← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
the Education Minister's Watch
00:28:02
Looking behind the headlines: the new patriotic conservative mood in Russia -why it's...
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You've downloaded from our own correspondent, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today, be careful what you say about us, the Russians who fear the consequences of their country's sudden surge in patriotism. Do you need a semi automatic rifle? Perhaps a shotgun? There are, we find politicians giving them away in the United States. A teacher at a religious school in northern Nigeria tells us we have to change to compete with modern society. And reforming education is on the agenda in Mexico too. Not surprising in a country where 1500 teachers all claim they're 102 years old. Western leaders have told Russia the country's actions in Ukraine are unacceptable. They were meeting in Brussels, their first summit since Russia was expelled from the G7 group after its annexation of Crimea. They said they were prepared to impose further sanctions on Russia if it continued to destabilise eastern Ukraine. Bridget Kendall says whatever the rhetoric emerging from Brussels, many Russians continue to support their President and his attitude towards Ukraine.
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Moscow was in the midst of a heat wave when I arrived. The heady scent of lilac on the long warm evenings brought people out onto the streets. One night on the embankment of the Moskva River, a drunken band of students tried to engage me in conversation and then staggered off down the street. There's always a slightly celebratory air at this time of year, a realisation that winter is over and a few precious months of sun are here. But this year's euphoria is underpinned by a sense of having proved to the world that Russians can come out on top. A surge of self confidence after the humiliations of post Soviet collapse. We're on a roll, one Russian TV editor in chief told me. No one can stop us now. First the Sochi Olympics, another man told me, who I met on Red Square. Then we got Crimea back and now we've won the World Ice hockey championships as well. It's as though everyone is a spectator at a sporting event or watching a game show on tv. A detached enjoyment. As though this orgy of Russian patriotism carries no consequences. So there's no point in thinking where it might lead. To be fair, lots of people are watching events unfold on tv. The sheer volume of different state control channels is overwhelming. All glossy and well funded, each with their own slightly different, but ultimately similar version of the news. Hours of slick, punchy and emotionally charged reports set to thumping music, making your heart race. It's hard not to get drawn in. And on Ukraine, there's one that the violence in eastern Ukraine is All Kiev's fault. That Ukraine is crawling with Russian hating neo Nazis and fascists, and that it's the US government who is fuelling the crisis behind the scenes while Russia tries to act as peacemaker. Aggressive and deceptive propaganda. And worse than anything I witnessed in the Soviet Union was the verdict of Liev Gudkov, the director of the Levada Center, Russia's most well respected polling organization. Cultural historian and publisher Irina Prokhorova went further. She called it Stalinist, reminiscent of the anti Western hysteria which marked the grim repressive years of the late 1940s. And what worries the liberal intelligentsia is that this aggressive tone is is being directed inwards as well. Ever since President Putin warned he would not tolerate a fifth column of national traitors in his historic speech on Crimea's annexation in March, Russia's beleaguered opposition has felt under siege. We've been investigated four times this year already, said Liev Gudkov of the Levada Center. We live on tenterhooks. At any point they could close us down. And be careful what you write about us, whispered another academic. You understand how it is here now. So what or who is fueling this aggressively anti Western mood? Up on the Sparrow Hills, on the fourth floor of the sociology department of Moscow University is a room marked center for Conservative Research. This is the office of Professor Alexander Dugin, who welcomes sanctions because he wants Russia to split with the West. He also thinks President Putin should and will invade Eastern Ukraine. Once a fringe figure, he's now seen as the ideologue at the heart of Russia's new conservatism. His long grey beard makes him look like Solzhenitsyn, another Russian thinker who wanted to reunite all Slavic speaking lands. But Alexander Dugin speaks the language of postmodernism, not religion, and his focus is politics, not spirituality. On his desk, among the books and half drunk coffee cups, are not icons, but a roll of the black and orange striped ribbon used by rebels in Eastern Ukraine to denote their loyalty to Russia. So is he in touch with these separatists? They're his friends. And does he advise the Kremlin? Has he met President Putin? He smiles slyly. That's personal, he says. I'm not going to say so. The question is, how long will this new patriotic conservative mood in Russia last? The publisher Irina Prokhorova, wonders if it could be the last gasp of an authoritarian regime under threat like Stalin in the late 1940s. But the pollster Lyev Gudkov thinks this surge of Enthusiasm for President Pushin will endure long enough for him to get re elected in 2018, which means if he stays in good health, Vladimir Putin could be Russia's leader till 2024.
