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From Our Own Correspondent
Guitar or Sitar?
00:27:48
Correspondents with stories to tell: how is traditional Indian culture faring with the...
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You've downloaded from our own correspondent, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today, the World cup kick off is hours away and FIFA, world football's governing body, is engulfed in scandal and disrepute. Abdullah Abdullah seems set to become the next president of Afghanistan. But why are names so important in this race for the leadership? Meanwhile, a press advisor's nightmare. David Cameron goes rowing with three other European heads of government. And guitar or sitar, tabla or tambourine. India's gripped by globalization. So what's selling in the oldest musical instrument shop in Bombay? The football World cup kicks off today in Brazil. With scandal and speculation swirling around its governing body, FIFA. Its officials meeting in so Paulo have been hearing allegations of bribery surrounding Qatar's bid to stage the competition in 2022. That the organization has become inextricably linked to corruption under the leaders of Sepp Blatter. There were calls for him to step down as president, but David Bond points out that while all this may be an embarrassment for FIFA, the World cup continues to generate huge amounts of cash. And changes at the top of the organisation should not be expected anytime soon.
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Outside the entrance to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Sao Paulo, a fleet of police outriders are poised, their lights flashing, their sirens ready to carve a path through this chaotic city's aching traffic. Inside, camera crews and reporters jostle for position. The lift doors open and Sepp Blatter sweeps through the lobby surrounded by a group of men in dark suits and even darker glasses. It's the sort of scene you'd expect to greet an American president. But this short, bespectacled 78 year old Swiss is a mere sporting administrator. The president of FIFA, World football's governing body. Elected by the world's football associations in 1998, he has overseen the World Cup's extraordinary financial growth and expansion. But he's also become the public face of FIFA's slide into scandal and disrepute. For the last decade, the governing body has faced claims of mismanagement and wave after wave of corruption allegations. To many, FIFA's leaders seem completely oblivious to all the fuss. But beyond the five star bubble, people are getting restless here in Brazil, arguably the most passionate football nation on earth. The World cup has created division hosting the greatest show in sport is costing Brazil almost 8 billion pounds. At a time of economic uncertainty, the World cup and FIFA have become the focus for a coalition of social movements. In the last week, Sao Paulo has been crippled by striking metro workers and Today's opening game between the hosts and Croatia is likely to be targeted by protesters. Brazilians, especially the young men and women I have spoken to this week, seem uncertain how to feel about it all. The atmosphere is subdued and the build up surprisingly low key. What happens in Brazil now is essentially out of FIFA's hands. Its far bigger problem lies eight years down the road. The decision to award Qatar the 2022 World cup back in December 2010 has been causing FIFA problems ever since. Few at the time could understand how such a tiny country with no football culture and an indigenous population of just 400,000 could land the game's showpiece event. Almost four years later, it's still attracting claims of vote rigging, corruption and and secret deals. So far, there's no smoking gun. But all this is extremely uncomfortable for FIFA. Much now hinges on an investigation by the former New York District attorney, Michael Garcia, FIFA's independent ethics investigator. His report on the World cup bidding process needs to convince the skeptics that FIFA is prepared to take claims of corruption seriously. Many fear it will be a whitewash. And yet some improvements are in train. Many of the executive committee who decided the 2018 and 2022 World cup hosts have moved on, or rather been moved on. In the future, World cup bids will be decided by all 209 member countries, not the 25 voting members of the executive. But many feel that the only way FIFA can truly reform itself is if Mr. Blatter stands down. And yet he declared here his ambition to run for a fifth term as president next year. While Europe's football leaders this week told him to go, his popularity with the rest of the world seems greater than ever. That's because no matter how big the crisis at FIFA, the financial power of the World cup just keeps growing. Half the world will watch something of the action from Brazil over the next month. Sponsors and TV companies, for all their private and public anxieties about FIFA, know that no event beyond the Summer Olympic Games has this reach. As a consequence, FIFA is awash with cash. Its projected budget for the next World cup cycle, from 2015 to 2018, is almost £3 billion, and it has now built up reserves of 830 million. Much of this money is then handed on to the 209 member countries here. Every national football association was promised a bonus of £450,000. For the vast majority of smaller, poorer nations, this is the sport's most important income stream. And as long as the money keeps coming, then Blatter's grip on world football won't weaken once the World cup kicks off, much of the noise around FIFA will die down as the football takes over. One senses it will only be a temporary pause in hostilities.
