← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
'Dream Big Kid!'
00:28:15
Correspondents take a closer look at events in their part of the world.
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Transcript15 lines
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Hello from the from our own correspondence
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studios at Broadcasting House in London, you've
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downloaded the latest edition of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
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It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Today, can democracy survive? As the demonstrations and the deaths continue in Egypt, alarm bells ring in Hungary as party politics hijack the country's cultural agenda, we hear about the Iranian journalists in exile who wonder if they'll ever be able to return home and dream big. Kid Words of wisdom Wisdom from the legendary Apollo Theatre in New York. The head of the Egyptian army has warned that continuing political strife is pushing the country to the brink of collapse. General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi's statement came on the sixth day of anti government protests which have so far cost more than 50 lives. Alim Maqbool has been providing coverage of the unrest and wonders if Egypt's newfound democracy, forged in the revolution of two years ago, can survive.
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Layla, a teacher in her 40s in a dark green headscarf, was one of many I talked to in Tahrir Square who is keen to give her views. Why, I wondered, was she back here now, exactly two years since the revolution to oust President Mubarak began calling for his successor to step down. Because nothing's changed, she told me. President Morsi is no different. One mafia has replaced another. This is not what we fought for. It's easy to draw parallels between what's happening now and at the start of the uprising in 2011 the sight of the square filled with protesters, the smell of tear gas, the chanting of the same slogans and, tragically, the news filtering through of deaths and clashes elsewhere in the country. But of course, something has changed. I put it to Layla that the man whose departure she was calling for wasn't a dictator, but a man her compatriots had voted for. There was a slightly troubling answer. Yes, but the people who voted for him, she said, are uneducated. I've heard several similar responses. One of those opposed to President Morsi is The political sociologist Dr. Saeed Sadak from the American University in Cairo. Morsi was rejected by the urban areas, he told me it was the rural parts of Egypt that voted for him and his Muslim Brotherhood. Isn't that how democracy works all over the world? I replied. Not everybody gets who they want. They can always vote him out next time. Dr. Sadiq's response was blunt. It's like you're telling me to keep the babysitters I hired, even if they're beating my child just because we gave them a fixed Term contract. So what is it that President Morsi's done that so angered the opposition protesters? Some told us it's because the pace of change has been too slow, that though he's only been in the job seven months, others talk of his new constitution as a power grab, even though it was passed by a referendum just a matter of weeks ago. In the end, for almost all of those we spoke to, it really appeared to boil down to one the fear that with President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood will come the Islamisation of Egypt. Perhaps you can understand the concerns about women's rights, the place of minorities in society and the future introduction of more Islamic law, which is when they're expressed by those who fought for change two years ago and now feel betrayed. But not everyone who made sacrifices during the struggle back in 2011 was a secularist. Faisa Abdul Hamid lost her son early in the revolution. Mustafa was shot dead by Mubarak's forces in a protest after Friday prayers. He had been leading the worshippers close to Tahrir Square. We still don't have justice, she told me. We when we went to see her on the street that's been renamed after her son. That's because Mubarak and his sons didn't hang and because their people are still everywhere in our system. I believe in God, she told me, and I believe in Mohammed Morsi. There are many like her. Anyone relying on a political solution to bring together people on either side of the huge divide that's been exposed by the revolution could have a long wait. The political system has stalled. Opposition groups refused to engage with the president. The judiciaries dismissed parliament. Mohamed Morsi is accused of poor decision making and he's done little to allay the fears of liberals. It's street politics that rule for now. Two years ago, for the first time in generations, Egyptians saw a way to change things. Civil disobedience. Those bloody days also taught them to lose their fear and of the security forces. That's made it all the easier to demonstrate, whether it be about politics or, as we've seen recently, about a court decision in a trial about a football riot last year. But with street politics come disruption, aggression and instability. So is this how it's going to be in the future, when one side's elected while the other think the only option is taking to the streets until the president falls? How many times will that cycle repeat itself? Why will democracy ever be a concept that takes root here? Many Egyptians, used to stability for so many decades, have had enough of the turmoil. 41 year old Mohammad Hamis grows vegetables in a village in southern Giza. It's fine for people with money in their pocket or foreign passports, he told us. The people blocking everything the president does have got millions in their bank accounts. He said they didn't mind if this economic crisis continued for years, but a way had to be found. No money's coming in, he said, and I'm struggling to feed my family. I need this mess to end.
