← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
A New Leader Rises
00:28:09
Political change in Zimbabwe and the new African reality.
Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is the BBC Today.
- [00:03]
B
If you like soap opera, then Lebanese politics might suit you. The Prime Minister resigns, then unresigns amongst rumours of kidnap and rumblings of war, how to unite Israelis and Palestinians. The elegant and graceful Arab horse may show how while in Portugal it's herds of oxen which tell of changing times. And we explore the tangled history of an unexpected ethnic enclave in In Kashmir. Tens of thousands of people packed the National Sports Stadium in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, to witness the inauguration of Emerson Mnkagwa. He was greeted with dancing, singing and rapturous applause. Robert Mugabe was not there. He needed to rest was the official line. But among the crowd were opposition politicians and dignitaries and leaders from other African countries. Fergal Kein was there too, and reporting from Zimbabwe has stirred memories of a different Africa.
- [01:02]
A
The photograph is from an age that is now almost unrecognizable to me, although I lived and reported through some of its most decisive moments. It is in black and white. The men are standing on a lawn in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, wearing those distinctive suits that always seemed to me a quixotic blend of the safari fashion of colonial Africa and the spartan cut of Mao's China. Each of the leaders enjoyed an iron grip on their parties. Some were still fighting civil wars or revolutions. Others had become the leaders of new nations. Their common enemy lay to the south, beyond the Limpopo river, where the African continent rolls over the Plataland, the flatlands and the mountains of the Cape to the confluence of the Indian and Atlantic oceans. The meeting took place sometime in the early 1980s in the spiritual heart of what were then known as the frontline states Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Botswana and Zimbabwe. At different times, these countries provided refuge to the African National Congress as it was attempting to overthrow white minority rule in South Africa. In the imaginations of millions of young Africans, the men photographed in Lusaka were giants. Samora Michel of Mozambique and Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, who'd led guerrilla armies against Portuguese colonialism. Kenneth Kaunda, leader of independent Zambia and the most passionate voice in the constellation of frontline states. Sam Nuyoma, still fighting a bush war against South Africa in what is now Namibia. Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, elder statesman of the region, and Robert Mugabe, leader of the newly independent Zimbabwe. In those days, I was a young reporter making his first forays into Africa. It was the time of the Cold War. The west backed its local despots and the Soviets theirs. My first assignment was to Eritrea, where I watched a child die slowly. From the effects of a napalm strike by Ethiopian jets supplied by the Soviet Union. A similar proxy war was being waged with the South Africans, supported by the Americans, fighting Angola's ruling party, backed by Cuba and the Soviets. In Mozambique, a vicious rebel movement sponsored by South Africa was fighting the socialist Frelimo government. A memory comes suddenly back from those years. The town of Menong in southern Angola and a child carrying his starving brother on his back, telling me he was nice once, but now he has the hunger. Reporting Africa. In those days, it was impossible to avoid the ruinous consequences of European colonial rule. In the lives of so many millions of people, the Europeans had come, conquered, subjugated and extracted. And now in South Africa, the last and most powerful of all the white autocracies was being shaken by township unrest. Apartheid South Africa was on the cusp of dramatic change, though I did not sense it at the time. With their own leaders in prison, the young men and women I met in the townships looked north to the frontline states. To Kenneth Kaunda and Robert Mugabe, who sheltered South African exiles and from whose capitals the ANC broadcast messages of defiance, the region existed in a state of siege. South Africa launched commando attacks on ANC members in the capitals of Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe. For all the bloody mayhem, it was a time of certainty. A generation of young Africans could easily identify the enemy. He was white, spoke Afrikaans and pointed a gun. That Africa is long gone. It's worth recalling what happened to the men in the photograph. Samora Michel of Mozambique was killed in a plane crash. Julius Nyerere died, revered, but having imposed ruinous economic policies on his country. Sam Nyoma became president of independent Namibia and then retired when his time was up. Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola retired earlier this year. Kenneth Kaunda lost power in a democratic election and gave way peacefully to his successor. And Robert Mugabe. He outlasted them all, but was humiliatingly forced out of office this week in Harare. In the last few days, it was clear that for many Zimbabweans, Mugabe already belonged in a psychological museum. Along with all the other icons of that frontline age, he had long outstayed his time. I believe he was vainer than the others. He conflated self and state, surrounded himself with sycophants and faithfully for any leader he lived in the past. The young of Zimbabwe have little or no interest in what happened in the days when apartheid's armies menaced the borders of black states. In the words of the new president, Emerson Menangagwa, they want jobs. Jobs jobs. I watched him being sworn in as president and heard him refer to Robert Mugabe as a founding father of Zimbabwe. And when he finished his speech, he walked back to the podium and sat down, his wife to his left and to his right. Kenneth Kaunda and Sam Naomi, the two old revolutionaries from the photograph, watched the new leader rise over the discarded presence of their old comrade, Robert Mugabe. They applauded, they smiled, they accepted the new African reality.
