← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Mussolini's Gay Island
00:28:08
Correspondents' despatches from around the globe. Who'll emerge victorious from the in...
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Hello.
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This is a download of from our own correspondent. We make one edition of the programme for the BBC World Service, but this is the one broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Here to introduce it, Kate Ady.
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Today, far from the bright lights of Istanbul, a small town where the Turkish spring will not be happening. A groaning in tray for Pakistan's new Prime Minister. Many problems to solve, but we learn he won't be going hungry. Why? Mussolini's fascists created a corner of Italy where some were glad to be gay. And broad smiles all round as we dance with the locals in a park In North Korea, thousands of Turks have defied their Prime Minister and have again occupied Taksim Square in central Istanbul. Thousands more demonstrated in the capital, Ankara. There's now been more than a week of nationwide protests. The Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has his own popular backing. Yesterday, a vociferous crowd greeted him on his return from a trip abroad. He described some of the demonstrations as acts of vandalism and terrorism. The protesters say Mr. Erdogan and his justice and Development Party are guilty of growing authoritarianism and Islamisation. Paul Mason, just back from Istanbul, says it's far from clear which side will emerge to claim victory.
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When I was a kid, footballs were made of leather and when they got wet and you headed one, you came away with a stunned, slightly spacey feeling. That's what it's like when you get hit on the head with a CS gas canister if you're wearing a helmet. If you're not wearing a helmet, it can take your eye out or leave a dent in your scalp. So you have to wear a white hair net and a big padded bandage. That's what the doctor was wearing when I interviewed him at Taksim Emergency Hospital. A white doctor's coat and a white bandage on his head. He'd been hit on the head while treating somebody who'd been hit on the head with a CS gas canister. And I'd been hit on the head while filming somebody getting hit with one, but I was wearing a helmet. They're targeting people, he said. They're supposed to be fired at long distance, but they fire them close up, straight at you. He showed me one of the empty canisters. There were a lot of the walking wounded carrying them around like souvenirs. I slotted the end of it into the semicircular hole in my helmet. It fitted perfectly. So far, during the street fighting in Istanbul and other big Turkish Cities, more than 4,000 people have been injured. And at least three killed. Some have lost an eye, some have severe head injuries. By day, when there's no CS gas, Taksim Square is a festival of fresh faced, youthful modernity. Every metre of grass is covered by people sitting, squatting, smoking, cuddling, looking at their photos from last night's riot, showing each other bruises. People march up to you demanding you take a free biscuit or bottle of water. Over here, a hundred women in leotards are taking part in a free mass yoga session. Over there, women in veils are sitting beneath a banner reading Anti Capitalist Muslims. I've seen all this before in Syntagma Square in Greece, among the Spanish indignados on the roundabout in Tahrir Square. But there's a difference, which accounts for the pall of sadness that hangs here between the plane trees. The secular, urban, educated young are a political minority in Turkey. In Alifuat Pasha, a small town three hours drive away from Istanbul, the Turkish spring will not be happening. There's the bread shop, the mosque, the tea shop, where the old boys in their knitted woolen hats sit and talk about the past. In Ali Fuat Pasha, women do not wear skimpy tops or yoga pants, but in fact the veil and clothes that cover them from head to toe. My Turkish fixer has to get the local pharmacist to approach them, to ask if they'll speak to me because I'm not allowed to. But the answer is no. There is mild outrage here over what's gone on in Taksim. We never used violence in the fight against the ban on wearing the veil, says one man. They are drunks, says another. Alifuat Pasha is one of those towns in Turkey that ensure Prime Minister Erdogan can win any election he cares to fight. It's in towns like this that the moderate religious conservatism of the AK Party took hold. And it is two towns like this that Mr. Erdogan has delivered. I'm 72 years old, says one man, and my life has never been better. What are they fighting about? The short answer is Turkish society is split about 50, 50 between supporters of religious conservatism and the rest. The rest includes secularists, religious and ethnic minorities, the left, liberals, those nostalgic for military rule. It includes the football fans dancing arm in arm in their rival T shirts, staring at each other in disbelief that they suddenly don't hate each other. Mr. Erdogan's strength lay in the fact that this secular part of society clung to old political projects and was divided. What's brought them all together is not the park that's just a symbol. It's a feeling, as one Turkish writer put it, that there is within society a a growing, unspoken air of animosity towards the modern, and that Mr. Erdogan is playing to it. So the force of political Islam is strong, but so is the force of Facebook, yoga and the barricades. In the end, it'll come down to how much tear gas one side can dish out and how much the other can take.
