← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Nile Mystery
00:28:11
Kevin Connolly's in Luxor wondering if the military, which has controlled proceedings...
Loading summary
Transcript18 lines
- [00:00]
BBC Radio 4 Presenter
You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent.
- [00:05]
You can hear the version of the program broadcast on the World Service by
- [00:08]
following the link to the BBC iplayer on the top of our website. To keep up with our latest reports
- [00:14]
and get a sneak preview of our
- [00:15]
stories, you can sign up to our
- [00:17]
Twitter feed as well.
- [00:18]
But now, presenting the BBC Radio 4
- [00:20]
Correspondent/Reporter
edition, here's Kate 80 today. They've run the country since the revolution of 1952. So are the Egyptian military really about to relinquish power? Turkey thinks again about European Union membership as economic crisis grips its old rival Greece. How can God be wrong? A religious sect takes the question to a court in New York, and we sit down to a large lunch in a corner of China where they don't find cheese revolting. We want a great leader for a great nation. Few Egyptians will argue with that ambition voiced by the country's military leader, Field Marshal Hossein, Tantawi, as 50 million of them prepare to go to the pol next week, they start choosing a new president to replace Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a public uprising in February 2011. It could be the first time in 60 years that the country's leader has not emerged from the ranks of the military. This time, 13 candidates are vying for the job. Three represent Islamist parties. Turnout is expected to be high as voters relish the opportunity to flex their democratic muscles. But Kevin Connolly, who's been chatting to a group of policemen on a river cruiser on the Nile, says that no one's sure how this election story will end.
- [01:39]
Kevin Connolly
The chief of detectives smiled inscrutably and shifted on the elegant sofa which had once supported the much greater weight of Hercule Poirot. Through the windows of the salon on the port side of the steamer, the waters of the Nile slid past, sluggish as a teenager on the way to tidy his room. The teak decks, worn smooth by the loafers of toffs through the ages, were too well bred to gleam in the hot afternoon sun, but they glowed opulently. I was sitting in the very steamboat cabin where, in the Agatha Christie film Death on the Nile, the couple who were secretly married faked an attack on themselves to create an alibi for a real attack on a couple who weren't really married, all the other way round or something. When the time came to serve coffee to the group of current and retired police officers who were chatting with us, the traditions of the whodunit genre were duly honoured. The butler did it. We were discussing A more contemporary mystery, how Egyptians will vote in their presidential elections. The stakes are high in a country which sees itself as a natural leader of opinion within the Arab world and across the wider Middle East. For years, Egypt was run by a series of military strongmen, although those strong men often chose to wear sharp civilian suits. There is a chance that a former general will win this time, but it's likely that Egypt is about to choose the first properly elected civilian leader in its history. He will face the task of learning the lessons and consolidating the benefits of the uprising that led to the downfall of the old authoritarian Hosni Mubarak last year. The parliamentary elections which followed delivered an overwhelming victory for a broad front of Islamist parties. And although there are many candidates, the underlying choice facing Egyptian voters is a simple one. Should they pick a candidate who consolidates that choice and will be a natural fit with the new parliament? Or should they tack to the centre and pick someone to act as a kind of counterweight? The serving officers taking coffee with us on the boat are barred from voting. But a retired general who was part of our group thought the answer was obvious. He'd be voting, he told me, for Amr Musa, a former head of the Arab League who did a stint as foreign minister of Egypt before he was sidelined by Hosni Mubarak, apparently for becoming too popular. That gives him, in the eyes of some older Egyptians, a kind of semi detached relationship with the old regime, close enough to insider status to have learned the tricks of the governing trade, distant enough to seem clean in the new Egypt. A young supporter of last year's revolution told me a few days later that he thought that kind of thinking was pretty common in Egypt these days, especially in towns which rely for jobs on foreign tourism. He said he thought the election would be decided by what he called the Hezb al Kanaba, the party of the sofa Egyptians who stayed at home during the heady days of revolution and were now worried that images of revolutionary chaos would hurt Egypt's image abroad. That sofa bound silent majority, he thought, would gravitate back to the center. He wanted a young radical associated with the uprising to win, although he didn't really seem to think he would. Islamists have several possible candidates to choose from for president, but they share one view, at least in common. They want a new leader cut from the same political cloth as the parliament, so that the two can work in harmony, and so that their own political gains from last year's legislative elections will be consolidated, not compromised. Of course, the situation is not as clear cut as that makes it sound. Egypt's old authoritarian system collapsed in a wave of pro democracy demonstrations and there is unfinished business from the revolution. Soon there will be an elected president and parliament, but there is still no constitution to define the relationship between them. Could the new leader sack the government or dissolve the legislature? Who will hire and fire prime ministers? No one can be sure. Above all, where will the armed forces stand in all of this? They have been running Egypt since The Revolution of 1952, one way or another, and that is a hard habit to break. Back on the boat, the General and I paused beneath a wedding picture of Farouk, the portly monarch who greeted his own removal from power with the observation that the world would soon be down to its last five kings, England and hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades. The General, though, was not disposed to linger on the problems and the personalities of the past. We know the new president will be chosen freely, the general said, even if we don't know yet who it's going to be. In the place where a fictional detective once cleared up a minor whodunnit, a mystery more real, more profound and much more important will soon be solved.
