How Did Star Trek Create My World View?
And How The World Cup 1966 and Football Assisted in My United Earth Idea.
Two very different things happened in 1966 that helped create my worldview as an eight-year-old boy in England. Through July of that year, I saw England win the World Cup 66. And in the USA, on 8 September 1966, the first episode of ‘Star Trek’ was broadcast. Both of these seemingly unimportant events would change my whole life, both ethically and politically. Let me explain how a small disabled boy in post-war Britain would be molded not just by his family but also by world sporting and TV events. Perhaps I should add that just three years later, in July 1969, Star Trek was broadcast in the UK, as Neil Armstrong would take ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ No more cowboy shows for me, thanks very much, but now, ‘Space, the final frontier.’
Although I remember being overjoyed that England beat the West Germans in overtime, watching the teams play from all over the world would have an everlasting effect on me. As an eight-year-old, I had no idea that all of the world played football (Soccer for my fellow Americans). A communist country, Hungary, had indeed beaten England in the 1950s, but generally speaking, England was deemed the best. At least by the English, that is. After all, England was the birthplace of the ‘beautiful game.’ Then I saw Pele from Brazil, the most famous player in the world then. Plus, other Brazilian stars such Garrincha, Gilmar, and Djalma Santos with others like Jairzinho, Tostao, and Gerson. They played like they were dancing. Even though Brazil had experienced a brutal Military Coup just two years before, in 1964, the players appeared to play the game with such freedom and delight.
Just before the World Cup, their opposites, Argentina, had experienced a similar military coup in June 1966. The Argentian team argued that they were unduly affected by the referees at the World Cup. However, the team played as though they had been part of the coup itself and were fighting at all costs to survive. They continually played so physically that they had three players ejected from their games. As a child, I was confused about why two teams so close geographically and with similar political conditions could play the game so differently. Even years later, I questioned why Pele was such a gentleman, and Maradonna was such a cheat.
Of course, sixteen countries were in the World Cup of 66. The red-shirted communist machine of the Soviet Union. Two teams from the Eastern communist bloc, Hungary and Bulgaria. The Portuguese team, including Eusebio, was a star of his time. The solid defensive-minded blue shirts of Italy. The fairy-tale team of North Korea beat one of the favorites, Italy, to then play Portugal. At one stage, they were beating Portugal 3–0 until Portugal's Eusebio took control and won the game. Then there were the perfectly mechanical blonde West Germans. They were still viewed as the ‘Evil Empire’ only twenty years after WW II. And oh man, they were so close to winning. Just like the Klingons, they lost at the end. There were teams from France, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, and Switzerland to complete the participants. I began to ask myself if all these countries play football together, why could they not play in other areas of life? Naive as a child, no doubt, but surely football proved that everyone loved the same things in life. Not just football, but their families, their music, their art, their foods, their peace and safety, their health, their freedoms, and especially their prosperity.
I have been fortunate to have traveled fairly extensively. I have so many international likes from the countries I have visited or cultures I love. Of course, I love the history and the accents of my place of birth, England. At the same time, I love watching Sumo wrestling from Japan. It is not just the astonishing physical contests but also the bouts of psychological and spiritual background. The Samurai culture and history are intertwined with the polite society known as Japan. Likewise, I loved attending the controversial bullfights on the Spanish mainland. The fights are so imbued with Spanish history and romanticism. The arrogance of the Matador and the whole community's participation are obscured by the threat of death to the Matador and the death of the bull bred specifically for this cultural event. I am fascinated by the various peoples in Turkey, the Himalayas, and all corners of the globe who communicate by whistling over long distances. It is truly amazing to listen to. In the same way, listening to Mongolian throat singing is amazing to observe. Traditional Italian opera and the famous Italian wild and crazy ‘Il Palio di Siena,’ the famous Tuscany horse race. Not just a horse race, it has been described by Steve King, the travel writer, as a place to “Take with you to the Piazza the fatalism of an ancient Greek, the paranoia of a conspiracy theorist and the violent passions of a football hooligan, and you’ll have a marvelous time.”
