← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC Radio 4
00:28:05
Will economics force the French to rethink their lifestyles? It's a question Christian...
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You're about to listen to from our own correspondent. We make two editions of the programme and if you'd like to hear the one broadcast on the BBC World Service and presented this week by Tony Grant, you'll need to go to the BBC iPlayer. This version's the one aired on BBC Radio 4. It's presented by Kate Ady.
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Today, a million people demonstrate on the streets of France, but there's a growing belief that lifestyles there may have to change. The Manhattan Muslims bewildered at the fuss over plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero. We learn that Indians are now enjoying the hill stations once seen as corners of Britain in a foreign land. And it's the birthplace of the hot dog, the site of the world's first roller coaster. But we find there's little agreement over the future of Coney Island. In New York City, the French authorities are expecting further protests over government plans to raise the retirement age to 62. Much of the country was brought to a standstill earlier this week by strike action and demonstrations. President Sarkozy says his government must reform the pension system if France's huge budget deficit is to be reduced. But opponents say his plans are dictatorial and unfair. Despite their campaign, Christian Fraser says there's a growing body of opinion in France that times are changing and that the old ways of doing things may have to change too.
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Alright, so they weren't blockading British ferries at Calais or burning English lamb in rural Normandy. Nonetheless, the French strikers who brought the country to a standstill this week still had the Anglo Saxons in their sights. In France, I've come to realize the term Anglo Saxon is rarely one of endearment. It's a useful umbrella description that seems to cover any number of perceived national weaknesses. The other side of the Channel. Last week, French scorn was reserved for the British retirement age, now set to rise to 67. Enquable. Cried a population that jealously guards its savoir vivre. Last Tuesday, I was by the statue of Marie Anne, who personifies the values of the French Republic, when I encountered one particularly vehement demonstrator at a central Paris rally. We should not be imitating our neighbors, she barked, perhaps noting my English tweed. We must defend what we have. Ours is not the Anglo Saxon way. Indeed not. The French are scandalized by President Nicolas Sarkozy's determined push to raise the state pension age from 60 to, horror of horrors, 62. A modest rise in European terms, and in the current economic climate, you might think, not unreasonable. Yet the French have always expected the state to provide the not only for their short working week, their excellent free schools and hospitals, but also their retirement. Most people here don't contribute to private pensions. The vast majority rely on the state pension and compulsory membership of industry schemes. The politicians, however, know that this has to change. Jean Francois Coppet, the head of the ruling UMP parliamentary body and a rising star of the Centre Right, says the French need a new mindset by 2018. He whispers, The French might have to wait until they're 63 for retirement. We can still provide a state pension, coppet told me this week. But if we live longer, we work longer. The language and the psychology will have to change. In France, change will not come easily or quickly. Consider these figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. On average, a Frenchman will spend 135 minutes eating every day. His American and Canadian counterparts take just 50 minutes. The French get more sleep. And then there are those famously long summer holidays. In August, French society heads for the hills, the beaches, the mountains. Anywhere, really. But the office. At least this year's break gave President Sarkozy some respite from the restless French unions, which are supported by three quarters of the French people. Though it did not go unnoticed that most of the workforce had been back at work for just one week before they were all out on national strike again. To be fair, despite the downtime, the French are still hugely productive, even in a 35 hour week. The problem, some experts will tell you, is that the span of their working life is just too short. Most don't start working until they're 26 or 27. Youth unemployment runs at 10%, and come the age of 55, they they expect to be winding down to a long and enjoyable retirement. A colleague came across one very spry demonstrator this week who finished work 20 years ago and is now an accomplished hang glider. Mr. Cape is having none of this. From now on, an employer will not ask what a 55 year old will do with his retirement, he warns. He will ask what he wants to do in the next stage of his career. France's top business brass are very much I rubbed shoulders with some of the country's leading directors at a glitzy business conference the other day, many of whom were talking Anglo Saxon, the language of a longer working life. More enterprise, more reform, less bureaucracy, a smaller state and a bigger society. You have to have sympathy for Mr. Sarkozy, said Gerard Lannelong, director of one of France's biggest education providers. When it comes to the welfare state, successive presidents have dodged the ball, he added. Mr. Sakozy has no option but to carry it. Carry it he must. To the unions, they've already ensured that some 700amendments to the pensions bill be debated in the Parliament, including proposed exemptions for those in dirty or dangerous jobs. These include not only the steel workers or those employed in public transport, but shop assistants and teachers. They're also clamoring for recognition, too. The idea that a teacher cries at retirement is reserved solely for the movies, gasped one seemingly exhausted matresse. More action is due in a few days time, and another demonstration after that. It's a question of who blinks first, but perhaps President Saakozy can draw some straws of comfort. The mood last week was sullen and resentful, but two thirds of the marchers surveyed said they didn't think their protests would make one jot of difference. They appear stolidly resigned to their fate, very Anglo Saxon.