- [06:36]
B
Fergal Keen pictures from Zimbabwe's state broadcaster went around the world, another example of the unexpected in politics, giving a boost to TV news stations today, Donald Trump's frequent allegations about fake news garnished with the quote, it is frankly disgusting that the press is able to write what they want to write. Hasn't put people off the news news bulletins. Indeed, it's led to what some call a Trump bump in the number of viewers willing to pay for news online and actually helped American TV news networks increase their viewing figures. And they're tuning into politics in Beirut as well, says Richard hall, where there's no shortage of political uncertainty.
- [07:21]
C
Lebanon is a nation of news addicts. Dissecting the headlines is something of a national pastime. Here, in times of crisis, it becomes more of a national obsession. We're currently witnessing one of those times. Earlier this month, the country's prime minister, Saad Hariri, unexpectedly resigned. Live on TV from Saudi Arabia. He said Iran had created a state within a state through its support for the Lebanese group Hezbollah and that his life was in danger. Speculation was rife that Saudi Arabia, Hariri's patron, had pressured him into it. The proxy war between the region's two great powers was returning to Lebanon. Political upheaval in Lebanon can escalate quickly. The older generations, the ones who lived through the 15 year civil war, are acutely aware of how desperate things can get. My neighbor Christina said she was thinking about buying extra water and cooking gas just in case. Everything in Lebanon makes us worried, especially now, she said. Hariri's resignation was just the beginning of the saga. It was soon announced that Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, would respond with his own televised address at the end of the week, the country was gripped. It was all anyone could talk about on the news, but also at the corner shop, on the bus, in the cafes, online. The following Friday, at the allotted time, the streets went quiet. In his speech, Nasrallah called for calm, but he also suggested that the prime minister was being held against his will in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi crown prince had just rounded up dozens of his own family members. Was Hariri among the detained? He asked shortly after the speech ended. I was walking through a warren of narrow alleyways near my house. Through window after window, I saw people gathered around the glow of their television sets. The unmistakable outline of Nasrallah was on every screen, the news channels replaying and analyzing every word. I stopped to watch a man sitting at his desk at his garage after 9pm when he should have been at home watching Nasrallah smoking a cigarette. He looked beleaguered. I'd seen something similar to this collective viewing party before. Every year during Ramadan, when much of the country is at home in the evening to break the fast, television companies unleash their most spectacular big budget soap opera storylines. Ramadan may be a Muslim holiday, but soap season draws everyone in. It's something of a tradition for families to devour the drama together during this time. And what was this new crisis if not a soap opera? A kidnapped prime minister? Palace intrigue? The rumblings of war? Yet Lebanon's addiction to news is nothing new, and it has roots in more than just an appetite for drama. Back in the 60s, when Beirut was still referred to as the Paris of the Middle east, it was a hub for intellectuals and thinkers from across the Arab world who came to debate and argue the ideas of the day in the coffee shops of Hamra Street. As censorship stifled the rest of the region, Lebanon's press flourished. But then war broke out and the media became even more sectarian, appealing only to their respective bases. Today, the country's major TV stations and newspapers are all owned by or affiliated with political parties. They are, for the most part free, but they are not impartial. So although the people I saw through the windows were watching the same speeches, they were doing so through their own filters. Imagine a movie where the subtitles differ depending on your taste, and you get the idea. In the week following Nasrallah's speech, the rumors about Hariri's status in Riyadh continued. Even the president, Michel Aoun, speculated that Hariri might not have his full freedom. Hariri had been silent for seven days when it was announced he would give a television interview to his own channel, Future tv, to address the rumors. The stage was set again for another political drama. Hariri repeated the same talking points of his resignation speech, but something didn't feel quite right. He looked exhausted. When asked why he hadn't spoken in more than a week, he said, I have been in a reflective state. One moment really stood out. While he was talking, Hariri's eyes kept darting to a man behind the interviewer. We never saw his face, but one shot seemed to show him holding up a piece of paper to Hariri. People speculated that the prime minister was being coached on his answers, but by whom? That night, on my way home, I again saw the same scene playing out in the front rooms. I passed Hariri's face on every television screen. Even an hour after the broadcast had ended, families were glued to their television sets, trying to figure it all out. What did it all mean? Will he come home? Will there be war? As with any good soap opera, the discussion afterwards is just as important as the show itself. We're all left to guess what might happen next, and it wasn't long until another plot twist came along. Hariri Came Home, appeared on our screens again to withdraw his resignation.