I admire the Mexican culture and work ethic that Americans state as one of their traits; however, I have since discovered the so-called American work ethic is rarely seen in the USA unless by Hispanic transplants. Australian Aboriginal and Native American cultures and music are two of my favorite things in this world. I also highly respect the Gurkha from Nepal and southern Asia who fight in the British and Indian armies. A more dedicated and brave people you will never meet. They serve other countries to feed their own families back in Nepal. Even the Zulu people from South Africa impress me with their traditions and warrior custom, similar to the city-state of Sparta of yesteryear. Interestingly, as English school children, we were taught about the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Vikings, and the British Empires. As I recall, we were not taught about the American or French revolutions. We were taught of Empire and not the response to such Empire colonization.
Let me step back a second here. Before 1966, there was limited TV in England. And much of what it did broadcast from other countries was, in fact, horrendous for a child to see. Having been born only thirteen years after the close of WWII and during the continued ‘loss’ of the British Empire, I saw documentaries, such as “All Our Yesterdays.” These black and white documentaries held nothing back. They showed in gross detail the horrors of warfare and genocide. I watched as soldiers entered Auschwitz and Dachau and freed whatever Jewish prisoner-slaves were still alive. The horrific images from numerous battles were shown, from the Eastern Front in Europe in Stalingrad, Asian jungles and Pacific Islands, and the North African campaign. Not forgetting, as Winston Churchill called it, the greatest battle of the war and Hitler’s last offensive fight at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. Empires have much to answer for; no one, it seems, is averse to massacres if their country would either gain something of importance or display to another ethnic group the superiority of their masters. For example, the Amritsar massacre on 13 April 1919, led by Acting Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, ordered troops of the British Indian Army to fire into a massive crowd of unarmed Indian civilians, killing at least 379 people and injuring more than 1,200 other people. The censorship we see today certainly was not the case in those days. After Vietnam, a change saw censorship during military conflicts for many years to come. After the public saw Vietnam through reporters and cameraman's eyes every day, the various governments worldwide would never again give such open access to the public.
At the same time, as a young boy, I watched a few years later as both the Vietnam war and ‘The Troubles’ of Northern Ireland were daily fodder for the TV news. Many point out that the Irish ‘Troubles’ were political and nationalistic and not religious wars. All I can say is, Garbage! Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants were killing each other. And the British were killing both. Either way, I saw building after building exploding, killing and maiming the civilian population. I saw local country pubs full of people drinking in a quiet village on a Friday night blown to pieces and then shown on TV. A few years later, not even a teen, I saw Phan Thi Phúc running naked down a country lane in South Vietnam, terribly burnt after a napalm attack by the South Vietnamese Air Force. She was nine years old. The image has never left me; no doubt why the picture earned a Pulitzer Price and World Photograph of the Year in 1973. Thankfully, after a 14-month hospital stay and 17 surgical procedures, she was able to return home. She did not have the ability to move without pain until surgery in West Germany in 1982. She is now a Canadian citizen.
No matter what you are told, ask any soldier or civilian in any war; war is not a heroic pastime. It is disgusting and gross. It not only destroys the losers but also destroys the winners. No one involved in such overwhelming violence can ever be the same again. I have learned over my long life that war and organized religion create the idea of ‘difference.’ If the other guy is different from you, then it easier to kill him. Likewise, if your God orders you to carry out genocide, as in the Old Testament, then murder becomes easier to carry out. After all, ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ does not apply if God commands it so or if your beloved nation deems it necessary. They are different and not like us, so they deserve to die, right? Even as a child, I was never comfortable with that thinking. Everything I saw showed me we as people are the same. We the People are not the problem; it’s ‘We the narcissistic or unhinged individual’ is the problem. Within politics and religions of every kind, there are more than enough unhinged individuals to terrorize the world's people. While we still celebrate killing millions of other people as our duty for our country, we still have a long way to go to be ‘civilized.’ Being civilized is not about eating French fine cuisine or obtaining a second Ph.D. Being civilized is about the sanctity of life and caring about each other. Being civilized is about the ‘We’ and not the ‘Me.’
