← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC Radio 4
00:28:00
'Politics at its most brutal, its most basic, democracy as a demolition derby.
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Transcript13 lines
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This is from our own correspondent. We make an edition for the BBC
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World Service as well, but this is a download of the latest Radio 4 programme and here to introduce it as ever, Kate Ady.
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Today, 15 months to go and counting, Americans gear up for the wacky races, which are the Republican primaries. Independent smiles fade in South Sudan, but we hear they're still singing songs to their beloved cattle. There's a night of exuberant fire raising on one of India's holiest rivers. And a witch doctor has called in after strange goings on at our correspondent's house in Indonesia. The American President's black battle bus is back in the garage. Mr. Obama has returned to the White House after his three day road trip through the Midwest. He tried to woo the country folk with a multi million dollar plan for rural businesses and talked of other initiatives aimed at reducing an unemployment rate stubbornly stuck at around the 9%. Mark. As he spoke, various Republicans were doing their best to bolster their chances of securing their party's nomination to run against Mr. Obama for the presidency next year. Mark Mardell says their efforts are certain to produce good copy in the months ahead. They'll also provide a display of democracy in the raw.
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One of my favourite TV cartoons as a child was Wacky Races. I hugged the sofa as improbable characters in unlikely vehicles careered around a course, smashing and crashing, plotting and conniving in seemingly endless contests of wills and wiles. Now I feel like I'm having flashbacks. This time it's not Dick Dastardly and Penelope Pitstop, but Texan Rick Mitt, the Flipper and the Backman overdrive, revving and roaring in the race known as the Republican primaries. Perhaps I'm so enthralled because for years I had a professional disdain for those fascinated with this part of the US presidential race. When I was the BBC's Europe editor and trying hard to sell a profile of the woman who is about to run Europe's biggest economy, I noted a problem. With typical hyperbole, it seemed, I grumbled, some of the editors would rather run a piece about the dog that once belonged to the grandma of the bloke who clearly wasn't going to be the next president of the United States. I would still champion the importance of Angela Merkel over Red, the Connecticut coonhound. But now in the usa, I can't resist the magnetic pull of politics at its most brutal, most basic democracy as a demolition derby. We've already had some spectacular smash ups. Donald Trump, who I picture in a precarious racer, shaped like a skyscraper, topped by a model of his odd hairstyle, with girls in bikinis hanging off the sides, has ground to a halt and given up. Teapot Tim Pawlenty veered off the road when he lost a vital, if tiny, opinion poll. Newt Gingrich is left pushing his old crock round the track after his team fled in dismay at his lack of discipline. There are some stern editorial reasons for covering all this in detail. We'd feel a bit silly if Herman Cain, the pizza millionaire, became the most powerful man in the world. We hadn't bothered to tell you he was standing. But really, it's the lure of politics in the raw. Really raw, flayed to the bone, nerves exposed, gory and gladiatorial. The primaries coming round every four years are so familiar that it's easy to lose sight of the fact they're unique, alien, an experiment in ultra democracy that somehow has stuck a process so extraordinary that it would be laughed out of court if you suggested it today. The voters choosing their party's candidate need not be party members. They don't need to pay any fees or attend any meetings. They simply register as Republicans or Democrats. Some states go even further. You simply turn up and vote. Just think, in the United Kingdom, power to choose a party leader still hasn't really been prized out of the hands of the party elite, however much lip service is paid to one member, one vote. The men in dark suits, the block votes of the MPs or the unions. These were all designed to stop ordinary party members making a naive, shallow choice by plumping for their heartthrob who would doubtless reflect their enthusiasms, extreme and unelectable as they might be. As for the very idea of allowing mere voters who just happen to prefer one party over another to choose the unthinkable. And when a British party chooses its leader, it's well before an election and it's over in a flash. But the rolling, rollicking American campaign lasts for more than a year, a travelling circus moving from prayer breakfast to barbecue, from town to town, debate to debate before a series of votes spread out over months as one state votes then another in a cascade of cliffhangers. Journalists gorge on the red meat of this dramatic narrative, gnawing on the bare bones of the result, chewing over their implications. The candidates flaws and foibles, abilities and indiscretions are put under a blazing spotlight. Who will sweat and crack? Some tough questions are already out there. Opponents are asking, how close is Michele Bachmann to a very right wing Christian philosophy called Dominionism. Some of its proponents even argue for the death penalty for homosexuals and adulterers. Why has she in the past recommended a book in which the author appears to endorse the argument that slavery could not be abolished until the slaves became Christians? What about the controversy over Texas Governor Rick Perry's backing for the death penalty? In one case, critics say the evidence of guilt was scant. But one Perry supporter is meant to have admiringly told a focus group, it takes real guts to execute an innocent man. It is perhaps a puzzle that this system, so wide open to allow anyone, or at least anyone with the money to to enter hasn't produced a more glittering field. Even those who know no other system are a little worried. I ask every senior Republican I come across the obvious who do you want as your presidential candidate? Just about all of them reply, none of the above. Some are beginning to say so in public, while even that old cartoon favourite of mine had a clear starting line. This wacky race can be joined at just about any time. Many hope that the mists will part and a new champion, perhaps looking a little less like a cartoon caricature, will ride in, scattering and smashing the others out of the way. It may not be the most sensible way to choose a potential leader of the free world, but as theatre, it's hard to beat.
