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From Our Own Correspondent
The German Sense of Humour
00:28:08
Reporters around the world with the news behind the headlines: Aleem Maqbool talks of...
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- [00:00]
Ed Butler
Hello from the. From our own correspondence studios at Broadcasting House in London, you've downloaded the latest
- [00:06]
Graham Vick
edition of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
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Kate Adie
It's introduced by Kate Ady.
- [00:12]
Steve Evans
Today, the African Union toasts the prospect of a bright new future for the continent. But in Congo, it's conflict. As usual, French children are about to lose their traditional day off school. They are not happy. There are chuckles all round as we're shown plans for the world's biggest ever building project in Azerbaijan. And it's time to dispense with all those preconceptions about Germans. They don't work hard, they're thoroughly inefficient and they've got a terrific sense of humour. But first, there are real fears this weekend that Iraq is on the verge of slipping back into a full scale civil war between its Shia and Sunni Muslim communities. More than 300 people have been killed in the past week. In April, more than 700 died, the highest monthly total in almost five years. Today, the minority Sunnis believe the Shiite administration of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki is discriminating against them. But the dispute between these two branches of the Islamic faith is an ancient one. Alim Maqbool has been to the spot in Iraq where it all began in the seventh century.
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Alim Maqbool
It's a privilege to do this work. I kept thinking that as we traveled along the road from Baghdad to the city of Karbala. Just like Bethlehem and Nazareth for Christians, Karbala is one of those places Muslim children hear about from when they're very young. For many, it takes on a mythical, unreachable status. But here we were pulling up to the main security checkpoint at Karbala, being asked to park to the side while our papers were checked. Many pilgrims were going through on foot. As we carried on, the gold dome of the Imam Hussein Mosque rose from the center of the city. And soon we found ourselves standing at one of its many ornate doorways. I watched a little girl pull back her mother by the hand and chastise her for not having kissed the entrance in respect. Her mother dutifully spent a moment pressing her lips against the huge wooden doors to the mosque before going inside. In the vast prayer hall, with its gold and marble, its chandeliers and its intricate blue and white tiling, was an incongruous red neon sign. It marked the spot where it's believed Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was beheaded. The area on which the mosque complex is built is thought to be the site of the Battle of Karbala in which not only Hussein, but 72 followers and members of his family, including his infant son, were slaughtered. When you see Shia Muslims bloodied, whipping themselves in their annual processions, they are commemorating the events that took place in Karbala. Because while Muhammad's grandson is revered by all Muslim sects, it is Shias who trace their beliefs directly to his teachings. The shrine of Hussain in the center of the mosque is now circled by a constant stream of pilgrims kissing the marble, praying, often shedding tears. For Shias, the shrine represents the greatest tribute to martyrdom. That battle of Karbala in the seventh century in which Hussain was killed is often cited as the moment Shia and Sunni Muslims were cleaved apart. But Friday prayers in the Imam Hussain mosque looked almost the same as prayers in a Sunni mosque. There are small differences in the rituals. At one point, for example, instead of crossing their hands over their stomachs, the lines of Shia devotees kept their hands by their sides. But there is difference enough, it seems, even to this day, for some to feel they need to continue the slaughter. Over recent weeks, Iraqis have witnessed the kind of sectarian violence they'd hoped was a thing of the past. On one morning, eight bombs went off in an hour in Shia districts of Baghdad. On another, there were 11. Almost simultaneously, again in Shia neighborhoods. There was an attack on a Sunni mosque too, in Baqba, and another close to a funeral procession speaking to Iraqis at the bomb sites and in hospitals. What surprised me was the very apparent lack of hatred towards the other sect. Instead, there appeared to be resigned consensus that Iraq's politicians were exploiting sectarian differences for their own gains, but that so too were foreign powers. It is something that has created a huge Sunni Shia rift across this region. Iran, the big power on one side, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the other. Other countries in the Middle east with mixed populations are feeling the effects as Sunni and Shia groups within them start to align in what many now see as a holy war in Iraq. The links between Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda and the fighting across the border in Syria have been much talked about. But a couple of days before going to Karbala, we met a man who was involved in recruiting Shia fighters to go to Syria, too, to fight not with the opposition, but alongside President Assad's forces. When someone attacks your beliefs, he told me, you have to defend them. And where, I asked, are the Shia fighters going in Syria? His answer took us right back to Karbala. He said their main aim was to defend the shrine of Zaynab, another of the Prophet Muhammad's grandchildren, whose brother and two children were among those killed in the battle of Karbala, after which Shia believed she was taken to Damascus, where she later died. Sunnis disagree and think she was buried elsewhere. And in recent months, there have been many reports of attempts to attack the Shiite shrine. The fighter told me they would keep laying down their lives until the shrine of Zaynab was safe. As I left the mosque in Karbala with the traditional memento of a small amount of earth from the grounds, it was hard not to reflect on the way an event there 1400 years ago was shaping the world today.