Then came Star Trek! I can still recall reading the Daily Mirror newspaper about a new TV series broadcasting on the BBC. Even though a young boy, I knew I had to persuade my father to watch the show. Everything prior had been cowboy series, the kind of John Wayne never dies cowboy shows. I call them today, American Rah-Rah shows. Similarly, Batman always lived no matter what the Joker or the Penguin did because another show was next Sunday at 7 pm. Of course, the famous time-traveling Dr. Who had been on British TV since 1963, but it was ridiculous and kitschy, even for a child. So here's how the conversation went with my father, “there's a new cowboy show on tonight, Dad.” My father asked me, “What's it called?” to which I replied, “Star Trek, it’s about wagon trains crossing the prairies at night.” He was so surprised when the Enterprise appeared!
I was ten years old, and I saw that the Earth was a tiny blue planet for the first time because Apollo 11 took photographs from the Moon. It suddenly became apparent that each nation was tiny, and humans could not be seen anywhere. The idea of humans being Masters of all things, especially over other people, seemed absurd. In fact, for the first time, I realized that every human was the same as me, no matter where they were born. Artificial political borders began to seem such a dumb idea. Just take a look at Africa, where many countries are square boxes designed by Western Imperial powers. Looking at the Earth from above and as a part of an enormous universe illustrated that humans were like ants working to survive on what they believed was the center of the universe. I had seen self-importance with wars, genocide, religious conflicts, oil, stocks and shares, education, and political ism’s disappeared. No one, in my childlike mind, was better than anyone else. I suddenly felt a huge leaning toward equality for all, no matter what. And yet, in the real world, at this same time, evil abounded. Even today, I cry just as much as I did when I first heard Marvin Gaye singing “Abraham, Martin, and John,” about the murders of Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy. Not just the people died, but the ideas they proffered died too. What was I to do? The answer was on my TV weekly, “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” And, of course, to do so, we would have to start with our planet first.
How would that be possible? Star Trek suggested, even stated, that the world they lived in was now a non-violent equal-opportunity one-world society of the 23rd century. Wow! What a great idea. Not only that, but the cast blew my mind. From the United States of America came Captain Kirk and Dr. Bones McCoy. Not forgetting Sulu, although American was of Japanese descent. Uhura was from the United States of Africa. Engineer Scotty was from Aberdeen, Scotland. And finally, Chekov was from the Soviet Union. The idea that humanity could develop into such a utopian place was thrilling. Star Trek had weekly stories of adventure and discovery, but they also had morality lessons in every episode. As a boy, I wide-eyed believed that if these things affected me so much, every child my age must be the same. That would mean our world would change because we would be different from previous generations, just like the USA, the U.S.S. Enterprise was not just a place . . . it was an idea. Change must be possible, right? Who would not want a peaceful, loving world to live in?
This idea today still seems so far away, even after fifty years. My child-like innocence honestly thought by the year 2000, when I would be forty-two years old, that because we landed on the Moon in 1969, we would have landed on Mars in 1980. In 2000 we would have space cars, computerized medical surgeries, interplanetary travel, instant transportation to anywhere in the world, and most importantly, a world with no borders, eliminating nationalist tendencies, war, and violence. I thought we would be living in a world where everyone was still patriotic, but patriotic of their one big beautiful world. Just as I always questioned why Prince Charles would be blessed with the wealthy lifestyle he has lived compared to mine, even though we both came to this world through a similar passage. It seemed unethical that his life would have such advantages because his mother was the Queen, and my mother was not. In the same way, it has always seemed grossly unfair and totally outrageous that I can eat every day, and yet nine percent of the world population, 700 million people, are starving today. Even more disturbing is that more than enough food is produced to feed everyone. So what is stopping us from utopian Star Trek ideals?