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Paul Mason there now. It isn't a job many would relish, but Nawaz Sharif this week became prime minister of Pakistan for a third time. In a speech long on rhetoric but short on specifics, Mr. Sharif promised to improve the country's stuttering economy. But Lise Doucet, who is in Pakistan for the election which swept him to power, says the economy is only one of a huge range of problems which have piled up in his in tray
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during Pakistan's recent election campaign. I swapped stories with an old friend, one of the country's top TV journalists. How did your interview with Nawaz Sharif go? I asked Muniza Jongir. She broke into a wide smile. Guess what my first question was, I wondered. Maybe the punishing energy crisis, with power cuts of up to 20 hours a day in the scorching heat. Maybe the rising violence by Taliban and other armed groups now tearing at the very seams of society? No. His breakfast. She exclaimed. Is it true you like eating sidi pie? A famously rich Lahore curry of cows, hooves and head? It's said to be savoured by one of Pakistan's richest men, famous for his fondness for food. Oh, I don't eat sidi pie, he replied with his equally well known Nawaz Sharif chuckle. Pakistanis know a lot about the life of Mr. Sharif. He's been at the forefront of their torturous politics but for 30 years. And now he's their lead man in a script that if you offered it to publishers, they'd turn it down. The plot is just too incredible. In 1999, he was ousted as prime minister, jailed, convicted, exiled in Saudi Arabia by Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. Now Mr. Sharif is back for a third time in the sumptuous surroundings of of the prime Minister's office. And it's General Musharraf who's under arrest and facing trial. Pakistan is now a changed place. But what about Mr. Sharif? That's the question many Pakistanis are now asking. How much has he changed? I've known the man they call the lion of Punjab for many years, ever since the 63 year old steel tycoon first ran for office in 1988 when I joined him again. This time we both laughed when I remarked, you're still on the campaign trail. And then we boarded the executive jet he could afford to travel in as he took his message to the voters. Again, the first question as we taxied down the Runway wasn't asked by me, but an admiring stewardess. What would you like to eat, Mr. Sharif? Again he protested lunch. Was it necessary? But neatly sliced squares of white bread with thin pink fillings soon appeared. And then a few hours later, there was the groaning buffet at an Islamabad hotel after a rowdy meeting with local traders. And then we stopped by the elegant home of a wealthy industrialist. And yes, a well laid table was heaving with food, including fried chicken, another favourite. It's not his fault, of course. That's the life of a politician. And in the life of a Pakistani politician, it's a pretty rich feast. And it's not a life Mr. Sharif says he covets. During years spent in the corridors of power, he developed a reputation as a combative, conspiring politician. But in private, he's shy and soft spoken, more pussycat than lion. In the years since he returned from exile, we've had many conversations, often over small cups of the dark Arabic coffee he came to enjoy during his time in Saudi society. He emphasized he wouldn't try to topple the elected government of his rivals, and he didn't. He said he wanted to forge a broad coalition to tackle truly existential crises for his country. Now he'll be tested on that. And in moments of candor, he's admitted it's a really tough job running Pakistan now. While his chief challenger, the cricketer turned politician Imran Hahn, dazzled the electorate with promises of dramatic change in months, Mr. Sharif spoke with the caution of someone who's been there before. It will take years. One of his favorite rebukes to Mr. Hahn during a heated campaign was, I played cricket too. But it's not the only thing I've done to rapture his applause. At pact rallies, he would declare, I've also made the atom bomb. Pakistan tested nuclear weapons during his time in power. He's also famous for populous schemes like yellow taxis to create jobs, laws against lavish weddings to help the poor. And he's remembered too for interfering in the judiciary, accused of corruption and charged with not being tough enough with armed Islamist groups. When I travelled with him during this last campaign, he couldn't resist sharing a text message he'd received, stocks rising to record highs on expectations he would be prime minister again. That day has come, and hopes have also risen that a man who says he's changed can also change the course of Pakistan. No one has any illusions about how hard that will be, so they may forgive him for eating a big breakfast. But Mr. Sharif insists he always starts his day by just eating an egg.
