What We Forget to Remember

Former Tory MP and Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo has been involved in a number of rather good radio and television programmes since losing both parliamentary seat and the prospect of becoming leader of the Conservative Party. One of these programme series, "What we forgot to remember", was on broadcast on Radio 4 towards the end of last year. The principle message of the series was that the collective memory of historical periods is somewhat selective, and it is often the case that what goes unremembered can be as important, if not more so, than certain well-reported and remembered happenings.

It seems to me that the United States, notwithstanding the apparent sophistication of its media, has been as vulnerable as the rest of the world to the problem of selective collective memory, even where the events in question are happening in the present.

Yesterday, one of the tele-evangelists which seem to thrive in the US, informed media audiences across the globe - I heard him on Radio 4's PM Programme - that an urban area of the United States (I think a major city was mentioned, but no particular one) would be the victim of some hostile action, possibly leading to the deaths of millions of people. God, according to this right-wing man of religion, had informed him of a forthcoming disaster. Apparently, this kind of prophesy has come up regularly during the the Presidency of George Bush, and, it is said, tend not to be taken seriously now.

However, many major urban areas in the United States are suffering from problems - environmental, social and economic - which are certainly not fully reported in this country, and probably not over there either. "Unsustainable" might well sum up these problems, but it is only when disaster actually strikes, as in the case of New Orleans last year, that the problems are fully reported in the US and international media. Yet the likelihood of catastrophic flooding in New Oreleans has been on the cards for many years : I, for one, remember covering the subject in an "A Level" geography lesson in the late 1970s.

The US just collectively forgot to remember it, and even now, we forget about New Orleans as the urbanisation of areas vulnerable to flooding continues in the United States, in this country, and, most of all, in the rapidly developing countries of Asia.

The question is, do films like former US Democratic Vice-President Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", about the effects of global warming, and actor-film-maker Spike Lee's "Requiem" for New Orleans make any real difference, not only to the political and collective consciousness but to public planning programmes ? I hope so, for as Spike Lee recently said : "Volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods. It’s not just New Orleans, we should be scared because if FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency".... — you saw what they did. Pray to God you don’t have to depend on FEMA. This stuff affects all Americans". Amen !