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And that was Bridget Kendall. The military coup in Thailand last month seems to have brought to an abrupt end seven months of political turmoil. A conservative royalist protest movement had occupied parts of the capital, Bangkok. It had also blocked a general election as it campaigned to force the government of the then Prime Minister, Yingluk Shinawat from office. It accused her party, founded by her tycoon brother Thaksin, of corruption and threatening the monarchy. The army refused to back the government and has now removed it from office. But the party still has a strong following in the populous north and north east of Thailand. Its supporters had said they would resist a military coup, so how they responded to the takeover during the Jonathan Head's been to the northeast to find out.
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I didn't think there were farmers left in Thailand as poor as Bunsom. He and his wife, Somporn, live in a small palm thatch hut, which they've built in the middle of the rice fields. They work inside. They have a couple of smoke blackened pots, some farming tools, and a few faded clothes. That's it. No running water, no electricity. They sleep on a raised platform inside the hut, and Boonsom explained that the rain often came through the roof. He gathered grasshoppers from the fields and fried them to add protein to his diet. When I met him, he'd just sold four tons of rice, their entire crop. But with prices down since the collapse of a government subsidy scheme, he had barely covered the costs of growing it. He didn't even have the small sum needed to hire a tractor to plough his fields for the next crop. Yet Bunsom didn't mind his poverty. It was all down to politics, he said, and he liked politics. Like so many people in Thailand's northeast, he'd been drawn to the Red Shirt movement, which was established six years ago by supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Mr. Thaksin, a billionaire telecoms tycoon, was deposed in Thailand's last military coup in 2006. But his political parties have won every election for the last 14 years, thanks to policies which appealed directly to people like Bunsom. Bunsom told me his first wife had left him because of his political activities, and he met his second, Somporn at a redshirt rally. The two of them are loyal activists, so much so that they went into hiding after a red Shirt occupation of Bangkok four years ago, was violently put down by the army. Bunsom's old house, with electricity and water pipes, remains locked and empty, and he lives a simple, low profile life in the rice fields. Regretting nothing, he says. But the coup last month caught him and fellow Red Shirts off guard at their rallies. The movement's leaders had said there was a line in the sand. A coup would be unacceptable, they were told, and Red Shirts across the country would rise up and resist it. In the event, the military launched its takeover when it had all the top redshirt leaders inside the Army Club in Bangkok, there for reconciliation talks with the rival Yellow Shirts, all the generals had to do was lock the doors. They then moved swiftly to arrest anyone else capable of mobilizing ordinary redshirts. And though some have been released, they've all had to sign agreements that they'll give up their political activities on pain of being jailed for much longer. So Boonsom has received no orders. And even if we got them, he said, what can we do? The soldiers have weapons. We can't fight them. In their justification for the coup, the generals argued that they were trying to prevent a looming civil war that impressed no one I met in the red shirt strongholds of the North East. If so, they asked why? Why didn't the army act to defend the elected government against the yellow shirt mobs that had occupied ministries and sabotaged the election? In fact, the military has never moved against the Yellow Shirts, perhaps because they both share the same ultra royalist ideology. The army has now started an ambitious program to depoliticize the Northeast. All criticism of the new regime is strictly banned. No meetings are being allowed, and the thousands of communities which had declared themselves to be Red villages have been forced to take down their flags and banners. Homes have been raided and activists detained and interrogated. Later, the military plans to set up what it calls reconciliation centres to which villagers will be summoned to help them forget the fiery speeches they heard at the redshirt rallies. Officially, this is to cool the political temperature. Unofficially, it's part of a larger project to destroy the election winning party machine of the Shinawat family. Will it work? I doubt it. I revisited the head of one of the first Red villages and his wife, whom I'd met last December. Back then, their home was a meeting place for local people to discuss politics, and there was certainly plenty of it. The ease with which the Yellow shirt groups had been allowed to cripple the government and had infuriated them, as had the open contempt of many city dwellers towards the government's rural supporters often dismissed in Bangkok as uneducated red buffaloes. A huge poster of Thaksin Shinawat had been proudly displayed then on the side of their house. Now it's hidden in a spare room. The village head and his wife were visibly upset over the coup, wishing they could speak out but not daring to. But they said they had not given up. The farmer was more philosophical. The soldiers can't stay forever, he said. There are more of us than them. Even in just a few of our villages, we have more people than in the whole of the army.
