← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Lederhosen Style
00:28:08
Thousands of Kenyans prepare to go to court to pursue claims against the British.
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent. You can hear the version of the programme we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our site at BBConline. But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Ady today.
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First it was three. Now it's thousands of Kenyans preparing to take the British government to court over allegations dating back to the 1950s. The Dutch tighten up their cannabis laws. Some of their citizens are delighted and others are furious. We discover why they can't stop talking about gold in India and lederhosen for men, high D style dresses for women in Austria. They are no longer a political statement, they're high fashion. It's 60 years ago this week that a state of emergency was declared in Kenya in response to the MAU MAU uprising. And it's now become clear that thousands of Kenyans are considering taking the British government to court over incidents said to have occurred during that rebellion in the early 1950s. This follows the ruling earlier this month that three Kenyans tortured by the British authorities then can proceed with their legal claims despite the time elapsed. The government in London accepts that the colonial administration did torture detainees, but it denies liability and plans to appeal. Gabriel Gatehouse says that decision of the court in London, while welcomed by those who campaigned for years for this outcome, received surprisingly little attention in Ken.
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It was a wrinkled crowd that assembled in the gardens of the Kenya Human Rights Commission to hear the decision of the High Court. The judge was half a world away in London. The events on which he was due to rule had occurred more than half a century earlier. The vast temporal gulf that separated those original events from the long awaited promise of judicial dress was visible in physical form. Its lines were etched on the faces of the 50 or so men and women who perched on plastic chairs that day, clustered around patches of shade. In some, you could see the imprint of pain above his sunken eyes. Paolo Muoco Nzili's forehead is a contorted knot of muscle and skin, like the tangled roots of an old tree. Fixed that way perhaps from the time when, as the court heard, a colonial officer ripped off his testicles with a pair of pliers. Jane Muthoni Mara was caught bringing a plate of food to MAU MAU rebels. As punishment, she says she was raped with a bottle. She was 15 years old. Her small, hard eyes today still betray the fear of that terrifying moment. Neither side emerges well from the MAU MAU insurgency that rocked Kenya in the 1950s. In a deliberate campaign of terror. White settler families and those suspected of supporting them were slaughtered in their homes. In response, the colonial authorities executed, murdered or maimed thousands and rounded up many more into concentration camps where they languish for years in appalling conditions. By the time Kenya gained its independence in 1963, the rebellion had been put down. The British departed, taking with them thousands of files documenting the bloody details of the period known as the Emergency. The papers were kept secret for years. Many must have hoped that this shameful episode of colonial history would quietly be forgotten. And to a large extent, it was that morning earlier this month when the MAU MAU veterans gathered to hear the news from London. Kenyan newspapers barely mentioned the landmark case. Almost all the journalists sent to cover reaction in Nairobi were from foreign media houses. Why were these old men and women, who'd arguably done much to hasten Kenyan independence, not fated as heroes of a liberation struggle? The answer lies in the complicated birth of independent Kenya and the allegiances of the men who became the country's new leaders. Among Kenya's ethnic and tribal patchwork, three communities from the central highlands had supplied the bulk of the MAU MAU fighters, the Embu, the Meru, and most importantly, the Kikuyu. Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, was himself a Kikuyu. Under his rule, they became the dominant ethnic group in post colonial Kenya. But during the Emergency, many Kikuyu had joined a force known as the Home Guard, which enthusiastically supported the colonial authorities in their campaign against the MAU MAU insurgents. When independence came, they were the ones in place, the historian H.S.K. mwaniki explained, standing slightly apart from the crowd in the garden of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. Those who were against the British were either in jails, in detention or. Or completely suppressed, he told me. Kenya's post independence leaders decided that the story of the MAU MAU was a divisive rather than a unifying force. For one thing, they reasoned, it might stoke tensions between the tribes, since the movement had been so strongly associated with the Kikuyu. But more importantly, a powerful MAU MAU liberation myth could be dangerous to the very people running the newly independent country. If the MAU MAU had indeed been a significant force in pushing out the British, what then of the Kenyans who'd supported the colonizers, many of whom were now in positions of power and influence, thanks in part to the colonial authorities brutal response to the rebellion? In an effort not to attract the label of collaborator, the story of the MAU MAU was actively suppressed. Under Jomo Kenyatta, the MAU MAU remained an illegal organization, just as it had been under the British. His successor, Daniel Arap Moy, kept the ban in place, and it was not until 2003 that the movement gained any measure of official recognition. Nearly ten years later, at a little after 12:30 in the afternoon, the news from London filtered through to the gardens of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. As one, the assembled crowd of veterans, most of them in their 70s and 80s, rose out of their seats and began to dance on unsteady legs. They had not won their case. Not yet, anyway. The judge had merely ruled that even after more than half a century, the pain and abuse that some had suffered was still important. The case itself may take years. Many may not live to see it resolved, but at that moment, on that day, that seemed to matter little. I may have imagined it, but I fancied I saw a loosening of a knotted brow, a softening of scared eyes.