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And that was David Bond in so Paulo. The chances of Jean Claude Juncker becoming the next president of the European Commission appear to hang in the balance this morning after days of discussion involving several European heads of government. After a summit meeting in Stockholm earlier this week, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, reaffirmed her support for the former prime minister of Luxembourg. And yesterday her finance minister, Wolfgang Scheubler, said he was as sure as one can be that Juncker would get the job. But David Cameron, while not mentioning Mr. Juncker by name, has urged the EU not to take what he calls an unhelpful future direction. Ben Wright says the disagreement is likely to continue for some weeks yet, and at the moment there's no sign of a climb down from either Britain or Germany.
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Did you see the rat? I asked Emily, our producer. What rat? She snapped. You're joking. Tell me. It wasn't a rat. It was a cat, wasn't it? Yes, I said. Must have been a funny shaped cat. Definitely a cat. Political journalists like us rarely have stories of heroism and hardship. It's a life of carpeted corridors and lunches. So to find ourselves working in a Swedish barn surrounded by huge tractor tires, a muck spreader, drums of chemicals while broadcasting in a cloud of mosquitoes and flies was a first for most. As the sun faded but never quite went out, I'm sure the sound of scurrying grew louder around our feet. Earlier in the day there were some moans from the assembled German, Swedish, Dutch and British journalists about the smells, the feeble WiFi connection, the paltry 3G phone signal and lack of food. Perfectly dressed Nordic news types tiptoed carefully through the straw, latticed matter stuck to the floor. But to look up from our laptops and see cows grazing beyond the barn door was a treat. And what a magical place this was. Two hours drive west of Stockholm, surrounded by lakes and forest, dark green hills spotted with little red cabins. The farming estate in Habsund was given to the Swedish government in the 1950s and has been the rural residence of the country's prime minister ever since. And to this spot of Scandinavian perfection, the current prime minister, Friedrich Rheinfeld, had invited three other Centre right European leaders for an overnight stay. The topic for discussion? The future of the European Union. And to get his guests in the mood, loosen them up. Mr. Rheinfeld took them for a ride in his Small wooden rowing boat. In an age of vice like political image control and uptight media handlers, there are some things politicians are very unlikely to do. Sure, they'll have the occasional sweaty jog for the TV cameras to look fit and purposeful. They'll pose with a pint of beer to try and look normal. But it's very rare to see a Prime Minister with his sleeves rolled up trying to row two other Prime Ministers and a German Chancellor around a lake. Press advisors must have looked at the scene through their fingers. The rowing boat summit had started back on land, the four disappeared into the house for dinner. The sandwiches laid on for us earlier in the day had gone and we were beginning to get peckish, a situation not eased when a woman from the Swedish Foreign Ministry came round with menus of the glorious smorgasbord our leaders were enjoying. We had some morsels of spin from the various camps about what they might say to each other, enough to get us through the evening news bulletins at least. And with nothing else to do, we had our own four way sharing about where the EU might be heading and how the coverage looks through different eyes. The meeting had been billed as a chance for David Cameron and Angela Merkel to work out their differences about Jean Claude Juncker. David Cameron is convinced Mr. Juncker has jumped the gun and is leading the effort to nobble him. But Mr. Juncker had and still has the backing of Europe's most powerful leader, Angela Merkel, and the night in Habsund didn't change her mind. German journalists I spoke to said they believe in the process that had produced Jean Claude Juncker. And I was struck by how angry they seemed with Britain, fed up with what they see as its stroppy, irritating and semi detached approach to Europe. The Swedes and Dutch also have doubts about Mr. Juncker, but it's David Cameron's opposition that riles and it's that domestic backdrop that makes it very difficult for Angela Merkel to ditch Mr. Juncker, even if she wanted to. A Swedish journalist described her country as having a brotherhood with Britain, but was now very worried the UK would soon quit the European club. By now it had gone midnight in the gloaming. The lake and the buildings outside could still just about be seen. But the detail wasn't clear. How easy it is to miss the whole picture, particularly one made up of 28 nations when only partially seen something moved. It was probably a rat or a cat.