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And that was Christian Fraser. Ceremonies would be held in the United States today to mark the September 11 attacks nine years ago in which nearly 3,000 people were killed. This year's commemorations are overshadowed by the continuing controversy over plans to build an Islamic study centre near Ground Zero in New York and a threat, now suspended by the pastor of a fringe church in Florida, to burn copies of the Koran. The anniversary is likely to be the most contentious yet, with rallies for and against the proposed Islamic centre beginning once the 911 commemorations end. But as Laura Trevelyan has been finding out, many of Manhattan's Muslims can't see what the fuss is about.
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On the corner of First Avenue and 11th street on the Lower east side is a mosque used by many of Manhattan's yellow cab drivers. There's no minaret. An elderly sign identifies this as the Islamic Council of America Masjid. This particular stretch of downtown has resolutely resisted gentrification. It's not far from the fashionable bars and chic boutiques, but it's a world apart. I arrive just as the late evening prayers are beginning. The jolly, avuncular Imam Hafees Choudhary welcomes me, and we discussed the perfect storm, which has arisen from the project to build a Muslim community center containing a mosque near Ground Zero. Opponents of the plan, including relatives of those who died on September 11, say it's disrespectful to build a mosque so close to what they call hallowed ground. Muslims killed my brother, one relative told me, and I don't want a reminder of that religion by the place where he died. Supporters of the project point out that the free exercise of religion is the first Amendment to the US Constitution and say a place of prayer can be built anywhere. Imam Choudhary patiently explains how after the 911 attacks, he hosted interfaith discussions here in an attempt to promote greater understanding of Islam. A few days after the attacks, the police came and moved demonstrators who were denouncing Islam over to the other side of the street. Prayers were held here for those who died at Ground Zero. The mosque president Mohammed Uddin, a yellow cab driver himself, lost two of his close friends when the planes plunged into the Twin Towers. They were working in restaurants in one of the buildings. This underlines, he feels, how complex the story of the mosque by Ground Zero is. Opponents of the project have claimed it's disrespectful to the memory of those who died. Yet many of those who perished were Muslims. So who or which religion has the right to speak on behalf of the dead? Imam Chowdhury shrugs his shoulders. If they want to build a mosque, he says calmly, they should have our support, just as we would back those constructing a church. This country was built on religious freedom. Abdul, a high school student originally from Bangladesh, agrees. In my country, it's difficult to be free, he says hesitantly. But here I can do what I want. Without realising it, he's echoing the words of the English pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 in search of religious tolerance. As we talk, the imam's phone rings constantly. Callers want to know what time the festival of Eid will begin. It marks the end of the month long fast during Ramadan, but the precise time depends on the position of the moon. The Imam was expecting 1,000 people to mark Eid in the little park next to the mosque. Are you worried about celebrating so close to the 911 anniversary? I ask. Couldn't that be misconstrued by people who'll say, you're rejoicing? Mohammed Uddin, Abdul and the imam look at me as if I'm mad. This whole controversy is politically motivated, says Imam Chowdhury. And it will blow over very soon, certainly once the midterm elections are over. Of course we are going to celebrate Eid. Why shouldn't we? It is a time to eat good food and be with family and friends. Despite the imam's steady outlook, Mohammed Uddin's life as a yellow cab driver is not immune from the row over the Islamic Cultural Centre and mosque. He was alarmed when a Muslim driver was stabbed by an angry white man recently, having hoped that hate crimes were on their way out now he's wary in his cab at night, not knowing if his passengers will suddenly turn on him. I'm very mournful about the people who died on 9 11, including my friends, says Mohammed. But that shouldn't prevent the mosque from being built. We say goodbye and I leave, struck by their resoluteness. Having come expecting fear, I've been met with common sense and warmth.
