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5 February 1998 Edition

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Television: Heroes

by Sean O Donaile

El Che TnaG

Walden on Heroes: Mandela    BBC1

Ceol Na Talún RTE 1

Q and A

Forbidden Love    BBC1

Teilifis na Gaeilge seems to be one of Ireland's best kept secrets. Minimal space is given to it on TV listings and it disappears from view in various newspapers. Despite this, it is currently producing some of the best programmes on view, in particular its sports and music efforts.

`El Che' was an excellent documentary on the life of revolutionary Ernesto `Che' Guevara, the man who launched a million berets and the goatie beard to students. Che was a nickname given to young Ernesto by his well-to-do but liberal fatherin his early years. Guevara's mother gave free rein to Che to cure his asthma and this free spirit continued throughout his life.

Before completing his medical studies in Buenos Aires, Guevara took to the road in his `easy rider' hat and this trip had a huge impact on his life as he witnessed much poverty and destitution.

Like many a student, Che decided to save the world, except in his case he didn't do a runner on the revolution after he qualifed.

His first romance with Hilda Goder was based on romantic picnics, discussing Marx's writings, and he described his first child as an image of Mao Tse Tung. It was in the summer of `55 that he met the bauld Fidel and together with 82 volunteers they set sail for Cuba.

After almost being wiped out on landing, Che and co took to the hills and after a very successful guerrilla campaign, garnered mass support and eventually toppled dictator Batista. The restless Che was given many different roles in the new Cuba, including Director of banks, Judge, diplomat and minister of industry, which he nationalised, much to the chagrin of Uncle Sam, whose Bay of Pigs invasion he repelled in 1961.

The programme moved at a rapid rate and no sooner was he on the move again, this time to Bolivia, where the `evil dogs of war' assassinated him, and held on to his body until 1997.

Speaking of heroes, Brian Walden was busy doing a hachet job on Nelson in `Walden on Heroes: Mandela' on BBC1. `Nelson falls short of the heroes of the past' according to Walden, as he is unable to spur people to action as heroes do. He lambasts his political ineptitude and fecklessness and seems to take exception to the fact that Nelson can't stop praising the IRA, whom he regards as engaged in a great struggle against colonialism. Golly Gosh!

The excellent ``Ceol na Talún'' is another TnaG gem. It follows the everyday lives of the West Cork Gaeltacht community Cuil Aodha, home of legendary Irish composer Sean O Riada, who died from poitín at the age of 41. O Riada's son Peadar was involved in the production of this series, whose current episode ``Aiseiri'' (resurrection), follows their lives on Easter weekend. Good Friday is one of those days when the pubs are closed all day - unless there's a back door.

The good folk of Cuil Aodha don't bother with Sky Sports and carry outs aren't in fashion, as they attend the stations of the cross at the local church and go to the bog to cut some turf for the following winter, their muscles awakening from their winter slumber, mute with pain. The camera follows their lives in an unobtrusive manner as they pick the praties, discussing the local gossip and ``John the German's'' beer belly, and swing the caman in the local pairc:''twenty years a growing, twenty years a fading and twenty years when it matters most''.

Back to the seipeal for Sunday mass, where all join in the choir, which is as natural as it should be. Despite my best efforts I couldn't spot anyone down the back picking their nose or reading the Sunday World.

Politicians on RTE's Questions and Answers were having a love-in by the looks of things on Monday night as the poor audience didn't get a look in. RTE continually make the mistake of dragging out 100 or so poor souls every weekand then don't give them a chance to open their mouths. The programme lasted over an hour; 53 minutes of which was given to the waffling politicians and a whole 7 minutes to the audience. Either they're not being given the chance or they're too busy waving to their mammys.

Labour's new messiah Ruairi Quinn was sporting his latest multicolour tie which is to ties what Joseph's coat was to the bible. Apart from the waffle he said little of substance except that ``workers had the right to organise''. Mary Harney was busy trying to show that the PDs and Labour actually are different , despite the fact that their policies in Government are almost identical. She informed us that our saviours, the multinationals, don't ``understand'' unions and we have to be nice to them, or they'll go away.

Journalist Katie Hannon gave me good advice, saying that everyone had ``fecked off'' so I did, to BBC1, where the harrowing ``Forbidden Love'' was being aired. The days when 18 year old women were shackled down with sixty year old men to have twenty babies, and your mammy slept in between ye, seems to be coming to an end here, but the practice is still commonplace among Britian's Pakistani community who, like the Irish abroad, cling ferociously to their culture and way of life. Unfortunately for some this includes the marrying off of your daughter to some nerd she's never set eyes on.

Shazia decided to tell her parents she was courting an outsider and was subsequently imprisoned in her house and prevented from finishing her university degree. She was emotionally tortured, denied food and medical attention, in an attempt to ``break'' her. Fortunately she escaped two days before she was due to be shipped to Pakistan.

Zena was introduced to her first cousin at the age of twelve, and duly marked down to marry him. Jack appeared on the scene however, and Zena made her escape down the drainpipe, and has been on the run with her beloved since. Bounty hunters are still on their trail five years after and they've been ``promised'' a burial in a binliner. On her wedding day there was no fancy wedding dress or speeches, but a grey office with two witnesses, followed by a bowl of pot noodles back in their bedsit. Still she wouldn't swap her beloved for the world. Heroes.

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