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And that was Lee's Doucet the Nigerian military is winning the battle against the Islamic militants of Boko Haram. That was the message handed out this week to correspondents taken by the military to what was rebel held territory in the northeast of the country. It's now the centre of a 60,000 square mile state of emergency zone established by the President. Goodluck, Jonathan. Last month in a speech then, he admitted the state had lost control of some towns and villages to the rebels who are blamed for the killings of more than 1500 people in the last three years. Will Ross, one of the reporters on the trip, said there was evidence the army had made progress, but none to confirm the military's claim that Boko Haram is on the run.
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It was unlikely to be a straightforward trip. The Nigerian military was clearly not sure about letting the media in on this war. It had kept a lid on the information coming out of the north east of the country since the announcement of the state of emergency. Not easy to keep things quiet you might think, seeing as almost everyone owns a mobile phone or three here. But as I experienced on landing in the town of Maiduguri, mobiles have become redundant as all the phone networks have been switched off to help the military and landlines are extinct. Hurry up and get on the bus. A soldier shouted and we were soon driving at speed through the city, slaloming our way through the uncountable military checkpoints which flew past the window in a blur of sandbags and camouflaged men with guns. We were driven to villages which until recently were in the hands of the Boko Haram militants. In January they ordered us to close our school, said a teacher in Kirinoa village. They said they didn't want to see any Western style education going on. It wasn't safe for any government worker to live here, he told me. In recent years the jihadists have found northern Nigeria a fertile ground for recruitment. Biting poverty and resentment of the many thieves amongst the political elite have played a role. Driving north towards an ever shrinking Lake Chad, the symbols of neglect by successive governments are increasingly apparent. The tarmac road looked for stretches as though it had been hit by an earthquake, so we drove on the dusty tracks beside it. Electricity poles leaned over at assorted angles and had no cables. Those that had fallen over were slowly being consumed by the sand. In another village, mate, the church had been burnt down by Boko Haram. On the other side of the road was the roofless police station. It had also been set ablaze along with a car. I wanted to find out more about the attack, but after another yell of hurry up and get on the bus, the army ensured we sped past both buildings, perhaps not wanting us to dwell on Boko Haram's capacity to cause havoc. After all, the purpose of taking the media was to put out the message that the Islamist fighters were being eroded by the military might. As we turned a corner, you had to be sharp eyed to spot a tank that had been camouflaged amongst the trees hovering above a nearby village. A military helicopter looked for potential trouble. I asked a young fisherman in his early 20s whether Boko Haram had managed to find any new recruits in the area. Not many, but young men do join for different reasons, he replied. For some, they're just interested in holding a gun. It's something new for them. Others know that the militants have money, so they think they can earn something if they join, he told me, adding that apart from catching fish, farming and selling fuel on the black market, there are few ways of earning a living around here. One village we drove through looked entirely deserted, with all the shops shuttered up. But it turns out everyone had been told to go and meet the visiting soldiers and us journalists. They were there in their hundreds, and even though they couldn't hear what they were clapping for, they burst into applause when told to. For the next leg of the journey, we had to move into a hardier vehicle which could cope with sandier terrain. In an area peppered with thorny bushes, we were led to a former rebel base which looked like a hurriedly abandoned campsite. There were more burnt vehicles, these ones apparently destroyed by the jihadists before they fled. Knowing the Nigerian army was on the way, I asked a military commander where he thought the Islamist fighters had gone. Oh, some have headed for the Chadian border, but we're pursuing them, he told me. People I met were happy that the Islamist militants were not in charge anymore. It was like a military coup when Boko Haram took over because all the government officials ran away, a village elder told me. But now, thanks to some help from the military, we're back under the Nigerian government, he added, looking at all the number of camouflage uniforms in the village, it seemed unlikely that civilian rule would be happening anytime soon.