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Laura Trevelyan in New York, when the summer heat of the Indian plains became unbearable for the pale skinned British rulers back in colonial days, they'd pack their bags and head off to the cool of the hill stations. With their British style architecture, the familiar plants and flowers and breezy climate, these communities seemed like corners of Britain in a foreign land. Today, as Mark Tully's been finding out, it's a different story.
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There are plenty of warnings to drivers on the way up to Nainital, 6,000ft high in the foothills of the Himalayas. One suggests speed is adulterous, saying if married, divorce speed. But the warnings mean nothing to drivers who routinely overtake on blind bends as they twist and turn up the mountain. My journey this time was particularly hazardous because we were driving through monsoon clouds and visibility was limited to say the least. When I reached Nanetal, it was impossible to see beyond the near bank of the lake around which the town is built. From time to time the low lying clouds broke into rain, but this was September and the monsoon should have been over. It's climate change which is doing it, said Ashish Nanda, a member of one of Nanetal's oldest families who own the Swiss Hotel. He went on to complain, you know that nowadays we even have to use fans in the hot weather. What is the point of a hill station if it isn't cool? The Swiss hotel is a traditional hill station building constructed of wood and stone with a sloping roof. It's surrounded by tall conifers. A whole crop of new hotels built in concrete has sprung up to accommodate the Indians who now holiday in the hills. In all seasons. Hill stations are particularly popular with honeymooners. But Ashish Nandir told me that at least Nainital was being saved from the worst ravages of developers because of a strict ban on felling trees. Nainital under the British was the summer home of the Governor of the United Provinces. He lived in a hundred and thirteen room palace which the locals claim was modelled on Buckingham Palace. To me it seems to have more of an ecclesiastical flavor with its square towers and pointed arches. The most famous of the hill stations, Shimla or Simla, as it was known, was the summer home of the British Viceroys. They governed the whole of the vast subcontinent from the remote ridge. Shimla is set on there instead of the urban jungle of Calcutta and then Delhi. When the capital moved, viceroys looked out over range after range of mountains unfolding until they reached the highest Himalayas called covered in snow. Shimla was also famous for its social life and the gossip that went with it. There was plenty to gossip about because army officers and government officials whose duties kept them in the plains, sent their wives to Shimle to avoid the heat. Kipling described the summer capital as having one of the most unhealthy moral atmospheres in Asia. And apparently it wasn't only unattached wives who created that atmosphere. Kipling also said that courtesans who discussed things which are supposed to be the profoundest secrets of the Indian Council could be found in the cramped houses of the crowded bazaar, which lay and still does lie below posh Shimla. Some of British Shimla does survive. Two landmarks are the Victorian Gothic church at one end of the town where the Viceroy worshipped, and his home at the other end of the town, a vast monument reminiscent of an English country house. But Shimla has expanded greatly and much of it is now a concrete jungle with all the worst features of India's inability to plan cities. The architecture of today's Shimla makes no concessions to the fact that it's a hill station. The drab high rise buildings could be anywhere in the plains of India. There are hill stations dotted all over India and they all tell the same story. The British built them to be different from India. They were places where they could feel as though they were back home. Their cottages had names like woodlands and the Dingle with neat gardens filled with dahlias, pansies and other British annuals. There were Anglican churches and clubs which were reserved for the British. In Shimla there was a famous theatre for that very English activity, amateur dramat. Now the hill stations are losing their difference and becoming more and more like towns anywhere else in India. They suffer from the over development under planning and concrete box architecture of the towns in the plains. The same traffic jams too. Even the difference in temperatures is decreasing. In the summer. The haze formed by pollution in the plains obscures the hill station's unique selling point. The views of the snow capped mountains like the Viceroy once enjoyed. But all those honeymooners they attract show that the hill stations still have considerable allure.