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And that's Mark Mardell in Washington. There's been criticism this week of the current Russian leadership from the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He said the country was going backwards under Prime Minister Putin. He warned of repeating the mistakes of the past. His comments come just a few months before Russians go to the polls to vote in a general election, which many believe will see Mr. Putin bidding again for the presidency. They also came on the anniversary of the coup, which brought down Mr. Gorbachev and precipitated the collapse of the USSR. Bridget Kendall was our reporter in Moscow during that eventful August back in 1991.
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Think of the technical challenges Colonel Gaddafi has faced in Libya or President Assad in Syria in repressing their populations. Compare that with 20 years ago, when hardline plotters in Moscow tried to seize power in a coup in the Soviet Union in 1991. Those opposing the crackdown had no Skype or satellite phones to circumvent a media blackout, as happened in Libya. There was no YouTube to uplink latest pictures so critical for the world's understanding of what is happening in Syria, and no social media to link up virtual networks of protesters and pass on news of their resistance. In fact, There was no Internet at all, or mobile phones or any kind of computers accessible to ordinary people. Twenty years ago, it should still have been possible to cut off Moscow and the rest of the Soviet Union, take control of the streets, and flood the airwaves with propaganda messages. Instead, the abortive coup of August 1991 was a test case of how not to stage a military takeover. I was aware early on that the coup plotters had failed at the first hurdle. They never touched the phone system. One of my first moves as BBC Moscow correspondent at the time was to phone Lithuania. I reasoned that if this really was a serious coup, then either communications to the rebellious Baltic republics would be cut off, or Soviet tanks and troops would already be on the streets. And after all, there'd already been one abortive attempt to bring Lithuania back into line by force in January 1991. But all was quiet in Lithuania, and when I turned on the main Soviet TV channel, scheduled programs had been replaced by the ballet Swan Lake, interspersed with news flashes read out by a man in spectacles, awkwardly reading off a piece of paper without autocue. It was so cliched, so typically Soviet, it was comical. In the old days of Brezhnev, somber music and terse news statements were always a sign that a Kremlin leader had died and power had been passed to a new regime. It was as though the coup plotters believed that if they went through the motions of behaving like the old Soviet Union, somehow, magically, the clock would turn back to a former epoch, a second failed opportunity to convince the nation this was a coup d' etat with steel in it. Even the parade of military hardware that rumbled into the city towards the Kremlin was somehow half hearted. Outside our office block, we found one young soldier had parked his tank near an underpass. He just sat there looking stunned, unable or unwilling to respond to our questions. Our elderly cleaning lady, Marcia, gently chastised him and told him to go home to his mother. This was a third and critical failure. When some Soviet army units refused to join the coup, the old guards sitting in the Kremlin began to panic. Within three days, it was all over. But 20 years on, when we survey the seismic uprisings in the Middle east and elsewhere, it's worth remembering what might have happened if you were sitting in the Soviet provinces in August 1991. It all looked much more precarious. In subsequent years, I've met quite a few Soviet officials based outside Moscow who say that, in their view, it was much more finely balanced than appeared in the capital trade relations between republics were grinding to a halt, many people had lost patience with reforms, and local party officials were sitting on the fence, waiting for orders or watching to see which way events would turn. If the coup leaders had managed to carry out their plan to arrest Boris Yeltsin and flood empty shops with food, if they had kept a grip and claimed they were restoring order and stability, if they had asserted better control over communications, who knows, maybe for a while the coup could have been successful. It's true that after six years of perestroika reforms, many Russians were no longer so easily cowed into submission, and Mikhail Gorbachev maintains to this day that the coup plotters were simply too cowardly and incompetent to see it through. But the messy lessons from more recent uprisings elsewhere in the world surely show that the outcome in these sorts of showdowns is often a matter of luck and sheer nerve, and by no means always predictable.
