Television: How the other half lives

Panorama (BBC1)
Coverage of Central American floods
Holidays (BBC2)

Not many of you are bishops, even less of you drive seventy grand Mercs and holiday in the Riviera and apart from the odd Queen, republicans don't go for royalty. Poor oul' Prince Charles, featured on BBC1's Panorama, is ``a sensitive old soul'', has a ``terrible cross to bear'' and ``has suffered more than anyone'' - so says ``our'' Chris Patten and he should know.

The British media and of late, their Irish counterparts, have a fixation with matters royal, including the national crises in 1989, when the Queen Mother got a fishbone stuck in her throat and the Queen had to ascend three flights of stairs unaided.

Probably the saddest sight of all was the thousands of Irish dunderheads who thronged to the British Embassy in the wake of Diana's death, with roses and ``Hello'' magazines under their oxters.

Republicans may laugh, but the old bugger is still head of the Parachute Regiment, the most notorious British army regiment in the north, whose feats have included Bloody Sunday and many other murders.

The current media exposure being given to the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh and Mary McAleese's frolics in France, is surely the support act for the upcoming visit of big Lizzy, when the ``Hello'' dunderheads will rush to kiss her feet, and the young rabble will keep her on her toes.

``Poor'' Charles was featured visiting his organic farm and lamented at the maltreatment of animals, but this concern doesn't extend to humans.

One can't but acknowledge that he's had a pretty miserable life - shuffled off to boarding school at eight, where he has since led a life ``in a bubble'' handicapped by protocol, notions of imperialism that went out about 100 years ago and a media that captures his every sneeze.

One would almost feel sorry for him, but for the fact that he symbolises all that is rotten - huge wealth, superior notions, and all the worst oppression that Britain has unleashed on us over the last thirty years.

My advice to the stuffed-up-one would be to get a semi-detached in Sheffield, get a job, a Ford Capri with a furry dice on the windscreen and leopard skin seat covers, a satellite dish and go down the pub for a few bevvies with the lads - get a life Charlie!

Such a life is but a pipe dream for the vast majority of Central Americans, whose plight has been worsened by the recent floods, and an international media coverage which has done nothing more than to perpetuate the myth that all Third World peoples are passive victims, fated to a never ending litany of floods, famines and earthquakes, and saved only by the benevolent West.

I visited the village of El Mozote in El Salvador in 1993, situated in the heart of a rebel stronghold, where in an effort to cow the region into submission, American-trained and armed government troops raped, tortured, mutilated and executed every single of the 1,100 occupants of the village, including 120 schoolchildren who were burned alive in a small building.

Such actions throughout Central America by US and multinational-backed ``forces'' has prevented the growth of any sort of equitable system for the peoples of this region and a complete lack of infrastructure, health or education, all of which have played a major role in the large number of recent deaths.

Likewise the media have largely ignored the fact that these countries pay out many times more dollars to world bankers and arms dealers than the paltry ``aid'' they receive from the West.

The misrepresentation of facts and unwillingness to deal with the root causes of such misery mirrors exactly the coverage of our own conflict over the years.

Most of you will by now have returned from your holliers - the gaeilgeoirs and POWs spending three weeks in the rain in Gortahork, the uncultured among you spending two weeks in Majorca watching the Union Jack underpants brigade flashing their bums at each other and getting sick, the mammies and daddies spending two weeks attempting to keep warring teenagers apart in the caravan, in the rain of course, and the Belfasties scuttling down to Bundoran with flowerpots full of 2p's and rebel songs for O'Neill's.

None of you were featured on ``Holidays'' on Monday last, where our hosts brought us to Zanzibar (I thought that was the name of a nightclub in Ardoyne) and Cannes in the south of France, where you can hang out with the celluloid set and eveything is at least four star.

A gin and tonic will set you back £8.50, a lie on the beach costs a tenner and a day's yacht hire, where you can get away from all those nasty working class people, will cost you three grand.

This is not the place for stretch marks or beer bellies, so that's most of us out - but you can always settle for the eight pound day return special to Calais, where the French you spent five years studying at school can be put to absolutley no use, as the locals won't reply to you, and you can buy stacks of cans that are evn cheaper than the Eurobeer in Curley's of Andytown.

The south of France and its yachts are largely beyond our budgets, unless you're an RUC man on lots of overtime.

As for the recently released POWs, Maharoarty will have to suffice - but if you can find a decent pub, a cupla focail and a half decent mountain you're far better off.

By Sean O Donaile