Global village well stocked with idiots

True but let's not forget the village idiot of yore always had an attentive audience.....

Global village well stocked with idiots
January 20, 2007

Maybe this global village thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

We can all remember the alacrity with which much of the world reacted to the publication of those Danish cartoons. Within hours of the news hitting the Internet, near-hysterical mobs were burning churches in Nigeria and embassies in the Middle East.

Now a British "reality" television show, of all things, has sparked another international incident. The treatment of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in this year's version of Britain's Celebrity Big Brother has sparked an official complaint from the Indian government, raised questions in Britain's House of Commons, and caused street demonstrations in the Indian city of Patna.

It has also accomplished the unlikely feat of uniting in fury all of India's political parties – from the Communists and Hindu nationalists to the ruling National Congress.

Celebrity Big Brother's tired old format involves taking a dozen or so C-list entertainers, locking them up in a house for 25 days, and filming their every move. The results are revealing in a slimy kind of way.

This year's crop of has-beens includes one-time S Club 7 singer Jo O'Meara and former Miss Great Britain Danielle Lloyd, who was stripped of her crown for stripping off her top for Playboy magazine. They do seem to have treated Shetty abominably, ridiculing her name, her Indian origin and the way she eats. They've called her a dog and reduced her to tears.

That's no way to treat anyone, but surely such behaviour hardly qualifies as an international incident.

In fact, much of the objectionable behaviour is more likely the result of envy than racism. Shetty is both extraordinarily beautiful and an A-list star in her own country. Lloyd et al. are probably eating their hearts out.

That's the trouble with the global village. Until we learn to live with it, trivial rudeness by second-raters can be magnified into something major. We urge the politicians in both Delhi and London to stand down. This is not the sinking of the Lusitania, and so far at least, Shetty is showing she can handle the yobs with her dignity intact.

This is an edited version of an editorial yesterday in the Gazette, Montreal.