← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
May 26, 2011
00:28:14
The Roman Catholic Church is accused of running a dirty campaign as the people of to a...
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Hi there.
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You're about to hear from our own correspondent, a download from the BBC.
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We make editions of the programme for
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both the BBC World Service and Radio 4. And this is the latest Radio 4 broadcast. As ever, it's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Today, the Church accused of playing dirty as the people of Malta prepare to vote in a referendum on divorce. Protesters arrested for making a noise in Uganda as the pressure grows on the country's long standing president. We're in Jaffna, once Sri Lanka's rebel stronghold, finding out about songs of lullaby and lament. And as Barcelona's footballers get ready for Wembley, we find out why. It's the club which women like. But first, we're off to that tiny nation which famously pursues a policy of Gross National Happiness, rather than one which concentrates on Gross Domestic Product. Politicians around the world, including David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, have shown interest in Bhutan's strategy. But the newly democratic government there is now thinking again considering whether this really is the best way forward. Mark Talley has been to the small Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between India and Nepal, where he found himself discussing the matter with, among others, the Prime Minister.
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Bhutan is known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon, but it's become democratic without any thunderstorms, no violence, no demonstrations forced King Jigme Singye Wangchuck to establish a constitutional monarchy and still in his early 50s, abdicate in favor of his oldest son. The Prime Minister, Jigme Jose Thinley told me that when the King went round his kingdom in 2007, explaining the new democratic constitution, he was asked what was the need for the change from monarchy. The Prime Minister's office is in the new parliament building beside the river which flows through the capital, Thimphu. On the opposite bank is Thimphu's Zong. Part Buddhist monastery, part administrative building, these massive white buildings, constructed as fortresses, topped by pagoda like towers and intricately decorated with traditional patterns and paintings, for which colorful would be a mild description, are dotted on mountainsides throughout Bhutan. They are still the headquarters of district administration. After a long career in the royal bureaucracy, the Prime Minister was reluctant to accept his new role. I'm not sure whether I'm a politician yet, he said. I still see myself as a bureaucrat. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have much politicking to do. The opposition only won two seats in the election. There are no major ideological issues dividing the two parties either. Both parties are royalist. The Prime Minister is married to one of the former King's daughters and the leader of the opposition is the brother of one of that king's wives. He has four wives, all sisters and 10 children. Perhaps it's because the politics of Bhutan are so dissimilar to the combative politics of most democracies that the country is content. The press contributes to this. One Bhutanese journalist said to me, journalists in other countries seem determined to contribute to Gross national unhappiness. Here, we have to be different. Nevertheless, he was concerned about how journalists should balance their role as watchdogs, their duty to scrutinize the government with their anxiety not to make Bhutan unhappy. A new gigantic Buddha, said to be the biggest in the world, now sits on the mountainside high above Thimphu. He's an emblem of Bhutan's commitment to Buddhism, but it's not the state religion. The constitution says Buddhism is the spiritual heritage of Bhutan, while the king himself is the protector of all religions. So the country has set out on the road to national happiness, committed to avoiding another source of unhappiness religious conflict. But so far, Bhutan has only made a start. And there are clouds overhead which could turn into thunderstorms. Although Bhutan has the highest GDP per capita in South Asia, the Prime Minister told me 23% of the citizens were below the poverty line. This cause of unhappiness could be overcome by the government's plans to exploit Bhutan's mineral resources and the hydroelectric potential of of its rivers. Although Bhutan is sparsely populated, there are only 700,000 Bhutanese. The dams and mines could cause unrest by displacing people to make way for them and destroying some of the country's pristine forests. The Prime Minister hopes that his other plans to bring roads, schools, electricity, safe drinking water and mobile phones to every corner of Bhutan, will neutralize opposition to the dams. But by calling in the international management consultants McKinsey to implement these plans, he's aroused fears that solutions will be imposed on this country which ignore its unusual circumstances. So far, Bhutanese have avoided tourists swamping their beautiful country by only admitting visitors who are big spenders. But there are already reports that McKinsey is recommending the tourist policy should be relaxed. However, the Prime Minister said to me, McKinsey has come to improve our management techniques, not to tell us what to do. Even if the tourists, or at least most of them, are kept out, the problems that come with mining and dams could still disturb Bhutan's placid democracy. On the other hand, if Gross National Happiness is not accompanied by an expanding economy, then the Bhutanese might well declare their signature policy a failure and demand that GDP growth be made the national priority. Then Bhutan will risk losing its unique culture and risk being swamped by the rampant consumerism sweeping through its gigantic neighbour India.
