← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
29 Sept, 2011
00:28:15
They came from all over: serious men from Seville and Madrid with their fine suits and...
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You are listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent. You can hear the version of the program broadcast on the BBC World Service by going from our own correspondent website, or indeed to that of the BBC World Service. But here's the edition which goes out on BBC Radio 4. It's introduced by Kate Ady in this program.
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An evening of passion as the people of Barcelona go bull fighting for the final time. We're deep beneath the Congo jungle as miners and smugglers pursue a lucrative but dangerous business. How American country music's embracing the anger of a generation laid low by economic hardship and getting a message into secret of North Korea. Does it really depend on which way the wind's blowing? Six centuries of bullfighting history came to a close in the autonomous Catalan region of Spain at the weekend. Concern for animal rights led the region's parliament to ban the sport. But the Catalans desire to distance themselves from traditional Spanish activities played its part as well. Animal rights groups now plan to get the ban extended right across the country. But they face a determined counter campaign by fans of La corrida, who say that as a vital part of Spain's cultural heritage, it should enjoy protected status. Robert Elms was among the 20,000 people who went to see the last bullfight in Barcelona.
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They came from all over. Serious men from Seville and Madrid filling trains and planes with their fine suits and Havana cigars, their tanned and buffed consorts in tow. The flamboyant French had poured down over the border to celebrate Los Toros with extravagant olays and elegant wines. Studious Americans, wealthy Mexicans, Basques and Swedes. Even the sole Japanese torero, El Nino del Sol Naciente, the Son of the Rising sun, was among those who had managed to secure the scorching hot tickets for the big show in town. The last show in town ever. I didn't spot any other englishman among the 20,000 aficionados packed into the monumental Barcelona's beautiful art nouveau bullring. But outside, I suspect there was at least one fellow countryman among the surprisingly small but jubilantly vocal group of anti taurinos who had gathered opposite the ring. He held up a sign which read in English never again and gave a uniquely English hand gesture to the few bullfight fans who bothered to argue with the 50 or so antis who were outnumbered by the stern looking riot police who surrounded them. Theirs was not so much a demonstration as a celebration of victory. Their job done a year ago when the Catalan parliament voted to ban the corrida throughout the province, which was never exactly a hotbed of Torah and activity, but had seen regular fights in the Barcelona Plaza for 97 years. The animal rights view enshrined in the chanted slogan la tortura no es cultura. Torture is not culture is undoubtedly held by many Catalans, and the ring has been in slow decline as a young generation of funky, very European Barcelonans turn their backs on the bulls. But it was the complex politics of Iberian separatism which actually put paid to Barcelona's bullring. Snubbing Spain and distancing Catalunya by outlawing such a vividly Spanish tradition was the real motive for many of the nationalist politicians who took that historic vote. And there was certainly a heightened sense of history and emotion among the crowds who watched the three matadors dance with and then dispatch six bulls in the time honoured fashion. The whole event was interspersed with cries of Viva la fiesta. And even the provocative Viva Espana from the stands, many of which were draped in banners and flags, among them one which simply said continue arra. It will continue with great significance. The final matador to perform was Seraphine Marin, the only Catalan to currently wear the suit of lights and a young man who was visibly shaken throughout the evening. After an expert sword at la hora de berdad the moment of truth, he bowed and then prostrated himself on the sand, sobbing. He cupped the golden dust and kissed it with elaborate passion, a baroque gesture somehow fitting such an impassioned evening. All three matadors were then raised onto the shoulders of the fans, who swarmed onto the arena and given a tumultuous lap of honour, accompanied by the ritual chanting of to re ro to. But then, somehow, the chant morphed into Li bertad, li bertad. And continued as the matadors were carried into the packed streets outside. For a while the chanting swelled and a small demonstration looked like it might turn ugly. But it soon dissipated into the warm late September evening as the thousands of aficionados retired to bars and restaurants to discuss the significance of the events. Most weren't even from here, and so they knew that they could continue their passion in their own more pro taurine towns further south. The local fans were obviously more upset, but even they couldn't deny that Barcelona had fallen out of love with the bulls, and the vast majority wouldn't miss it. I personally thought of the poet Lorca, who had called the Coreda the last serious thing in the modern world, and I wondered what he would make of a world so modern that it had no place for such a visceral but potent ritual.