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Steve Evans
Alim Maqbool in Iraq, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa this morning, joining in the festivities marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the African Union, or the Organization of African Unity, as it was known until 2002. The gathering of representatives of the union's 54 states is in upbeat mood. Many of the countries are boasting the sort of economic growth which Europe and the west can only dream about. Telecommunications drawing together far flung corners of the continent, greater efficiencies yielding healthy profits from agriculture. New infrastructure sprouting daily. But Africa's great success story doesn't seem to have extended as far as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite its bounteous natural resources, war there was supposed to have ended 10 years ago, but the fighting continues even today. As Gabriel Gatehouse tells us from the eastern city of Goma, it was a
- [07:10]
Kate Adie
familiar sight at Cana Ruchinha, just to the north of Goma. White armored personnel carriers had taken up positions along the road against the backdrop of Mount Niragongo, the majestic volcano that towers over the town. Indian soldiers, some sporting magnificent handlebar moustaches, sat around peering into their binoculars. Huddled behind the peacekeepers, a knot of local residents waited to see what would happen next. The sound of shelling rang out from the surrounding hills. Then silence. Nothing. The crowd dispersed. The people of the eastern Congo have an odd relationship with the UN peacekeepers. Known by its acronym monusco, it's the largest such force anywhere in the world. But despite being around 20,000 strong, it's conspicuously failed to keep the peace here in the decade and more of its existence. In November, these same Indian officers had assured me and the population of Goma that the rebels would never enter the city. A few days later, I saw them standing by and watching as the rebels marched into town. And so the people have learnt to expect little from manusco and yet, whenever the fighting starts, the people seek the COVID of those white armored vehicles, the and the men in the blue helmets. The protection they offer is little more than an illusion. But at the moment, it's all they have. Even when the fighting is close enough to hear and sometimes see, life in Goma tends to carry on at its usual frenetic pace. As we bump our way through the town, the place teems with energy and life. Everywhere, it seems someone is selling something by the side of roads paved with the rubble and debris and of periodic volcanic eruptions. Here, a woman offers a combination of mismatched flip flops and eggs. There, an open air furniture showroom sells beds and armchairs on what appears to be the roof of a derelict building. Disconcertingly, the wares are displayed at eye level because years of lava flow has raised the level of the street. Children queue up outside a shack to watch television. A gaggle of cyclists somehow manages to stay upright as the as they wobble along with sacks of charcoal strapped four high to their bikes, we swerve to avoid an abandoned 4x4. It's only got three wheels left, and so it's propped up on some rocks in the middle of the road. Left there, no doubt, by one of the thousands of NGO workers who thrive and multiply amid the chaos. We pass what looks like a cement factory. Atop a giant pile of sand, a group of people appears to be dancing. Two men wearing black trousers and shiny purple shirts are swinging their hips alongside a woman in a shimmering turquoise satin evening gown. It turns out they're shooting a music video. At that very same moment, a UN official calls to say there's shooting of a more lethal kind going on nearby. We end up in a hospital on the outskirts of town. A small boy, he can't be more than 18 months old, lies on a stretcher bleeding from a shrapnel wound to the head. An older man is brought in unconscious as doctors cut the clothes off his body that's badly burnt. These are the victims of a stray shell that landed on the outskirts of the city at the point of impact. Half a home has been destroyed. The force of the explosion has flung a child teddy bear up onto the neighbor's roof. This has been going on for nearly 20 years now. Next door, tiny resource poor Rwanda has emerged from the nightmare of its genocide and is using aid money to build a tech savvy nation with a thriving economy. In Uganda too, armed rebellions now seem a thing of