People have had enough of experts

by Rick Johansen
Ash Sarkar – prominent communist, political activist, muslim and World War 2 expert?

The Rise of the Nazis on BBC 2 last night was one of the best and most frightening shows I have seen in ages. It just goes to show what can happen, in the most extreme circumstances, when nationalism gets out of control. It would have been a nigh on perfect programme, particularly in terms of the contributors, except for one. Why on earth is ‘luxury communist’, political activist and Jeremy Corbyn outrider Ash Sarkar involved in next week’s second episode?

Ms Sarkar, a muslim who explains helpfully on twitter that she “fucks like a champion”, has no real expertise on anything, except promoting the far left on fellow communist Aaron Bastani’s so called media organisation Novara. She is not an historian, she is an expert in anti-Semitism only in that the area of socialism she purports to represent certainly includes people with an issue about Jews. Given the number of serious and credible contributors to the programme, this one stands out as particularly bizarre.

But this is today’s BBC for you. Barely a day can go by without some fawning interviewer tossing half-volleys at the likes of Bastani, Sarkar and the snivelling former journalist Owen Jones. It is not so much reflective of the BBC somehow being left wing by picking people like them. It’s almost as if they want to damage the image of the mainstream left by giving people like this airtime, allowing them to hang by their own petard. Helena Kennedy and General Mike Jackson made fascinating and excellent contributions. Sarkar is so lightweight the BBC might as well have asked Frank Bruno or Robbie Savage to offer their opinions next week on the rise of Naziism in Europe.

What happened to experts? Was Michael Gove actually right when he said memorably that “people have had enough of experts?” Has the world changed to the extent we want people who know nothing to inform us on subjects about which we are interested? In which case, put me on Top Gear since I know less than nothing about cars, or allow me conduct a lecture tour on astrophysics. I’m not sure people have had enough of experts, although given the present calibre of our politicians I may be wrong about that.

Sarkar defended herself on twitter as follows: “So, apparently a lot of the usual suspects are very angry with BBC 2 for asking me to talk on their #RiseoftheNazis series, despite the episode I feature on not airing until next week. I was asked on to talk about Ernst Thälmann, Stalinism and the red-brown alliance – so I did.” Anyone who starts a sentence with ‘so’ immediately goes down in my estimation but surely the point is there must have been someone more knowledgable that Sarkar to talk about it?

From what I’ve seen, Ash Sarkar would struggle to be a decent guest on Loose Women, never mind a serious programme on one of the most shaming times in world history. Next week on BBC 2, Owen Jones explains rocket science. It would make as much sense as Sarkar’s forthcoming experience on The Rise of the Nazis.

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