← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Mrs Wong and Mrs Lim Go Shopping
00:27:53
"He knew nothing about politics. " A father talks to Humphrey Hawksley about his only a...
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Hi.
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This is a download from BBC Radio.
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It's the latest edition of Radio 4's
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From Our Own correspondent, and it's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today he knew nothing about politics. A father talks of his only son killed in a street protest in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. The migrants risking everything on a Mexican train they called the Beast. Why Alaskans are split over a mining bonanza which could be worth billions and and a shock for Mum in Singapore over Mrs. Wong, Mrs. Lim, their apples and their pears. Thousands of supporters of the deposed Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi took to the streets of Cairo again yesterday, waving flags and chanting slogans. They called on the army to restore him to the presidency. Another rally, organized by Mr. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, took place in Alexandria. But Humphrey Hawksley says not everyone in that northern port city backs the campaign to reverse the military coup of two weeks ago.
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Bara Husaina is a slightly built man, 53 years old, dignified and measured, with neatly cut grey hair and moustache. He's wearing a light blue shirt and freshly laundered white trousers. We'll talk in here, he says, pushing open the glass door to a little shop that sells decorative household fittings. Mr. Hussana's an interior designer. As the door closes, hushing the traffic noise outside, I show him a sheet of paper with a printout from a YouTube video. It's of a cluster of men on the edge of a rooftop. Chillingly, one is falling, and in the frozen, grainy picture, he's in mid air, head down, arm splayed. Mr. Husanna studies it. His lips tighten. He points across the street. It was over there, he says. On that apartment block. There were three of them. Two were injured. And my son, Hamad. They threw him right down to the ground floor. He puts my printout on a table and draws a breath. I was at work and my sister called me, Hamad's aunt, and she said, he's injured. You need to go to him. The traffic was blocked, but I got a ride on a motorcycle and I found him in the hospital. The bed wasn't long enough for him. His head was hanging back and his blood was dripping onto the floor. He was conscious, and he said to me, dad, I'm going to die. Please take me home. I told him not to worry, that he'd be fine, but he was screaming out in pain, and I knew it wouldn't really be like that. Three hours later, Hamad, who had just turned 19 and was training to be an electrician, was dead. Mr. Husanna told me how his son had been watching an Islamist protest supporting the deposed Egyptian president Morsi. Gunfire broke out and he and others ran into the apartment building. They were chased up to the roof by the protesters. The Muslim Brotherhood denies any involvement. So, just to clarify, I ask, was he pro or anti Morsi? He shakes his head. He didn't know anything about politics. He was an only child, so he gave his love to animals. As a kid, when the rubbish men cleared away the garbage, he thought the stray dogs and cats would be hungry, so he spent his pocket money on food and left it out for them. He looked after strays. His last words to me were, dad, please care for my new dog. Mr. Husanna makes a phone call, then we leave to go to the apartment block, number 30 Elmoshire Street. It's a fairly well to do building that Mr. Husanna thought had been built by the French. This city has been ruled by Romans, Greeks, Christians, Muslims and colonialists, and we've always prospered, he says as we walk precariously through the traffic. In its heyday, Alexandria, with its long, curved Mediterranean coastline, dwarfed both Rome and Athens as the world capital for science and learning. It was here that geographers declared the world was round and not flat, that the concept of the atom was originally discussed, and where Archimedes of Eureka fame designed the first water pump. We've always had foreign influence, he continues, but now who are these people who use Islam to pull us back to the Dark Ages? We push open the heavy black metal door of the apartment block. Inside, it's dark, but we can make out the stairs from random streaks of light. As we climb, we see dried blood on the floor that becomes more concentrated as we reach the top, I push open a small door and we step out onto the roof. Mr. Husana hasn't been here before. He walks around silently. He finds the spot where Hamad was pushed and from where he fell all the way to the ground. He leans over and looks down. For a long time I didn't know if I wanted to come, he says. But now I'm here. I don't want to leave. He has difficulty keeping his composure. He points to a faded yellow wall. It's covered in a dozen or more handprints of blood. He taps his head. These people are crazy. They're evil, he says. Then his phone rings and he answers it. Hamad's new dog was a German shepherd, he says. She's black with gold down her collar. He called her Julia. He looked after her while she was pregnant and the puppies. He breaks into a small, sad smile. Well, they've just been born.
