Unchained Memories and The Kumars at No. 42

This article first appeared in The Age on April 19, 2003

Globalisation began centuries ago, though it wasn't called that then. Countries are raided for products, usually labour, and an erasure of culture often results. One country - once European, now America - usually has all the power in these negotiations. The stealing of Africans from their homeland to tend cotton plantations in the southern states of America is a case in point. Unchained Memories (Tomorrow night, 9.30pm, ABC) tells the moving stories of some who lived through this most notorious of slave trades. When the Civil War ended in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. Over 70 years later, the memories of the last generation of African-Americans born into slavery were transcribed and preserved by the Library of Congress. 'I's sure has had a hard life,' a former slave tells us. 'I never knows what it is to rest.'

Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the voices of the slaves are brought to life actors such as Angela Bassett, Samuel L Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Oprah Winfrey and Don Cheadle and they are all terrific.These first-person stories, range from the whipping and rubbing of salt into a child's wounds; the courage it takes one Arnold Gragston to take fellow-slaves across the river to the Freeedom Stairway of Ripley, Ohio; the joy of a marriage night (though slaves marriages were never legally recognised); and the rape of women by their masters - though there is one woman who beats her master off and tells him never to lay a hand on her again, who survives unscathed.

There are the horror stories, of course, but the stories that made me saddest were the memories of a parent last seen 80 years or more ago. It was common for children to be sold off separately - often as playmates for young white children: 'I was 5 and my new master was 2.'

Archival photographs, music, film and period images make these words more vivid. It is the music, the slave era 'stomp' songs that are most inspiring of all. The rhythms of dancing and music which carried theese people throught their pain and work, and inform ther christianity that many of them converted to.

These days things are more subtle. Not as as brutal or violent. But when you hear managers from multinational corporations talk about transfering their customer service centres to Delhi because you only have to pay staff $40 a week and there are no superannuation, health or insurance costs, and hear young Indian University graduates being trained to speak American English and given new (western) names, you have to wonder how far we have come.

A New York stockbroker calling American Express, an English housewife ringing Harrods and a customer dialling Coles Myer in Melbourne are all likely to be secretly re-routed to India and answered by Indians impersonating local telephone operators. Many are expected to answer such calls for up to 12 hours a day, under close supervision, and working irregular hours so they are available during the working hours of the countries they are working for.

Diverted to Delhi (ABC, Thursday, 10.00 pm) documents how India trains call centre workers to provide quality service to overseas customers. Yes Indian's are a religious people, but here the customer is their new God.The graduates have all had to put aside their cultural identity, modify their accent and change their name so they can converse with international customers. It is a country where a large percentage of university graduates can't get work. The result, as one interviewwee says, is the perfect exploitation of education and aspiration.

Most of the call centre business comes from USA and Britain but an Australian training course is up and running where Indians are introduced to the Australian vernacular courtesy of The Castle on video, BBQ's on the Yarra, and seminars explaining how all Australians love the beach and drink beer for breakfast.

So where does this leave The Kumars at No. 42? (Thursdays, 8.30pm, ABC) They've bulldozed their back garden so they can build a studio on the back of their house and indulge their spoilt son, Sanjeev (Sanjeev Bhaskar), who fancies himself as a celebrity chat show host. Each week, guests are invited onto the show to partake in the unique Kumar experience - an interrogation by the entire family, usually about the most banal details of their lives. It's very funny stuff, with Granny Sushila (Meera Syal) stealing the show every time. This week it is Shane Ritchie, and Robin Gibb that she chats up and when you get a guest who really gets into the swing of things, as Ritchie does, it is silly, funny and occasionally edgy television.

But where's the edge? The show has been franchised to other countries, where the nationality of the families differ. There will be a Greek family and a Turkish family. Which leaves me wondering whether the butt of the jokes is the family, not Indian culture. Or perhaps it is talk show hosts. Or perhaps it is people like me - certainly the Anglo guests get an amusingly hard time. Whatever the case, I have to say that while I laugh out loud the laugh occasionally catches in my throat as I watch a culture play the fool for the rest of the world.

Posted by Sophie at 07:44 PM