A dear longtime friend and I recently had a clash of
ideas. She described the opening
ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London as being “hideous…disjointed…amateurish…some
Mickey Mouse production.” She later
added that the ceremonies were like watching an ant farm in her living room and
that political statements about healthcare have no business being part of the
Olympics. Such accusations reveal a cultural milieu where literacy and its
concomitant partners, effective communication and mutual understanding, have
gone awry. Naturally, the only thing to
do is to shed some British light on this American misunderstanding.
The last time that England hosted the Olympic Games
was in 1948. In that year, the National
Health Service was officially started, against considerable opposition and at a
time when the country experienced severe financial difficulties as a consequence of WWII.
It is now acknowledged by all informed people in
Great Britain that the NHS has turned out to be an outstanding success, by any
measure, which is in part demonstrated by the fact that only eight per cent of
the population take out private medical insurance, despite its offering a
fully comprehensive range of services.
I have observed that it has been UK government
policy never to preach to others on its National Health scheme. If individuals do so, including the media, it
is entirely on their own back.
The British Commonwealth comprises 54 nations, with
a total population of roughly two billion people. This entirely voluntary membership has a
primary basis in cultural exchanges—nothing more.
It was decided by the organizers of the Olympics
2012 that the NHS should be saluted as the cultural success that it is, and
this could be appreciated by the two billion Commonwealth people, a
huge audience by any standard of measure. While there are considerable exchanges of cultural
ideas within this Commonwealth, outside of it Great Britain would certainly not
use the Games to provide any sort of message, nor would the organizers be
particularly interested in doing so, as evidenced by what was theatre playtime
with Mary Poppins. The organizers,
however, did want to move away from “bigger and bigger,” and stated explicitly
that the cauldron was not to be bigger than the Beijing cauldron, although they
could have easily done this. Instead, a
demonstration of engineering ingenuity was substituted.
If you want big, well there is the largest McDonalds
in the world currently at the Olympic site.
The parachuting in of the “Queen” was a deliberate
move away from pomposity.
Great Britain today is an extremely rich society
with what it has to offer in cultural values, which it is prepared to share
with its other 53 Commonwealth countries, but only on mutual agreement.
The days of imperialism have long since gone, and
with it any desire to give any other country a message on how they should
conduct their affairs in peacetime.
Anyone who takes such an interpretive view might want to consider the
reasons for his or her own emotional response to the issue of healthcare.
As they say in England, “Sorry you’ve been troubled.”
It was announced today in the Express, Sunday, July 29, 2012, that
the Olympic crowd for men’s cycling was the largest of any sporting event ever
held in the world up until now. The
organization required for this alone in a major international city is enormous. Mickey would have been delighted, if not
overwhelmed, by such a compliment.
By the way, in the event that some might believe
that I am biased toward the English, please know that this blog has been written by an American with
French roots beginning in Louisiana in 1720, English and Irish roots in 1820,
and my last roots, German, by 1850. I’d
like to claim, therefore, that the very spirit of independence is expressed in
my views.