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Humphrey Hawksley in Alexandria One of Mexico's most feared and violent men, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, is behind bars the morning the long list of charges against the leader of Los Zetas drug cartel includes the murder of 265 people, mainly migrants from Central America, in two shockingly violent massacres in northern Mexico. Will Grant tells us that migrants from countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are subject to all manner of abuses by Los Etas and others as they try to make their way overland to the United States.
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Once Central American migrants have crossed into Mexico, either by wading through the muddy Suchiate river or on rafts made of wooden pallets and inflatable tires, they are greeted by a large orange sign painted on a wall. In tall black letters, it reads Immigrant Friend. On your route through Chiapas, you have rights. We don't tolerate crimes against you. Report them. The message is partly sponsored by one of the state security agencies, but as many will quickly discover, some of those agents, migration officers and federal police not only tolerate crimes against migrants, sometimes they even carry them out. What's more, it's highly unlikely the victims will ever come forward. Whether extortion, rape, kidnap or assault, whether perpetrated by men in uniforms or members of the drug cartels or or some combination of the two, that orange sign will go unheeded. These are the invisible people, the unofficial flows of men and women risking everything to reach family members or find work in the United States. They will travel on freight trains and walk through jungles and deserts, all the while trying to avoid undue attention, hoping to go completely undetected during what they pray will be a brief and uneventful journey. The vast majority won't reach their destination, and many will lose life or limb in the attempt. I left my home on 22 January, remembers 22 year old Guatemalan mother Elvira Lopez, her dark hair pulled back tightly from her forehead. But she didn't get far. Traveling on the roofs of the notorious freight train called La Bestia, meaning the Beast, Elvira struggled to stay awake when we reached Houchitan, Unfortunately I was very sleepy and didn't see the branches. I hit one and fell to the ground. Then I got sucked beneath the train and dragged along. Extraordinarily, Elvira would say. Miraculously, she survived. Her crushed and shattered right leg had to be amputated. But as she slowly recovers at the hostel of Jesus the Good Shepherd, In Tapachula, Elvira has replaced the lost limb with a newfound faith in God. It's thanks to him that I'm alive, she says, her eyes shining, adamant that God's hand placed her between the rails until the dozens of trucks passed over her broken body and she could finally see the stars above. Further north in Ixtapec, in the state of Oaxaca, a highly unconventional Catholic priest is delivering Sunday mass to a congregation of migrants. Padre Alejandro Solalinde is no stranger to stories like Elvira's. He has heard many and worse in the six years since he set up the hostel Hermanos in El Camino, meaning brothers on the road next to the tracks. Nor is he a stranger to risk. Under constant armed guard, he has several death threats over him after years of criticizing the drug cartels, the authorities, and and the insidious collusion between them, he's also alienated his own church hierarchy when the drug cartel called Los Setas kidnap migrants and extort their family members in the United States. I bring criminal charges against them, he explains, his small wooden cross the only overt symbol of his faith. I know nothing will happen, but I must do it anyway. It is the rainy season in Mexico, and and as the rain drummed down one night, we were reminded that another bestia was on its way to Ixtepec. Men, women, and children sitting atop the trucks, trying and failing to keep dry. It arrived the next morning, hissing, clanking, and screeching to a halt, its blue engine sounding almost malevolent. The migrants streamed off in droves, soaked through, shivering and exhausted, comparing horror stories. Padre Solalinde was there to greet them with hot coffee, biscuits and a few words of comfort, some advice about the most dangerous parts of the route. Washing his sodden clothes at the hostel was Jeff, a young Honduran who says he'll risk everything to get back to Seattle. I was deported two months ago. I got my four kids and my wife, who I love, up over there, he says in a perfect West Coast American drawl. Stripped of their material possessions and far from their families, all that migrants like Jeff have left is their faith, what Padresola Linde calls the spirituality of the road. I'm not scared, the priest said of the death threats hanging over him. I'm not scared because I'm a man of faith, and my life isn't in the hands of Los Zetas, nor any Mexican politician, nor any drug cartel. My life is in the hands of God.