- [12:22]
B
Richard hall for centuries, Arabian horses have been prized for their toughness, bravery, and beauty. Bedouin tribes considered them a gift from God and would allow the animals to sleep inside their tents to protect them from the elements and from theft. When Napoleon rode into battle for the last time, it was on an Arab steed, and today in the Middle east, the rich and powerful still vie to own this coveted breed. In the occupied west bank, though, among ordinary Palestinians there's been a resurgence of interest in these horses. Twenty years ago there was only a handful of the animals there. Now there could be a thousand. And as Linda Presley found, the equine passion can be all consuming.
- [13:06]
D
Off a concrete lane on a stony hillside in the west bank town of Al Bideh, Hassan Lazeez, cowboy booted, small and serious, pulls up the metal shutter under his home. In most properties, this would be the garage, not here. Hassan calls softly, walks in, and seconds later reappears, holding the halter of Emerald, a white stallion. He has the distinctive concave face, large nostrils, and high tail of an Arabian horse. Hassan never takes his eyes off him. This is a man who's clearly captivated. We scoot out of the way as Hassan encourages Emerald onto his hind legs so that he paws the air with his two front hooves. Hassan's mother brings us piping hot sweet mint tea, smiling as we watch. They keep three Arabians at home, and I ask her if they wake her at night. No, she says. We feel comfortable with horses. Under the house next door to their home, Hassan runs a riding school with his dad, the tumbledown stables patrolled by a flock of scary geese. In this part of the West Bank, Hassan's known for his horsemanship, but the animals he keeps for riding aren't the Arabians those are just for him and his family to enjoy. Hassan bought Emerald on Facebook from an Arab Israeli. It was love at first sight. Something about him just touched my heart, he says simply. We get used to interviewees talking about their horses as if they were lovers. People wax lyrical, their eyes glaze over, and they start to speak as if in a different dimension. Nahil Safadi, dressed in jeans, platform shoes and a hijab, drags open the gates when we arrive at the oasis she's created in Anatta, an industrial west bank town close to Jerusalem known for its stone cutters and mechanics. Rusty old signs in Arabic and Hebrew hark back to the days before the intifada, when Israelis came here in their droves to get their cars fixed at knockdown prices. Behind Nahil's gates, it's as if we've entered some kind of rustic retreat. Her three story house sits in a neatly kept yard. There are goats and chickens, and on one side there are stables painted a deep green blush pink, their top doors open, staring at us, their dark eyes set wide above their velvety chestnut muzzles are two of the Arabian horses Nahil says have changed her life. Whenever I'm upset with a family or I have problems or worries, I sit with the horses in the stables, she says. And as a mother of seven and grandmother of six, she finds family can be overwhelming. But since she started keeping Arabians eight years ago, her stress levels have diminished. They help me relax, draw out the negative feelings and make me feel better, she says. Naheel's day is dominated by her horses. When she feeds them morning and night, she sits with them while they eat. It seems to be the very physical presence of these beautiful animals that Naheel adores. She, too, gets that far away look when she talks about grooming them while they rest their heads on her shoulder. Naheel's begun to show her horses, and she's breeding them, too. She may talk dreamily about those chestnut beauties, but she's ambitious. There's big money to be made in this business. Arabian horses are coveted around the globe, and champions can change hands for more than a million dollars. Naheel has her eyes on the prize. She's already bought Pedigree's seamen from abroad for one of her mares, and she's planning on sending another horse to Israel's most famous trainer, a Jewish Israeli. It's noteworthy, and everyone tells us this, that in this equine world, love for Arabian horses trumps the divided politics of this troubled region. We see that collaboration in action at Israel's national show in Al Anim. It's essentially a beauty contest. The horses paraded around an arena to deafening hooting and clapping from the audience. In the VIP area, a space for owners and breeders, Druze, Christians, Israelis, both Arab and Jewish, and Palestinians from the west bank mix up noisily. It's a forum like no other, believes Sufian Taha, a Palestinian who bought his first Arabian in 1993. Once you're in love with Arabian horses, that's it. Forever there is no divorce, he says.