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And that was Robert Elms. Attempts by the authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to get tough on smugglers in the east of the country seem to have had little effect. A huge trade in valuable minerals, many of them sought by Western electronics companies, is continuing. The business, said by some to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, is controlled by rebel militia groups whose activities have fueled years of fighting and terrorised people across a huge area. The American government's trying to stop the smuggling, too. New legislation there requires all Western companies to verify and disclose exactly where they're getting their raw materials. But, as Conor Woodman found on a recent trip to Congo, it may have little effect. Smuggling minerals to neighbouring Rwanda is just one of the ways that unscrupulous traders are getting round the rules.
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Crouching down low inside a Congolese mine shaft is proving a little more excitement than I bargained for. The dark, narrow tunnel is so cramped that I can only move along it on hands and knees, and I'm aware that my breath is becoming heavy with fear. Eventually, around 200 meters below the surface, I reach the face of the mine, where a short, bearded man called Boniface is squatted down to in a pool of muddy water. He takes the point of his pick and directs my eye to a seam of dark black stone running vertically from ceiling to floor. Cassiterite, he says, smiling and nodding. Cassiterite is a mineral found here in the Democratic Republic of Congo, deep below the ground, that is vital for the production of laptops and cell phones. Boniface starts to hammer at the rock face, displacing pieces of it into the dirty pool. Suddenly I feel another rush of fear. The sight of rock coming away from the walls is particularly unsettling. I want to get out of here. The crashing noise of the hammer on the pick is beginning to make me feel dizzy and uncomfortable. Boniface laughs as I turn around and head back towards the entrance. He knows the risks better than anyone. Deep within the bowels of the Congolese jungle, violent storms can blow in without warning, depositing enough water in minutes to trigger landslides that could bury us alive. But for Boniface, fear is a luxury he cannot afford. The only living to be found here is in mines like this one. If Boniface faces huge risks underground, then things don't improve much when he gets back to the surface. In his village lie the charred remains of several houses. The rebel militia group, the fdlr, came and burnt down their homes and looted their cattle, and they raped many of the women. We are fresh from war and we are still at war, says Boniface's brother Kika, because they are still here. The FTLR are in the thickest jungles and they are in the mines too. They know the paths better than even the Congolese army. The Congolese soldiers have no chance against them in this jungle. In the jungles, the FTLR have established themselves as part of the fabric of the Democratic Republic of Congo. They exist to make money and they remain because they are successful at it. Hungry soldiers will steal from those who have food. They don't need to go down the mines themselves, only to operate in areas where others do and then plunder the spoils when they can. And that poses an ethical dilemma for Western electronics companies who need cassiterite and Congo's other minerals to make the latest gadgets for Western consumers. New U.S. legislation will force all companies to prove that none of the minerals they use are being sourced from Congo's rebel controlled areas. Faced with such a challenge, the electronics companies have preferred instead to turn their backs on Congo. Easier, they say, just to source minerals from somewhere else. So Congo's exports have tailed off, even though Congo's mining continues. Down by the Rizizi river, which flows along the border between the DRC and Rwanda, I meet a young Congolese man named Satari sitting outside his house close to the water's edge. From here, he gets a good view of the late night activities on the river. Every night he tells me, people are smuggling things both ways. Sometimes if they have no boat, they will even swim across. Sotari says the biggest trade across the river is minerals. When we are sleeping, sometimes I wake when I hear them cry out across the river. He gives a cautionary shake of his head. But this is very dangerous. If you do not know the river well, then you can drown. A boy I know my friend died this way last month too. He was 16 years old. He was smuggling minerals to Rwanda. The recent pressure put on suppliers to stop exporting unethical minerals has only made the trade even more opaque. The same minerals are now being smuggled into Rwanda from where they can be ethically exported. Sometimes, Satari says, bodies will wash up with bullet holes in them. The Congolese army has become increasingly involved and disputes over territory result in people being made an example of. Now unable to sell their minerals openly in their own country and with no other means to earn a living, the only option for people here is to keep coming down to the Rizizi river after dark and to take their chances.