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Mark Talley Feelings are running high in Malta ahead of a historic referendum this weekend on whether the law should be changed to allow divorce. Malta's a strongly Catholic island, and the church authorities have been exhorting their congregations to vote against the proposed the Archbishop of Malta has told voters they are accountable to Jesus for their choice. But as Jake Wallace Simons has been finding out in the capitol Valletta, those in favour of change are also waging an energetic campaign.
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People came in ones and twos until the place was packed. Somebody closed the door to stifle the breeze. Then Fr. Angelo Zaakel, a short, rotund priest in a spotless white robe, glided in, positioned himself beneath the crucifix and began Mass. The congregation followed the proceedings automatically, but when it came to the sermon, there was an unexpected change. This is the last Mass before the referendum on divorce, said Father Angelo. In order to prevent misunderstandings here, there was a slight murmur in the pews. The archbishop has recorded a message. He pressed play on an ipod, and a serene, disembodied voice filled the church. The question, said the voice, is whether we want divorce to be legal in Malta. The church believes that a vote for the family is an act of hope. A vote for divorce will lead to the destruction of family life. A woman fanned herself with a leaflet. The man next to me checked his watch. Malta, that deeply Catholic island between Sicily and Libya, is one of only two countries in the world where divorce is illegal. The other is the Philippines. As the day of the referendum, May 28, approaches, Father Angelo and his small congregation have received more attention than they bargained for. First, a national newspaper reported that he was refusing to give communion to supporters of divorce. A week later an apology was printed. It hadn't been Father Angelo after all. Not long afterwards it was reported that he had delivered a scandalous sermon in which he had accused the pro divorce camp of being Pulcinelli, or clowns. The paper apologized again. Father Angelo had simply mentioned the full name of a pro divorce mp, Geoffrey Pulicino Orlando Pulicino, not Pulcinelli. Such is the fog of war. I had visited Geoffrey not the clown Orlando the previous day and had found him in a state of great anxiety. I never expected the church to wage such a dirty campaign, he said. They have been intimidating our supporters. They hold the power here in Malta and they are obviously Feeling threatened. An example of this was sitting right next to him, Deborah Skembry, a family lawyer and chairperson of the Pro Divorce Campaign. Recently the church had banned her from practicing at the ecclesiastical court. I have lost 40% of my income, she said, but they won't stop me campaigning. I stepped into the garden and called Anna Vella, the leader of the Anti Divorce Campaign, to put these accusations to her. Deborah Skembri is contractually bound to respect the beliefs of the church, she said. So she was in breach of contract. The important thing is, the argument, continued Annabella. Studies have found that the Maltese are the happiest people in Europe. This must be due to our family values. If divorce is introduced, people will take marriage less seriously and everything will collapse. Why should we voluntarily create the same problems as the rest of the world? I went back in to join Jeffrey and Deborah and told them what Annabella had said. We are already like the rest of the world, said Deborah, jumping up and down slightly with frustration. Our rate of failing marriages is similar to the rest of Europe. The only difference is we can't remarry. Jeffrey agreed. In Malta, there's no separation between church and state, he said. But before he could elaborate, his phone rang and he stepped into the garden to take the call. When he tried to get back in, the door had locked. As I struggled to open it for him, he mouthed at me through the glass. Act of God. After Father Angelo concluded Mass, he showed me into his chaotic office and pulled out a copy of the Maltese Constitution. He pointed out chapter one, article 2.2, which gives the church the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong, end quote. You see, he said, they want us to tear up our constitution and write a new one. But I pointed out, doesn't that extract from the constitution demonstrate the blurring of church and state? He chuckled. Church and state are distinct, he said, but connected. Yes, I said. But before I could question him further, he pulled out a feature he had written for a Maltese newspaper entitled either Love or Sex. Love and Rock and Roll. It was illustrated by a photograph of royal newlyweds William and Kate. You see, he said, what God has brought together, let no man tear asunder. We must not forget that in Malta.