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And that's Gabriel Gatehouse Imminent changes to the cannabis laws here seem unlikely now. The Prime Minister, in a letter this week to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said there were no plans to change the current position. He was commenting on the report from the UK Drug Policy Commission, which was calling for a wholesale review of the drugs laws. It said possession of small amounts for personal use should be made a civil rather than a criminal offence. Manuela Saragossa tells us they're also talking about drugs legislation in the Netherlands. For years now, cannabis users there have been able to buy the drug at specially licensed coffee shops. But now the law is changing.
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It's late in the small southern Dutch town of Sittard and my 76 year old mother is in the hallway double locking her front door before she goes up to bed. Outside, the sound of a car's wheels skid on the street and someone shouts something unintelligible. Drug runners. My mum sighs. A few moments later, the bells of a nearby church ring out. It's midnight. It's a scene that encapsulates so much of the debate currently raging in the Netherlands over the country's drug policy, a debate that has pitched its conservative, broadly Christian elements against a long tradition of social liberalism. Towns like Sittard and the nearby provincial border town of Maastricht are at the frontline of that clash. It's easy to see why. This is an area of the country that is squashed between Germany and Belgium. People move freely between countries, and many foreigners have been coming here to stock up in the Dutch coffee shops licensed to sell Cannabis. It's in Maastricht that I meet Stefan, owner of the Mississippi, a coffee shop on a houseboat. Business isn't going well these days. Stefan is only allowed to serve Dutch customers, not foreigners. And if the right leaning Dutch government has its way, the new rules will be extended to the rest of the Netherlands, including Amsterdam, at the start of next year. Even the Dutch people he serves must now register as members of his coffee shop before they're allowed to buy hash there. Something that's enraged civil rights activists because it means there'll be a record of their drug use. The air is thick with stale smoke as I walk in. A small open window allows in only a feeble breeze. Two men and a woman puff away silently. In a corner, the speakers play 70s pop. All the other tables and chairs are empty. Stefan talks me through his menu. White Rhino, Silver Haze, Amnesia, Lemon Haze, Blue Cheese. He plumps up what looks like a ball of thick pale green fluff. The cannabis flower, he says, pointing at it. I don't smoke much myself. It's only because of my father that I ended up in this business. He started it 25 years ago. Stefan introduces me to Mark Jose Mons, fellow coffee shop owner and president of the Maastricht association of Coffee Shop Entrepreneurs. Mark doesn't look like he's in the drugs business either. He wears a dark shirt and she knows and is clean shaven. He has no tattoos or piercings. I'm a professional drugs dealer and I'm proud of it, he says. Unlike Stefan, though, Mark is articulate in his anger with the authorities. The Dutch have tolerated the sale of soft drugs in coffee shops since 1976. He says the idea was to take away the profit criminal organizations were making from the trade and ensure cannabis was sold in a controlled environment. Mark reckons it's worked. He claims the Dutch have some of the lowest drug related crimes and deaths in the world. Now we've got a right wing government that thinks consumption will stop if you tell everybody that drugs are bad for you, he says, rolling his eyes. Well, I've got news for them. You can't win the war on drugs. You can only control it by being realistic and pragmatic. He takes a drag on his roll up. I'm not clear whether it's a cigarette or a joint. There will always be people who take drugs, he says, exhaling smoke. Mark's problem is that many in the Netherlands are fed up with those people. It's not so much the cannabis smoking they object to as the foreign drugs. Tourists. The coffee shops attract Maastricht's Mayer described them as scum. Mark reckons the ban has caused an explosion in the number of street dealers, as foreigners from nearby Belgium and Germany look to buy on the Dutch streets what they can no longer purchase in coffee shops. The authorities say that's an exaggeration. It's difficult to know who's telling the truth. In a marked departure from the Netherlands usual tradition of openness, the police for the time being won't give out any crime figures, and the government won't comment until the results of an investigation are published later this month. Back at my mum's house, the keys jangle in the lock and she gives her front door a gentle tug to check it's secure. I ask her if she's for the ban on foreigners in coffee shops. I'll support whatever helps cut crimes, she answers. But you know, she shrugs, there will always be people who take drugs.