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Mark Tully getting away from it all in the town of Nainital. Years of brutal warfare don't just damage the people who live through them, they also take their toll on the very fabric of a nation. Despite this, the West African state of Sierra Leone has taken enormous strides since peace returned to the country eight years ago. Overseas aid has helped the mining industry, the nation's biggest earner, back on its feet. While efforts are being made to encourage rural development and agricultural projects, new farm machinery has now started to arrive in the country. And Jane Beresford, who's been to meet a government minister near the capital, Freetown, says there are hopes it won't just lead to increased farm production, it'll also benefit the women of Sierra Leone.
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Zainab Bangora strides across the field waving her arms before her. This is my rice farm. She smiles proudly. The President says we need to grow more of our own food and from next year I only want to eat rice grown on this land. She may be Sierra Leone's Minister of Foreign affairs, but one of Zainabangora's passions is much closer to home, encouraging greater food production in a country that cannot feed itself. A year ago, she created a hundred acre rice farm in the village where she was raised. Yoni banner in the north of the country in its traditional rural heartland. As she stands in the paddy field, bright yellow butterflies dance around her and a gentle breeze ripples the sea of vivid green rice shoots. It's hard to imagine that such an achingly beautiful place was once a battleground in one of the most brutal civil wars of the 20th century. The north of Sierra Leone was particularly devastated by the decade long conflict that raged through the country in the 1990s. At that time, Zainabangoro was a leading campaigner demanding peace and democracy for her country, then under attack by rebel groups. She went into the bush countryside like this, where the rebels had their camps and confronted them face to face, risking her life. Of course, it was frightening, she says. They were drunk on alcohol and high on drugs. Children, many of them. It was depressing. I kept thinking, amongst these kids we could have engineers. And she might have added farmers. The war displaced many thousands from the countryside as villagers fled the rebel attacks, fearing they would be raped and maimed. That exodus stalled the small steps Sierra Leone was taking towards a more industrialized agriculture that might enable one of the poorest countries in the world to feed its own. And so, for the long war years and into the peace which began in 2002, Sierra Leoneans survived with food aid and subsistence farming. One family, one plot of land, hand to mouth or Rather many mouths. But the bright blue tractor that now sits in the middle of Yonnybana is a signal of change. And by a wonderful coincidence, it might also bring an additional benefit. It may help save some of the thousands of women who die each year in childbirth in Sierra Leone, many of them in rural areas like this. That tractor will mean that rice, a staple food in the country, can be harvested by machine. Previously, rice was picked by hand, mostly by children. To harvest a hundred acres, you need an awful lot of small hands. And to provide those, men would traditionally take several wives, two or three, sometimes considerably more. Each woman is expected to bear many children. 12 is not uncommon, and every delivery comes with a high risk of death for the mother. As we gaze across the vast acreage, Zainab's farm manager shakes his head. Oh, you would need many, many wives to harvest this. A tractor is a very good thing. Polygamy is not, of course, all about practicalities. More wives equals greater status. But this is partly because they indicate that a man has enough land to require and support many women and children. It's hoped that the introduction of tractors will begin to break this link for you. Find the wreckage of death and childbirth everywhere in Sierra Leone. We stop for lunch, a delicious meal of cassava leaves and spicy fried chicken. One of Zainab's friends joins us, a tall, elegant woman in her early 50s. We're chatting and laughing at the table as twin boys dressed in matching grey flannel shorts and white T shirts peek shyly around the door. Oh, they're my sons, the woman says. They may look quiet now, but they're full of trouble. I ask how old they are. Six, she says. They're adopted. Their mother died giving birth to them, and their father already had 19 children and he couldn't keep them. I'm over 50. I didn't really think I could cope with two, so I asked if I could take just one. But he said, they're twins. We can't separate them. So now I have them both. The boys overcome their shyness and run over to the table to ask if they can have a chicken leg. I can't help hoping that the bright blue tractor waiting for harvest time in Yonibana will mean that in future, fewer children like them are left without a mother.
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Jane Beresford. In Sierra Leone, the future of Coney Island, New York's playground of the masses, is currently the subject of heated debate. The city wants to rejuvenate this somewhat faded amusement district, believing it can be a major tourist attraction of the future. But plans to demolish some of its allegedly iconic buildings are meeting with stiff resistance. Antonia Quirks just paid Coney Island a visit to see whether its historic charms still hold appeal in the 21st century. Century.