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Bridget Kendall it's just five weeks since South Sudan, after a long and bitter civil war, became the world's newest nation, but already some of the euphoria so evident on Independence Day seems to have evaporated. There are serious concerns about relations with the region's old rulers in Khartoum in the north, and about ongoing fighting in the Nuba Mountains in the south. Robin Denslow's just been back to this part of Africa to gauge the difficulties facing the people of South Sudan. He found that, as ever, it didn't take long for the talk to turn to cattle.
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Lt. Peter Boldeng stared at me for a while and then announced quietly that we had met before. It was, he said, back in the 90s, just outside the little town of Capweta, down towards the Ugandan border. I had come to meet his boss, the now legendary rebel leader John Garang, and he was then one of Garang's soldiers, but also well known for his songs encouraging the rebellion in South Sudan, in which mostly black and Christian southerners were fighting mostly Muslim northerners. To be honest, I don't remember meeting Boldang then, but he didn't sing to me on that occasion. I do, of course, remember talking to Garang out in the bush surrounded by his fighters. We'd just been filming units of the SPLA guerrillas fighting off a furious attack by Sudanese forces to the south of Juba. Garang told me they were determined to defend the south from the imposition of Sharia law. Today it's all very different. Juba is now the capital of the newly independent South Sudan, where Garang is buried in A grand mausoleum guarded by soldiers and surrounded by flags. He died in a helicopter crash just over six years ago. And as for Lt. Boldeng, he's still singing, he's still in the army, but he's worried that the independence he fought for hasn't brought the changes he expected. When I met him this time round, he was sitting outside his mud and thatch hut on the outskirts of Juba. A tall, thin figure, still wearing an SPLA cap. He took out his rebaba, a lyre like instrument with metal strings made of wood and what looked like a metal dinner plate, and sang me one of his rousing war songs, which included the lines in the Dinka language, We'll fight with SAM missiles, We'll fight with heavy machine guns, we'll fight with Kalashnikov. He clearly enjoys singing and still has a powerful voice, but seems far less happy when talking about present day Juba. Of course he's delighted by independence, but he complains that there's corruption, people aren't getting the resources they've been promised, everyone's out for themselves and the old wartime spirit has gone. And then there's the question of cattle. Like all Dinka and many other ethnic groups in South Sudan, Boldang adores cattle, which are seen as a symbol and source of wealth. They have an almost mystical importance. I wanted to visit a cattle camp and hear him singing cattle songs, which are often highly personal. They can deal with a family history or the history of a nation, and are performed to a favourite cow or ox before being sung to the community or recorded on cassettes to be distributed to family members. It wasn't that easy. The owners of the cattle were at first suspicious of letting us near their cows. Would you just walk into a bank and take pictures of people's money? Asked the owner of one large herd of several hundred magnificent white long horned cattle. He had a point. In South Sudan, cattle are money. They can cost the equivalent of £250 each. And if you want to get married, it's common for the bride's family to demand up to 200 cows. Cows are milked, but they are only slaughtered and eaten on very special occasions. It was no surprise then that during the war, the Sudanese government forces deliberately bombed southern cattle camps, killing thousands of animals. And that one of the major problems facing the new nation today is cattle rustling. Gangs of heavily armed raiders attack the camps, and in some parts of the country, like Jongle State, they've stolen hundreds of thousands of cattle, killing thousands of people. The new government blames Khartoum for providing the weapons and says the aim is to destabilize the new South Sudan. One government minister told me that the way to deal with the problem is to introduce commercial cattle ranching and to end the old practice of baying dowry in cattle, even if that means that the old traditional songs die out in the process. The idea horrified Boldeng. When we were eventually given permission to enter the cattle camp, he tracked down his favorite ox, a rather fine black and white be the name of Mackay, and began to sing to him in a lengthy song. He advised the ox that when he was given in dowry, he should only be handed over in exchange for a woman who was likely to remain faithful, not one who moved from house to house like a cat. Across the camp, I could see other men also singing. The much pampered cattle seemed to enjoy it. So what did Boldeng think about the government plans for commercial ranching and an end to the old traditions? This is our identity, he said. This is what we fought for. Now we're independent. The government can't take this away.