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Connor Woodman There developments in communications and in the field of social media are often depicted as a force for good. Facebook and Twitter have been widely credited for a role in the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Their power and potential, we're led to believe, have dictators positively quaking in their boots. But perhaps these despots have just been slow to catch on. North Korea, for example, might not be connected to the Internet. You will find it difficult even to get an international phone call through. But there is evidence that its leaders have realized that even the humble text message can work for them too, as Lucy Williamson over the border in the south has been finding out.
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It's mid morning on a hillside overlooking North Korea and Mr. Lee is about to have a fight. Mr. Lee is not a big man, nor a particularly threatening one, but there are certain things he feels passionately about, and one of them is balloons. Every weekend he comes here to float giant helium balloons across the de facto border with North Korea, each one carrying bundles of leaflets, newspaper cuttings and anti Pyongyang cartoons. Today, though, the wind is in the wrong direction and Mr. Lee isn't one to waste a good balloon. His supporters who have come to watch the launch disagree, and as they're paying for the cost of the event, it's all getting a bit tense. After a bit of pushing and shoving, a compromise is reached and the giant 30 foot balloons are unfolded and prepared for flight, the roar of the helium gas drowning out conversation around the open jeep. It's a surreal way of sending a message from one of the world's most connected countries. Standing here, just a few kilometres from North Korea, I can watch BBC video on my phone, send a photo to my dad in London or my friend in New York, and dial direct anywhere in the world. Anywhere that is, except the country I can see lying between the grey green hills in front of me. North Korea is the most closeted country on earth. International phone lines and Internet access are almost non existent, tightly restricted to the elites and even then closely monitored. One North Korea analyst here in Seoul says it seems to be the only country in world history to have outlawed tunable radio sets in peacetime in and where access to foreign language publications needs security clearance. Perhaps balloons aren't such a far fetched idea at all, but then they are annoyingly dependent on the weather conditions to reach their destination. Mr. Lee and his supporters prepare for lift off, three long plastic balloons towering above their captors, tugged by the wind as the small crowd stands to observe a moment's silence. And then they're released, sailing quickly up over the hills and back towards Seoul, exactly as Mr. Lee predicted. But then Mr. Lee may be a bit behind the times anyway. Leaflets dropped by balloon may have been novel in his day, but news inside North Korea these days is just as likely to be circulated by text message or dvd. Not being connected to the Internet or an international phone network doesn't mean that mobile phones and computers aren't seen as fashionable consumer items. Nor does it mean that this new technology isn't having an effect inside the country and helping to form opinion there. Some estimates say that these days, at least in the border areas, around a quarter of North Koreans have a DVD player at home, and that even rural schools have a computer or two handy for the steady trickle of DVDs and memory sticks that leak across the Chinese border. And a few years back, North Korea launched a domestic mobile network operated by the Egyptian carrier Oriscom. So far, more than 600,000 people are registered users in a country of more than 20 million. That's not by any means a tipping point. But when that country's North Korea, it's not insignificant either. A couple of weeks ago, a North Korean defector here in Seoul described how even the North Korean government is using the mobile network to bolster its credibility. There were two kinds of opinion back home, she said. State controlled opinion spread through posters and state media and public opinion formed by word of mouth and office parties. North Korea's water cooler moments, if you like. Last year, she said, when the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il went to China, the state put out a message that its top leadership was working with China to correct the failures of the country's middle management. Rumors of Mr. Kim being spotted in China began to circulate via mobile phones and. And then when his visit was shown on state television that evening, it seemed to confirm those innocent looking text messages, thus boosting trust in the state and, by implication, its message. The assumption is that connectivity carries big risks for the North Korean regime, but some analysts say it might hold benefits as well. Because the country's IT infrastructure is still in its infancy, they say there's the chance for Pyongyang to build a system that would enable it to easily track users that listen in, spread its own messages more subtly, and control access. But then, even Mr. Lee is catching up with the times. These days, he slips DVDs into his balloon bundles along with the leaflets.
