news bulletin

Grandfather Talks Modernity

© JStadnicki 1995

During the 80s, grandfather had the habit of listening to Radio Free Europe on a crackling wireless which worked only if bashed about a few times. I understood very little of what was said in news bulletins and documentaries, but some words kept coming up in conversations he’d have with friends at the village pub. Over a couple of beers, it felt as if their banter about freedom, dictatorship, justice was a disguised form of perversity which made no sense to me at that time.

Even now, recollecting those Friday catch-ups, their invectives sound pointless, though I’ve tried numerous times to find out what they were actually upset about. It must have been in the mid 90s, after grandfather died, when searching through a pile of his old stuff I found this:

Modern dictatorships come about gradually through policies which limit the access to information, books, art, and support an education system reliant on overheads, statistical outcomes and hierarchical leagues. They emerge in communities that support equality and diversity while slowly reducing the means which offer disadvantaged people and their families the benefit of services with real impact to their lives.

Modern dictatorships embed themselves in services which monitor and limit freedom of speech, and flag out people who disagree (or have the potential to disagree) with official discourses; they also produce political directives to serve partisan interests, while dominating the public discourse with narratives designed to create fear and panic.

Modern dictatorships ask citizens to report friends, colleagues, neighbours, and scrutinise differences between people instead of promoting inclusion and common purpose; they also make people obsess over how bad things can be, when they should stimulate creativity and learning. If people are born equal, they should develop equally. This cannot happen when they are scared. There is no progress after punishment, just pain and bitterness.

 

© Maria Stadnicka 2020

Published in International Times on 1st February 2020.

Dental News Bulletin

© International Times, 2019

If my dentist wasn’t a dentist, he would have been a political analyst. Or maybe he is, in his spare time. I must ask him at my next check-up. My experience of ‘butchery dentistry’ during the Soviet Era makes me plan the trips to Alex’s practice to the finest detail. So much so that I’m already an hour early, hoping to have made a mistake and hear Jenny saying your appointment was yesterday, but she offers me tea instead. A patient asks whether we should be waiting for fresh scones too, and the room bursts into laughter.

I never thought people could laugh at the dentist, but there we go. I laugh too, when the door opens and Alex shows me in. Any news, he asks. I think about my 42 mobile news alerts screaming from the back pocket. It’s only midday. I barely slept these past four days, waiting for a catastrophic British exit, worrying about knife crime, thinking that my next-door neighbour could be a serial killer for what I know, as he always looks cheerful when I walk past his garden. This exact scenario featured in a three-part documentary I watched back to back last week. I am sure I have an undetected disease. The scientist who presented the last episode of Horizon made me believe that I’m so ill, I started monitoring my dog for behavioural changes.

Any news, then? As I struggle to answer with an open mouth, I mutter No, though I want to confess my addiction to technology when he takes his phone out and says I wish there were no news. Like in 1930.

Alex reminds me of the ideal news bulletin, on 18thApril 1930 when the BBC news presenter had nothing to communicate to the nation. His script of the 8: 45pm bulletin was: There is no news, followed by 15-minute piano music.

My gums look healthy, while the D-Day celebrations are in full swing on TV.

© Maria Stadnicka, 2019

Published in International Times, 22nd June 2019.