- [06:55]
Correspondent/Reporter
Kevin Connolly on the River Nile in Luxor Talks about Turkey joining the European Union started up again in Ankara this week. No coincidence, it's said that the meeting took place days after President Sarkozy left the Elyse Palace. He was firmly opposed to Turkey joining the European club. Greece may be the country currently at the centre of an economic storm in Europe, but a decade ago it was Turkey struggling to escape a crippling downturn. Since then, though, it's come roaring back to become a strong and increasingly influential regional power. The one area, though, where Turkey has stumbled is in its long running quest to join the European Union. Jonathan Head has been looking at the troubled relationship between Europe and its Muslim neighbour to the east.
- [07:40]
BBC Radio 4 Presenter
Whenever she gets especially fed up with one of her country's foibles, my Turkish producer likes to say she's actually not a Turk, she's a Macedonian. Which is sort of true. Like many of her compatriots, her grandfather was one of the millions of Muslims driven out of the Balkans a century ago by the wars that chipped away at the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Look out over the famous Istanbul skyline and you can't help but notice the similarity between the silhouette of Hagia Sophia, the greatest architectural achievement of the Greco Roman civilization that once dominated this region, and the mosques of the renowned Ottoman architect Sinan, built a thousand years later. Sinan was in awe of Hagia Sophia and modelled his domes on it. Turkey has always used Europe as a reference point. Even when he was forging a new Turkish nation from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Kemal Ataturk borrowed heavily from Europe. The Turkish constitutional and legal framework is still based on concepts taken from France, Switzerland and Italy. But for the first time, Turks are looking west and asking, do we need Europe or does Europe need us more? The reversal of fortunes experienced by Turkey and its historic rival Greece could hardly be more stark. Turkey has been knocking at the door of the European Union since 1959. In that time, it's experienced political and economic chaos and four military coups. By contrast, Greece was brought into the EU back in 1981, and Greeks went on to enjoy living standards three times higher than those of their Turkish neighbours. Today, though, Greeks are asking what they can learn from a country which had its own financial crisis a decade ago, but which is now enjoying economic growth rates comparable to China's. And Turkish entrepreneurs are eyeing investment possibilities on the other side of the Aegean. Real estate, energy, tourism, a 50 billion euro privatization program. Selim Egele, chairman of the Turkish Greek Business Council, reels off a list of areas where Turks think they could profit from Greece's difficulties. But tellingly, there is no Turkish word for schadenfreude. And there's not much gloating. Instead, what you hear is indignation that a Europe in need of Turkey's young population and economic vigour isn't being more welcoming. We are angry. Turkish Citizens is the title one group has given itself. It runs a website on which people can write their complaints about applying for EU visas. It's an unpredictable, expensive and sometimes humiliating process. Often, Turkish applicants have no idea why their request is rejected. Given how much business Turkey does with the EU, more than 40% of its exports go there. There are thousands of people who need to visit EU countries several times a year. They have to go through the visa agony almost every time. Then there was the announcement by France and Germany that Turkey should not be allowed into the union, even if it did fulfil all the requirements for membership. Turkish politicians have retorted that this is driven by primeval prejudices. It all goes back, they argue, to the time when Europe feared the Ottoman hordes would surge westward, to when Turkish soldiers were at the gates of Vienna. You don't have to go very far back to find examples. Wherever the Turks went, said the 19th century British Prime Minister William Gladstone, a line of blood marched the track behind them and civilization disappeared. From view. Today, Turkey has risen to become a regional power looked up to by millions in the Arab world as a modern, prosperous Muslim democracy. Turkey will meet all the EU's conditions anyway. But like Norway, it will reserve the right to say no, thank you, even if membership is offered. But would it? For all the disappointments, EU membership is still a top foreign policy goal of all the major political parties. Huge sums of money are still being spent every year to reach that goal. Turkish businesses acknowledge that trade with Europe is in large part what's made them so competitive in Middle Eastern and African markets. Turkey has always looked west. That hasn't stopped, even if it is trying to look east at the same time.