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Alim Maqbool in the Egyptian capital Cairo, there's been much talk of democracy and turmoil in Hungary these past few weeks as well. The arts scene there is in disarray after a series of controversial decisions by the conservative government. Its leaders stand accused of trying to take control of the cultural sector for political ends. It's said they're filling top jobs in the arts with their cronies, putting on pro government exhibitions and glossing over uncomfortable moments of national history. Nick Thorpe in Budapest tells us that at the centre of all this controversy is the question of national values. But who defines them? What are they? And can Shakespeare help?
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The pitcher always returns to the well, the far right deputy told parliament. Until it is broken. The pitcher or water jug he had in mind was Robert Alpheldi, actor and director of the Hungarian National Theatre and enfant terrible of the Hungarian theatre world. This was a barely veiled threat to destroy him. Al Fuldi's bold treatment of Hungarian classics, the provocative sexual imagery of some of his productions, and his willingness to explore the most painful chapters of Hungarian history have earned him the wrath of many on the right. The conservative government defended him for a while, then edged him aside when his post conveniently came up for renewal. And the well the pitcher always returns to? Ah, the well. It contains the national spirit of Hungary. Certain figures close to the Fidesz government now claim they can define what national is, and that has set alarm bells ringing on and off stage in a country which only recently got rid of the last party which tried the same trick. Robert Alfeldi sits on his sofa overlooking the Danube, cradling one of his favourite dogs. In any situation where one ideology becomes dominant, mediocre artists appear very quickly, he says, artists who feel hurt, who blame others for their lack of success. And now we can see how everything falls apart. He respects the work of the man chosen to replace him from July, Attila Wydnansky, but worries for the fate of the company he has built up, of the young audience he has tempted to the national and above all because Widnsky uses Concepts which Alfeldi says he does not understand, like sacred. I believe in a poetic, not a political theatre, attila Wignansky tells me when we meet in a cafe near the opera. It's hard not to like both men, but for different reasons. Al Fuldi has a fringe like the wave in a Japanese woodprint, with Mount Fuji in the background and a wonderfully infectious laugh. Vidyansky looks like a child friendly version of his namesake, Attila the Hun, riding in from the east. He was born in the Hungarian community in Beregsaz in Transcarpathian Ukraine. One of his plans for the theatre is to open its arms to embrace the 5 million ethnic Hungarians scattered through the neighbouring countries. But while he makes the national theatre more national, he also wants to make it more international. He has already invited famous troops from St. Petersburg, Bucharest and Paris. Which Shakespeare play will he perform first? There's no hesitation. A Midsummer Night's Dream. When I asked Alfoli the same question had he continued in his post, he chose Julius Caesar, that dark tale of a dictator overthrown, and how his assassins fell out among themselves. The political connotations in a country with a prime minister with a Roman sounding name, Viktor Orban, accused by his foes of political as well as cultural dictatorship, are almost painfully obvious. Parliamentary elections are due next year. The ferment in artistic life in Hungary is not confined to the froth on the top. The Hungarian Arts Academy, a right wing friends club, has been given a fat budget, two prime downtown buildings and built into the constitution as the artistic equivalent of the Academy of Sciences. The government insists its plan was to make it genuinely representative. Instead, the departure of many moderate voices has left a hard nationalist rump. Why not just abolish it and start again? I ask Laszlo Shimon, State Secretary for Culture. The leadership itself is not set in stone, he says cautiously, hinting that the members should be given time to elect a new one. And if the moderate, even liberal, membership returns, or all will be well, that ends well. I meet Imre Kareni, the Prime Minister's close ally and bogeyman of the Hungarian left. In the same cafe, Attila Vidnansky suggested a portrait of the composer Ferencz. Liszt gazes down on us from the walls. We share a plateful of crusty cheese scones. I don't care a fig what my enemies say, says Imre Kareni. National values are common knowledge, not some devilish puzzle. We're in power, so we do what we like, but without harming anyone. If someone wants to do something differently, let them win power first. Across the street, a long queue forms in the snow to buy tickets for Robert Alfeldi's last productions at the National. Some people wait more than two hours in the cold. Even before the latest drama, the theatre played to a full house. Now it's overflowing. Theatre directors compared to water containers insulted on the floor of Parliament, Party politics in the museums and art galleries, the national flag on every building, the national creed in every office, the clown's revolution. One left wing editorial calls it a midwinter night's dream.