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Manuela Saragossa in the Netherlands Uganda is known for its tumultuous past, made notorious by figures such as the former president, IDI Amin and the renegade leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony. The country has been celebrating 50 years of independence from Britain, but one man, President Yoweri Museveni, has been in charge for more than half that time. And as Caspar Leighton's been finding out, Ugandans are increasingly wondering whether, after the nation's chaotic start, they are now suffering from an excess of stability.
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Nearly 80% of Ugandans are under the age of 30 and have grown up knowing only one president Yoweri Museveni. When you consider the chaos that went before he took power in 1986, some might consider that a blessing. There were nine presidencies in the first half of Ugandan independence, and not one of them ended peacefully. Mr. Museveni has triumphed in election after election of varying plurality. Most Ugandans are better off than they were a quarter of a century ago, and the government has won praise for tackling HIV AIDS effectively when the virus was ravaging other parts of the continent. For those who remember the fearful life under Milton Obote or IDI Amin, stability can be good, even if it is rather monochrome, showing a group of journalists a site where the independent celebrations would take place, the minister announced there would be giant portraits of significant figures from Uganda's past hoisted around the ground. Who asked the Ugandan journalist? She threw out a few names that I hadn't heard of. IDI Amin, I suggested, a little mischievously. The minister didn't respond. A man with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people on his rap sheet, makes a rather challenging poster at a national celebration. Opponents of President Museveni and his National Resistance Movement claim the party has hijacked the independence celebrations. The NRM has been stressing that this is an occasion for all Ugandans, but the movement's sheer longevity means that inevitably, much of the back patting is falling on NRM shoulder blades. I am not sure the leader of the main opposition party felt like a part of the celebration. Kizabezije was not technically under house arrest. He could walk out at the front gate and down the road, but a barricade prevented him from going any further. Mr. Besige has considerable support and is able to get people onto the streets in numbers. The Museveni government, with its penchant for order and discipline, did not want its big party being hijacked by the opposition. Fireworks were the order of the day, not tear gas. In fact, so keen was the government to keep things neat and tidy that celebrations outside the official venue in Kampala were banned. Black, yellow and red bunting was ok, but go easy on those party poppers. The official line was that nationwide celebrations would be held at a later, more suitable date. The consolation was that the following Saturday, a far more pressing national engagement was scheduled. Uganda's football team was playing Zambia for a place in the finals of the African cup of nations. Deliver that, Mr. Museveni, and much else would be forgotten. The parade passed off well. The marching was precise, the music rousing with the quintessentially African mix of the marshal and the carnival. But there were no pictures of eminent Ugandans. Perhaps deciding who to include and who to leave out became too difficult. It was all going smoothly and the centrepiece was about to unfold. I'd watched a policeman tie and retie the Ugandan flag to a rope on a towering flagpole. The nation was watching. The president was rolling past. The policeman began passing the rope through his hands. The flag jerked upwards, rolled perfectly, awfully around the rope. Thousands of faces looked up to the symbolic reenactment of the first day of independence. A skyward rose not a fluttering flag of hope, but a hopelessly twisted cigar of black, yellow and red out, twisted only by the poor policeman's guts. But he fought on, tugging away at the foot of the rope for a period of time apparently equal to and more than Uganda's entire history. Little by little, like a fanned flame, the flag grew and grew until it flew free and proud. The army spokesman smoothed over the episode, reflecting artfully that like Uganda, the flag had struggled at first but eventually triumphed. Over the weekend, Ugandan police announced they had foiled a terrorist plot on the day of the parade by defusing a couple of bombs. This comes after inflammatory headlines linking Mr. Besige of the opposition to a so called rebel group. Worse still, the football team lost on penalties. Critics of President Museveni say he is gripping power too tightly and tracking from a broad based constitutional government to a patronage based personal rule. Ugandans have never seen a peaceful change at the top. Most in this youthful nation have never seen a change at all and know only the dark tales of their parents.