- [12:10]
Correspondent/Reporter
And that's Jonathan Head. The Chinese are famous for eating everything, and tales of their adventurous diet have for centuries fascinated and appalled many in the West. But while people in some parts of China enjoy eating ingredients that foreigners find shocking, there's at least one item that many, many Chinese still find revolting, and that's cheese. There are exceptions to every rule, though, as Fuchsia Dunlop has been finding out. In the southwest province of Yunnan, the
- [12:39]
Fuchsia Dunlop
strange rock formations sprouting out of the red brown earth are a sign that we're approaching the Stone Forest, one of Yunnan's great scenic attractions. But we aren't there for the scenery. Instead, I'm on my way with my friend Bi Wei, a chef from the provincial capital, to investigate a peculiar cottage industry, the making of what local people call rubing, or milk cakes, but Westerners would call cheese. Before long, we arrive at a quiet village in Lunan county, where Bi Wei's friend Luo Wenzhe welcomes us at the gate of her farmhouse. Soon I'm crouching on the floor of her goat shed, trying to milk a goat for the first time in my life. Mrs. Law holds the twitching animal's leg while I squeeze one of its bulging teats, tugging briskly downwards. After a few failed attempts, sharp jets of milk shoot into the metal cup, which begins to fill with the warm, creamy liquid. When I've finished, Mrs. Law swiftly milks the other nine goats, and we return to her kitchen to start making cheese. The last place I'd ever have expected to have a lesson in cheese making was China. Historically, dairy foods have been largely absent from the Chinese diet, and cheese almost unknown. When I was a student here in the 1990s, it was impossible to find cheese in the major provincial city where I lived, and none of my Chinese friends had ever tasted it. More recently, when I invited some chefs in eastern China to taste a variety of cheeses. They found them smelly and greasy and complained of a muttony taste. And while some chic city dwellers are beginning to enjoy cheese, in most parts of the country, it's still regarded as weird and alien. But in this part of Yunnan, so called milk cakes are a famous local speciality. In her kitchen, Mrs. Lu strains and boils her milk and then stirs in some vinegar to make it separate into cloud like curds in a sea of whey. She scoops some of the curds into a bowl and hands them to me to eat. Still warm from the stove, they are soft and slightly elastic, with a glorious richness and a delicate flavor. And I'm struck by how similar the snack is to tofu, which is made in almost exactly the same fashion and can be served just like this in its whey with a dash of syrup or a chili oil sauce. Mrs. Lu pours the rest of the curds into a wet cheese cloth, squeezes out the whey and then lays a heavy stone on top so they can settle overnight. This plain, unsalted cheese is the only kind they make here in Lunnan in northwestern Yunnan, they stretch the warm curds into sheets that are wrapped around sticks and left to dry. Known as ruan, or milk fans, these sheets can be warmed on a grill, spread with rose petal jam and wrapped around a stick to be eaten like a lol lollipop. But these are isolated examples. In most parts of China, even where people keep cows and goats, locally made cheese simply doesn't exist. The Chinese may be in all other respects the world's most inventive eaters, but they've paid little attention to the creative possibilities of milk. Perhaps it's because the soybean and tofu gave them the nutrition offered by dairy foods elsewhere. But it's also widely believed that the ancient Chinese avoided dairy products because they wanted to draw a line between themselves and the barbarians who roamed the steppes on the borders of the country. After our labours, Bi Wei and I sit down with Mrs. Law's family for a farmhouse lunch. There are several dishes served with rice, which we eat with chopsticks. Fermented tofu and pickled radish, cured pork with garlic stems, potato slivers with dried chili and, of course, cheese. Some of the cheese has been sliced and fried until golden on both sides. The rest, Mrs. Law has cut into cubes and stir fried in a wok with some new broad beans. Stir fried cheese, I think to myself, now that's something you would only find in China.