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And that's Jonathan Head. In Thailand, the father of one of the six California students killed in a stabbing and shooting rampage last month, has been calling for stricter gun control law. Richard Martinez addressed a memorial service in Santa Barbara for the victims, leading the crowds in chants of not one more. California Democrats have also proposed a series of measures they believe could help prevent further mass killings taking place, but few expect the latest incident will result in new laws. The right to bear firearms is one cherished by many Americans, as Beth MacLeod was reminded on a recent trip to Indiana.
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Now squeeze steadily and smoothly on the trigger, I was instructed, and keep the sights lined up with the target. At the Parabellum Shooting Range in rural Indiana, a crowd of seasoned gunmen had gathered to watch as I took my first tentative shot with a Glock police pistol. I squeezed as smoothly as I could, focusing on the middle of the silhouette in front of me, and after a few suspenseful seconds the gun gave a loud crack and recoiled. It left a pleasant smell of smoke in the air, as if some birthday candles had just been blown out. To everybody's surprise, most of all mine, the bullet hit the target almost dead in the centre of the stomach. Good, I was told as the target was pushed out further into the hangar like building. Now aim for the head. An impromptu shooting lesson wasn't what I'd expected when I arranged to meet Colonel Steve Wagner, the chief deputy of the Hendricks County Sheriff's Department. A well built man with a neat moustache and a badge of the US Flag pinned to his suit, he was an example of Midwestern hospitality at its finest. We were there to talk about guns and politics. But first, he said, getting out a government issue box of ammunition, you've got to try firing one for yourself. Gun violence is, of course, an oft discussed topic in America, and following every mass shooting there are well rehearsed arguments between those who want more firearm controls and those who defend gun rights. In the newsroom in Washington, I've been amazed by the frequency with which universities and schools are put on lockdown because a gunman has been spotted on the premises. Most of these incidents don't make the national news, let alone the international headlines. But in the first six weeks of this year alone, there were 13 school shootings, resulting in the deaths of 28 people and injuring 37. Steve Wagner's answer to this is to have more armed guards at schools. The only way to beat a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, he said. He carries a pistol at all times and bought his daughter a pink gun that she now takes everywhere in her handbag. I went to Indiana to meet Steve Wagner because as part of his campaign to become county sheriff, he was holding a gun raffle. These have been a popular tool in Republican primaries this year among candidates who want to show their commitment to to the Second Amendment, the provision in the US Constitution that says the people have the right to bear arms. Some standing for seats in the US Senate or for state governor, have been giving away semi automatic rifles and handguns to voters. One Senate candidate in South Carolina told me that offering an AR15 to possible supporters had got such a great response that he decided to hold two more gun giveaways. Steve Wagner was selling tickets for the chance to win one of five shotguns. The raffle draw was held at an American Legion clubhouse in a small town called Brownsburg. Several Harley Davidsons, all adorned with the stars and stripes, were parked outside. Trestle tables inside were piled high with snacks and jugs of iced tea in front of a stage. The five prizes were laid out on a camouflage patterned tablecloth but weren't handed out to the winners straight away. Those with the chosen tickets would need to pass a background check at a local firearms shop first. Everybody agreed that guns were part of the fabric of life in the area. I grew up with a shotgun in every corner of our house, said one woman. We used to hunt for all our food. Many thought the Second Amendment was under attack by the government. Someone's going to have to come to my house and take my guns away, said one man selling raffle tickets, because I ain't giving them up. In fact, the gun control measures that President Obama put forward are much more modest. He wants expanded background checks and bans on assault weapons and high capacity gun magazines. But the proposals have stalled in Congress, and the depth of feeling at the raffle helps explain why More and more the government is saying you can't do this and you can't do that, said another woman. Clearly very angry. So if the guns get their attention, we raffle the guns. If they'd said we can't have cotton candy, then we'd have been raffling cotton candy. The guns, it seems, have become a symbol for something else. In Hendricks county. They evoke nostalgia for the past at a time when America is going through change. And for those who don't like the changes, they see the guns are something to cling onto and they simply aren't going to let go.
