whom they have settled.

Apart from election campaigns, when rising support for far-right political parties in areas such as Dagenham causes alarm, the traditional working class is largely overlooked. When politicians say that some communities are failing to integrate with mainstream society, they mean Muslims from the Indian subcontinent. When campaigners complain that schools are failing some children, they often cite black boys. Yet the nation's most troubled group, in both absolute and relative terms, is poor, white and British-born.

The troubles begin at school. Last year white teenagers entitled to free school meals—the poorest tenth—did worse in crucial GCSE examinations than equally poor members of any other ethnic or racial group (see chart). In the borough of Barking and Dagenham, the contrast is sharper still. Just 32% of all white children there got five “good” GCSEs last year, compared with 39% of blacks and 52% of Asians. In Leicester, just 24% of whites got five decent GCSEs.

Excerpt from Sweet Sixteen by Ken Loach
Opening in Greenock, a rundown town near Glasgow, "Sweet Sixteen" follows teenager Liam (Compston) as he struggles to prepare for the release of his ex-heroin addict mum from prison
Desperate to try and build them a proper family home, Liam needs money. And fast. Muscling in on his mum's boyfriend's drug business, Liam and his pal Pinball (Ruane) set themselves up as dealers (BBC Review).

Filmen er en skildring af den kulturelle fattigdoms problemer og en bitter kommentar til de nemme løsninger. Liams forsøg på at skabe sig en forretning er udtryk for, at han forsøger at leve op til Thatchertidens opskrift, at man kan starte virksomhed, hvis man er arbejdsløs. Der er en plads til alle ved samfundets bord. Der blev ikke plads til Liam, selv om han er en dygtig fyr, der forstår at udnytte den økonomiske kriminalitets krinkelkroge til at skabe sig noget, der i hvert fald en periode på det økonomiske plan ligner en succesrig tilværelse. Han forsøger selv at løse sine problemer på markedsmæssiggørelsens og kommodificeringens tilsyneladende betingelser (Jf. uddrag af filmens script herunder, hvor han og kammeraten Pinball først slæger views i stjernekikkert og senere cigaretter (fags) på en pub.)

Filmen førte til en ophedet debat om censur i England p.g.a. sproget.
Sproget bruges forskelligt i de sociale klasser, jvf skemaet. Det er naturligvis en ret skematisk måde at opgøre det på, og denne inddeling i klassesprogskoder har været udsat for en del kritik. Det er imidlertid givet, at der er nogle forskelle. Man ser da også mange forfattere benytte sig bevidst af disse forskelle til at sige noget om personerne og deres sociale baggrund. TOP

Ordforklaring: Elaboreret og begrænset kode: Den engelske sociolingvist Basil Bernsteins måde at beskrive forskelle på de to sprogkoder: Den elaborerede kode er konstekstubunden, dvs den, der lytter, kan forstå, hvad der siges, uden at kende til hele baggrunden. I den begrænsede kode kan det være svært at forstå, hvad der henvises til, idet der benyttes formuleringer som ”Og så røg bolden derind” (hvorind? Det forventes, den lyttende ved, hvad der tales om).

In spite of centuries of confident talk about him, a halo of mystery still surrounds Jesus, whose birth we celebrate tomorrow. A great theologian of the early 20th century said of him: 'He comes to us as one unknown, without a name.' …. I think there are three powerful elements in what we know about his teaching that are enduringly important and have lessons for us today. The first was his attitude towards the laws and customs by which we have chosen to organise ourselves. He did not believe they should be afforded absolute, unchanging authority over us. They were created to assist us in leading the good life, but he knew that if they were not held lightly, and with a shrewd appreciation of their provisional nature, they could easily became stupid and tyrannous.

He wanted us to be on the alert for the moment when human welfare was served not by conforming to, but by abandoning such codes. This was the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan, who violated a central prohibition of his religion by going to the aid of a Jew who had fallen among thieves.

This is a simple insight, but it has profoundly radical consequences for public life. For example, if it were being applied to Britain's misguided drug laws, five young women from Ipswich would be alive today. Forcing addicts to sell their bodies to feed their addiction, when we could prescribe them heroin and help them manage their lives better, is to accord higher value to an arbitrary law than to the sacredness of human life itself. This was the kind of cruel folly of which Jesus was witheringly critical. Historically, it is the most vulnerable members of society who have been the traditional victims of this kind of theoretical intransigence, and TOP contemporary Britain affords many examples of its continuing power over us. …..