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Robin Denslow in Juba, South Sudan. Next, we travel to the Narmada river in central India. Along with the Ganges, it's one of the holiest waterways in the Hindu world. And there are many tales about its origins. One says Lord Shiva, the destroyer of the universe, meditated so hard, sweat flowed from him and became a river, the Narmada. Another says it came from a teardrop which fell from the eyes of the creator of the universe, Lord Brahma. Thousands of pilgrims make their way to the banks of the river every year. A dip in its waters, they believe, will wash away their sins. And at the temple town of Omkareshwar, there's a big celebration. David Hargreaves has been there to take part in the festivities.
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I could sense the excitement from the first. Even for rural India, the bus was jam packed. The last 10 miles into Omkareshwar found me squashed between boisterous youths and brightly dressed tribal women in a kind of paraplegic contortion. Once disembarked, we formed part of an arriving throng which surged towards the bazaar. Here, stall holders busily sold coconuts, dyes, garlands, and all the other usual pilgrim paraphernalia. Beyond it, as the river became visible at the bottom of a steep hill, loud music began to fill the air. Astonishingly, a huge PA system dominated the waterfront. Traditional Hindu chanting blurred into Bollywood film tunes, which morphed into full on Goa trance in a truly bizarre sonic mix. Flags and decorative bunting stretched along crowded bathing ghats, a feeling of great energy and anticipation pervaded this whole strange scene. Something most unusual was plainly in the air. I soon rejoined the visiting devotees on a pedestrian bridge which crosses the river and connects the mainland town to Mandatta Island. This wooded hump of land, about a mile and a half long, is venerated for its physical shape, that of Om, the mystic Hindu sound and symbol, hence the name Omkareshwar. Its main temple contains one of the subcontinent's 12 revered Jyotilingas, the phallus shaped stones which are central to Shivite tradition. Elsewhere around the island's perimeter winds a pilgrim trail on which a series of smaller temples and shrines crop up, along with some fine stone gates and ruined fortifications. Completing a circuit about a two hour walk is a key part of the ceremonials. Goats wander, monkeys forage and dreadlocked sadhus squat, filling their chilims with hash. It was only when the sun started to go down that a day's gentle absorption in local rituals began turning into something altogether more unexpected. First, the strength of the music everywhere doubled, blasting across the valley with intense Indo party beats. Crowds of excited celebrants packed the waterfront, while others squeezed onto nearby rooftops. Then, as darkness fell, long strands of colored electric lights snapped into life on both sides of the Nmada with the Shiva temple's extravagant illuminations, all flickers and whirls commanding the scene. Tiny leaf borne oil lamps drifted gracefully down the river in their hundreds, while behind them, a forest of neon tubes sparked up across Mandatta's hillside. Then, with a series of ear splitting booms, the fireworks started. One by one, powerful rockets shot upwards, trailing sparks high across the night sky. Flares exploded, serpents crackled, and for an hour or more, the whole valley, music thumping, rocked to a mighty pyrotechnic assault. All the while, slowly, discreetly, small fires were being lit, first along the mainland riverfront, then along the island's shore. Their strength grew. The Narmada seemed to be burning. Gradually, the flames advanced upwards to Mandatta's skyline and colonized its paths and ridges below. Before long, the island was being swept by fire. Finally, sensationally, a huge symbol of Om erupted into flame, blazing in majestic style across the hillside. As music thundered, an electric light glimmered and dazzled. The Narmada's birthday appeared to have reached its zenith. But it hadn't. Suddenly, in an astonishing coup d', theatre, the power was cut, the music stopped dead and all the illuminations vanished. Temples and buildings disappeared into blackness. And complete silence enveloped Omkareshwar. Climax now emphatically achieved. A few minutes later, the electricity came back on. Though the flames began slowly to subside, the party continued long into the night. By next morning, tranquillity reigned again, and the droves of pilgrims were fast dispersing. As I gazed across at Mandatta in the hazy sunshine, it now looked a picture of serenity seemingly unravaged by the previous night's exuberant fire, raising clearly the spectacle had been executed with great cunning. Festivity over Omkareshwar was reverting to normal mode. But normality here is not what it once was. Just a quarter of a mile upstream from Mandatta, hundreds of feet high, straddling the whole river, there now lies a giant hydroelectric dam. Its presence is having big environmental and social impacts locally. The immediate juxtaposition here of one of Hinduism's most ancient sites with such a dominant symbol of India's modern industrial prowess could hardly be more striking. How successfully its culture adapts to these collisions of old and new will define the story of this nation in the 21st century.
