A NEWSLETTER reaches my desk today from a group who call themselves the Supporters of Democracy in Iraq — or SODI for short.
They claim that President Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who maintains his power through torture and intimidation.
Well, I’ve got some words of advice for this silly bunch of SODIs:
check your facts!
It’s not often that a television programme can make me feel physically sick, but last night was an exception.
Can there be anyone in the country whose stomach did not turn over, as we watched Saddam Hussein on the
Nine O’clock News,
parading the so-called ‘hostages’ he is wickedly proposing to use as a human shield?
Who is responsible for the social welfare programmes which have brought such massive improvements in housing, education and medical services throughout Iraq?
Who has recently given the Iraqis pension rights and a minimum wage?
This was one image that will stay with me for the rest of my life: the spectacle of a defenceless and clearly terrified child being mauled and pawed by one of the most vicious and ruthless dictators to hold power anywhere in the world today.
Who has installed new and more efficient irrigation and drainage systems, made generous loans to local farmers, and promised ‘health for all’ by the year 2000?
If any good at all can come from such a revolting display, it will be to make the so-called ‘peace’ lobby come to their senses and realize that we can’t just sit back and allow this Mad Dog of the Middle East to get away scot-free with his terrible crimes.
Who has no less a figure than President Reagan ordered to be removed from the list of political leaders accused of supporting terrorism?
And who else, out of all the Middle Eastern leaders, has put his moolah where his mouth is and called on so many
British
builders and industrialists to help with the rebuilding of his country?
It’s not just the invasion of Kuwait I’m talking about. The whole eleven-year presidency of Saddam Hussein is one long, sickening history of torture, brutality, intimidation and murder. Anyone who doesn’t believe me should take a look at some of the information leaflets published by SODI (Supporters of Democracy in Iraq).
That’s right — it’s ‘brutal’, ‘torturing’ Saddam Hussein.
Come off it, SODI! It’s those barking Ayatollahs you should be complaining about. Life in Iraq may not be perfect, but it’s better now than it has been for a long, long time.
So lay off Saddam. I say he’s a man we can do business with.
There can be no doubt about it: the time for moral fudging is over; the time for action is here.
Let us pray that President Bush and Mrs Thatcher understand that. And let us pray, too, that the brave, plucky little boy we saw on our television screens last night will live to forget his meeting with the evil Butcher of Baghdad.
Fiona finished reading and looked at me for a few seconds. ‘I’m not sure that I understand,’ she said.
Hilary
In the summer of 1969, shortly before they went up to Oxford together, Hugo Beamish invited his best friend Roddy Winshaw to stay with his family for a few weeks. They lived in a huge, cluttered, slightly dirty house in North West London. Roddy’s sister Hilary was invited too. She was fifteen.
Hilary found the whole thing excruciatingly tedious. It was perhaps marginally better than spending the summer in Tuscany with her parents (again!), but Hugo’s mother and father turned out to be almost as dull — she was a writer, he worked at the BBC — while his sister, Alicia, was nothing but a crashing bore with buck teeth and terrible spots.
Alan Beamish was a kindly man who noticed quickly enough that Hilary wasn’t enjoying herself. One night as they all sat around the dinner table, with Roddy and Hugo loudly discussing their respective career options, he watched her pushing a mound of tepid pasta around her plate and asked a sudden question:
‘And what do you see yourself doing in ten years’ time, I wonder?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Hilary hadn’t given this matter much thought, taking it for granted (rightly, of course) that something glamorous and well-paid would sooner or later fall into her lap. Besides, she hated the idea of sharing her aspirations with these people. ‘I thought I might go into television,’ she improvised, lazily.
‘Well you know of course that Alan is a producer,’ said Mrs Beamish.
Hilary didn’t know this. She had got him down as a company accountant or at best some sort of engineer. Even so, she was not in the least impressed: but from that moment on, Alan, for his part, chose to take Hilary under his wing.
‘Do you know the secret of success in the television business?’ he asked her, late one afternoon. ‘It’s very simple. You have to watch it, that’s all. You have to watch it all the time.’
Hilary nodded. She never watched television. She knew she was too good for it.
‘Now I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Alan.
What they were going to do, it transpired — much to Hilary’s horror — was to sit down in front of the television and take in an entire evening’s viewing, with Alan talking her through every programme, explaining how it was made, how much it cost, why it had been scheduled at a certain time, and where its target audience lay.
‘Scheduling is everything,’ he said. ‘A programme stands or falls by its scheduling. Understand that, and you’ll already have a march on all the other bright young graduates you’ll be competing with.’
They started off with the news on BBCI at ten to six, followed by a magazine programme called Town and Around. Then they switched channels to ITV and watched The Saint, with Roger Moore.
‘This is the kind of show the independent companies do best,’ said Alan. ‘Very sellable abroad: even to America. High production values, lots of location work. Snappy direction, too. It’s all a bit shallow, for my liking, but I wouldn’t knock it.’
Hilary yawned. At seven twenty-five they watched something about a Scottish doctor and his housemaid, which all seemed very slow and provincial to her. Alan explained that this was one of the most popular programmes on television. Hilary had never heard of it.
‘They’ll be discussing this storyline in every pub, office and factory in Britain tomorrow,’ he said. ‘That’s the great thing about television: it’s one of the fibres that holds the country together. It collapses class distinctions and helps create a sense of national identity.’
He was equally lyrical about the next two programmes: a documentary called The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and another news bulletin at nine o’clock, this one lasting a quarter of an hour.
‘The BBC is respected the world over for the quality and fair-mindedness of its news coverage. Thanks to the World Service, you can tune in a radio almost anywhere on the globe and be sure to hear impartial, authoritative bulletins, mixed in with lighter programmes which maintain the highest standards in music and entertainment. It’s one of our greatest post-war achievements.’
Until now Hilary had merely been bored, but at this point things started to go rapidly downhill. She was made to sit through a dreadful comedy show called Nearest and Dearest, full of coarse jokes which had the studio audience screeching with vulgar laughter, and then they saw a thing called It’s a Knockout, which featured a series of witless outdoor games. She began to squirm with rage and embarrassment. Unconsciously, she channelled her agitation through her fingertips by reaching across to a fruit bowl next to the sofa and plucking off grape after grape: she would peel each one with her tapered fingernail before popping it into her mouth. A little pile of the skins started to form on her lap.