← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Lots of Cakes, Not Many Eggs
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Andrew Harding says ending one miners dispute in South Africa does not mean the are...
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent.
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You can hear the version of the
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programme we make for the BBC World
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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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How the miner strikes in South Africa threaten the Rainbow Nation success story. A brand new US citizen stands up for democracy for 17 long hours, we take a slow train to a city perched on the very edge of Europe and a quandary from our man in Mexico City. What should he do with the very last egg in his fridge? Miners in South Africa are returning to work this morning at the Marikana Platinum complex, the scene of violent protests in which 44 people died during an almost six week strike. The miners reached a wage agreement with the mine owner Lonmin earlier this week which will see their salaries increase by up to 22%. Lonmin, the world's third largest platinum producer, said it had suffered major financial losses in the str. An inquiry is underway into the deaths of the miners, most of whom were killed by the South African police. Andrew Harding says that with industrial action continuing at other pits, the trouble for the authorities is far from over.
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It's an easy hour and a half by car from Johannesburg to the platinum mines around Rustenburg. There are gentle hills en route, lakeside villas and motorboats. You can stop off for a cappuccino and buy a paper. Last Sunday's had the annual rich list inside, a procession of almost exclusively white names and faces. Then it's over a steep ridge and down onto a smart refurbished motorway. For the last half hour, it's a journey that British football fans made two years ago. And the drive always makes me think about South Africa's World cup and whether that marked a coming of age for this messy country or a high water mark to be followed by a slow slide downwards. Turn off the motorway and drive north for 10 minutes and the inspiring success story of the Rainbow Nation disappears in the rearview mirror ahead are dusty tracks, gleaming barbed wire fences and thousands of flimsy homemade shacks in the scrubland outside the Marikana platinum mine. From a distance, the umbrellas stand out, cheerful and bright protection from the harsh midday sun. As we approach the crowd, suspicious, wary eyes examine us. There is fear and there is anger, says Edwin Moshabi, a 29 year old miner. He's standing with a group of friends waiting for news about another pay offer from management to end their illegal strike. Our work is dangerous underground. We deserve more Money, he says. For decades, South Africa's mainstream unions, steeped in history and struggle, have kept a lid on the frustrations of men like Edwin. But the lid is slipping, the unions turning on each other. A few days ago, a shop steward from the National Union of Mine Workers was stabbed and killed near where Edwin is standing, even wearing an N U M T shirt. You can be killed, he says. We don't want anything to do with that union now. They don't care about us. They are sleeping with the managers. There are calm, reasonable voices arguing that the current unrest triggered by the killing of 34 miners at Marikana last month will pass. South Africa has always been a turbulent place, the argument goes. This is just one more calamity to be stirred into the cauldron. But the business as usual theory is losing ground these days. Juju. Juju. A group of school children are screaming out the nickname of Julius Malema, who's busy addressing a group of soldiers in a nearby building. Mr. Malema is the most divisive figure in South Africa today. To some, he's a dangerous Mugabe style demagogue, a crude populist demanding nationalisation and revolution. To others, he's an eloquent champion of the poor and the marginalized. Yes, Juju for president, says Edward, grinning with his friends outside the mine. Julius is just making sense. Mr. Malema has already been thrown out of the ruling ANC and is being investigated for alleged fraud, corruption and now incitement to violence. But the crowd's roar when he takes the stage is genuine. And whatever you think of his politics or opportunism, he has become a spellbindingly effective orator. Like the striking miners, Mr. Malema is a symptom of South Africa's current troubles, its growing wealth gap, its failure to create jobs, and the sense that corrupt ruling elites have lost touch with the masses. None of this means South Africa is poised to follow Zimbabwe's spectacular collapse. But Moleci Mbeki, brother of the former president Thabo Mbeki, has been sounding the alarm for some time. Serious foreign investment stopped a long time ago, he says. South Africa is a powder keg, and soon the government will run out of people and businesses to tax. Then we'll see more conflicts. Suddenly, back at the mine, Edwin and his friends learn that a deal has been struck. A 22% pay rise. The crowd cheers wildly. Edwin has to rush off to take his grandmother to the doctor, but his colleagues tell me, see, violence works without a fight. We will be getting peanuts as usual later in the afternoon. I visit a small shop to buy some water. Inside, 26 year old Abdul Kadir is manning the cash till. He's a Somali who came to South Africa three years ago illegally, he says with a grin. There are lots of us here, Somalis, Ethiopians, Chinese too, he says. But now he's making plans to go home to Mogadishu. He's heard that things are becoming more stable there after years of war. So what does he think of South Africa? I ask, and he looks out at the mine and the shacks. Everything is fine, he says, but not so fine.
