While I admit to having watched small chunks of BBC’s highly successful Celebrity Traitors show, I can see its attractions, even if I am not entirely clear as to how it all works. Unlike many shows which advertise the presence of celebrities, who it turns out next to no one has heard of, no one can accuse Traitors of putting forward a list of D list has beens and never weres. The show’s success has reached places that other shows cannot reach, including the England football team. I was fascinated by this story in – yes, you’ve guessed it – The Guardian.
During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Conor Coady arranged for the game to be played by players and various celebrities, including cheeky chappie Robbie Williams. England manager Sir Gareth Southgate said this: “It was fantastic fun and more effective as a team-bonding exercise than anything we could have formally designed.” I was fascinated by the reaction of one of the players, Crystal Palace centre half Marc Guéhi.
Guéhi is deeply religious, the son of a minister and, says Southgate, was, “anguishing about having to lie if he was made a traitor!” (The Guardian’s exclamation mark, not mine.) The insinuation being that because the player does God, he is more uncomfortable about lying than someone is non-religious. What utter nonsense.
I cannot sit here now and tell you, in all honesty, that I have never told I lie: I have, probably quite a few. I am not proud that I was at times economical with the truth. Indeed, I was extremely uncomfortable. For the vast majority of my life, I like to think I have been honest, but that is not in order to somehow please God, not least because he isn’t really here. No. There’s something inside that tells me to tell the truth, to be honest at all times and to hell with any negative consequences that might come along.
In any event, Guéhi must surely have known that Traitors is a game. It’s not real. If you avoid things that aren’t real, would you ever watch TV or read a fiction book ever again? Playing a role does not make you a bad person. In my opinion, the lad needs to give his head a big wobble. Even the bible, which he presumably swears by, is full of liars. No matter which God/Allah you believe in, each religion will have its own prominent liars. Is it not possible to live by a philosophy of telling the truth, regardless of which supernatural creator you believe in?
Even though I am an atheist, I believe that people should be free to worship the God of their choice. I see it as a basic human right. And as long as a religious person does not have any special privileges and lives their life by the same laws as everyone else, I would always stand alongside them. But that does not mean they are better than me, or worse for that matter. Neither does it mean their principles are better or worse than mine.
There are too many liars in the world as it is, both theist and atheist. Why can’t people – all people – just tell the truth instead and be honest? Marc Guéhi is a fine footballer and, from all accounts, a thoroughly decent bloke but spare me the tosh about the devout having a deeper relationship with the truth than anyone else. He doesn’t and I don’t, either.
Anyway, Guéhi won the England team version of Traitors. Satan hasn’t claimed him yet.