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Ben Wright, now back in Brussels, where I'm hoping he has enjoyed a good breakfast now Politics aren't any more straightforward in Afghanistan, where a final round of voting in the presidential election takes place on Saturday. The main candidates are the country's former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, and Afshraf Ghani, a former World bank economist and one time Afghan finance minister. They're both fluent English speakers who promise a new relationship with the West. So what divides them? Our man in Afghanistan, David Loyne, has known both of them for many years and has been covering their battles since the first round of voting three months ago.
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You can tell a lot in South Asia from people's names. The two remaining names on the Afghan ballot this Saturday are laden with significance. Number one will be displayed as Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the only candidate whose title is on the ballot in a country where even failed medical students are awarded the honorific doctor. A fully qualified eye doctor, as he is, wants everyone to know it. But why are his first and last names the same? Well, like many Afghans, he grew up with only one name. But when he first became prominent as a spokesman for the guerrilla leader Ahmed SharmaSoud in the mid-90s, Western journalists insisted on a surname. He replied that he had only one name and said, slightly exasperated, so it's Abdullah Abdullah, if you like. And it stuck. But Abdullah was always more than a spokesman. Pictures on the wall of his comfortable but not grand house in the centre of Kabul show him as part of the team close to Massoud, the only guerrilla fighter who managed to hold ground against the Taliban. He worked as Massoud's envoy to allies across Afghanistan, and his fluent English made him the public face of the mujahideen movement to the outside world. I first interviewed him in Kabul in 1996, shortly before the Taliban took the city. Civil war had brought hunger and disorder, but Abdullah was urbane and well turned out. He likes to wear cravats and fine Italian shoes. Allegations of affairs, including the pursuit of the daughter of an Afghan diplomat to France, have not damaged him, and he has a keen interest in his country's history. Alongside the idealized portraits of Massoud in his house is a fine collection of British prints of Afghanistan from the 19th century. Number two on the ballot paper is Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. And once again, the way he presents his name is freighted with meaning. As an economist with the World bank and author, he was plain Ashraf Ghani. The addition of Ahmadzai is a reminder to Afghan voters that he is a Pashtun elder. Apart from a brief period after a rebellion in the late 1920s, Afghanistan has always been ruled by a Pashtun Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. Although not a majority Pashtuns are prominent in the south and east. During the time of British control in neighbouring India, they were known as Pathans and had a fearsome reputation. The Taliban were a Pashtun movement. Ghani's appeal is as an economic modernizer. He told me that the economy is imploding, on track for zero growth this year. He's acted as an advisor to many other failing poor states and wants to bring that expertise to Afghanistan. Although some Western diplomats privately express concern that while his ideas may look good on paper, he lacks practical political skills to deliver results. He won a derisory number of votes in the 2009 election, coming fourth behind Karzai, Abdullah and a populist anti corruption agitator, Ramzan Bashar Dost. In order to avoid similar humiliation in 2014, Ghani's most controversial move was to team up with General Abdul Rashid Dostum. He once called the former Wall Lord a known killer, but secured an apology from Dostum for past mistakes in return for giving him a place on his ticket as vice presidential candidate. There is no doubting Dostum's popularity among the Uzbek community in the north in election rallies. I spoke to a number of people who were backing this campaign because Dostom was on it, not really knowing who Ghani was. But Abdullah contemptuously says that Ghani cannot bring Dostum to the south, such is his unpopularity, and cannot even campaign with his portrait there. In April, during the first round of voting, there was extraordinary euphoria in the streets and a very high turnout. The Taliban were mostly kept at bay, although there were 300 serious attempts to disrupt the polls, more than twice as many as were reported at the time. Few expect the turnout to be as high this weekend, which makes predicting the outcome difficult. Although Dr. Abdullah. Abdullah was so far ahead in the first round that it would be hard for Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai to catch up. But the real significance of the names on the ballot paper is the one that is not there. Hamid Karzai bowing to the new constitution that prevents him from standing again. If it comes off, this will be the first peaceful transition of power here since 1901. For once, the word historic is appropriate.
