BBC Newsreader George Alagiah Enthrals Lismore Immrama Audience

Posted on June 25, 2008

GEORGE ALAGIAH DELIVERS ENDEARING, ENTRANCING PERFORMANCE IN LISMORE
Christy Parker was in the audience for the BBC journalist’s IMMRAMA appearance.
Photo: Michael Hussey (YoughalOnline.com)

George Alagiah speaking at The Blackwater Community School during the
Lismore Immrama Festival 2008

BBC newsreader and journalist George Alagiah attracted an audience of over 300 to the Blackwater Community School for his contribution to Lismore’s 2008 IMMRAMA Festival. They were richly awarded as the Sri-Lankan-born, African-raised, British citizen delivered a truly wonderful commentary on his experiences, impressions, hopes and fears garnered over ten years as a war correspondent, subsequent black immigrant and ongoing role as the a BBC news correspondent.

$Anne O\'Dwyer, Pat Whyte, Eason Dungarvan, Matt Houlihan, Mary Houlihan, PRO Immrama, George Alagiah, Reg O\'Dwyer and Jan Rotte. Deputy Mayor Lismore$

Anne O’Dwyer, Pat Whyte, Eason Dungarvan, Matt Houlihan, Mary Houlihan, PRO Immrama, George Alagiah, Reg O’Dwyer and Jan Rotte, Deputy Mayor Lismore

Mr. Alagiah was considerably nervous prior to going onstage and would subsequently cite the daunting difference between addressing a camera lens and a hall full of expectant faces. He cannot have realised how consummate a communicator he is. His strength is to merge a natural friendliness, a passion for his subject and an innate ability to infuse every sentiment with a mixture of the personal, the worldly and the historical. He does not so much relate his message to his listeners but shares it and his concise newsreader tone did its job in reaching every pair of ears as if they were the only ones present. His performance was both touching and intimate.

Most importantly, the substance matched his style, with scarcely a sentence in his 70-minute monologue failing to carry significance. It is nigh impossible to review in detail this man’s journey from a Tamil shack in war-torn Sri Lanka to refugee as a child in the competitive splendour of ‘Nigeria’ and onward and upward to England and a hugely successful career in journalism.

His heart holds a special empathy for Africa, the continent that gave his family refuge. Later, his working life would bring him to the frontlines of such turbulent African addresses as Somalia, Rwanda, South Africa, Sierra Leone and Liberia and to other harbours of Hades like Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor and the Middle East. He saw horror and hope, at intimate proximity. He visited the hideaways and headquarters of warlords, psychopaths and mass murderers whose agendas are made legitimate by the immorality of violence, as well as the paradise called peace that emerges whenever Hell burns out.

All politics being human politics, within those journeys he also visited the hearts of individuals, communities and countries. Each encounter with place and person would fill a book of itself but somehow he managed to amass it all in his excellent, insightful book, A Passage to Africa, from which he intermittently read in Lismore.

Those present will recall different insights from the many presented but perhaps some points emerged more stringent than others: Mr Alagiah believes ‘Africa’s biggest tragedy is the betrayal by its leaders of their own people’; Mugabe gained credence from the white farmers in Zimbabwe ‘failing to realise that, post independence, to ‘give even one acre with a heart to the impoverished might have prevented 1,000 acres being seized’. It’s all about land and a similar situation is ‘bubbling beneath the surface in South Africa’, he observed America too, despite good intentions, failed to understand that while Somalian tribes resented each other, ‘they hated foreign occupiers even more.’

Closer to home -and relevant to Ireland- he condemns the UK’s policy of supporting the right to of cultural differences in disproportion to assimilation. The result is enclaves that harbour the incendiary time bomb of poverty, race and religion’, he noted. Likewise, introducing a points system for immigrants focuses on their successes while ignoring the immense, enriching potential. “How would I as a Sri Lankan child, ever have got into England under that criteria? he asks.”

Orla Russell from the Immrama committee makes a presentation to George Alagiah

Ultimately, the audience may have emerged feeling that while there may be a lot of distance between peoples, there isn’t much by way of difference. Mostly, we all carry hope. ‘You perhaps don’t witness it so much in western living, but when you see a woman planting seeds in the third year of drought and believing that this year it will rain and her family will earn enough money to send a child to school, you understand the power of the human spirit,’ said the journalist. ‘When you see a mother having to decide which of her two children to feed and which to leave hungry, yet still believing in a better future, you are incredibly moved by the power of the human spirit. That’s why I think Africa will survive and, in time, will become strong and successful.’ he concluded. No better man to

: Orla Russell from the Immrama committee makes a presentation to George Alagiah

: Anne O'Dwyer, Pat Whyte, Eason Dungarvan, Matt Houlihan, Mary Houlihan, PRO Immrama, George Alagiah, Reg O'Dwyer and Jan Rotte. Deputy Mayor Lismore