- [17:35]
B
Linda Presley and you can hear more in Crossing Continents on Thursday morning here on Radio 4. The seasonal movement of people and their livestock is rarely practiced in Britain today. Place names that attest to the tradition of transhumans survive Summersbury Wood and Winterford Heath in England, and the Huvards and Hendras, derived from the Welsh for farms on higher pastures and old farms, the main winter dwellings in Portugal. The old ways are disappearing too, as Margaret Bradley observed From my window I
- [18:10]
E
can see an ox cart laden with maize stalks labouring up a track. In spring, that same cart, accompanied by a black clad woman, carried manure, which is spread by hand before the maize was planted. As I go into town, my car is held up by a mini tractor pulling a trailer loaded with two doorners, huge wooden half barrels full of grapes, on their way to the co operative, where they will be made into vigneux verdes and the light, slightly sparkling wine of the Minho next year, or the year after, though I doubt if I shall see either any more. The last vestiges of the old order, the almost feudal life of Portugal under the dictatorship of the mid 20th century, are fast disappearing. Over a generation, freedom from repression has wrought massive change. And even though the menu is known as the terre de tradisants, the land of tradition, many of the remaining picturesque ways of life will soon be lost too. The Minotau oxen which pulled that maze cart are the aristocrats of the bovine world. Their horns are long and so elegantly curved that Orpheus would have been proud to fashion them into a lyre. There are only a couple left in my village now. They've been replaced by brightly coloured tractors. If the strain is not to die out, it may soon need protection in the same way that in Britain, shire horses that once pulled ploughs now have to be specially bred, so their genes are not lost. In the high mountains of the remote Serra da Peneda, though herds of Mignoto oxen are still very much alive, they're Grazing the upland plains, their tinkling bells telling their owners where they are. Until quite recently, no more than 40 years or so ago, shepherds and cowherds used to stay up here in the summer while their cattle grazed lush grass after the sun had burnt dry the fields in the lowlands. In those days, with no roads in the mountains, it had to be a seasonal, not a daily move. Santo Antonio de Val de Poldros still bears testament to that way of life. A cluster of mostly circular hovels known as branders, huddled together in a high vale. They're built of uncemented granite, with small domed moss covered roofs. With just a small space for smoke to escape and a little light to enter. It must have been a hand to mouth, boring, lonely existence up there in the mountains, tending the herds and flocks, foraging for herbs and huddling round fires at night. For this is an area where frosts whiten the grass in spring and autumn, and snow often falls in winter. Even in summer, the cloud can lie low over the peaks and the damp get into your bones. The only contact with the outside world would have been the visit of a local priest who made his way up once a week to hear confession in a chapel dedicated to St. Anthony. Now the Brandas are empty. With easier and better paid opportunities in cities and overseas, it's hardly surprising that transhumance as a way of life has died out. And yet, amazingly, Val de Pouldros isn't completely abandoned. I first went up there a few years ago when I heard that there was a village with only one inhabitant. And though it sounded crazy, he ran a restaurant. Talking to the owner, Snor Fernando, I found he had his reasons. Suspicious of all politicians, he told me that he thought governments herded people into towns so they could monitor and manage them better. One day people will rebel and move away from surveillance, he said. That will be my opportunity. Well, people aren't fleeing the cities. But he was right about the opportunity. The media heard about him and came to report on the place for tv. Eating in his restaurant among the brandas has been repackaged for outsiders as an experience not to be missed. Apart from local customers and Spaniards from over the nearby border, there have been visitors from much further afield. France, Estonia. Estonia. However, did they hear of Snor Fernando? The old seasonal migration of the Mignotu cattle from valley to mountain may have disappeared, but a new transhumance of hungry human beings has taken its place.