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Lucy Williamson In South Korea, country music has long told hard luck stories of broken relationships and small town life. But since America's economy went into decline three years ago, musicians have been busy writing about the recession too. Foreclosure and unemployment loom large in songs by a number of country music's biggest stars, as does anger over corporate bailouts and the lack of political leadership. Our man Paul Adams, a self confessed country music fan, has been talking to the musicians and their audience.
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What is it about country music that seems to tap so directly into America's sense of unease? Why should a genre that dwells so obsessively on cheating hearts, firecracker girlfriends and trusty pickup trucks also provide a soundtrack for the recession and solace to a nation undergoing such profound and painful change? What, if anything, are the country music stars trying to say? Seeking answers, I headed counterintuitively, perhaps away from country's southern rural routes to New England's urban sprawl, to the town of Hartford, Connecticut, to no more nor less ravaged by the recession than anywhere else where Toby Keith's Locked and Loaded tour was rolling into town to the delight of legions of die hard country fans. By the time I pulled into the car park at the Comcast Theatre, the smell of cooking and the sounds of laughter and country music were already mingling. In the late summer afternoon, serried ranks of pickup trucks were parked up like latter day covered wagons by trestle tables groaning with homemade food. They call it a tailgate party, a simple blend of hospitality, patriotism and beer that forms a traditional staple at football games and concerts all over the country. Feeling pleasantly dislocated from straight laced Washington, a conspicuous stranger amid the plaid shirts and variously distressed cowboy hats, it was startling at first to find myself accosted by a woman who said she knew exactly who I was and what I was doing here. I shouldn't have been surprised. Half the people in the car park had probably been listening to Hertford's country music station that morning and perhaps caught me talking to the breakfast host about the extent to which the current crop of country musicians are dealing with the recession, the car park, like the Breakfast show, was not short on answers to my questions. Country music, I was told, was full of approachable stars more interested in authenticity than a rock star lifestyle and singing thoroughly American music with instantly, often painfully recognizable lyrics of blue collar hardship. I chatted with Jim Yoshas, who was drinking excellent homemade red wine with his wife and friends in front of an imposing Ford pickup, an American flag flying proudly from the roof. Jim's day, which had so far included deer hunting, washing the truck and fixing the barn he's known since childhood, already sounded like a country song, but he said the music really mattered to him. At 53 years old, he was still working but feeling vulnerable and replaceable. For the first time in his life, Jim was looking forward as much as the next person to an evening of good old honky tonk cliches. But he also knew that the man whose recent albums have included White Trash With Money and Bullets in the Gun, would also give voice to his own deep, deepest anxieties. And for that, Jim was genuinely thankful. Toby Keith didn't disappoint. His latest chest thumping single, made in America, is a tale of unapologetic patriotism and a way of life under threat in the heartland. It shakes a defiant fist at corporate outsourcing and celebrates a life defined by the King James Bible and good old Uncle Sam. At times it feels like an anthem for the sort of conservative Tea Party activists now shaking up the Republican Party. And judging by the wild enthusiasm of the crowd, it stirs his audience like nothing else. I spoke to Toby Keith in the air conditioned chill of his gargantuan tour bus. I asked him if he felt a responsibility to sing about the recession and its victims. No, he said, but these were the people. White working class men and women he thought about when he sat down to write. Country music, he said, was like his song Made in America. Old fashioned, simple, scorned by much of the entertainment industry. He called it the Ugly Stepsister at the dance. Does it carry a chip on its shoulder, I wondered. And is this why the fans, many of whom carry their own chips, love it so much? Yes, he said. But country music was tough, too. I'll put my crowd up against anyone, he laughed. And I'm sure the fans wouldn't let him down. But the economy is still letting them down. On Tuesday, I learned that Jim Yoshis fears have come to pass after 10 years as the engineering supervisor at a private school. He's just been laid off. He sounds shocked but undaunted and talks of setting up as a plumber. But he says the music means more to him than ever.