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And that's David Loyne filing from Kabul ahead of the voting on Saturday. With the D Day commemorations now behind us, there is, of course another anniversary looming, that of the start of the Great War. Not so long ago, there were few visitors to those battlefields in France and Belgium where so many died. All that's changed, of course. These days, the battlefield tour is a part of many a school curriculum and this year visitor numbers are expected to reach an all time high. There's also been a huge increase in the number of companies offering guided tours of the historic sites. Christine Finn has been to France with one couple using the latest technology to try to improve the visitor experience.
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Rendezvous hour was 0730 outside my front gate in Kent. I was sure Major Holt, with thousands of Continental sorties under his belt, would be precisely on time. But with 30 seconds to go, my mobile phone rang. Our sat nav can't find you. I had to smile. We were testing the limits of modern technology even before crossing the Channel when Major Tony Holt and his wife Valme launched their then unique battlefield tour company. Back in the 1980s, there were no such things as sat navs in your average family car, nor mobile phones, nor any of the gadgets with which the modern Traveller is equipped. And there wasn't much of a tourist industry either in places like the Somme, although villagers did of course maintain the war memorials with great respect. The visitors were mostly veterans and their families in those days, often armed only with fragments of directions. Today, the halts produce battlefield guidebooks. This trip to France was to collect coordinates and map references for readers who've swapped the humble map for GPS or Google Earth so they can use their electronic devices to locate the historic sites. As I sat in their German car through the Eurytunnel to Calais, I heard how pioneering those early tours were. The buses in which they coursed down rural roads were like travelling theatres. The war was brought to life through artefacts and newspapers, music and song. Old soldiers traded tales on their campaign grounds, had a brew, read poems by candlelight and recalled going over the top as the sun came up over the trenches. Those first hand accounts are now sadly lost. The final soldiers from that era have passed away. Tony's early experience of updating the technology, armed with latest kit and an ammo of apps, is somewhat prosaic. He's trying to make sure battlefield visitors set off on the right road by confirming the coordinates and of a petrol station right next door to the Channel Tunnel exit. Valme jotted down the figures as Tony sang out 5.0.93480 and 1.81769. As we drove on, the female voice of the sat nav cut through the procession of monuments, cemeteries and village memorials, nearing a church. Lake lees. She pronounced it leg lice. The Holts looked at each other in bafflement. Sometimes they would let that disembodied voice take us where she fancied. Hoping they might come across a new to them monument, she guided us to Notre Dame de Lorette, a French cemetery with a new memorial they wanted to list. Once there, spotting a wall of names being constructed and a man in a hyvie's vest about to head them off at the pass, Tony launched his secret weapon, his wife. Out you go, Valme, he said. She soon cleared the way with her French and a smile. She's marvellous. Does it everywhere, he told me. We headed for a busy cafe run by an Englishwoman who moved there years ago and found herself increasingly busy as battlefield tourism took off. One of her customers was wearing a Help for Heroes T shirt, a reminder that battlefield history can also be the recent past. After that, the satnav lady gave us the Rue to Oncs, an English cemetery where Valmay planned to read a poem by A.P. herbert, whose comrades died there. Quite overcome, she handed me the book and I read. And here the lads went over and there was Harmsworth shot. These tours can certainly be overwhelming, tony said, adding, but if you fail to be moved, you have to stop coming. Later, at Tepeval, a Norfolk schoolboy told me he'd just sent a text to his mother. He'd found his great, great uncle's name on the memorial. His pal said he'd found a name with his own initials and so he'd left a poppy there. Their teacher said he'd been inspired to teach history after coming here as a schoolboy. Driving back, my thoughts turned to what the word somme stood for before those dark days of battle, the undulating fields and agriculture, a place to which the pastoral life was now returning. And I thought of a comment Tony had made back at Ancre. Try to imagine, he'd said every gravestone and cross as a young man in khaki standing up on parade. Technology could, of course, create that image today with computer graphics. Back at Calais, our mission ended with a tot of brandy from a plastic cup. The sat nav had finally fallen silent. And so, for a moment, had we.
