England's Shaken Identity
Welcome to England, a nation with centuries of history and culture. As an island race we are supposed to have true morals and deep feelings. Perhaps it is still true. But the past few days have stretched faith in our national identity to the limit.
There is a TV show in this country where unknown celebrities are paid silly money to live together for a few weeks and be watched on camera every hour of the day and night. As a concept, it is crushingly dull. So the producers deliberately pick extrovert participants with strong opinions, rampant sex appeal and very loud mouths. This tends to liven things up.
The language quickly becomes crude. The contestants make love or war or both. And the ratings rocket. Celebrity Big Brother - heard of it? - is ghastly. It makes Fox News look like a bunch of cuddly liberals. And last week, it reached rock bottom when one of the contestants made vile racist remarks about another.
The programme was condemned by theologians and politicians alike. Even the Prime Minister intervened. And, addicts that we are, the ratings rocketed higher still.
Meantime at a seaside beach on England's South coast, we were also disgracing ourselves. The storms forced a huge cargo ship aground. The tide carried many of its containers ashore. And the washed up containers were systematically looted by baying mobs armed with crow bars and trucks to carry the bounty away. There were people stealing everything from motor bikes to babies' diapers. The only commodity they left behind was a container full of bibles. It made a much better beach bonfire.
Racial abuse is a serious crime. Theft can send you to prison. But nobody is under arrest this morning. Throughout the last few days, the English police just stood by and did nothing. They merely said they were 'monitoring' events in the Big Brother House -- and on the beach, policemen were even filmed handing out special forms to the looters so they could report what they were in the process of stealing. Not many of these forms have yet been returned. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. I am. Ed Boyle, CBS News in London.
By Ed Boyle