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Beth MacLeod in the American state of Indiana what's gone wrong with education in this country? It's a refrain heard increasingly in Mexico, and particularly after the recent death of a 12 year old boy. Hector Alejandro Martinez died at the hands of bullies in the playground of his school in Tamaulipas, the most violent state in the country. His parents say teachers stood by doing nothing as their son was attacked. Will Grant says the man charged with introducing reforms to the education system has a huge task on his hands.
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I'm wearing the education minister's watch, a rectangular stainless steel automatic on a thick black strap. It has a bright blue dial and orange T on the hands, clearly a timepiece from the 1970s. I found it at a now defunct flea market near my apartment and bought it from a second hand watch dealer for about 40 pounds. Finding and restoring old watches is a bit of a geeky hobby of mine, and I've bought watches as mementos from several Latin American countries I've lived in. This square blue one is my Mexico watch. The reason I know it once belonged to the Education Minister is engraved on the back to our friend Emilio Tchouyfet Chem, it reads. It's dated 19th of July 1974 and signed Lucero and Polo. When I bought the watch shortly after I arrived in Mexico in 2011, I didn't think too much about the engraving. I figured it was a nice detail which gave it character, much to my embarrassment. I certainly didn't know then who Emilio Chouy Fett was at that time the president of the lower house of Congress. Within the year, the pri, the party to which he has been a long standing and loyal member for decades, had retaken the presidency, and Mr. Chuaifet was named by President Pena Nieto as the man tasked with trying to overhaul the country's dysfunctional and crumbling education system. It is no small task. Mexico has the poorest education results of any country in the oecd. The problems are widespread and entrenched. Teachers belonging to the powerful SNTE union refused for years to undergo even basic aptitude tests. They can buy and sell their positions as public officials or even bequeath them to their children. Nepotism, corruption and inefficiency are commonplace in Mexican schools. Recently, for example, it was revealed that 1,440 teachers in the state of Hidalgo were all registered with the same birth date of 12 December 1912, making them nearly 102 years old. Meanwhile, 70 teachers earn more than the Mexican president. Recently, however, Mr. Chouayfet has had a new problem on his hands. The headlines in Mexico have been dominated by one bullying after a 12 year old boy, Hector Alejandro Mendez, was killed in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas by his classmates. Hector went to school as normal that day at the General Secondary School number seven in the city of Ciudad Victoria. But in his final class of the day, as it would turn out of his life, several boys began picking on him, apparently unhindered by the teacher. In the playground after class, the verbal abuse spilt over into violence. Four children grabbed Hector Alejandro and subjected him to what's called el Colompio, the swing. He was trussed up by his hands and feet and swung into a wall repeatedly, his head bashing into the brickwork over and again. When he blacked out and the children ran off, his parents alleged that he lay there receiving no medical attention for some minutes. That lapse was crucial as he suffered a cranial haemorrhage and was eventually rushed to hospital. After several hours in a coma, he was declared dead in the small hours of the morning as his desperate mother, tear stained and confused, explained to the press waiting outside. Since then, every day has seen more examples of extreme violence and bullying in Mexican schools brought to light. So much so, President Pena Nieto, talking in the same state of Tamaulipas, said that lamentably, this is not an isolated case. He had ordered his education minister, he said, nodding towards a pensive looking Emilio Choufet, to define the educative model for the entire country and to combat this harassment in schools. That educative model involves wholesale reform, which to its credit, the government has managed to get through Parliament. But despite assurances it would begin to subject teachers to regular assessments to normalise standards and improve discipline across the board, little has changed. To date, the reforms remain embroiled in dispute with the second biggest teachers union in the country, and ongoing protests, strikes and walkouts mean that most Mexican pupils aren't doing any better today than they were three years ago. Since realizing that I wear his name on the back of my wrist every day. I've wanted to ask Mr. Chow Phet about his long lost timepiece and how it ended up in my possession. Did he lose it? Was it stolen? Did he hit hard times and have to pawn it? Maybe he fell out with Lucero Poland polo after 1974 and decided to sell their engraved gift to the highest bidder. Whatever the story, my requests to interview the minister have gone unanswered. In the meantime, I intend to hang on to his bright blue watch. As for his efforts to reform Mexico's education system, with the clock ticking down on his term in office there too, he is running out of time.