- [17:05]
Correspondent/Reporter
Fuchsia Dunlop, not going hungry. In Yunnan province, members of the Amish religious sect are known as very private people. But in one American state, their efforts to keep out of sight have been thwarted by a highly public legal row with the authorities. Other religious sects in the US may have succumbed to the trappings of modern life, but the Amish have remained steadfastly isolated. Their strict 16th century Protestant beliefs mean they won't drive cars, use electricity or wear modern clothes. David Belton has been to the remote northern reaches of New York State to learn why the Amish have decided to do battle with the building inspectors.
- [17:46]
BBC Radio 4 Presenter
In June 2007, St. Lawrence County's Assistant Public defender, Steve Ballon, got a call from his boss. A bunch of Amish men are in trouble, he was told. They need a lawyer. Although the Amish had moved up to this remote part of northern New York State 30 years earlier, they'd kept themselves to themselves. And Ballin had had little to do with them. But when he met Andy Miller and the five other Amish men charged with contravening state building codes, he was certain that the town's building inspectors had violated America's first and greatest constitutional amendment, the right to worship freely. What had provoked the inspectors to issue stop work orders were was the Amish men's refusal to install smoke alarms in their newly built houses. In court and in broken English, their first language remains a German dialect. Andy Miller explained that it would be against their Christian beliefs to have something so modern in their homes it didn't wash with the judge. Miller and the other Amish men were fined. They refused to pay, pointing out that that would imply they had accepted that obeying God's laws was wrong. And how could God be wrong? Balin persuaded the judge to stay the case and contacted a religious liberty law firm that has taken it to federal court, where now it sits, waiting to be heard. The quarter of a million Amish in the US have been making accommodations with modernity ever since the Industrial Revolution, when our life and Amish life parted company forever. But in this rather drab corner of New York State, compromises are unacceptable. That's because the Amish up here are a small and deeply conservative sect called the Swartzentrubers, who came to the wilds of the north country to lead a life separate from the evils of the 21st century, one that reflects the Amish mantra of being in this world, but not of this world. Two years ago, the Swartzentrubers fought the local authorities over their refusal to fix orange hazard triangles on the back of their traditional horse drawn buggies. In other states, the Amish had accepted the move as a sensible safety measure, but the Swartzen troopers saw the triangles as an ungodly and garish adornment. Their stubbornness paid off. Swartz and Trooper buggies remain triangle free. And now there's the bickering over smoke alarms. I met one of the rebels, Mose Miller. He's short and squirrely with a raggedy red beard. We talked at his doorstep with his nine children looking on. It was cold, 15 below zero. Most of the kids were in bare feet. Their clothes were roughly sewed together like Victorian patchwork puppets. Their hands and faces were grimy with dirt from the farmyard. Lizzie, his eldest daughter, showed me round their home. There were two bedrooms for the children and wooden pallets and old blankets served as beds. They hand pumped water for washing and there was an outdoor privy. The fire they cooked on prompted me to ask Mose about the smoke alarms. I use this, he said, pointing at his nose or him and his finger pointed upwards. I don't need a devil on the wall to tell me if my house is burning. I asked him what would happen if he didn't wake up and all his children were burned to death. If God doesn't wake us, well, that must be part of his plan, mose told me. His eyes twinkled as he spoke, and I had an overriding feeling that Steve Ballon, the lawyer, was onto something. Thirty years ago, no one had smoke alarms. We changed. Not the Amish. The chances are Mose and his recalcitrant friends will win their battle. They usually do. Less clear is how this 19th century enclave will retain its unique identity. The north country may be remote, but there is a brisk trade in mobile phones amongst Amish teenagers. The Internet and all the perils it presents for these deeply religious people are now ever present. Perhaps in the end, court cases and the Internet don't really matter. As Mose politely led me back to my car, he turned to me. We're just pilgrims and foreigners just passing through, he said. This life is just a speck in the sand compared to eternity.