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Nick Thorpe in Budapest the authorities in Tehran are being accused of intimidating Iranian journalists who live and work abroad. They're said to be using a variety of methods to discredit them and setting up fake Facebook accounts and blogs. They're also accused of spreading false news stories and harassing family members still living in Iran. The BBC has been unable to operate freely inside Iran for some time. Pate Parvin not her real name, is a colleague based in London whose job is to sift through a steady stream of media from Iran, trying to separate reality from rumour, fact from fiction. But having access to all that information, she says, is no substitute for first hand contact with members of her family in Iran. And calling them on the phone only seems to sharpen rather than ease the nostalgia and pain of separation.
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My grandma's voice grows shakier week by week. Quite often, I find it impossible to guess what she's trying to say. It pains me to interrupt the flow of her terms of endearment to ask, sorry, Maman, what was that? Her tone is less excited when she begins to give an update on daily life with my grandpa. I make excuses for my delay in calling her. The truth is that some weeks I have to dig deep to summon enough courage and strength to call her. But my voice, my treacherous voice, betrays me. If only I could learn to tame my voice. If only I could be a skillful liar with a cheerful, warm voice. I last visited them four years ago, before Iran's disputed presidential election and the ensuing unrest. I left with promises that I would be coming back soon. Little did I know the re election of hardline President Ahmadinejad and the associated protests were life changing for the BBC's Iranian staff. Iran's authorities were outraged at the launch of the BBC's Persian TV channel. It went on air shortly before the election and gained popularity among young viewers thanks to its rolling coverage of the unrest. What happened next was not anticipated. Iran's state media embarked on a smear campaign against the BBC. Iranian staff. The BBC was banned. Word surfaced that family members of our colleagues had been summoned to the Intelligence Ministry. They were detained and urged to persuade their loved ones to to quit their jobs. Everyone suspected that phone calls home were tapped and emails monitored. Facebook pages were removed, friendships denied, pseudonyms were suddenly in demand. One colleague's wife had her passport seized upon her arrival at Tehran airport. She and her young child had traveled to Iran to attend a wedding. She was interrogated about her husband's job. The prospect of going back was now a dying flicker. Little did I know that my colleagues and I, locked in our lonely, exiled lives, locked in our fading memories of home, would soon become stories ourselves, just like the ones we covered day after day. For instance, Iranians abroad now also have to deal with the impact of the sanctions imposed on Iran's nuclear program on the lives of their loved ones. My grandma spells out Remino. This is a medication needed by my grandpa, a victim of Alzheimer's. It is no longer easy to find in Tehran and she wants to know if I can buy it here. These days, Iranian BBC colleagues who can afford it arrange reunions in neighboring countries like Turkey. They come back with refresh memories of a sister's brightest smile, a father's loving voice and a mother's warm embrace. Those with aging parents or from poor families only have fading memories. To our colleagues who have long ailing parents in Iran, occasionally we see one of them disappear for a while, refusing to see others or even answer phone calls. They will later come back to work in black and with sad faces. We find ourselves facing the impossible task of saying a few words to encourage them to move on after their loss. Despite caring for my grandpa full time, my 83 year old grandmother is still a sharp and loyal newspaper reader. She unfailingly subscribes to the few moderate reformist papers in Iran, which have survived a history of bans and closures. She knows that under the current circumstances, traveling to Iran might endanger me. She never asks me about my plans to visit. But every week at the end of our conversation, she repeats, may God grant me the chance to see you here once more. My usual reply is hopefully, very soon, Grandma. I can never bring myself to tell her directly that as long as the hardliners are in power in Iran, her wish cannot be fulfilled. She assures me, God willing, very soon, my child. Very soon.