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That's Jake Wallace Simons in Valletta. First it was the Walk to Work protests. The latest thing in Uganda is the Make a Noise protest. Earlier this week, after much car horn honking and banging of pots and pans, police moved in and made arrests. It disturbs the peace of others, said a spokesman we cannot accept it. The protesters, angry about government corruption and high fuel and food prices, have now had several violent confrontations with the security forces. And Anna Cavell in Kampala says increasingly there are calls for the president, Yoweri Museveni, to step down.
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From the window of my house at the top of Kololo Hill, I can see Kampala's city skyline and to the east, all the way to Lake Victoria. The sight of the black kites soaring on the thermals against this backdrop always makes me pause. But the view from inside the house is marred somewhat by the cage, like burglar bars that cover all my windows. This kind of security is common here, but Kampala has been a safe city for many years. The bars are a hangover from the bad old days. I first started coming to Uganda 18 years ago when I used to visit my father during my holidays from school. When I first visited, there were only a couple of tall buildings in the city, and one of those was derelict, just a shell pockmarked with bullet holes, evidence of the city's violent recent history. My father's home, an old colonial building close to the center of town, had burglar bars and even a panic room. There was an armed guard and a CB radio, which the British High Commission would call to test every Monday morning. The idea was that in the event of trouble, representatives in each area would inform other Britons in the neighborhood. That was in 1993, when the sound of gunfire at night was common and people were still afraid of the security services. My father had a driver called Simon, who usually drove painfully slowly. But one morning, driving through the center of town, Simon saw at the end of the road a soldier running. To the childish amusement of my brother and I. He threw the car into a dramatic turn and tore off across a roundabout and up a side street in the opposite direction. The soldier hadn't even looked our way, and I saw this kind of fear many times in those days, but I never felt it, because by then the city was peaceful and a once feral army had been brought under control by the government of President Museveni. This government has, without doubt, serious failings, and much of the criticism leveled at it is well deserved. But for more than 20 years now, ordinary people have largely been able to go about their lives in safety, and there's been progress. When I first arrived, people did their shopping at roadside markets. Now the city has shopping malls as well as cinemas and restaurants and casinos. The streets are choked with traffic and the skyline is filled with high rise buildings containing offices and Luxury apartments development here brought a middle class. Civil society flourished. Money from international donors poured in, and the media earned a reputation in East Africa for freedom. But in recent months, the atmosphere has started to change rapidly. Much of the civilian police force now wears paramilitary uniform and armored personnel carriers with roof mounted guns are stationed around town. Tear gas is used to disperse peaceful demonstrations. The media is being intimidated and the old fear of the security services is beginning to creep back in. In April, the military police fired live bullets at protesters armed only with stones, leaving at least nine people dead. During that period of unrest, the spectacle of Uganda's newly acquired fighter jets ripping the sky apart became common. Shows of force have been everywhere in the capital. Patrols of heavily armed soldiers walking the streets have become familiar again. Recent events have seemed like an unraveling of the progress Uganda has made over the last 25 years. President Museveni seems rattled by what's been happening in North Africa, so much so that he seems to have forgotten what made him popular in the 1980s. He brought the military under control to the relief of a terrorized population. In 2011, his army turned its guns on civilians throwing stones. During the presidential elections in February, I asked people who they were voting for and why. In Kampala, President Museveni doesn't have a great deal of support among the young, many of whom regard him as an aged autocrat. But ask the older generation, the people who remember the days before him, and it's a different story. People remember the lawlessness that preceded this government and why they used to need those bars on their windows. Many of them still support his NRM party, and the reason is almost always the same. Because I need to sleep at night, they'll say.
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Anna Cavell the art and culture of Sri Lanka have rather escaped the attention of the world. Over the last few years, reporters have been, perhaps not surprisingly, more inclined to talk about the long civil war there and the tsunami which struck the island with such disastrous consequences. But now a degree of peace and stability has been restored. And Peter Meanwell, who works for Radio 3, has been to the northern city of Jaffna, once the rebel stronghold, to meet and record a group of local Tamil singers.
