I have just watched the first two in the new series on BBC4 about Jerusalem and am surprised that it is the same old tired history lesson, albeit this time being nice to everyone probably because the BBC doesn’t want to inspire any anger. I visited Jerusalem in 2008 during the Jewish New Year and I walked the streets newly paved in the eighties, saw the City of David, watched at the Western wall, walked the Arab and Jewish markets and in fact walked around the entire old city on the outside with the modest new parks.
I crossed over from the Old City to the hillside cemetery and at the top came across the Garden of Gethsemane and saw the Christian pilgrims doing their thing and from this vantage point was able to see the lines of coaches bringing in the faithful and eventually I found myself sitting under an olive tree on what I found out later that day was the Mount of Olives looking at the wall and the road and buildings and what I saw everywhere was the work of human beings.
You only see god in things if you believe in god, I know that sounds banal but I was struck by the thought that if there was a creative influence in the universe, the olive tree was closer to that creator than any walls, or any buildings made by human beings.
In fact I think the BBC should realise that you cannot make a film about religion unless you use an atheist just as you couldn’t make a film about the history of atheism unless you sued a religious host. By using the ‘other’ you make a programme that is objective and immediately shows up prejudices and assumptions.