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Parte Parvin Here in London, President Putin's in the Russian city of Volgograd on Saturday for ceremonies commemorating the end of one of the bloodiest of all battles in the Second World War, on 31 January 1942, the German commander Friedrich Paulus finally surrendered after a long, vicious struggle. The Battle of Stalingrad, as Volgograd was called then, was finally over. It proved a significant turning point in the war. The Germans notched up no further big victories in the East. Their march on the Soviet heartland was at an end. Some 2 million people were killed in the battle. Our correspondent Daniel Sanford, who's in Volgograd, has been talking to one survivor.
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I met Valentyna Savyalova on a bitterly cold day on a snow covered hill overlooking the city that was once called Stalingrad. It was not just any hill. It was Mamayaf Kurgan, the highest point in the city. Originally an ancient burial mound of the Tatars, it is now an enormous war grave. Tens of thousands of soldiers are buried there in the frozen mud. Young men who died in one of the fiercest, bloodiest battles the world has ever seen. The Battle of Stalingrad. I met Valentina on Mamey of Kurgan because it is the site of a new wall of remembrance on which 17,000 more names of the dead have been carved for the 70th anniversary of the battle. And one of them was that of her father. She was wrapped up against the cold in a light brown fur coat that had seen better days. Tell me about the war, I said. An extraordinary tale of blood and mud was to follow. Valentina explained that she was five years old when Hitler's 6th army stormed into Stalingrad in the summer of 1942. Her father had already been conscripted into the Soviet armed forces and was stationed in the city as an anti aircraft gunner on an island in the River Volga. Her mother was left to look after Valentina and her young brother in their home not far from Mameyevkurgan. Despite extraordinary Soviet resistance and huge losses of life on both sides, the Nazis advanced relentlessly on. And in November, the decision was made to evacuate Valentyna's family to safety on the other side of the Volga. They never made it. As they headed down a ravine to the river, they could see the fighting all around and the ships that were supposed to be evacuating them sinking under the German bombardment. So Valentina and her mother and brother dug themselves into the side of the ravine that was supposed to have been their escape route. It was not a trench, she told me. It was a hole, like an animal hole. From their new home in the muddy bank, they watched the front line pass backwards and forwards. German tanks would drive through the ravine and then get bombed by the Soviet Air Force while the family hid in their shelter. The thick mud kept Valentina alive, but not her brother, who died of cold as the Russian winter drew in. There was no food, only clay. By a stroke of luck, she explained, the local clay was sweet, with just enough natural sugar in it to keep her and her mother alive for the two months they spent in their hole. Valentina told me how her mother would remove the blood stained bits of clay, filter out the grit from the rest and serve it up with river water from the Volga. We ate clay, she said, nothing but clay. And the two of them survived. Her father missing, she and her mother returned to their ruined home once the 6th army had surrendered on January 31, 1943. They lived there in a shack for several years. Then one day a local official turned up and told them that as they were not using all the land, they would lose half their plot to another family. In a panic, Valentina and her mother built a new, larger house in just a few days out of mud, the only material they could find, so that when the officials returned, they were able to show that they were using the whole plot. Valentina's mother never learnt where her husband was buried before she too died. But three years ago, Valentina found an entry on the new computer at the Mamayev Kurgan Memorial. It said that his body had been discovered in 1961 and reburied in the hill near their home. But no one had bothered to tell the family. The city of Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd after Stalin's death. Slowly, new buildings rose from the ruins, but not much changed for Valentina. To this day, she lives in her mud house now, insulated with metal sheeting on the outside, but still clearly made of mud. In the backyard that she rescued from officialdom, she keeps a goat and chickens. The little five year old girl who survived the battle of Stalingrad by living in a mud bank and eating mud, is 75 years old now. And from the window of her mud house, she can see the hill they call Mamaev Kurgan, where her father is buried in the frozen mud.
