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Who Do You Think You Are?

I writhed with embarrassment in my armchair as I watched the 8 minute 'handover to London' slot during the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. The Chinese had treated the world to a performance of awe-inspiring beauty, movement, power and precision, and then... Team London offered us Leona Lewis, Jimmy Page and David Beckham kicking a football into the crowd from the top of a London Bus! It was a classic, naff 'Ave it moment. We seem to have fallen so far from Great Britain to Little Britain.

I fear for the 2012 London Olympics. Our national obsession with celebrity, political correctness and pop culture could mean that we offer a Millennium Dome of an event to the watching world. That would be a crying shame. I sincerely hope that the organisers remember that British history and culture goes further back than the Beatles and the Mini. It could be helpful for them to ponder on just what it was that put the Great into Great Britain in the first place.

We must not cut loose from our past. We have to remember from where we have come. Our history plays a huge part in what we are today, and it will contribute to what we become in the future. This is true of individuals just as much as it is of nations.

The fascinating BBC TV series Who Do You Think You Are? follows well-known personalities in searches of their family trees. They are invariably moved, humbled and challenged as they discover the stories of their ancestors. Many comment on how it has given them a greater understanding of who they are. It was even important to the Gospel writers to establish the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth so that he could be historically rooted in the family line of King David (the first seventeen verses of Matthew's Gospel are devoted to a long list of 'begats').

A sense of history is vital. It roots us. It provides a social and cultural context. It gives us clues as to why we react and behave as we do. In 2012, I sincerely hope that the stars of the opening and closing ceremonies are Sir Christopher Wren, William Shakespeare and Florence Nightingale, and not the winners of X Factor and Big Brother!

26 August 2008

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