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Caspar Layton, back now from Kampala. Humankind has been obsessed by gold since long before the beginning of recorded history. The precious metal has been used as currency for nearly 3,000 years and in jewellery and art for even longer. Something about its shimmering, incorruptible glow, so like the sun itself, has made us regard it as precious throughout history and across the world, from Tutankhamun's gleaming sarcophagus past the gilded manuscripts of medieval Europe and onto the glittering bling of today's wrappers, it's something that forges a deep impression. It's driven political and technological change too. The pursuit of gold was one of the main reasons for Europe's exploration of the Americas and parts of Africa. Today, South Africa is still a big producer, along with Russia, Australia and the United States. But Rahul Tandon, who's in Calcutta, says that the country where gold is most talked about is India.
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I was having a nap when my mobile phone started to ring. It was a call from my mum. Being a good Indian boy, I answered it without wasting any time with how are you? She asked me, have you seen the price of gold? Slightly irritated at her lack of concern for my well being, I said yes and then added, it's very high at the moment. Maybe we should sell our gold. There was a silence on the line. Then my mom said, what's wrong with you? This is not a time to be selling. You should be buying more gold. You will need it for your daughter's wedding. Gold is at the center of a million such conversations here every day. Across the world, people love it, but for Indians, it's not just a valuable asset, it's an intrinsic part of society. It has always had an important place in Hindu mythology as it's considered pure. The creator of the universe, Lord Brahma, came from a golden egg, and the gods and goddesses travel on golden chariots. If the gods want it Is it any surprise that humans here crave it? Harshad Ajmera is Calcutta's largest gold importer. As I walk into his office, he waves at me to sit down. Down. He has a phone stuck to his right ear and another one pressed to his left. And the two phones on his desk are ringing. Sensing this is a man who does not have time to waste on idle chit chat, I ask him what's behind India's obsession with gold. He smiles as he answers. You see, when someone is born here, gold is given even when they die. Gold is needed as a grain of it is placed in the mouth of the deceased. And of course he adds, there has to be gold at a wedding. His phone starts to ring again. More gold is needed by someone in Calcutta. India is the world's largest consumer of gold. Prices recently reached record levels and with wedding season around the corner, experts say it will continue to rise. For when a girl gets married here, it's considered the duty of her family to give her as much gold as possible. It will act as her financial security when she joins her husband's family. But over time it has become a status symbol, a way to show off. The rich will spend hundreds of thousands on gold jewelry for their daughters while the poor will scrape what little money they have and borrow even more at exorbitant interest rates to try and buy some of it. Because in India, no gold means no wedding for many though it also means a lifetime of debt. Recently the Reserve bank of India's Deputy Governor KC Chakraborty warned India's poor against investing in it as it will all be given away at their daughters weddings. But under pressure to marry off their girls, most are ignoring his advice. 25 year old silky Chopra. He's one of the millions getting married this year. She's looking forward to it but is a little nervous. Like most people here, she's having an arranged marriage. So what will you be wearing on the big day? I ask her. Silver, maybe platinum? She shakes her head. No she replies. I will be wearing as much gold as is physically possible. She then whispers, I actually hate gold. So why are you wearing it? I ask. Are you mad? She quickly answers, this is India. If I don't wear it, my mother and my grandmother will disown me. They've been buying gold all their lives for me and waiting for this day. And what would my in laws think? She adds, my marriage would be doomed. This reminds me of the fights that took place in my house before my sister's wedding. My mother screaming that she had to wear heavy gold jewelry on her wedding day. And my sister refusing. As I finish talking to Silky, my phone rings again. It's my mum. What are you doing? She asks. I tell her that I'm talking to someone about gold. Very wise, she says, because for my mum and millions of other Indians, the only thing that glitters is gold.