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The cheap and cheerful allure of Coney island, so irresistible until even a generation ago, has come in for mostly bad press since. Every summer, newspaper articles in New York lament the declining health of this quintessential American resort. The birthplace of the hot dog, the site of the world's first roller coaster. Over recent years, the area has appeared as little more than a melancholy wasteland in movies like Requiem for a Dream and has been locked in complicated disputes between the city and private developers keen to turn its iconic boardwalk into apartments. And yet, despite these troubles, this summer a new theme park has officially opened here with child friendly, inexpensive rides. A thin strip of land at the outer edge of Brooklyn, Coney was named after the rabbits that overran it. In the 1870s. Railroad men pooled resources to open amusement parks here on a scale comparable only to those seen in modern day Las Vegas. Here was a place where men and women could abandon convention and physically embrace as they wandered through wax museums and honky tonk hall. In a site called Dreamland, 600 survivors of the Boer War reconstructed battles and a whole village of Eskimos sat patiently as crowds passed by an exhibition representing the gates of hell accidentally burnt to the ground one night in 1911, releasing lions onto the streets while 70,000 people fled. There have been many fires and mysterious visions at Kony. As one park burned, another would rise. Steeplechase Park, Luna Park, Astroland. Cities of Fire, Electric Edens. When immigrants approached New York by boat, it wasn't the Statue of Liberty they first saw, but the 1 million lights of Coney Island. A glimpse of what John Updike called the Dionysian potential of American life. This summer it's been record breakingly hot in New York and on a particularly humid day, people gather at Coney to try the new rides, revisit old favourites and cool off in the sea. From my seat, 50 metres high on the 90 year old wonder wheel, the area below looks like an archaeological digit. All around are the remnants of theme park's past. The spectacular giant nail of the parachute jump, 70 metres high and raised in 1941. The mile a minute roller coaster, the infamous cyclone, running since 1927. We'll go to Coney and eat bologna on a roll, sang Ella Fitzgerald. Today visitors queue down Surf Avenue for chilli dogs from the landmark Nathan's Famous along The boardwalk stalls, dole out shrimps and cheese fries, cherry stone, little necks and candy apples, Trays of things sugared and extra rolled in tooth, raspingly sweet silver balls. The appeal of Coney island was and remains its doggedly egalitarian spirit. Here is human variety at its most visible. On a June day in 1906, 200,000 postcards were sent from here. In a Single afternoon in 1947, 1,300,000 people. That's a third of the entire city of New York, all at Coney, deliriously crushed on the sand. Today I can see families of Russians from Brighton beach standing next to Long island housewives bargaining for better prices on tickets. I speak to Hispanic children from Flushing and the Chan family from Queens, literally falling out of the subway in their eagerness to get to the revamped bumper cars. Well to do. Teenagers from Connecticut stand by the Spookarama ghost ride, which has been here since 1955. They shrug, teenagerishly unimpressed, and say, everyone knows Coney Island. It's in the movies. On the beachfront, a Mexican family share one bathing suit, discreetly changing under a towel and passing it along to the next daughter. Where else can we come for the price of a bus ride? Asked Zeula, a Greek taxi driver from Staten Island. A hot, damp, late summer afternoon at Kony is more visceral than can be described. My sand encrusted godchildren run sticky fingers along the walls of a T shirt shop, playing the Rolling Stones simp for the devil and reggae simultaneously at full pelt. In a side street, a man with a curled moustache invites passersby into a freak show long established on this site. Inside, the human blockhead drives five nails smilingly into his nose. There is to Coney, ever the spirit of the snake oil salesman, the strange keep your wits about you. And over everything, the parachute jump presides, thrusting its steel into the sky like the undernourished frame of some great creature, demanding an inexhaustible supply of pullulating humanity and beach paraphernalia. Next year, more new rides are promised, and after such a bumper season, enthusiasm for the project is high. Could this really be the long heralded rebirth of Coney Island? It is truly here that one sees the real interpretation of the Declaration of Independence. The most good for the greatest number. To not have seen it is certainly to have not seen New York. To not have seen Coney island is to not have seen America.
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And with that from Antonia Quirk, we've reached the end of another programme I'll be here next week with two new editions on Thursday and on Saturday. So I hope you'll join us then. Goodbye.