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And that was Christine Finn. Now, does the landslide victory of the BJP mean that traditional Indian culture will be staging a fight back? Certainly in the past, the party's been much inclined to get stuck into furious controversy in matters of religion, language, history and heritage. And yet India's modernizing at such an astonishing rate, and so many of the trends reshaping modern life there reflect globalisation. So what hope can there be for the glories of Truly traditional Indian culture, with tides of technology and international media sweeping across the subcontinent. Julian May has been to Mumbai, the city still commonly referred to as Bombay, to consider that cultural future. And he's been hearing some pretty startling things.
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I step through the doorway and immediately a young man unleashes what the film school of rock would call a face melting solo on the guitar. High octane electric blues isn't what I expected in Furtados. Mumbai's venerable music shop, the oldest in the city, opened for business selling religious items and musical instruments in 1865. As my eyes grow accustomed to this dimly lit cavern of treasures, I see some tablas, the pot shaped drums played with the fingertips and heels of the hands that sound the intricate rhythms of Indian music. There are just a few of these, but great stacks of kit drums rise towards the ceiling. There's a whole wall of cymbals and rac upon rack of guitars. When a young Indian wants to learn a percussion instrument today, he automatically gravitates towards Western drums rather than the tabla. Anthony Gomes, the proprietor, tells me with a rueful smile. As for a string instrument, he'll certainly choose a guitar over and above a sitar. Gomes, whose father took over Furtado's in 1953, sells more guitars than anything else these days. That's a sad fact, but still he has good reason to smile. We've seen significant growth of instrument purchase, he says with quiet understatement. 25 to 30% per annum for the last 15 years. Anthony leads me out of what he calls the combo store. I follow him around the corner, down a street of elegant but dilapidated buildings, choked, as is everywhere in Mumbai with honking traffic, and into a bright, airy showroom. It's full of pianos, upright instruments, digital pianos, concert grands, including several Steinways. As we go in, rather than hard rock, a young man is playing Chopin beautifully. A lot of parents realise an education in music is vital to the development of the child. Anthony says, salesmanlike. And the piano is the instrument of first choice. Ambitious Indian parents aren't pushing their children to become concert soloists. Far from it. But several people I meet mention they think passing piano grades might give their offspring the edge when they apply to Princeton and other prestigious foreign universities to read law, medicine or business. But Yamahas, Steinways, these instruments command high prices. Surely few families can afford them. Anthony puts me right. Sales are predominantly to private households. Indians can afford anything, he insists, and everything. After they bought the big Mercedes, the huge television, they buy a piano. So the piano has become a status symbol in India. Furtado's often deals not with prospective owners, nor the teachers who will instruct their children. No selection of an instrument may be left to their architects and interior designers, who have important considerations that are not musical at all. They come with plans and specifications, demands as to design, colour, finish and, especially in a city where accommodation is some of the most expensive in the world, dimensions. Sometimes Anthony's smile grows rueful again. We can't sell a piano because it is two centimetres too big. Back in the lovely but crumbling building which Furtado's has occupied since it was built in 1904, in the combo store, the tablas are scarcely flying off their shelves. I ask Anthony what impact the enthusiasm for pianos and guitars has had on sales of Indian instruments. He's circumspect. Demand for Indian instruments is perhaps not on the wane, but by no means growing. Strangely, tuition is less accessible for students of Indian than Western music because it relies on the guru tradition, the intense and long term relationship between master and disciple. It's much easier to hire a violin teacher for an hour's lesson a week. There is a problem too, Antony suggests, with the public perception of Indian classical music. There's been no glamorisation, he sighs, no modernisation. Ironically, while he is selling Western instruments to his compatriots, most buyers of Indian musical instruments are visitors to Mumbai. We have a clientele referred to us by the hotels, Anthony confides, so we do keep some good quality stuff. Furtado's now has 24 shops throughout India selling 750 to 800 pianos a year. But while China is manufacturing and exporting its own pianos, Anthony has to import all his stock from abroad. Ruefully again and jealously, he puts his roaring trade in context. China sells 3,000 pianos a month just in their domestic market. So, he concedes, we do have a significant way to catch up.
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And with Julian May in that dimly lit cavern of treasures in Bombay, we've reached the end of this edition. But there'll be another at half past eleven on Saturday morning. Why don't you join us? Goodbye.