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3 hours ago
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I’m afraid it’s time for another of Channel 4’s “social experiments”. That’s publicly-owned-channel-still-expected-to-resist-rush-to-lowest-common-denominator TV-speak for what would elsewhere be known as “a new reality show”.
Go Back to Where You Came From takes six “opinionated Brits” – “people with strong opinions about immigration” or “racists”, depending on whom you listen to out of the cacophony of criticism with which the announcement and broadcast of this programme has been greeted – and sends half of them to Syria and the rest to Somalia to experience what people there are fleeing from when they come to Britain, and the perilous journeys they undertake to get here. You can probably intuit that there is much to unpack and query.
But first, let’s meet the contestants, which is what they are in all but name – competing, in effect, to undergo the most satisfying emotional and ideological overhaul by the end of the series.
Dave is a chef, lives in Nottingham and suggests lining the coast with landmines to stop small boats crossing. “It’s like rats – leave food out, they’ll keep coming.” Jess, a sports coach from Wales and self-described “only gay in the village”, thinks “the people coming over here are rapists, paedophiles … I know my opinion is right and I know people will agree with me”. Nathan, a haulage contractor in Barnsley, reckons his children “will be going to work on a fucking camel” if the government doesn’t get a grip on immigration. Chloe, a Conservative pundit who has frequently appeared on GB News, knows that “my views are just common sense. In 10 years’ time, Britain’s going to be full of people wearing burqas. Islam will have taken over.”
Mathilda, a humanitarian podcaster with experience of working in refugee camps abroad, thinks people have been manipulated by rightwing politicians and media and hopes to challenge Dave et al’s perceptions. Bushra, a Muslim woman and small-business owner from Surrey, thinks “a large portion of British people are as thick as shit. They are ignorant and … I am not the person you want to be having those ridiculous racist and Islamophobic conversations with.” Channel 4 is distancing itself from recent tweets by Bushra calling European Jews “lying scumbags” and asking: “Anyone else questioning everything you were told about Jewish history?” and other similar sentiments.
Life is complicated, isn’t it? Can it be simplified and people educated by sending them to Raqqa and Mogadishu for a few days then back to Britain via traditional migrant routes? Let’s see. While Nathan foghorns his way round a local marketplace, wondering why a small African nation devastated by decades of civil war and under constant threat from Al-Shabaab doesn’t have the wherewithal to keep things clean and tidy, we will discuss the two major questions that have arisen so far. One – is Channel 4 empowering racists by giving them a platform? Two, is watching six people playing at being refugees (they have 24-hour security and have not lived in bombed-out buildings under constant threat of attack by Islamic State sleeper cells or in a community stricken by war, poverty and famine) likely to bring enlightenment to them, and to viewers, that counteracts the distastefulness and hint of white-saviourism of it all?
My own feeling, after watching the single episode available for review, is that allowing people to be honest about their opinions in public is a great deal better than pretending they don’t exist or requiring them to euphemise so ridiculously that they are effectively muted and thus enraged. Anyone who does not live with their head up their arse will have heard rat-type comments in ordinary life and it is stupid and cowardly not to engage with them publicly. There is no point continually preaching to the choir. If the series comprised six Mathildas, no Daves or Nathans would watch. This way, they might. If they do, they might see something that makes them think anew. If they remain unmoved (as Dave does not, by the way, though whether this lasts there is no way to tell) – well, no further harm, no further foul, I guess.
I am less sure about whether a reality show is the best way to attempt any of this. The show depends on the kindness of suffering people to dispel the ignorance and encourage the emotional growth of a handful of westerners whose experiences may or may not have a wider impact. On the other hand, we do not live in a world where rigorous discussion of facts and figures with that same handful would ever occur or have any likely impact.
Complicated indeed. I do long for the clarity of Chloe, who can look at children scavenging rubbish in Raqqa and suggest they are getting “an entrepreneurial kick out of it”. That must be nice.