the past. But pity poor Congo. Rather than bringing prosperity the vast stores of wealth buried beneath the landscape. Here, the copper, the tin and the coltan seem to bring only perpetual conflict. Partly, it's the fault of weak, corrupt government in distant Kinshasa, the capital separated from the east by a thousand miles of impenetrable jungle. But those thriving neighbors have also had their part to play. Rwanda and Uganda for years waged proxy wars on Congolese soil. Some say they're still at it, indeed, that their prosperity comes at Congo's expense. As for the United Nations, Modusko's nickname here is monooslas. On a lightning trip to Goma on Thursday, Ban Ki Moon visited a hospital for the victims of sexual violence. He was greeted with chants that mixed anger with anguish. He held a press conference and then he was off. Next stop, Addis Ababa, where today he joins the great and the good from across the continent in heralding a new era. Africa Rising. It doesn't feel like that here.
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Steve Evans
And that's Gabriel Gatehouse. There are traumatic changes afoot in the French education system. Millions of children who enjoy a regular day off classes each week have been told, forget that lovely day off. From September, you're going to have to go to school Monday to Friday without a break. The day off's a tradition that goes back to 1882, when the order went out. Take a day away from the classroom each week so you can bone up on your Bible studies and consider other religious and spiritual matters. But the government of Francois Hollande has decided it's time for change. Joanna Robertson in Paris says education in France has plenty of vociferous critics and is blamed for many of the nation's ills. But that mid week school Free day is one that will be sorely missed.
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Joanna Robertson
It works like a machine, the French school year. Long days, intensive terms set rigid in a relentless nine month rhythm. Six weeks of study, two weeks off, six weeks on, two weeks off. The mantra of the academic year. French parents have a mantra. Monday, Tuesday, children home. Thursday, Friday, children home. So do French school children. You can sometimes hear it as a playtime, skipping rhyme in the dull tarmac courtyards of primary schools across the land. Grammar, mass. Grammar, mass. Courtyard, mass. Grammar, mass. Grammar, home. This is an education system with many critics. It's boring, elitist, stranded in the 19th century. They say it's responsible for some of the country's worst ills. Research by Professor Claudia Senec at the Paris School of Economics, for example, has found that the strict, narrow focus primary school curriculum, with its harsh marking system, makes children underconfident and negative, a state of mind that persists into adulthood. She points to the country's ranking as one of the most pessimistic on earth and and its exceptionally high rates of clinical depression and suicide. Professor Senec wants change to a less intensive, more encouraging, broader approach to learning. And maybe her message has been heard. An assortment of typical French post wheeled along the street by our rather grumpy post lady, Madame Blanchard in her trolley today, elegant white envelopes from the Paris Town hall, individually addressed in flourishing script to every parent in the city. One two page letter from the mayor and one chic little fuchsia pink pamphlet. The Reform of Educational Rhythms in a User's Guide the school week, this pamphlet informs, will now be timetabled to suit the concentration patterns of children. More challenging subjects will be taught in the mornings. On Tuesdays and Fridays there'll be a shorter school day with a free optional program of extracurricular activities. Sport will be on offer, along with singing and visual arts, gender equality, durable development, community living, blogging, chess, simple gardening, road safety, healthy eating, calligraphy, poetry. The list is ambitious and very long. The lost academic hours will now become Wednesday morning school. There will no longer be a midweek day off. My neighbour Madame Germain, just back from a school preparation meeting, was demoralised. It all sounds so lovely, but it will be chaos, she predicted. Maybe, though, my neighbour is simply a prime example of a negative French woman under confident and resistant to change. These so called educational rhythms start in September and I for one, am going to miss the weekly