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Will Ross in Nigeria, a small ceremony is taking place today on one of the Tremiti Islands, which lie in the Adriatic off the southeast coast of Italy. A group of gay, lesbian and transgender rights activists have travelled to this remote spot to remember a dark episode that unfolded during the time of the dictator Benito Mussolini. The archipelago played a part in his fascist regime's effort to suppress and marginalize homosexuality. Alan Johnston has been looking into this little known piece of Italian social history, which still has resonance for those fighting homophobia and discrimination.
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Today, the Tremity Archipelago is a string of tiny islands almost lost in the vastness of the Adriatic. Beneath pine trees, white cliffs plunge into turquoise waters. Fishing boats come and go from little harbours on the rocky shore. And these days, holidaymakers are drawn to what they see as the peace and calm and beauty of the place. But it won't have looked or felt that way to a group of men who landed there back in the 1930s. They arrived in handcuffs and they were watched by guards. They'd been rounded up in places like Naples and Sicily. Their only crime, as the regime would see it, was that they were homosexuals and they'd been condemned to internal exile on the island of San Domino. They hadn't fitted the image that Mussolini had wanted to project of Italian Fascist manhood. Persecution had flourished. It became possible for zealous police chiefs to arrest and send gay men to the islands. And hundreds endured this. None of these men is still alive and none ever talk very publicly about their experience. The shame associated with homosexuality in the deeply conservative Italy of the 1930s seems to have smothered their story. But two researchers, Gianfranco Goretti and Tommaso Giartozzi, have managed to piece together a picture of how the exiles lived. Their book, the City and the island, describes the men as being housed in large dormitories in this remote, desolate outpost. There was no electricity or running water, and there were limits on the extent to which the exiles could mix with the local community. Those who weren't being sent money by their families endured poverty. To supplement a tiny daily allowance, they were encouraged to try to work as tailors or shoemakers or barbers. Perhaps. Then there was the mental anguish of what they'd been through. Their hidden sexuality had been suddenly and scandalously exposed. What that could mean is revealed by a 20 year old exile, the son of a peasant family who was studying to be a priest, when he was detained and sent to the island. In a letter he pleads with the authorities to exonerate him. Imagine the grief of my beloved father, he writes. What a dishonour for him. How long must I suffer this humiliation? And he begs for a chance to become a soldier and erase the stain on his character by serving the nation. But it seems that the daily routine imposed by the guards wasn't harsh, and that actually, in some ways, life wasn't all bad on the island. Years ago, the gay magazine Babylonia carried a very rare interview with a San Domino veteran identified only as Giuseppe B. And he says that in the late 30s, at his home in the Naples area, you couldn't show yourself to be gay. You could barely leave the house, you feared arrest. But on the island things were different. Almost unwittingly, the fascists had created a corner of Italy where you were expected to be openly gay. For the first time in their lives, the exiles were in a place where they could be themselves. Giuseppe said they prepare meals to welcome the arrival of newcomers or mark small celebrations. There was theatre, dramas were staged, and men could even dress as women if they wanted, and nobody cared. And Giuseppe said that obviously there were romances, even fights, stabbings among the Sicilians over lovers. But of course, the way these men were treated is a dire indictment of the regime. Their sexuality was made to appear criminal. It is bitterly ironic that in the Italy of that time, they could find a degree of freedom only on a prison island. Their experience is being remembered today on San Domino. Gay and lesbian rights activists have gathered there and they'll put down a plaque that will be a permanent reminder of Mussolini's persecution of homosexuals. This is necessary, said one of the activists, Ivan Scalfarotto, a member of Parliament, because nobody speaks of what happened in those years. And, as he put it, for Italy's homosexuals, the suffering hasn't ended. He said that of course, they were no longer shackled and shipped off to islands, but even now they are not regarded as Class A citizens. Ivan said that there was still no real social stigma attached to homophobia here, and the state doesn't extend legal rights of any kind to gay or lesbian couples. Their struggle for equality goes on.
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That's Alan Johnston. After months of saber rattling from Pyongyang, there's been a sudden easing of tension on the Korean peninsula. The North Koreans have invited officials from the south to come for talks. They also said they'd reopen a telephone link to the south, which has been out of use since March, and they want to discuss reopening the Joint Indust Zone, which they sealed off in April. For working journalists, North Korea is a difficult place to visit. Visas are in short supply, but tourists are still welcome so long as they do what they're told. Yet Juliet Ricks found that her organised tour did allow her a glimpse of daily life there.