What is the problem? There was a time when Patriotism and Nationalism meant one of the same. However, we have seen what happens when extreme Patriotism morphs into extreme Nationalism. This kind of Nationalism moves us closer to dictatorship or a military coup. To be certain we understand each other let us see how dictionaries define these controversial terms. Patriotism, which is a very positive ideal, has been hi-jacked by Nationalism which is a very negative idea. Feelings of patriotism are based on the country's positive values — like freedom, justice, and equality. The patriot believes that the government system and the people of their country are inherently good and work together for a better quality of life, as defined by Robert Longley. In contrast, feelings of nationalism are based on a belief that one’s country is superior to others. It also carries a connotation of distrust or disapproval of other countries, leading to the assumption that other countries are rivals. While patriots do not automatically denigrate other countries, nationalists do, sometimes to the point of calling for their country’s global dominance. Nationalism, through its protectionist beliefs, is the complete opposite of globalism or internationalism. See Hitler in the dictionary. When you look, there will be a long list of nutjob despots.
A patriotic society would want to bless the lives around them and offer others the same benefits, thereby creating a peaceful and non-combative society. By its very nature, a nationalistic society is isolationist and combative therefore ensuring and demanding superiority over others; for no other reason than they deem themselves more deserving and better than their neighbors. Maybe they are a different color; maybe they speak a different language. Maybe they believe in a different god or no god at all. It seems that for a country with much, it is challenging to have less so that others can have some. I still vividly recall the horrendous pictures and films I saw as a child of other children my age dying in Biafra. Biafra broke away from Nigeria. Nigeria then engaged Biafra militarily by blockading Biafra’s coastline, causing almost two million children to die from starvation. The country only existed for three years before again becoming part of Nigeria. Nationalism is inward thinking, and Patriotism is outward thinking. However, the unfortunate concern is we all live on the same planet, and thus all our lives are intertwined. Isolationist policies do not work in a world where the Coronavirus spreads no matter the border or the people. Similarly, Global damage to our planet hurts everyone, not just the jerks that cause the most damage. For example, in both these cases, it is hard to imagine how the USA and their sense of Individualism at all costs can dispute the fact that they care so little about their global neighbors. The USA has only 4.25% of the world's population and has 25% of the world's coronavirus deaths. What does that suggest to you? Similarly, the USA's population is 4.25% of the world and yet creates 15% of the world's pollution. Only China, at 30%, outranks the USA on the charts for not caring for the world we live in.
Back to where we started, the period in which Gene Roddenberry devised Star Trek was a turbulent and controversial era. Women burnt their bras. Black Panthers wore a uniform of black leather and berets to illustrate their desire for change at any cost. The summer of love in 1968 also brought assassinations, riots, civil rights, historical achievements, much-hated wars, and a spirit of rebellion by the younger generation that touched many countries worldwide. For the first time, these historical events were broadcast on TV screens across multiple countries so the world's population could see them for the first time. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were on TV espousing ‘Love-ins.’ George Harrison dived into Hinduism and sang, “And the time will come when you see we’re all one.” Sounds like a Star Trek episode to me.
Somewhat controversially for the time, Star Trek attempted to include moral issues, including war and peace. The Vulcans had been war-like at one point, but peace saved their civilization. They then became ruled by logic and reason. Also, Roddenberry wanted the various Ism’s, class warfare, economics, religion, human rights, and the three major issues of the day, racism, feminism, and sexism, to be included. Usually not openly discussed publicly at that time, but if the issues were between green aliens and blue space tyrants, it was deemed perfectly fine. I took these issues to heart as a young child, and almost everything I firmly believe today came from the three seasons of Star Trek. Obviously, I was an impressionable young boy at the time. However, the teachings learned while watching Star Trek are still current, suggesting we have not learned much. Maybe that is why we have not progressed as a society as I envisaged as a child in 1969.
The last few years living in the USA and at the same time studying other nations around the world could have left me feeling a sense of hopelessness. However, I am reminded of another Star Trek Captain, Jean-Luc Picard, who told us, "Things are only impossible until they are not.”
But as Captain Jame T. Kirk once cautioned, “You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves and the irrational fear of the unknown. There is no such thing as the unknown. Only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.” And so, I continue to think as my younger self that one day, what seems impossible today will suddenly be not so, as we finally understand our happiness and safety lies in a one-world planet of one race, the human race. Today's fear is tomorrow's unearthed understanding. Live long and prosper—the correct response being Temba, at rest.