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Darkness had drawn in as the minibus carrying our musicians trundled through the now quiet streets of Jaffna. We'd been waiting anxiously all day for them to arrive. They didn't have that far to travel. It should only have taken them three or four hours. But to get here from the coastal province of Mulitivu, they'd had to cross the still contentious heartland of Sri Lanka's recent civil conflict. As the five sari clad ladies wearily emerged from their bus, my colleague leaned over and whispered what was now becoming a commonly heard phrase. The war's over. But not in Jaffna. In ancient times, long before the Portuguese, Dutch and English arrived to try to conquer this teardrop shaped island that hangs from the southerly tip of India, Arabic traders were here. They named Sri Lanka Serendib, reflecting their happiness at a chance discovery. An island they'd simply stumbled upon. Some of it these days is the preserve of honeymooning couples drawn to the idyllic beaches and lush tea plantations of the south. But access to the Northern province is still strictly controlled by the Sri Lankan military. This was the heartland of the Tamil Tigers during the decades long civil war that claimed tens of thousands of lives and left hundreds of thousands more displaced. Even today, the journey to Jaffna isn't an easy one. Military checkpoints greet you once you pass the town of Vavania, brandishing your Ministry of Defence facts, which gives you permission to travel on the bumpy A9, you are reluctantly waved through. By the side of the road, there are gangs of civilians who've been herded off brightly painted public buses and are having their luggage searched. There are armed watchtowers and dugouts at regular intervals. And as we rumble northwards, weaving around potholes on a road whose upkeep has clearly not been a priority during the long years of warfare, we see the odd bemused smile from the soldiers within. Clearly not many faxes have been issued to foreign journalists in recent times. I feel sorry for the guards, said one Tamil man we later met. They have to stand there all day in the sun. For many of these young troops, the ethnic conflict probably began when they were children. They have known little else. Behind their watchtowers stretched a landscape that opened out from dry land mine strewn wasteland to lotus flowered speckled lakes inhabited only by white egrets standing peacefully to attention. If the hundreds of headless scorched palm trees, their tops removed in years of shelling, made for a chilling vista. The occasional palm thatched houses and modest young banana plantations told of a different life now tentatively being pursued along the highway. The conflict was declared over in 2009. But as you make your way through the checkpoint at Elephant Pass, the thin spit of land that connects the Jaffna peninsula to the mainland, it starts to become clear that there are two Sri Lankas uneasily coexisting. At the end of the A9 highway, the signs which proudly proclaim One Nation One People, have something of a hollow ring to them. Jaffna is still the symbolic capital of Tamil Sri Lanka. Here the streets burst with the hand painted signs of shops selling saris and sarongs. Cows wander through the streets and the call of the temple Nadaswaram rings out seemingly around every corner. Life is bustling in the markets and warm smiles follow you from behind piles of tiny red onions. As I try to barter for fresh chilies, I hear the same stories. Prices here have soared and it's the army which still controls life here in the north. Our singing ladies had traveled for 12 hours through endless military checkpoints to come to us because we weren't allowed to visit them. As they sat on the floor to record for us, they sang softly the lullabies with which they had sung their children to sleep. Then, in an awful segue, we heard the songs with which they now mourned those they had lost. Husbands, sons, each woman had lost someone during the conflict, and their heart rending laments punctuated by the stricken sobbing of a bereaved mother and wife, told the most painful tales of war that we had heard. As neighbours gathered on their balconies to listen, wondering what was going on, one of the women told me her grandson, who was only three months from graduating from the university in Jaffna, had been killed in the war. When I sing, my memory of him is still here, she said. It doesn't go away. As we said goodbye and they headed off for some rest before their gruelling drive home, one of the frailer ladies reached over and held my hands. Thank you for coming from such a long way away to hear our singing, she said. After that, our bumpy journey back, first to the capital, Colombo, and then on to Britain, no longer seemed a problem.
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Peter Meanwell back now from Jaffna and working on his World Roots programme that'll be on Radio 3 in July. About the music of northern Sri Lanka. Now, it seems very likely that the huge crowd watching the Champions League final at Wembley this weekend will contain many more women than usual. You might be tempted to suggest that that's because wives and girlfriends of Manchester United players will be coming to keep a closer eye on what their loved ones are up to. But in fact, that's not the reason. No, it's simply that the other team involved, FC Barcelona, is said to have more female fans than any other football club in the world. One of them is my colleague Pascal Harte, who has been telling us why it's so special.