break from school. Wednesdays are when the city gets to breathe. The morning traffic relaxes the parks, playgrounds, puppet shows, carousels, swings and boating. Lakes are filled with children, the conservatoires are busy with music, ballet, theatre. The cinemas and museums run special events and myriad small independent groups teach arts, crafts, sports and skills. Across the city, generations of French have childhood memories of those midweek school free days. Now in his late 50s, Claude says he loved them because he hated school. One day less of it, he told me, was a wonderful thing. Nadia, 88, whose parents fled the 1917 Russian Revolution, says the day off was interesting and delicious. My mother, she said, was a wonderful cook. We'd go to the market and bring back all kinds of good things together. We'd make lunch, then bake a cake for tea. Wednesdays they're beautiful, says Theo, who's seven and a second year pupil at a central Paris primary school. Like many French children, he spends the day with his grandparents. He has a violin lesson and then it's off to the park Jean, a classmate, goes to the local Centre des Loisir, the boon of working parents, where he joins many other children in a supervised day of state sponsored sport and creative arts. Says Jean. Wednesdays, they're my favourite.
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Steve Evans
Joanna Robertson in Paris Azerbaijan has in recent years seen an oil boom that's made it the richest nation in the South Caucasus. Close to a million barrels are pumped from its giant undersea reserves off its Caspian coastline every day. The boom has led to a transformation of the capital skyline too, with lavish new office buildings and concert halls springing up around the capital. And now a new project is underway that's threatening to dwarf them all. It's the biggest construction project anywhere in the world, according to its mastermind, a billionaire businessman. Ed Butler's been to Baku to meet him and talk about his plans.
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Ed Butler
There are certain general norms I find about the self made rich, frequently highly motivated, usually ultra disciplined, but rarely in my humble experience making business programmes. Rarely are they reckless with the their hard earned cash. But then, in many ways, Ibrahim Ibrahimov does not seem to fit the normal billionaire mold. I met him at his offices in downtown Baku. Apart from the glistening white Rolls Royce parked on the street, the exterior seemed just like another dusty office block. Inside, though, everything was black marble. Ibrahimov extended his hand. A small, energetic man of about 50 years of age, he fixed me with a warm smile and a firm handshake, and he began to unravel a massive sheet of architectural drawings revealing what will one day, he said, become the full glory of the Hazar island project. A dozen man made islands, I was told, will cover several square miles of what's now the Caspian Sea. The site will include not only the world's tallest building, it will also include hundreds of office buildings, apartments, hotels, schools, golf courses, marinas, a Formula One racetrack, oh, and the world's largest mosque as well. When finished in about 10 years from now, the entire project will house no fewer than 850,000 people. That's equivalent to most of the current population of Baku. Most of the population will be Azeris, according to the plan, and the rest will be jet setting, foreign business people and of course, lots of tourists. The project will cost $100 billion, some £65 billion. Yes, he said. It's the biggest building project in the world. And then he chuckled. Mr. Ibrahimov chuckles quite a lot. Do you have that much money to spend? He chuckled again. No, I have just 3 or 4 billion. But I'm willing to spend all of it, every penny, on my dream. Is the government paying? I asked. No, no, this is my project, he insisted. The rest of the money will come from international investors. The trouble is that apart from a few oil industry executives I saw on my flight over, it doesn't feel as if too many outsiders are paying all that much attention. Despite Mr. Ibrahimov and the government's best efforts. Part of the trouble lies, critics say, in Azerbaijan's economy. This country is only oil, says Leila Aliyeva, a Western educated political scientist and a forthright critic of the government. They say they want to become the new Dubai, but it will never happen. The president won't let anyone share in this country's wealth. The