A recent documentary on Channel Five filmed the experiences and impressions of a group of six members of a remote village in Papua New Guinea on visiting England. At the outset, I feared that the documentary was setting out to replicate some of the most unfortunate social experiments of the early 19th century, in which peoples from other cultures, whetherNorth American Indians, Aborigines or Maoris were brought to England as curiosities, to be taken around the grand houses of England and to be feted by the good and the great. (This was a strategy that backfired as when the King and Queen of Hawaii succumbed to measles). Thankfully, the programme avoided any such embarrassment apart from its unfortunate title (‘Meeting the Natives’) and allowed us a glimpse of our own culture and society through their eyes.
By the end of three programmes it was hard not to feel humbled by their observations, particularly on our attitudes to family and the elderly, to consumerism, our work ethic and our faith. The clarity of their perception and the lack of any cynicism in their speech, gave their observations real poignancy and relevance.
Their views of London were particularly interesting; their experience of the Underground (‘London is a double city; one city is underground and the other is on top) and the ‘joined up houses’ were simple visual observations; more revealing was the conversation that took place on the London Eye when their guide pointed out St Paul’s Cathedral, with the comment that
‘three hundred years ago it was the biggest building in London’.This fact was quickly picked up by one of the group who said that the Spirit House must always be the biggest building in a village, so what were these buildings at Canary wharf that had appeared that were now bigger than God’s house – what had replaced God in importance? Later, they visited St Paul’s (where the Chief was so impressed by the soaring architecture that he was moved to comment ‘I believe this building was created not by man, but by God’) and Buckingham Palace where the Chief was disappointed not to meet the Queen for, as he said, he was also a Chief and because of his age, he was unlikely to come back to England again. They were unimpressed by the supermarkets, seeing no reason for buying anything they did not need and were dismissive of the work ethic they saw although many things amused and intrigued them. Their visit to an Old Folks’ Home elicited a good deal of disapproval which was explained by one of the group who said, ‘when I was a baby, my mum and dad looked after me when I walked around naked; I must pay back’.
As they were leaving, having made a huge impression on their hosts, they were asked what was their over-riding impression of Britain and they answered, it was the lack of respect that people showed for each other.
Sometimes, with all our trappings of civilization, we appear to have lost our way, along with the ability to ask the simple questions of life, questions that are often also the most profound. As we peel back the layers of western civilization, and particularly the values we espouse, it is hard to escape the feeling that the very word ‘civilization’ needs redefining. Sometimes it takes the eyes and observations of others to better see ourselves and the world
we have made.