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And that's Will Grant. One of nature's great migrations is currently underway in The American State of Alaska. 40 million wild salmon are heading in from the waters of the Pacific Ocean to rivers, streams and lakes in the remote Bristol Bay region. This annual salmon run sustains the local Inuit tribes and feeds a multi million pound commercial fishing industry. But now there's a potential threat. A plan to develop one of the world's largest copper mines in the the headwaters of the Bristol Bay river system. Stephen Sacher says that amid warnings of toxic waste and pollution, the fishing community and the mining industry are engaged in a bitter battle. And it's dividing this wild and sparsely populated territory.
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In summer camps across America, youngsters hike, swim and toast marshmallows by the fire. But they play by different rules in southwest Alaska. In Dillingham, a small town at the mouth of the Ishugak river, children as young as six go to camp to learn how to gut and bone a sockeye salmon. Youngsters who show promise with the filleting knife are introduced to the joys of the smokehouse. And nobody goes home without a strip of dried salmon to chew on. Kim Williams, mother of six, camp leader, subsistence fisherwoman and stalwart of the Yupik tribe, says it's vital to pass on practical skills to the next generation. Our people have lived off fishing for thousands of years, she tells me as a rich aroma of wood smoke and singed salmon meat hangs in the air. It's our past and our future. Kim and her family catch salmon the old fashioned way. They string up a net close to the bank of the Isagak and haul it in when they see fish thrashing in the mesh. It is a satisfyingly simple art, and it works. But the salmon harvest is also a billion dollar business. Commercial fishermen from Seattle and beyond haul in tens of millions of fish between June and September. The catch is sliced, diced, canned, frozen, smoked and salted with relentless efficiency. Then it's shipped all over the world. The indigenous fishermen, the commercial fleet, and even the sports anglers who breeze into Dillingham in their private planes all abide by the strict rules imposed by Alaska's fish management team. If the numbers of salmon reaching the spawning grounds are down, then fishing permits are suspended. First priority is always given to the long term sustainability of the world's greatest wild salmon run. But for how much longer can that be guaranteed? A cloud of uncertainty hangs over this corner of Alaska. It comes in the form of a plan to dig one of the world's biggest copper and gold mines in the upper reaches of the Bristol Bay catchment area. The Pebble Mining Company, part Owned by the British minerals giant Anglo American, wants to extract billions of tons of copper ore from. From a hole in the ground at least two miles wide and half a mile deep. The mine could be worth up to half a trillion. Yes, trillion dollars. Pebble's boss, John Shively, invites me into his helicopter to tour the site. We swoop over an intricate tapestry of lakes, hills and narrow streams. An empty land where bears, caribou and wolves have no need to fear human predators. The pit will be over there, he says, pointing along a shallow valley. And the waste will be held in reservoirs over there. John Shively believes a giant copper mine generating billions of tons of potentially toxic waste is exactly what this wilderness needs. If I thought this mine would poison the water and harm the fishery, do you think I'd be here? He asks. This mine'll give the local tribes what they really need jobs and the chance of a better life. That's not the way the fishing folk of Bristol Bay see it. They've heard independent scientists question the wisdom of storing billions of tons of dangerous waste in vast reservoirs close to a geological fault line. And they worry about the leaching of copper compounds and sulfuric acid into the river network. Outside her smokehouse on the Ishigak River, Kim Williams puts it simply. The salmon is our source of life. We cannot put it at risk. The battle between fishing community and mining industry has divided opinion. Even the dominant Republican party is hopelessly split. Rick Halford, a former president of the state Senate and architect of a raft of pro mining legal reforms, has had a change of heart. I never met a mine I didn't like, he tells me ruefully. Until now. He invites me to enjoy the magnificent view from his lakeside home outside Dillingham. I'm no tree hugger, he says, but pebble is the wrong mine in the wrong place. A proud and sustainable fishing community locked in a conflict with a mining industry, promising a once in a lifetime bonanza. Alaska has a choice to make which will do much to define the future of America's last frontier.