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Daniel Sanford in Volgograd the Apollo Theatre, New York's best known venue for African American music, is about to celebrate its centenary. Barack Obama got in there early, appearing at a re election rally which was staged at the famous Harlem Concert Hall. Just about every major African American musical act has performed there. Some white acts, Buddy Holly among them, got to play there too, because the promoters had assumed they were black. Today the Apollo is a recognized cultural monument and as Reggie Nadelson tells us, households around the nation now tune in to a TV talent show, which is filmed there.
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In 1965, when he was 15, Billy Mitchell went to work as a runner at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Like so much else about this legendary theater on 125th Street, Mitchell's career at the Apollo held pretty much every job and is now its historian happened by chance. One of 14 kids from a desperately poor family. His mother had sent him to get food money from his grandma, who lived on 126th street opposite the Apollo stage door. The owner saw him and offered him a job running errands. The performers needed their clothes dry cleaned and somebody to run out for coffee and cigarettes, says the compact, elegant Mitchell. Later, when there was too much for one guy to do, he adds, luther joined me as a runner. He means the singer Luther Van Dross. You can't think about the Apollo without tripping over famous names, and there's even a wall of their signatures just outside the dressing rooms. It was on November 21, 1934, that a skinny teenager intending to show off her dance prowess, decided to sing instead. She won that amateur night and the $25 that went with it. Her name was Ella Fitzgerald. There followed winners like Pearl Bailey, Sarah Vaughan, Dionne Warwick, Jimi Hendrix, and performances by everyone from the Nicholas Brothers to Count Basie, Little Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. On October 24, 1962, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, James Brown recorded one of the most explosive albums of all time, James Brown Live at the Apollo. And Brown was practically the first performer Billy Mitchell ran into. Dream big kid Brown said. Billy recalls, he gave me extra large tips to ensure that I got new clothes and got my hair cut. He said he was disappointed that he didn't get a good education, so he told me to read. He helped me with money to go to college. The Apollo, painted cream and gold with dark red seats, was built in 1914 as a grand burlesque theater. By the 1920s, with the Harlem Renaissance going full blast, Harlem had become the African American capital of the usa. The Apollo was ground zero. The day I visit, Billy Mitchell is explaining the history and culture to a group of students from a college in the California Mojave Desert, which seems a world away from Harlem. He explains how in the early 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who hated burlesque, shut the place down. The new owners saw an opportunity in putting on what were called colored reviews and desegregating the theater. Over the decades, there's been Every kind of show at the Apollo. But nothing has ever been quite like Amateur Night. It goes on still. And now it has also morphed into a TV show called Live at the Apollo. But then you could say the Apollo Amateur Night was the original for all the Idol franchises. Now, as then, good performers receive ecstatic applause. Lousy acts are booed off the stage. And before each performer goes on, he or she will rub a gold painted stump known as the Tree of Hope. This is a long standing tradition. Once the tree stood outside another Harlem theatre, and if you rubbed it, you felt sure of getting a job. Auditions are held around the country now, and the winner of the Super Top dog finale gets $10,000. Now we're going to have a mock amateur night right now, Billy Mitchell says to the students in the front rows. Come on, brothers and sisters, he cajoles. There'll be no booing this time. Slowly, they trickle onto the stage. A few tell jokes off their iPhones, but one girl sings. Dancing Queen. Give it up for Abby Mitchell. Cries out. Ella. She is not but so invested in the theatre and its culture as Billy Mitchell that he manages to give them at least a hint of what it's all about. But never in recent years was there a more dazzling moment at the Apollo than when the President attended a re election rally last year. I'm so in love with you. He crooned 8 seconds of Al Green while Green himself looked on. The audience was on its feet. Who knew? Who knew that Barack Obama had such a joyous, musical, soulful voice good enough to win any Amateur night?
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Reggie Nadelson at the Apollo Theatre at Harlem in New York, bringing down the curtain on today's edition. I'll be back on Saturday with more correspondence far and wide. Do join us. Goodbye.