New BBC ALBA schedules span Bhopal disaster to wild swimming

BBC ALBA has just launched its autumn/winter schedule with some real surprises and details of a range of challenging and entertaining new programmes.

A host of television stars joined leading figures from BBC ALBA including, pictured above at BBC Scotland;s Pacific quay HQ in Glasgow:

• Gaelic broadcaster Cathy MacDonald
• Tony Kearney, producer and actor best known for his role as Scott Wallace in River City
• new kid on the block – 21-year-old Derek MacIntosh from North Uist, who will be presenting the award winning children’s programme Dè a-nis?

Many of the upcoming programmes caught our eye – balancing content that BBC ALBA’s audiences expect with a focus on issues of international significance that could be further from the parochialism of which Gaelic programming is often accused by the underinformed.

The big one

The stand out example of these is Soillse: The Bhopal Disaster. The power of time to distance us from catastrophic events plays to the advantage of the culpable.

The 2nd December 2009 is the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster.  In 1984, in the heart of an ancient Indian city of Bhopal and at midnight on 3rd December, 42 tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas were released into the night air, exposing more than 500,000 people to MIC and other chemicals.

A minimum of 3787 people died within 72 hours (some estimates were 8,000-10,000) and a further 100,000 people suffered from lasting gas poisoning.  25,000 have since died from gas-related diseases.

This was the biggest chemical disaster of all time and the world’s worst industrial accident. To date no one has been brought to trial and no compensation has been paid to the victims.

The American multinational corporation involved, Union Carbide Corporation had established Union carbide India, owning a 51% shareholding with the other 49% owned by Indian authorities. As with the majority of such multinationals, the profit motive was the driver. Union carbide were in India to cut costs and improve profit margins. A third world regime required far lower safety standards and protection for workers than required elsewhere.

Located close to a densely populated area – which led to the magnitude of the disaster, the plant produced a dangerous pesticide relying on manual labour rather than installing more expensive but more reliable automated systems. Workers were given only English-language manuals although few had any grasps of the language.

The MIC tank alarms at the plant had not worked for four years. No action plans had been established to cope with incidents of this magnitude. Local authorities had not been told of the quantities or dangers of chemicals used and manufactured at Bhopal.

Over the years there had been a series of serious accidents and highlightings of procedural inadequacies. Reports from Union Carbide’s own scientists, issued months before the incident, warned of the possibility of an accident almost identical to the one that happened in Bhopal. The reports were ignored.

As of 2008, Union Carbide Corporation had not released information about the possible composition of the toxic cloud which caused profound damage in broadcast environmental pollution.

Union Carbide India was sold off and Union Carbide Corporation is now owned by Dow Chemical Company. Against some shareholders wishes, Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001 and has since made it clear publicly, on several occasions, that the modest Union Carbide settlement payments made in India are the end of any financial responsibility Dow might have for the disaster.

This is the route open to wealthy multinationals to avoid responsibility, social and fiscal, for their actions.

The Bhopal disaster has sunk below the level of consciousness. It is to BBC ALBA’s enduring credit that it is running his programme to remind us of an awful and unrighted wrong typical of unfettered capitalism.

Programme variety

Here’s a selection of what’s in the pipeline from BBC ALBA’s autumn/winter schedule – chosen simply because these were the ones we stopped to find out about as we scanned the lists:

• Mary’s Meals: A feature on the Argyll based charity started by two brothers working out of their home in Dalmally, near Oban. Mary’s Meals has now grown to be one of the main conduits for aid, first in Malawi and now in Liberia.
• Bothan air a’ Phrèiridh/Cabin on the Prairies : This is a road-movie of double emigration and a family’s attachment to their Gaelic heritage. The return of Benbecula-born Ewen MacKay, to the prairie homestead where his mother Bealag MacKay was born at the beginning of the Dirty Thirties out in the Canadian ‘Far West’. Bealag’s father, Seonaidh Patterson, had emigrated in 1923 on board the Marloch to the western Canadian province of Alberta. Once set up on his prairie homestead, he married a Benbecula woman who died giving birth to Bealag.
• Balaich nam Putan Buidhe/Highland bobbies on the Glasgow beat: Spanning the decades following World War II this programme seeks to distil the essence of the Highland bobby on the Glasgow beat. The documentary draws on many sources to reveal the influence that the Gaels had on the City of Glasgow police, and on the Glasgow underworld.
• Blas/The Blas Festival: the best of Traditional and Gaelic music of the Highlands. This is a series of four programmes from the Blas Festival celebrating the culture of traditional music and Gaelic throughout the Highlands of Scotland. Performances in Aviemore, Inverness, Glenurquhart and Fort William feature Karen Matheson, Michael Marra, Blazing Fiddles, the Barra MacNeills and top Gaelic singers such as James Graham and Calum Alex MacMillan. During the series the team will be covering events.
• Ceòl Country/Country Music From Caithness to Creetown: This is a second series of Cèol Country, featuring some of the top Country Music events in Scotland and bringing viewers highlights, key interviews and a range of the main performances. Events filmed include the Northern Nashville Country Music Festival in Caithness and the Creetown Country Music Festival in South West Scotland.
• Piping Live: A World celebration in Scotland of all things Piping: This is a series of two programmes featuring the best in World piping from Piping Live 2009 in Glasgow. The programmes include solo performances by Finlay MacDonald, Chris Armstrong and more of Scotland’s best pipers; highlights from an evening with Fred Morrison and Friends; coverage of the Pipe Idol competitions; the best of the pipe bands playing in Glasgow’s George Square and performances from an eclectic mix of folk bands from around the world.
• Wild Swimming: The attraction of swimming in the wild in the refreshing and often freezing natural waters of the lochs, rivers, and seas of Scotland. Great for health and well-being, or just plain crazy?

And yes – of course they’re doing the MOD.