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I'm sitting on a rug under a tree, being plied with food from a small barbecue and a variety of plates by a smiling family. I add a little offering of my own to the spread, a packet of chocolate eggs. The father of the family examines them closely and then hands them to his three year old son. The boy steadily consumes the entire pack with deep concentration. Chocolate is not common here. Neither are foreigners. We are picnicking in the park in Pyongyang, capital of North Korea, the world's most insular and secretive state, last bastion of Soviet style communism and one of the international community's loosest cannons. Sitting here in the genuine warmth of this family who have not been chosen by any guide or minder, it's difficult to link their friendliness and desire to share and communicate with the bellicose rhetoric issuing from their government. Our guide is embarrassed when I ask for a translation of one of the many slogans plastered around Pyongyang. It says something to the effect of Death to the US imperialists. We have two Americans in our group. When they reveal where they're from to a class of students learning English at the Grand People's Study House, there's a sharp intake of breath. But like the rest of us, they're treated with respect wherever we go and in the park, we go as we please. This is something to be savoured. You can only visit North Korea on an organized tour. Our group of 11 has three Korean guides as well as our English tour leader. Wandering off is not an option. Merely walking towards the exit of our hotel compound on a night outside the capital caused four soldiers to appear from nowhere and shout in apparent panic. Today in the crowded park, though, is an exception. We wander at will. While some of us picnic, others join in a tug of war, sharing much sweat, laughter and high fiving with local teammates. This is probably set up, but the picnic and the game of Frisbee with local teenagers. The Frisbee brought by the tourists but left with the kids, is certainly not. I am surprised and gratified by the openness of the local people. Whilst in many respects North Korea is reminiscent of China and Russia in days gone by, complete with incessant martial music, loudspeaker propaganda and kids in uniforms with red neckerchiefs there's far less of the wariness of foreigners I remember from China in the mid-1980s or or the Soviet bloc a few years earlier. This may be partly because we're in Pyongyang, a city of the privileged, relatively speaking. To live here you must be born into an approved family, already resident, or serve the party with exceptional zeal. Nobody may enter the city without a permit or indeed leave it. The capital is undoubtedly better off than elsewhere. We saw no evidence of lack of food, despite admissions that whilst the famine is over, there are still shortages. Power cuts are much less frequent in the capital too, although there was no light on the displays of clothes, imported toys, new but old fashioned stoves, sofas and loud halers in the model department store we visited. Pyongyang is also unusual in having traffic. There isn't much and the cars are very recent arrivals, almost all owned by the government or the military. But I did spot a lone car advertising hoarding high above the city centre. Is this a taste of things to come? New buildings have sprung up too, and bright children's playgrounds. Rollerblading is the latest craze. Our guides say that in the last four or five years life has become much more colourful. The government has recently declared a drive to beautify Pyongyang, which is why, we're told, there are numerous gangs of volunteers spending their Sunday laying pavements and squatting on the verges, their fingers in the dirt, carefully planting grass seeds one by one. If this is how Sunday is generally spent, no wonder the people in the park are making the most of their day off. We visit a second park where there is more of an attempt to keep us together. Perhaps we mixed too enthusiastically in the last one. I politely complain and find I am allowed to wander from the group. It is afternoon and picnics are complete. Plenty of wine and soju, the local rice alcohol, has been consumed. Music fills the air. Boomboxes compete with traditional flute and drum. The music is mostly folk and very much Korean. There's nothing I recognize as Western pop and people sing and dance. I stand watching as men and women, from grandparents to toddlers, float their arms elegantly and sway their bodies. And then a man takes my hand. He draws me into the group of dancers, leads me over to a couple of women, and we dance, or rather they do, while I make pathetic attempts to copy. But who cares what I look like? I'm dancing in the park with North Koreans and we're all smiling broadly. If only our government's international relations were
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so simple and with that thought. Juliet. Rick's Dancing in the park in Pyongyang brings this edition to a close. I'll be back on Thursday and Saturday of next week with more from our own correspondence, and I hope you'll join us. Goodbye.