THE truck driver arrested yesterday over the Ipswich ripper murders is said to be a regular user of prostitutes. One hooker told how Steve Wright was a regular client who paid her for sex about three times a month but also used a string of other girls. And a neighbour revealed the 48-year-old sneaked vice girls into his home for sex behind partner Pamela's back - often picking them up after driving her to work.

A heroin addict named Lou, 28, said she last saw Wright three weeks ago when she charged him her usual £40 rate for full sex.She said: "I'd describe him as a regular customer, someone who has been picking up girls for the last eight months or so.

"I know he uses lots of different prostitutes but I don't know if they include any of the ones who were murdered.

"You often see him driving round in his blue Mondeo looking for girls even if he had picked you the night before. He didn't strike me as weird and never gave me any reason to believe I was in danger.

Evening Star Comments section April 07

Figur 1 : Udvikling i indkomstfordeling (gini-koefficient) for disponibel indkomst. Formuefordeling (til højre)

Figur 2 : Gini-koefficienten (Danmark): Areal mellem 45-grader linje (fuldstændig lige indkomstfordeling) og blå linje TOP (Lorenzkurve) divideret med hele arealet under 45 graders linje

State nannies to be sent in to target 'at risk' families, the Independent 18 March 07

Jailed fathers of young children can expect their families to be automatically targeted by state-sponsored nannies in a dramatic escalation of "early intervention" policies to be unveiled by Tony Blair this week.

The state should step in to turn around young lives at the first sign they are becoming blighted by crime, poverty, violence and drug abuse, Mr Blair will say.

If a parent is sent to jail, families could be given a period of "intensive home visits" by health visitors, suggest officials.

In making the state responsible for the delivery of "bespoke" packages for "at-risk" families, Mr Blair hopes to draw a dividing line between the Government and David Cameron's Tories.

Mr Cameron, meanwhile, will today claim his party backs the NHS "heart and soul", while promising to free the health service from ministerial control. In a speech at his party's spring conference in Nottingham he will contrast Labour's "mania for controlling and directing things from the centre" and "pessimism about human nature" with his determination to "put people back at the heart of the NHS".

The Tory leader has called for a "social responsibility" revolution in which private firms, voluntary bodies and citizens take control of the delivery of public services. Mr Blair, on the other hand, is leaving No 10 insisting that the state should step up its efforts to provide better-quality services. The Prime Minister will suggest that tens of thousands of families should receive "makeovers" designed to change every aspect of the behaviour holding them in poverty.

On Tuesday, ministers will launch a review expanding existing policies aimed at identifying potential troublemakers in the womb, with home visits for "vulnerable" mothers over a two-year period...... TOP

Centralt i faget står et diakront og synkront kendskab til engelsktalende områder og deres kulturelle særegenheder. Der kan være tale om viden om historie og udvikling, politisk og kulturelt i forbindelse med en forståelse af vores egen kultur og dens sammenhæng med strømninger i engelsksprogede lande. Ligesom ældre tekster naturligt indgår i det supplerende stof for at sikre en viden om den kulturelle og litteraturhistoriske baggrund, er nyere tekster et udtryk for litterære, kulturelle og erkendelsesmæssige udviklingstendenser, som er nødvendige for at erhverve en forståelse af egne grundvilkår og forståelse af egen samtid.

Litterære tekster giver en impressionistisk indgangsvinkel, mens ikke-litterære tekster ofte kan forklare nogle årsagssammenhænge. Derfor kan der ofte med fordel inddrages andre teksttyper end rent litterære i arbejdet for at kunne etablere en overordnet historisk-kulturel sammenhæng.

I arbejdet med nyere tekster vil det være relevant at inddrage moderne retninger, som kan være med til at sætte tilværelsen i perspektiv. Her tænkes på indholdsmæssige emner som for eksempel postmodernismen og globaliseringen, som den kommer til udtryk gennem den såkaldte rygsækrejselitteratur

Sweet Sixteen Script (From start, where Liam and Pinball sell views of stars: )

State nannies to be sent in to target 'at risk' families, the Independent 18 March 07