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That's well, Grant. There's also talk of education reform in Nigeria, where the 200 missing schoolgirls still haven't been found. Seven weeks after they were taken from their remote boarding school, the Islamist extremists known as Boko Haram say they kidnapped them. Schools are regularly attacked by this group, whose name means Western education is forbidden, and thousands of people have been killed. Yet now in parts of northern Nigeria where it's safe, enough efforts are being made to improve the quality of education. Will Ross says it's an area where many children have had no formal education at all.
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Driving across Kano City, weaving through the army of bright yellow three wheeled motorbike taxis, we passed the wonderfully named Hair Must Grow Barber Shop. Even at the end of a slow day with the hair clippers, I can imagine the owner gets a little lift just reading his own sign. We queued at police and military checkpoints where goodness knows what magical powers were being used to decide which vehicle to search and which to let pass. Although I did get a clue at the first roadblock when a lorry driver leant down from his cab and handed some cash to the policeman before driving off. I was with a former teacher, Yadada. She's now trying to help improve the quality of education here, especially at the religious schools. For generations, these schools in the mostly Muslim north of the country have focused pretty much solely on teaching the Koran. But the problem is, for around 11 million children, that's all the education they get. Yardada had called around to find a suitable school for us to visit. She laughed as she told me what one malam or religious teacher had told her. He said, yardada, didn't you notice that it rained last night? None of the students will turn up today. They'll be out helping their parents on the farm. Just one of the seasonal challenges in an area where many still live off the land. But there was no attendance problem at the first school we went to down a sandy road on the outskirts of Kano. Quite the opposite. There were a few boys, but most were girls sitting on the floor, their heads covered and their faces framed with purple and white hijabs. At the doorway a cluster of faces peered inside. Those children weren't even registered at the school, but were trying to pick up some knowledge on the sly. When I walked into the room, they all leapt to their feet and called out in good morning sir, how are you? Slightly taken aback, I replied, I'm fine, thanks. And how are you all doing? We are very fine sir, thank you very much. Outside there were four more classes, all under a mango tree. I had to be careful where I walked because if I stepped too close to a class they'd all jump up and the Good morning sir, how are you? Would start all over again. Goats wandered through the open air classrooms as maths Hauser and English lessons were in full flow. Cheerfully chanting, it seemed they were enjoying the grammar lesson. Bouncing up and down, they sang, now we are jumping, jump, jump, jumping, present continuous is what we are doing. The next school had a far more serious air to it. I walked along a narrow alleyway in the city centre where teenage girls were selling food next to open sewers, turned a corner and found about 800 boys all reciting the Koran, from 6 year olds to late teenagers. The grey bearded Malam sat on a mat at the front and dipped a sharpened stick into some ink as he wrote in Arabic on a wooden tablet. Yadada and her colleagues have helped about 30 of these boys get a few hours of secular education lessons each day after afternoon prayers. We have to change to compete with the challenges of modern society, the Malam Abdurahman Mood told me. I asked him if he was worried that by offering this modern education in his school he risked angering the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, which wants an exclusively Koranic education. I don't know anything about that group, I've no idea about their activities, he replied, clearly not wanting to dwell on the subject. In recent years many Muslim scholars have been killed by Boko Haram for openly opposing their ideology. It was alarming to look at the sea of faces and realize without an education, most of these boys would have no chance of getting a formal job. British taxpayers are helping fund the education improvements, but given the years of neglect and bad governance, the needs are immense. The following morning I returned to the first school and even more classrooms had sprung up under the mango tree. 12 year old Fatima made me realize. Despite the challenges, Yadada's work was helping. If I wasn't at school, I'd be selling things on the streets, Fatima told me. I then accidentally wandered across the invisible line in the sand that marks the edge of the classroom and they all sprang to attention. Good morning, sir. How are you? Oops. Here we go again.
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And with that from Will Ross in Kano, Nigeria. We've reached the end of another edition, but there'll be more at half past eleven on Saturday morning, so please join us then. Goodbye.