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The lights go down in the no Camp stadium. A roar rises from the hundred and ten thousand people who fill the stands. Two of Barcelona's star players, Carlos Puyol and Xavi, run out onto the pitch, holding up a Catalan flag. There's a huge cheer and a thousand cameras flash like stars from the steep sides of the stadium. It's an incredible feeling being here. And this isn't even a match. It's the end of Barca's victory lap around their city in celebration, celebration of beating arch rivals Real Madrid to win the Spanish league. It's a feeling of a country, one girl tells me, the country of Catalunya. General Francisco Franco hated independence minded Catalunya. During his long dictatorship he persecuted the region. He favoured Real Madrid, while FC Barcelona, owned by its fans, became a symbol of democracy and resistance. With Franco long gone and Catalunya largely autonomous now, the club still plays heavily on its history, projecting an image of the plucky underdog. It demands a degree of loyalty and feeling other clubs probably can't. Each of the players, when they take the mic to thank the crowd, shouts visca. Barca. Visca. Catalunya. Even the foreign players, like Argentinian Lionel Messi, say, long live Catalunya. They have to be just as Catalan, one fan tells me. They have to feel what we feel, the love of a country of Catalunya. As the fans file out of the stadium, under a sky lit up by fireworks, I stop a father and son, both wearing the Barca strip. They are not Catalan, they tell me, but from Cameroon, like the former Barca striker Samuel Eto'. O. Barca is a nice team. It's my team, says the dad. I ask him if he feels more a part of this city by supporting Barcelona. Yes, he says, here everyone belongs. I know this is true. I first came to live in Barcelona as a 19 year old teaching English. I had little grasp of the offside rule and even less interest in football. But one night, having dinner at a friend's house near the stadium, a huge cheer drifted in through the open window. But Barca was playing away. And this was the sound of people at home watching the match on TV and still cheering as if they were there. The celebrations when Barca won, and they often did then, engulfed the whole city. And I wanted to be a part of was a golden time to support Barcelona. The season of Johan Cruyff's so called Dream team, when the Dutch football legend coached Barc in the unique style they still use today. Cruyff remains a hero in the city, even though in his mid-60s now, his coaching days are long behind him. He is an example of the kind of loyalty Catalunya craves. In 1973, as the world's best player, he turned Barcelona's fortunes around when he chose them over Real Madrid. Then he defied General Franco's ban on Catalan names and gave his own son the name of Catalunya's patron saint, Geordie. When I met Cruyff, he was still bounding with energy, but a little bit incomprehensible. He speaks plenty of languages, but his brain works so quickly, as it did in his playing days, that all you get is two words from the beginning of the story, one from the middle, and then he winds up by saying whatsoever you see. He uses that whatsoever a lot. When he shows me his legendary Cruyff turn, he goes, you stand there, he's there. Balance whatsoever can't make him if he's not, you can hear. Or whatsoever you see. I have little idea what he's saying, but on the pitch, I have seen it work. The whistle goes. At the youth match, the boys are aged 12 to 14 and they're already playing in the Barca style invented by Cruyff. Barcelona's youth academy is another gift from the Dutchman. He'd seen what a strong youth academy could do at his former club, Ajax, and imported the idea. At the youth match, one mother's shouts of support drown out the others. You get the feeling she'd like to tackle that defender herself and give her son a clear shot at the goal. Part of the academy's job is to protect the young players from their own parents. Some of the boys here will be the next superstars, and the mothers are auditioning for the part right now. The Gucci handbags are fake, but they know if their son has the talent, one day they'll be real. The academy trains boys from the age of 11, and not just in the arts of football. Just as important, they are told, are the principles of humility, teamwork and commitment. And this is another reason why the fans here are so proud of their club. FC Barcelona is a family. A group of Catalan girls tell me they train the players to be decent people. But as anyone who's watched an important match will tell you, they can be pretty decent at diving too, when things aren't going their way.
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And with that from Pascal Harta, we've reached the final whistle, but we're back on Saturday morning with more from our own correspondence. Do join us. Goodbye.