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Stephen Sacher and you can see his Heart Talk programme about Alaska on the BBC News Channel on Tuesday. Next week. Now, tensions mounting in many British households as sons and daughters wait for exam results, which could, of course, have a vital bearing on university choices, job prospects, life itself. But it's even more stressful in Singapore, where parents expect a great deal from their children. Poor results are simply not acceptable. So many mums and dads now attend special workshops which aim to give them the specialist knowledge they need to help their children excel, as Sarah Toms has been learning.
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It's nine o' clock on a Saturday morning and I'm still half asleep. Yet here I am back at school with about 60 adults diligently doing sums. Mrs. Lim bought 12 pairs and four apples. Mrs. Wong bought 12 apples and four pears. Mrs. Wong paid $1.60 less than Mrs. Lim. If an apple cost 35 cents, how much did a pear cost? I look at the clock. I haven't had enough coffee for this sort of mental agility. First off is a young teacher in cream combat trousers, a polo shirt and boots. He talks enthusiastically as he works through a slideshow of questions and solutions. I wasn't doing this workshop to pass an exam or because I'm keen on maths along with the other parents. I was doing it to help my daughter with her homework. Elise, my daughter just turned nine and and she attends a state run school in Singapore. Since arriving from the US last year, she's been inundated with homework and exams in a pressure filled Asian system. It's been a shock for Elise and also for me. It seems I'm not alone. It's such a common issue in Singapore that parents are offered courses to help them help their children. My daughter's teacher, Jerry Yang assures me that the workshop is not for parents who are bad at maths. It's all about understanding what students do at school. And as Jerry tells me, most, shall we say involved parents jump at the chance to take part. In Singapore, competitive parents set exceedingly high goals for their children. The word for that here is kyasu, which means fear of losing, but in reality means winning is everything. Those who might ask why I need help may not have seen a primary school maths paper. In Singapore, my daughter has been doing algebra since the age of eight. They don't call it algebra, but the principles are the same. Singapore uses a system called heuristics, a shortcut method to solve complicated problems using a guess and check model or drawing diagrams. Academic excellence is a great source of pride for Singapore. On a small island of just over 5 million people, education is seen as vital to success. On an Internet forum called Kyasu Parents, one mother shares her strategy for her seven year old child. A surprise test every two weeks, a work timetable over the holidays and if the work is not fully done, she multiplies the amount. Never say it's too hard, she says. Must always try. Another parent feels disappointed by her child's exam results. The response Maybe she needs a hardship camp living In a tough environment for a few months, one parent suggests, might make her realize the value of studying hard. My daughter, Elise, starts school at 7:15am and finishes at 1pm but often has activities in the afternoon. Then there's the homework to be done. It's common to see children straining under bags full of books to keep up. Many have tutors who also assign homework. It's not just the adults who put on the pressure. The children are desperate to achieve, my daughter says there are few complaints when the work is meted out. All of this work leaves little time to play and be a kid. That is why, despite its successes, Singapore's school system is criticised for being too driven by grades. Recently, there have been moves to soften it a bit. The education minister has put more emphasis on creative thinking and learning lifelong skills. But exams are still very important, and not everyone is happy with the changes. Some parents fear that Singapore will lose its edge if it loosens up too much. Back in the classroom on a Saturday morning, my husband and I seem to be falling behind with the two dozen maths questions. We're in Singapore, so the workshop wraps up with a test. Of course, most of the parents laughed at the answers, suggesting they didn't fare much better than me. As for Elise, she does very well on her own. I help sometimes, but I'm sure she would have done far better than me at the workshop. And she would have sorted out Mrs. Wong and Mrs. Lim and their apples and pears. The solution? If an apple costs 3.35cents a pair cost 20 cents more, and that was Sarah Toms.
