COMMENT
Charity begins on Holmes, apparently. Well when I say charity, I mean the showbiz variety, a form of hand-out which means the givers want everyone to know that they've given.
But Monday night's Holmes special on the Ofafonua family was no telethon, no Live Aid, no celebratory fundraising bash with the occasional image of the unfortunates thrown on the screen so that those involved, and those watching, might feel a surge of sentiment and of pride that they are doing something for the deserving poor.
No, this hour-long, live spectacle was an altogether more specious species of showbiz charity. On the face of it, the entire show was devoted to the unveiling of the new house built for the Ofafonuas, an Otahuhu family who had, until four months ago, been living in a dump on the same site.
Their new home had been built free of charge through the sweat or good offices of many who were touched by news reports and a Holmes story on the squalor, poverty and need of this family.
But this was no plain reporting of a happy outcome. There was something more, something unsavoury and disagreeable, in the tone and substance of Monday night's Holmes. Here, essentially, were the givers not only wanting to be seen to be giving.
Here were the givers demanding that the beneficiaries make payment through a very public homage to their patrons.
Surrounded by those who had helped and with Holmes leading with every question, the Ofafonuas - a family clearly unused to the ways and wiles of the media - were made mere extras in a melodrama beyond their control and where the script was written for them.
"So this is the big night," fizzed Holmes.
"Yes of course", the father, Tivita Ofafonua, said uncomfortably.
"At last, it's happened", Holmes prompted.
"Yes ... I was trying to say to the people around here with us, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you very much ... "
Then there were tears. And with them the unpleasant aftertaste of manipulation of a family who were incidental during much of the hour.
Instead there were endless clips of the old house being demolished, the new one being built. There were interviews with those who had given of their time and materials. There was Holmes doing the vacuuming ... "I'm a man of the people" ... was what he wanted us to know.
Charity, of course, sees only a need not a cause. So the more complex reasons for the Ofafonuas' plight, and that of so many others like them, was ignored in a rush of self-satisfied showboating.
But the worst was left for last. Holmes once again took the Ofafonuas into the house and they gathered just inside the door. "Whoa," said Holmes, the owner of a large Hawkes Bay estate, in apparent awe. "It's yours," he added.
It was then we had the improbable sight, thanks to Holmes standing on the landing above the door, of him towering over the much larger Tivita Ofafonua, who again began to weep. Holmes laid a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, let me show you the house."
And so, after an hour, the Ofafonuas had done what was asked of them and they got their home. They no longer have to live in a smelly, leaky house - and that is good. And Holmes might have been right when he said those who had helped gave purely through generosity - although I'm sure having their businesses promoted heavily during the show was hardly an unexpected reward.
But it is not they, the donors, but Holmes, who was stage-managing the episode's greatest prize, publicity.
It leaves me sickened and speechless. So I defer to William Hutton, the 18th-century English Quaker, historian and author, to make it plain: "The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation."
And, I would add, a circus.
<i>Greg Dixon:</i> Bittersweet charity
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