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David Hargreaves on the banks of the Namada river, the archipelago of Indonesia may be the world's most populous Islamic nation. But this sprawling country of thousands of islands wasn't always predominantly Muslim, and the practices of Javanese animism and mysticism are still important to millions of the people who live there. Even in modern Muslim Indonesia, many still believe in the power of the spirit world as Karishma Vaswani in the capital, Jakarta, has been finding out for herself.
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I have always thought of myself as a rather rational person, so I was quite surprised to find myself inviting a dukun, an Indonesian witch doctor, to my house. Let me explain. Over the last few months, my husband and I have noticed that a number of items in our house have gone missing. A little bit of loose change, a silver bangle, my daughter's plastic sunglasses. Soon the disappearances became the talk of our street. I hear you lost something else to day, said Mrs. Rom, who lives next door. Don't you think it's time you did something about this? Do what? I asked. None of the items was particularly valuable, so it hardly seemed to me that money was a motive. Exactly. Exclaimed Mrs. Rom. It's a Tuyul at play, and it's not money he's after. He's just a mischief maker. Now, I'm no stranger to Javanese superstitions, but this was the first time I'd heard of a Tuyul. According to an Indonesian superstition. If money or jewelry keeps disappearing mysteriously from your home, then a Tuyul might be responsible. A tuil is a small child spirit, invoked usually to steal things or to do mischief. A Tuyul in your house is not good, said Mrs. Rom. What's more, you have a young child at home. You need a dukkun. The safety of the whole street is at stake. I smiled politely at her suggestion, dismissing them quietly, out of hand. But Mrs. Rom and her friends were not so easily defeated. Having failed with me, they tried my husband. Finally, he urged me to give in. Just call the witch doctor, he said. I know you don't believe in it, but these women do, so what's the harm? Fine, I said. But where does one go about finding one of these ducans in this day and age? You can't just ring one up and ask him to come over, can you? Turns out you can. Or rather, you can text him. Mr. Bayou was nothing like I'd imagined, a quiet, well mannered young Javanese man dressed in a dark grey suit, messaging away on his BlackBerry phone as he entered our home. H'm, yes. Dark aura. Very dark aura, he muttered as he surveyed our living room. You obviously don't pray very much. We weren't off to a good start. Yes, definitely a Tuyul here. See this damp patch? Said Mr. Bayou as he pointed to the wall in my guest bedroom. This is where the Tuyul enters and exits from. See the shape of a young child? Mm, no. But I wasn't about to argue. Mrs. Rom and her band of merry women from our street were following him around our house, nodding in agreement with his every statement. I need salt and lots of garlic. He exclaimed. We must spread it all over your house. You must walk barefoot over this mixture. When the Tuyul comes to steal something, he will cut his feet on the salt and the garlic will sting him. Then he won't come back. The ladies of the street murmured in the background. He's so wise, said one. And so powerful, whispered another. I couldn't disagree, but I was confused. Surely, I asked. In modern Muslim Indonesia, these sorts of old traditional Javanese superstitions could no longer be valid. Mr. Bayou smiled sagely. He himself was a devout Muslim, he said, and certainly Islam doesn't hold with ghosts and spirits. But Indonesia wasn't always a Muslim country. The spirits of the old religion still live in some parts of this country, explained Mr. Bayou. They must be respected, and sometimes the old ways must be used to draw them out so they don't cause any trouble. A shrill phone call interrupted our conversation. Oh dear. Mr. Bayou shook his head. I must be off now. That's a politician client of mine. He wants me to come over. Someone has put a love spell on his wife and he wants me to remove it. So that's it? I asked were we now, having performed our salt and garlic ritual? Do you'll free another sage Smile, insha', Allah, said Mr. Bayou, using the common Muslim phrase that means God willing. And with that, Mr. Bayou left as quickly and quietly as he came. It struck me that he, like so many Indonesians I've come to know in my time here, effectively straddles two worlds. One, the modern world of Muslim Indonesia and the other, an older, shadowy world of Javanese mysticism. Together, the two make up the yin and yang of what it means to be Indonesian, a paradox that millions of people in this country seem to be entirely comfortable with.
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Karishma Vaswani taking on the spirit world in Jakarta and bringing another edition to a close. I'm here again next Saturday with more from our own correspondents around the world. I hope you'll join us. Goodbye.