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Cape Town is South Africa's oldest city and arguably its most beautiful. It certainly attracts the most tourists more than anywhere else in Africa. Ever since 1652, when a Dutch sea captain first set up a supply station there, visitors have marvelled at the splendour of its setting, the grandeur of Table Mountain and the breezy Mediterranean type climate. Yet not everything's positive. This is a place still scarred by high rates of crime, poverty and unemployment. And there's still some racial tension between its black, white, mixed race and Asian residents. Lindsay Johns, who has family links to South Africa's mother city, decided to take a non touristic journey to the centre of town.
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Cape Town. Cape Town.
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The strident cry of the Gatchee, the fare collector precariously positioned by the side door of the minivan taxi and his unmistakable Coloured Afrikaans accent pierced the early morning air. Literally hanging out of the vehicle, he's ardently trying to drum up trade. The undulating pitch and timbre of his voice are intoxicating and off putting in equal measure. In his mid twenties with dark brown skin and at least three days worth of stubble above his tattooed neck, he's part Dickensian ragamuffin, part avuncular sage, easing his passengers into their day with a mixture of wise asides and ribald jokes. Welcome to the morning rush hour commute, Cape Township style. I'm on board for a disconcertingly speedy ride to the city centre from the Coloured township of Grassy park where I'm staying with my cousins. My family are Coloured Capetonians, but I'm from London. As a result, I don't speak the Cape African slang, which is the lingua franca here, so I just nod if spoken to, hoping to pass for a local if I don't open my mouth, clutching my eight rand in coins, I pay my fare without speaking, then sit back and observe the Bokacan human comedy. Or is it really a Dantean tragedy unfolding around me? We're starting from the Cape Flats, the arid, sprawling and often dangerous area where colored and African people were forced to live under apartheid and where many are still stagnating to this day. A taxi out here is not a private luxury for you alone, but instead a 15 seater dilapidated public minibus, often driven at breakneck speed and with a flagrant disregard for human life. And yes, you heard correctly, I've said the word coloured four times now and I didn't make any apologetic noises about it. You see, in a South African context it's a wholly acceptable word. My family are colored and they're immensely proud of it. A creole mixture for many generations, with African, Malay, Dutch and even some Caribbean ancestry, often all at the same time. The fact that they're not deemed African by the authorities, or that some South Africans don't even consider them black is another testament to the arbitrary craziness of racial lines in this country. Just my luck. I'm squashed in between two old tunnies, gargantuan grannies with burnished copper brown skin and multicoloured head shawls, a nod to their Malay Muslim heritage. As Tunny number one disembarks, I can finally exhale but then quickly have to suck in my breath again as another matriarchal battleship gets on board. The Gatchi motions her to sit beside me and rearranges his passengers to miraculously make non existent room for yet more fares. The driver nonchalantly skips a red light, swerves imperiously to avoid an errant pedestrian, then careers on at lethal speed towards town, graciously deigning to check his mirror for other vehicles. Inside the taxi, a devastatingly loud soundtrack of R and B or hip hop or house music kicks in. The driver nods his head energetically to the beat and hums the chorus, utterly oblivious to the aural pain he's causing the passengers. Cape Town Cape Town between cries, the gatchee collects the fares and gives change, but he's always alert and vigilant. With taxis increasingly being held up at gunpoint by robbers, he's taking no chances. We stop again, a swift maneuver triggering many neck jolts and even more expletives. We're finally nearing the city center. There are no white faces in this taxi. They don't live in colored areas. In fact, the journey itself, from an area where only colored people live to the supposedly mixed city centre, is a telling comment on how the city's apartheid era psychogeography lives on to this day. The Adderley street bus terminus now looms into view. Table Mountain looks regally down on the frenzy below. Taxis from all over the city are disgorging their human cargo and looking for new fares who will make the long return trip back to the townships financially viable. It's still only 7am but the self proclaimed mother city is fully alive and ready for work. The daily realities of life in post apartheid Cape Town aren't easy to grasp. They intrigue bemuse and anger in equal measure. Indelibly scarred by the past, its people must now come to terms with the city in a very apparent state of flux and a steadily changing racial demographic. It's not easy at the best of times being Coloured in Cape Town, let alone on the morning commute.
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And that's it. Lindsay Johns takes us to the end of the road more next Saturday, so please join us then. Goodbye.