Ash Sarkar is not an expert on Nazism. And the BBC should not treat her as one

So, here’s a question. You are making a three-part documentary series about the rise of the Nazis. You have lined up a terrific cast of German and British historians, including Richard J. Evans and RJ Overy. You have shot some first-rate drama sequences in Lithuania and commissioned some fine graphics. The narrative is a bit GCSE. Nothing very original or exciting and lots of big gaps. But you have found a couple of very interesting human interest stories, about two lawyers who stood up against the Nazis.

So, what induces you, and the BBC Commissioning Editor, to pretend that Ash Sarkar, one of the interviewees, is some kind of “expert” about Nazism?

After all this hard work, nothing will be left of this series but the stench of one truly terrible editorial decision. 

What followed her appearance last night was entirely predictable. There was a tsunami of protest on social media. Not just because Sarkar doesn’t know anything worth knowing about Nazism or German Communism. Her contribution to last night’s episode consisted of a handful of ten or fifteen-second soundbites which managed to be both unilluminating and annoying. She described the leader of the KPD as “definitely a charismatic guy” and “red as Hell”. The scale of the Nazi attack on the KPD, she said, was “insane”. Not one soundbite was longer than fifteen seconds. This was not BBC2. This was history as a banal mix of BBC3 and Radio 1. 

But this wasn’t what caused all the protests and complaints to the BBC. What really infuriated people was that when, exactly one year ago, two people painted graffiti on a wall from the Warsaw Ghetto, she said, “Solidarity with Ewa Jasiewicz and Yonatan Shapira, currently being mauled by the press for ‘desecrating’ a wall regularly painted on by other graffiti artists. Free Gaza and Palestine, Liberate all ghettos. These words aren’t anti-Semitic. They’re anti-racist.”  

Couldn’t the BBC find an “expert” on Nazism who hadn’t caused huge offence about the desecration of a wall of the Warsaw Ghetto? Was there no one available? 

That’s why Simon Schama and Simon Sebag Montefiore were among those who criticised her involvement in the series. Schama called it “really appalling” that a BBC programme about the Nazis included Sarkar. The President of the Jewish Board of Deputies said, “Given the outrage her comments have caused, the invitation by the programme makers seems both insensitive and provocative.”

Sarkar’s response was typical: “Apparently a lot of the usual suspects are very angry with BBC2 for asking me to talk on their Rise of the Nazis series”. What did she mean by “the usual suspects”? The only thing her critics have in common is that they are Jewish. Does that make them “the usual suspects”?  

A BBC spokesperson defended the choice of Sarkar in the series: 

“As well as featuring interviews with some of the world’s leading experts on pre-war Germany, this series asks recognised contemporary figures from different professional fields, amongst them historians and journalists, to examine in detail the motives and experiences of individual historical figures from this period. Ash Sarkar is one of a number of current public figures who feature, alongside representatives from military and legal backgrounds.”

So, apparently, Sarkar was chosen because she’s a “contemporary figure” or a “current public figure”. This is completely vacuous. And what makes Sarkar, a Left-wing self-publicist, “a contemporary figure”? The BBC, in a moment of panic that they are not watched by enough young people, have started filling up many of their current affairs programmes with Left-wing activists in their 20s. And that makes her a “contemporary figure”, who can be interviewed in a BBC2 historical documentary programme alongside Professor Sir Richard Evans, author of almost thirty history books, including a 2000-page trilogy on the history of Nazism. No one at the BBC has come up with a remotely plausible argument for her inclusion.  

What is happening at the BBC under Tony Hall? The mix of bias and dumbing down is deeply worrying. It is time for Nicky Morgan, as Minister for DCMS, to start investigating the dramatic decline of the BBC as audiences leave for Sky, Amazon Prime and Netflix. Soon it won’t just be the inclusion of Ash Sarkar that will be indefensible. It will be the licence fee.