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And that's Andrew Harding Now. There might be several weeks to go before the election in the United States, but in New York they had a chance to get some practice in the other day there were state primary elections, part of the process of choosing assemblymen and senators. The turnout was surprisingly high and new voting technology being introduced. In good time for the president vote had a largely successful dry run. Judith Kampfner, who only recently became a US citizen, volunteered to go and work at a polling station. It gave her, she says, a chance to get a close up view of grassroots democracy.
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When you fill out a voter registration form in New York, you can tick a box to say you're also willing to become a poll worker. I was so happy to be a newly minted American citizen that I ticked it without expecting any follow up. But months later a postcard arrived telling me to report for a mandatory three hour training session to become a PW for the Boeny. That's Poll Worker for the New York Board of Elections. So in August I duly went to class and was herded into a line with about 40 other PWs in training, feeling anxious because I knew we'd have to take a test and I always panic in tests. The learning environment was chaotic, lined with boxes from floor to ceiling. Josh, our 70 year old ex Marine instructor, was at pains to tell us what not to wear. No low rise pants. No hats unless for religious reasons. No halter tops or tank tops. No cleavage. But what about what we did have to do? The primary vote would be a practice run for later this year. With such a tight presidential race, crowds of voters are expected on November 6, so I had to be ready. Apparently New York State is short of 30,000 poll workers, so each of us would take on a lot of responsibility. Don't show up even one minute after 5am Josh had yelled. So at 4:30 on primary day I was on an almost deserted subway train bound for my polling station at an elementary school in Harlem Essentially, I went because I was curious, which is a less noble reason than the ones offered by my co workers. Without exception, they spoke of a wish to take part and give something back. They didn't have the typically entitled New York attitude. All were either African American or immigrants. In fact, I was the only non Hispanic white as designated on the census form among them. But as a recent immigrant, I I fitted in and no one remarked on my accent all day. No one was there for the money. An information clerk's pay is a mere $200 for what would be a 17 hour day, as it will be at the general election. The setup was crazy. The coordinator seemed at a total loss and we workers started to mutiny, declaring that unless she made up her mind, we would take charge ourselves. There were no chairs, so we scrounged some tiny ones from the classrooms. As we rolled out the new sleek voting cubicles on wheels emblazoned with the stars and Stripes, we joked that only 25 voters would likely turn up for the primary. Unpacking the materials and equipment was a major operation. Was it worth it if only a handful appeared? It's unusual to have an election on a Thursday. Tuesday is the traditional day, but that week Tuesday fell on September 11th. Yet despite the change of day, and despite the fact that at my polling station only registered Democrats could vote because Republican positions were uncontested, I estimated there were 400 voters. In fact, local papers reported a good turnout across the state. So why did people bother to show up just to choose, one of two Democratic state senators and one of two local Democratic judges? Well, it's good practice. For one thing, people were nervous about the new scanning machines and curtainless voting booths. Many complained that the lettering on the ballot paper was now too small and they needed help putting the documents into the scanners. Before long, the school principal, dressed like a pop diva in a tight slit dress and towering high heels, descended on us and seized all our chairs, yelling that we were depriving her pupils. So I ended up standing for 17 hours. The officers on shift from the New York Police Department did have chairs, but there was nothing for them to do until 9pm when the portable memory cards from the scanners went into a yellow pouch and on to Number One Police Plaza. I was shattered. There are supposed to be two information clerks at each station, but I was alone. All day I'd been looking up addresses and turning people away who'd come to the wrong place. Since the census of 2010, state assembly and Senate district lines have been redrawn, and it seems many voters hadn't a clue where to go. Several people, not unreasonably, pointed out that if Democrats really cared about their flock, they would give out reliable information. I don't have time to go elsewhere, so you idiots have lost a vote. And you people, you people make me sick, were typical reactions. Actually, I was proud to do the job and like to think I took the abuse gallantly. The poll workers camaraderie had rubbed off
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Judith Kempfner in New York, the Turkish authorities are considering the long term implications of a huge influx of refugees from Syria. The UN says that more than a million Syrians have fled the violence there and are seeking shelter in neighbouring countries, including Turkey. And at a time when the government's considering amendments to the constitution, the integration of new citizens from abroad, indeed multiculturalism generally are hot topics there, it seems. The idea of acknowledging and respecting ethnic, religious and linguistic difference is still alarming to many Turks, as Jonathan Fryer discovered on a recent visit to Istanbul.