- [22:17]
Correspondent/Reporter
David Belton in New York State Dubai is one of the richest looking places in the world. A palm fringed emirate which fancies itself as the business capital of the Middle east as well as its premier sunsee and shopping destination. Traditionally, its main trading partner has always been Iran. Last year its exports across the Gulf were worth almost 5 billion pounds. There are concerns today that the international sanctions levied on Iran as a result of its disputed nuclear program will affect incomes in Dubai. But so far their impact seems to have been slight. Somalia is another country which depends on the emirate for its imports. There are tens of thousands of Somalis in Dubai and Mary Harper's been to meet some of them.
- [23:01]
Mary Harper
Why this car? I asked. Because I don't like the Phantom. The Phantom? Oh, you know, the Rolls Royce Phantom? The car I was talking about was a Bentley. And the man I was talking to was a Somali, originally from Ogadishu, who'd done rather well for himself in the mobile phone business back home. He was dressed in an understated but expensive way. We were in the underground car park of a giant, glitzy shopping mall in Dubai. The car was enormous, six metres long and a rich, dark gold colour. A small Indian man was polishing its wheels. Get in, said the Somali. I obeyed his instruction and placed myself as elegantly as I could onto the smooth leather seat. The floors were made of soft black brown fur. Lambskin, he said as he closed the door for me. A quiet, expensive clunk. This car costs $500,000, said Abdullah Abdi Hussain as he slid into the driver's seat. Look at the dashboard. It's African cherry wood and crystal. The interior, including the ceiling, is cow leather special cow blemish free cow bred especially for Bentley. We purred into action and out into the sunlight. The glistening glass and marble world of Dubai, past the tallest building in the world, which seems to scrape the sky. A city where everything looks unreal, even the people. I like the best of everything, said Abdullah. Have you heard of number one perfume? I've heard of Chanel no. 5. No, no, no. I'm speaking about number one, the most expensive perfume in the world. Here, he said, giving me his phone. This is a photo I took of my bottle next to my watch. He told me the make of the watch, which I now forget, but I've checked the price of the perfume he was talking about. It's £2,700 for 30ml. Before I tell you more about my journey in the Bentley, I think I should tell you about the other Somalis I met in Dubai. They were right in the middle of the city in a place that contrasts dramatically with the extreme order. The perfect cars and clothes, the extraordinary buildings in all sorts of surreal shapes and sizes. A world apart from the air conditioned shopping malls, selling things that none of us really needs at prices I certainly can't afford. Moored in the creek that runs through Dubai is a long stretch of old, scruffy, splintering wooden dhows. Their design hasn't changed much for centuries. The sailors are Gujaratis, and several of those I met didn't even have shoes. All of them were going to Somalia, including Mogadishu, which is often described as the most dangerous city in the world. They didn't seem in the least bit concerned. The area was a frenzy of activity. All sorts of things were being loaded onto the dhows. Somali merchants keeping a sharp eye on what went where. There was a lot of dried pasta, a staple in Somalia, and there was quite a lot of bottled water. There were cars, vans and spare tires, scaffolding, paint, tiles. An amazing array of construction material. A sign, perhaps, that Somalia is starting to rebuild itself after more than 20 years of war. But back to that car, that Bentley, with its digital displays, wireless headphones and no less than 20 speakers to pump out the music. It even had massage machines built into the seats, which, I confess I found truly delicious. As we slid along boulevards, the playgrounds of the rich, people stopped and stared, their heads swivelling in amazement, eyes popping sometimes, cameras flashing. What do other Somalis make of you in this car? I asked. Oh, they're extremely happy. They congratulate me and say thank you. They say seeing me in my car makes them proud to be Somali. They don't feel jealous or disgusted? Oh, no, why should they? I give them hope. I bought this car because it shows success. As those flashing cameras showed, the Bentley even managed to impress the ultra wealthy residents of Dubai. But I'm not sure what it would have meant, if anything, to those Somalis I met at the port, or indeed the Somalis back home in Mogadishu, most of whom can only dream of owning a car, let alone a Bentley.
- [27:56]
Correspondent/Reporter
Mary Harper, back now from Dubai and no longer being chauffeured around in a gold Bentley. That's it. Next week we'll have two programmes once again, so join us, please, on both Thursday and Saturday mornings for more from our own correspondent. Goodbye.