TV programs worth watching
Sun April 25 — Sat May 1

For Britain and the Allies in WW1, T E Lawrence was an 
invaluable propaganda figure. Both British and French imperialism 
were quick to see the potentialities for colonial expansion in 
supporting Prince Faisal's Arab National Uprising against 
Germany's ally Turkey.

Turkey's Middle Eastern empire could be up for grabs and the 
Western imperialist powers were determined to get it. The ANZACs 
went to their deaths partly — and unsuccessfully — for this 
end.

In Arabia itself, a low-ranking army intelligence officer, T E 
Lawrence, was enthusiastic about what could be done by arming the 
Arabs themselves. Lawrence was never loath to blow his own 
trumpet and Allied propagandists and media were not slow in 
romanticising "Lawrence of Arabia".

Lawrence fitted the racist colonial concept that "native" armies 
needed to be led by white Europeans to be successful. Just what 
role Lawrence saw for himself in a united Arab empire under 
Faisal is hard to determine now, so wrapped around is he by spin 
doctoring.

Certainly Faisal recognised the young British officer's 
Napoleonic tendencies. Both David Lean's movie and the two-part 
series Lawrence Of Arabia: The Battle For The Arab World 
(ABC 7.30pm Sundays) credit Lawrence with many of the 
achievements of the Arab forces, such as the taking of the port 
of Aqaba after a gruelling march across the desert.

The imperialist powers double crossed Faisal, which Lawrence 
seemed to take as a personal affront. The series repeats as fact 
the cover story that he resigned and re-enlisted in the air force 
as ground crew under a pseudonym ("aircraftsman Smith") to live 
in anonymity.

This carefully fostered myth is just that, a myth. As Lawrence he 
was too well known to do useful intelligence work. As Smith, 
however, he served British imperialism in Afghanistan and 
elsewhere before his accidental death in 1935.

This week sees the welcome and long overdue arrival of a new 
series of the WW2 detective series, Foyle's War (ABC 
8.30pm Sundays), written by Anthony Horowitz and starring Michael 
Kitchen as Detective Chief Inspector Foyle, fighting crime on the 
south coast of England in the early years of the War.

Writing, direction (by Giles Foster) and casting contribute to a 
splendid period atmosphere. Horowitz has a knack for capturing 
exactly how people thought in 1940, especially about Nazism and 
the conduct of the war.

Honeysuckle Weeks returns as Foyles Auxiliary Territorial Service 
driver, a perfectly realised period characterisation.

This week's episode, Fifty Ships is set in September 1940, 
and involves organised looting of blitzed buildings, murder and 
espionage.

Dr Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, 
whose views smack of eugenics is the subject of Singer: A 
Dangerous Mind, screening on the ABC's right-wing religious 
program, Compass (ABC 10.15pm Sunday).

Like many bourgeois commentators, Singer can see some of the 
glaring contradictions of capitalism today, but, lacking a 
working class perspective, he draws incorrect conclusions.

Seeing only the symptoms and being ignorant of the cause, he 
seeks solutions purely within the parameters of capitalism. His 
solution, for instance, to the dilemma that the amount of money 
expended to keep alive an injured or handicapped child in a 
developed capitalist country would save hundreds or even 
thousands of lives if expended in a poor Third World country is 
to let the capitalist country child die.

His response to the existence of poverty and the unequal 
distribution of wealth is to give away 20 percent of his own 
salary. A Princeton Professor can probably afford to do so, but 
once again he is treating the symptom and not the disease.

His specialty is "moral dilemmas", but he shies away from 
tackling the moral dilemma of a social system based on unearned 
income and exploiting the labour of others.

A social revolution to do away with poverty and ensure that 
children in all countries receive adequate health care is 
certainly not something he advocates. I don't suppose he would 
last long at Princeton if he did!

On the outbreak of WW1, the Royal Estates at Sandringham raised 
from their extensive staff a regiment, the King's Regiment, under 
command of Captain Frank Beck. On August 12, 1915, Captain Beck 
led his men across the Suvla Plain in Gallipoli and disappeared 
into the dust and smoke of battle. They were never seen again.

Investigation after the war revealed that those who had survived 
the actual fighting had been taken prisoner by the Turks and 
ignomineously massacred. For the honour of the Royal family it 
was never made public and remained a mystery.

The story is dramatised, quite well if a little pompously, All 
The King's Men (ABC 11.55pm Monday). David Jason is patriotic 
loyalty personified as Beck and Maggie Smith is the Queen, who is 
more than somewhat away with the fairies.

Written and directed by Lisa Matthews, The Shadow Of Mary 
Poppins, screening on Untold Stories (ABC 9.30pm 
Wednesday), is a very interesting account of the troubled life of 
Mary Poppins' Australian creator, the writer Pamela Travers.

Behind the whimsical tales of the smiling efficient Nanny lies 
Travers' much darker story of a woman escaping her own upbringing 
— her father, an impoverished bank clerk obsessed with his Irish 
roots who drank too much and read Yeats to his little daughter, 
died when she was only seven.

Her mother was clearly depressed and frequently disturbed. As an 
adult, Pamela's professional life was a success but her private 
life was still rather fraught.

At one point, living in England, she tried to adopt her maid, 
promising the girl that she would "see the world". Wisely, 
perhaps, the girl's mother would not agree.

More than a little fey, she was a mass of contradictions. This 
fascinating documentary has been very cleverly put together, each 
aspect of her life dealt with in its own discrete "chapter".

It is always fascinating to watch, even the necessary "talking 
heads" are generally interesting in their own right.