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On Shabbat, the Jewish holy day, Istanbul's Sephardic Jewish community gathers for worship in Galata at the Nevi Shalom Synagogue. There's a line of concrete bollards outside and young men with the air of nightclub bouncers stand alert, ready to spring into action should anyone launch an attack. This isn't paranoia. In November 2003, a truck bomb drove into Nevi Shalom, as did another at the Beth Israel synagogue across town in Osman Bay. Six Jews were among the 27 dead. Hundreds more people were wounded. Every time there's bad news involving Israel, we get nervous. Something else will happen, a young Jewish friend told me with a sigh. She apologized that there was no way I could go inside Nevashalom for a look without weeks of checks and formalities. Most of the Jews in Istanbul want to stay. We've been here since we were chased out of Spain 500 years ago. But for some the strain has become too much and they've packed up and left. We're maybe just 18,000 now. During the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, was one of the most cosmopolitan cities on earth. Jews and Muslim Turks rubbed shoulders with Christian Greeks, Italians and Armenians, as well as Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and others. A degree of mutual tolerance was encouraged by the so called millet system, under which different religious communities were sub subject to their own laws relating to marriage, divorce, inheritance and so on. Not that that prevented terrible bloodletting at times, the most notorious involving the Armenians. Nearly a century ago and after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire following its defeat in the First World War, a new secular republic of Turkey was carved out of the remains. A wartime hero, Mustafa Kemal, given the honorific name of Ataturk or Father of the Turks, laid principle of one people, one language. The key terms in Turkey are united and together, political science professor Do Ergil told me at a seminar on multiculturalism. He declared the state's theory maintain that all languages stem from Turkish and that the Kurds, the largest ethnic minority, probably nearly a quarter of the population, are actually mountain Turks. So officially there's no multiculturalism. The only multi we have in Turkey is multi millionaires. Multiculturalism is to Turkey what opera is to an elephant. Kurdish cultural rights were indeed suppressed for many years, though that situation is easing somewhat, and not everyone is quite so glum about the chances of today's Turkey recognizing its multicultural reality, which it has to do if it wants eventually to become a member of the European Union. After all, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made conciliatory noises towards the country's minorities, even if sometimes related policy seems to take one step forward and then one step back. Frank Topakian, a courtly ethnic Armenian adviser to the non governmental Intercultural Dialogue platform, was keen to stress the advances when I met him at the offices of Turkey's top senior newspaper, Zaman. So many people in this country have been left out of the game since the founding of the Republic in 1923, he said. But the current government is trying to give back something to bring about reconciliation, which should include the return of some confiscated Armenian properties. There are said to be about 72,000 Armenians in Turkey today, yet at times they seem even more invisible than the Jews. It's startling to remember that under the Ottomans, the Armenian patriarch was the third most senior personality in the land. These days, the current patriarch is sadly indisposed, and the Armenian's most centrally located church, just off Istanbul's main shopping street, Istriklal Jadisi, is only opened up four times a year for special services like Christmas and Easter. But I was fortunate that a cleaner let me in first through a large door in the street that gave no indication that there was a Christian institution behind, and then across a small courtyard to the church itself. A huge religious painting donated by the 19th century French Empress Eugenie dominates one wall. The place was spotless and eerily silent, devoid of candles, let alone worshippers. The cleaner stood discreetly in one corner, leaning on his mop as I took it all in, and I wondered when, if ever, this place would once more be recognised as an integral part of Turkey.