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Paul Adams in the town of Hartford, Connecticut. Life's been returning to a quieter pace in County Meath in the Republic of Ireland. Europe's women golfers sealed an exciting victory there over their American counterparts in the Solheim cup earlier this week. The event was also a triumph for Irish tourism. Local hotels, clubs and bars all did record business as tens of thousands of people flooded into the county to watch a tournament sometimes called the Ladies Rider Cup. Among them, in the grounds of Killeen castle, was the BBC's Trish Flanagan.
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Why are you trying to burst through the bushes? Says an exasperated male volunteer, holding out his arms in a vain attempt to stop the throng of people. It's hard work containing the enthusiastic crowds at this Solheim Cup. One group is taking a shortcut through the bushes from the 14th hole to the 15th. Tee play doesn't wait for latecomers, and they don't want to miss a shot. Marlin Johnson is standing near the players toilets at the 14th. Her job is to keep the players safe and make sure they can use the facilities uninterrupted. I'm the latrine guard, she laughs. An amateur golfer herself, Marilyn has travelled from Georgia in the USA to see the competition. I was coming to see the golf and then I saw they were looking for volunteers. It's great because you can really get up close to the action, she tells me. There are 450 volunteers working at the Solheim cup, including 100 from overseas. They keep the operation running smoothly for players and visitors alike. All are easily recognizable in their green and black outfits, and there's a variety of jobs for them to do. In addition to the latrine marshal, there are grandstand marshals, course marshals, scoring marshals and yet more player care marshals. The majority of the 25,000 people they must marshal on the second day of the tournament are are in high spirits. Fruit mascots advertising one of the competition sponsors mingle with supporters, and giggling ladies line up to be photographed with them. The raspberry complains that it's very hot in his suit. U.S. and European supporters vie to outsing each other in the grandstand at the first tee. Let's go, Europe, let's go. Chant the ladies in blue and yellow waving their EU flags. The songs reflect the diversity of the team. Flower of Scotland is followed by Viva Espana. There's a note of urgency in their voices. Europe was beaten by the US in the last three Solheim Kop tournaments. Usa, usa. Is the refrain from the opposition's choir, who wave glittering placards with the names of the US players. A hushed silence falls across the European supporters when the opposition sings God Bless America, followed by a respectful round of applause. Then there's the clothing rivalry, tattoos and top hats, streamers and sparkles. Killeen Castle itself has no competition. The stunning 12th century stone castle towers over the golf course. But one Swedish supporter tells me that it looks a bit fake. A little too Disney, she says. And she may have a point. One of the Irish volunteers tells me that the castle is just a shell. The inside was burned down in 1981, apparently by some drunken men. The building's roof and windows have now been replaced and the stonework cleaned, but the Irish economic climate has delayed renovation of the interior, and there's many a rumour about what will happen to the place in the future. It might be hard to separate fairy tale from fact when it comes to the castle, but undoubtedly there's something magical about the weather here. Although it's September, it feels like a midsummer day and the magnificent course is bathed in sunshine. When the crowd goes silent on the greens, you can hear the song of the last swallows of the season and the chirping of crickets in the grass. A supporter asks a silver haired lady for an autograph on a golfing glove. The woman says she's delighted to be recognised. Who's that? I inquire. Patty Sheehan, the supporter says reverentially. You're too young to remember her. She's in the World Golf hall of Fame. Later I discover that Patty Sheehan won six majors and played five Solheim Cups. There are even winners among the volunteers. PJ Conroy from Dublin tells me that he's a British left handed Open golf champion. He won the title in 2008 and his son won it earlier this year. The Irish have taken home six majors in the past five years, and Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland won this year's US Open. PJ's 12 year old grandson, Stephen, has grand plans. He says, I want to be even better than Rory McIlroy.
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Trish Flanagan making the most of glorious weather in County Meath. And that's it. There'll be more from our correspondents far and wide on Saturday morning. I do hope you'll join us then. Good bye.