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Rahul Tandon in Calcutta Oktoberfest this year wasn't just notable for the oceans of beer consumed. For it seems that more and more people, people in southern Germany and Austria, chose to mark the occasion dressed in the traditional costume, which is known as tracht, that means lederhosen for men, and Heidi style dirndl dresses for women. All familiar stuff to Sound of Music fans now. Tracht always used to be the preserve of the ultra conservative. Many younger people wouldn't dream of wearing it. But times change. And as Bethany Bell in Vienna has been discovering, these traditional clothes have recently become rather fashionable.
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High on a hill near Salzburg, a farmer with an impressive beer belly danced at a village festival. He was wearing a check shirt, embroidered braces and weather beaten leather shorts. Known as lederhosen, they were very short. Little of his stout, hairy thighs was left to the imagination. Close by, a group of girls giggled at some private joke. They could have been extras from the Sound of Music because they were all wearing dirndl dresses. Dark bodices over white blouses with plunging necklines and full skirts with colourful aprons. It's quite normal to wear tracht here, one of the villagers told me. Perhaps not every day, but it's part of who we are. And not just in the countryside. Even in big cities like Vienna, you come across people going to work in traditional jackets with short green collars, loden coats with horn buttons, and even dirndls. In post war Austria, it's often been seen as a political statement. For many years, wearing tracht was associated with conservative or even far right ideology. One Viennese told me during the Nazi era, Jews were forbidden from wearing it. And later it was often taken as a sign that you weren't really open to the world. But that's changing. In fact, these days it's really trendy. So trendy in fact, that tracht retailers are reporting big profits. They're cut priced. Dirndl chains and discount supermarkets sell lederhosen along with cheap food and socks. Recently at a party, I met Klemens, who's in his early 30s and works for a telecommunications company. He says he likes to mix the traditional and the Modern on dress Down Fridays at my office, a lot of us wear lederhosen, he told me. I like wearing them with a T shirt. It's comfy, and I don't think it's political anymore. It's still not everyone's cup of tea. Another friend told me vehemently he wouldn't be seen dead in lederhosen or even a Loden jacket. It's what far right politicians wear. Never, he said. But then he relented slightly. Perhaps I might if I was invited to a wedding. And weddings in traditional costume are now very popular. At the shop belonging to Austria's grand Dame of Tracht, Gexi Tostmann, there are albums full of personal photos of grooms in brilliant waistcoats and knee breeches and brides in silken dirndls. Mrs. Tostmann thinks the change in attitude towards tracht owes a lot to a remark by the British designer Vivienne Vivian Westwood. On a visit to Austria in 2001, Vivienne Westwood said, I don't understand you Austrians. If every woman wore a dirndl, there would be no more ugliness. The quote caught on, Mrs. Tossman told me, and slowly young people started to reclaim their heritage. Can anyone wear a dirndl? I asked her. Or do you have to come from Austria? You can't wear the tracht from the Bregenze Forest region, she told me. Traditionally that's just for them, but otherwise, yes, anyone can wear it. It's a gesture of respect towards Austria. And here I have to make a Despite having lived in Austria for more than a decade, I had never been tempted to wear a dirndl. But that, I decided, was about to change, and so I asked to try one on. A smiling saleswoman ushered me over to the changing area and handed me a dirndl. It had a dark blue bodice with tiny white polka dots, a black skirt, and a pink and white striped apron. Do you have to wear the apron? I asked. Yes, she said firmly. The apron is always worn. I put on the little white blouse and then stood still while she buttoned me into the tight bodice and tied the apron and a bow at my waist. There now, she said. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I began to see why Vivienne Westwood is such a fan of the dirndl. The puffy sleeves, close fitting bodice and the full skirt produced an hourglass effect very flattering to a woman's figure, and the contrasting colours and patterns were pretty. But I didn't buy still felt slightly too Austrian for someone of Anglo American heritage like me. And because I knew there was one thing I'd never be able to resist the constant urge to sing Edelweiss.
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Bethany Bell in Vienna Resisting the urge to break into song and sound of music in mind. It's time for us here to say so long farewell Auf Wiedersehen and until Saturday goodbye.