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Jonathan Fryer in Istanbul. The government in Belgrade said this week it had been next year before it received a firm timetable about joining the European Union. The announcement comes amid signs that public support in Serbia Serbia for EU accession is waning. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the union's current financial problems. The authorities are not denying that the matter may yet be put to a referendum. Martin Buckley's just been to Serbia and found its people keen to escape their country's recent history.
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The Trans European Express had already broken down and had its locomotive replaced. A heat wave gripped the Balkans, but there was no water on the slow moving train and no air conditioning. What was chilly, however, was the demeanour of the border guards, who demanded and stamped our passports with no glimmer of a smile. As far as Croatia, the train was packed, but after entering Serbia, it slowly emptied. When we finally reached belgrade at nearly 3am Barely 20 passengers climbed down outside the magnificent neoclassical 19th century station. Heat dazed, stray dogs wandered dozily around. Close by stood tower blocks shattered by cruise missiles, reminders of NATO's 1999 assault on the Milosevic regime. Belgrade's long been one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Eastern Europe, but it has a slightly faded charm. Its history has been fundamentally edgy, a gateway to the world beyond Europe. It's a city of cafes, of chain smokers, of immigrants, many of them displaced from across the former Yugoslavia as a result of the recent wars. But Belgrade is also an intriguing city, and one eager to rediscover the confidence of its heyday. Built around a commanding crag at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, it was an important Roman settlement. Marina Sibalic, an architect, took me up to the immense Kalemegdan fortress, a bastion that seen plenty of conflict. Largely religious indeed, the siege of Belgrade in 1453 is remembered as a fight for the very survival of Christianity. The Christians won then. For four centuries, Belgrade swung between Muslim and Christian domination. Repeatedly captured, sacked and rebuilt in the 19th century, it finally became the sophisticated capital of the independent Kingdom of Serbia. But today it's inevitably linked with the breakup of Yugoslavia and so called ethnic cleansing. The bitter aftertaste hasn't disappeared. Serbia lingers in the waiting room of EU membership. In fact, Serbian public support for joining Europe has fallen to just 50%. I met a former official of the old regime. I'll call him Dr. X. Improbably, dressed like a CIA man in an American tailored pale blue summer suit, he spoke angrily of the West's Big betrayal of the Serbs. He insisted that Serbia might never join the eu. And his eyes glittering with malice, he predicted the collapse of the entire European enterprise. Naturally, younger Serbians want to shrug off the legacy of that generation. We'd walked in baking heat along the elegant Prince Mihailova street, now pedestrianized and packed like the centre of any modern capital, with designer boutiques. We were heading to the famous Hotel Moskva for afternoon tea. Serbian cakes are orgiastically creamy concoctions emblematic of the city's past, with names like Alexander Cake, Moscow Cake and Reform Tart. As we tucked in, Marina's daughter Eva, who studied in England, told me younger Serbians see themselves as citizens of the world. She was planning a night on the town. And that's one way the Serbian young are reclaiming their city. For Belgrade has improbably become one of Europe's clubbing capitals. Serbia is now home to two internationally renowned music festivals. And Belgrade has a vast number of nightclubs, many of them located on scores of barges that line the river banks. Those converging rivers really are the heart of Belgrade, and I won't easily forget a lazy day we spend on the River Sava. We'd driven through Belgrade's steadily expanding suburbs to our friend's little shoreside viquent or weekend house. We motored to an uninhabited forested island where small boats were moored on a sandy beach. Butterflies fluttered about and crates of beer lay all around as Serbian families splashed in the warm chocolate coloured water. Later, we ate fried sturgeon on a restaurant barge with a bottle of wine from a vineyard called Radovanovic. Propped beside the bar was the neck of an enormous amphora, perfectly preserved and almost certainly Roman. It had recently been pulled from the muddy riverbank. The waiter told me, a manifest symbol of Belgrade's very ancient history, a proud history that's worth preserving, especially perhaps if it helps eclipse uneasy memories of the more recent past. And a few miles east, in central Belgrade, the Sava is spanned by a magnificent new bridge, the kind of landmark statement modern cities like to make, a declaration of Belgrade's determination to re enter the European mainstream.