- [22:47]
B
Margaret Bradley Srinagar, the capital of Indian Administered Kashmir, has often been the site of violent clashes over whether Kashmir should be part of India or an independent state. Andrew Whitehead has been a frequent visitor to the region and reported on that conflict. But on his most recent trip, he came across another divide and a little known community which has returned home after centuries away. But as so often with homecomings, it's not quite that simple.
- [23:18]
F
Sometimes when you think you know a place, you come across a fresh aspect of it which reminds you how little you know. I've been visiting Kashmir fairly regularly for more than 20 years. I've been to Hari Parbat Fort, the magnificent Mogul era monument which dominates the Srinagar skyline. But I'd never before come across the small, quiet community that nestles in its shadow. Yet its story says so much about the old trading links which once gave Kashmir its wealth, about the way these have been thrown out of joint by the rise of rival nation states, and about the complex issues of identity which ricochet across the Himalayas. 2000 or more Tibetans have made their home in the Kashmiri capital. These are Tibetan Muslims. A few Muslim families remain in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Some live in border hill towns. Most of them have now settled in Indian Kashmir because they are or were Kashmiris. By chance, I heard mention of what locals call the Tibetan colony close to the Almond Gardens and just within Srinagar's old city walls. I knew I was on the right track when I found a momo stall selling Tibetan style dumplings in a back street. I came across groups of women gossiping old men ambling along to the mosque, all distinctively Tibetan in appearance. Round the corner stood the centerpiece of the community, the modern, imposing Tibetan public school. Nasir Qazi, a successful young businessman, showed me round. He's the head of the Tibetan Muslim Youth Federation, which oversees what's clearly a well run school which reaches well beyond the community it was established to serve. I feel proud, Cauzi told me, that this school is something we've offered to our Kashmiri brothers and sisters. In the corridors, photos of the Dalai Lama's visit are on prominent display. Tibetan Muslims don't regard the Dalai Lama as their religious leader. But we do honour and respect him, Qazi said. And he loves us a lot. The community traces its origin to merchants who travelled along the old silk routes. They were Muslim traders from Kashmir and the adjoining area of Ladakh. 400 or so years ago, the then Dalai Lama granted them land in the Tibetan capital. Over time, they married Tibetan women, mastered the Tibetan language and took up Tibetan cuisine. They became a distinct community in Lhasa, with their own mosque. Prosperous, well regarded and noted practitioners of Tibetan music. But they were never seen in Tibet as Tibetans. They were called Khachi, meaning Kashmiris, a term that came to be a catch all for Tibet's Muslims, wherever they hailed from. When, after a failed uprising against Chinese Communist rule, the Dalai Lama and thousands of his Buddhist devotees fled across the Himalayas in 1959, Tibet's Muslim community also felt restive. They were seen by some Tibetans as collaborators with the new Chinese rulers. After a lot of diplomatic push and pull, in which the Indian government took an interest, Muslims were allowed to leave Tibet. Most exercised that option. Once on Indian soil, these Muslims were regarded not as stateless refugees, but as returning Indians. For once, being a Kachi gave the community status. They were from Kashmir, they told the Indian authorities, and they were adamant about going back to their homeland. Today, most work in Srinagar, not as traders. The old routes are now sealed by impermeable modern borders, but in much less remunerative jobs, embroidering burkas and adding the finishing touches to the T shirts sold to tourists. Qazi told me that a few decades back, when tensions between India and China eased briefly, his mother had at last been able to make a return visit to Lhasa. Kazi has cousins there, but he's never been able to meet them, never set foot in the place which gives him his identity. We belong to this soil, Kashmir's soil, nasir Qazi insisted. Yet the community's status is ambiguous. In Indian administered Kashmir, only those who can demonstrate their forebears are from the state can own land and have full rights. That's tricky for the Tibetans. Their Kashmir lineage is too distant for this purpose. In a region where not belonging, being seen as outsiders can be perilous, the community keeps a low profile. They seem content in Kashmir, but they are bound to reflect on a painful paradox. In Tibet, they are Kashmiris. In Kashmir, they're Tibetans. There's nowhere where they are simply themselves.
- [28:00]
B
Andrew Whitehead, bringing us to the end of today's program. We'll be back with more from our correspondence next Saturday. Do join us. Goodbye.