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Martin Buckley There are few people who like their eggs as much as Mexicans, so these have been difficult days for them. The government there slaughtered some 11 million hens this summer after an outbreak of bird flu. Since then, cases of flu have dried up, but so has the supply of eggs. And Will Grant's been learning that in a country per capita, the highest consumption of eggs in the world, the lack of this staple food is being felt by almost everyone.
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There is a solitary egg sitting in my fridge. I can't quite decide what to do with it for the poach it, fry it, scramble it, soft boil it and eat it with soldiers, or turn it into Mexico's smallest omelette. But whatever its destiny, I'd better enjoy it, as it'll be the last one I'll be having in a while. Judging from the empty shelves where boxes of eggs once lay in my local supermarket, I won't be the only one going without that particular source of protein this month. Mexicans like their eggs more so, in fact, than any other nation on Earth. They ate a staggering 22.4 kilos of eggs per person last year. That's more than 400 eggs each. They have so many ways to consume them too. There's huevos rancheros, huevos divorciados, chilaquiles con huevo, rajas con huevo, nopales con huevo, and huevos alla mexicana. And that's just for breakfast. Traditional low income cooking in Mexico relies heavily on eggs too, whether wrapped in a tortilla or simply fried and served on top of a bed of white rice. After millions of chickens were slaughtered in June, after the outbreak of avian flu, the price of a kilo of eggs doubled from 20 to 40 pesos in a matter of days. So this egg shortage is no yolk. Sorry, joke. Rather, it has now reached crisis levels. The government has been forced to rely on gringo hens imported from its neighbour to the north to supply the nation with its daily portion of whites and yolks. President Felipe Calderon even came on TV promising millions of dollars in emergency funds and tried to calm fears of hoarding and price fixing. Meanwhile, Mexicans certainly haven't lost their sense of humorous. With huevos meaning testicles in colloquial Spanish, the line Mexico no tiene huevos has become the gag of choice in supermarket queues around the country. Eggs are worth their weight in gold. They should start selling them at the jeweller's, quipped the BBC's indomitable cleaning lady, Carmen, the other day. But despite the scarcity in Mexico City, at least you can still get eggs for breakfast. El Manjad is my favourite neighbourhood greasy spoon. Cheap and full of charm, they serve meals on plastic plates, play truly awful music and have tanks of tropical fish mounted on the walls. But there was no mumbled apology from the staff when I asked for huevos rancheros the other day. Far from it. Within minutes, the waiter with slicked back hair, Miguel. They call me El Dio the uncle, he laughs, brought me a plate of two crispy corn tortillas covered in a rich sauce of green tomatoes and topped off with two fried eggs of perfect consistency, accompanied with refried beans and a smattering of cheese. This is the breakfast I fell in love with on my first trip to Mexico in 1997 and, for the sake of my heart, only now order very occasionally. A far cry from the Top Gear presenters inaccurate and frankly insulting depiction of Mexican food as refried sick. This breakfast will give the English fry up a run for its money any day of the week. But although I can still order it, El Tio tells me it might be taken off the menu sooner or later. We buy half a box of eggs a month, he says, pausing briefly to plonk a sharp but refreshing orange juice alongside my meal. There are 360 eggs in a box, and we're normally fine with about half of that, but it's getting expensive and they're harder to come by. The nearby wholesale warehouse still had eggs, Miguel says, but they cost twice as much. So far he hasn't passed the cost onto me, the customer with huevos rancheros still just two pounds, but he's considering it or dropping them altogether, at least in the short term. Millions of people, more than half the population, live in poverty in Mexico, and steep rises on basic staples like tortillas, rice, beans and eggs are acutely felt in households across the country. Still, with millions of US and Costa Rican chickens coming to the rescue, perhaps the government can avert the crisis before it gets any worse. Certainly President Calderon hopes so. With just weeks to go before he leaves office, this egg shortage is making his claims to have improved the economic health of ordinary Mexicans sound a little hollow. Mexicans might start wondering if his time in office was all it was cracked up to be.
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Will Grant in Mexico City with an apparently inexhaustible supply of puns, bringing this edition to a close. I'll be back on Saturday morning with more snapshots from around the globe. Do join us. Goodbye.