Aliyev family that's controlled Azerbaijan's burgeoning oil riches ever since it gained independence from the Soviet Union some 20 years ago, is said to rule with a vice like grip. Human rights groups claim debate is suppressed and the profits from the boom are held by an elite few. The average household income is just $400 a month. That's about £250. Most people live in crumbling Soviet era developments around the edge of Baku. Still, the Khaza island project is certainly some kind of a statement of intent. And one thing's for sure, it is underway. I saw it for myself. Down a dusty highway south of the capital, the shells of high rise apartments are being erected, the palm plantations lovingly laid out. I did have one last question for the man. Behind this unlikely concrete citadel, Dubai built its own island resort, the Palm. It also built the world's tallest building. Then it nearly went bankrupt. Aren't you worried? I asked. By the risk at all. Dubai got it wrong, ibrahimov replied without blinking. They didn't have my vision. I live this idea. I sleep this idea. I don't need a lover at night. I have my Khazar island dream, he said. He chuckled. His beautiful raven haired assistant chuckled too. And then we were all chuckling. Somehow, it seemed hard not to.
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Steve Evans
Ed Butler in Azerbaijan Everywhere around the world, from Brussels to Berlin and from Boston to Abu Dhabi, people are in Wagner fever. Those were the words of Bavaria's regional state premier this week as he addressed people who'd gathered in the town of Bayreuth to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth. The date has also triggered a great deal more analysis of the man, his music, and his notoriously anti Semitic opinions. He was Adolf Hitler's favourite composer. The Bicentenary has also seen numerous new productions. One was cancelled within a week of opening. The audience were far from impressed by Tannhauser, played in Nazi uniforms, complete with shootings. Our Berlin correspondent, Steve Evans, has been out talking to Wagnerians and it's made him realise how we often get Germany wrong.
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Graham Vick
I happened to be chatting to the intendant of the Deutsche Orpe the other day, as you do, the director of the Deutsche Oppe, one of the world's big opera houses, and I thought I'd have a bit of a go, having just seen a production of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, which irritated me. Tristan and Isolde, you see, is to me and to Wagner, all about Celtic myth and Cornish kings. But this production was set on an ocean liner with naked drug addicts wandering across the stage. I can take a bit of radical production as much as the next opera buff, but this, I felt, was too much. Classic German opera production up its own bottom. I scoffed from the cheap seats. So given the chance to meet the man at the helm, the I had a bit of a go. Why, I asked him, do you Germans have to have productions which are so outrageous? This, by the way, was before the recent Tannhuser in Dusseldorf featuring Nazis murdering Jews, which got the audience booing within 30 minutes and the production pulled within a week. So why, I wanted to know, was Germany so enthrall to radical productions like the Tristan, for which his company was currently responsible? Why? Why, I wanted to know. He paused and put down his delicate coffee cup, looked at me and said, that production was done by a British director. I hadn't noticed, but so it was Graham Vic, actually. It made me realise how prejudice lurks are known, even in ourselves. It struck me again when I went to Leipzig to talk to the man there who's organizing the erection of a new statue of Wagner. It's the city where Wagner was born and there are great attempts to get in on the act, the commercial act as much as anything, though one event is called in English. Twas in the merry month of May that Richard Wagner hatched one day which one feels doesn't quite get the full Wagnerian tone Anyway, the organiser of the statue and I talked in the park outside the grand opera house, built by the Communists, replete with socialist symbols engraved on the outside, hammers and ears of wheat and the like. I suppose, I mused, that Wagner wasn't the DDR's cup of tea, too nationalistic and resonant of the Nazis. Wrong again. It turns out that Wagner filled that opera house in Leipzig. The communist regime loved him, though it did have doubts about the Christian symbolism in Parsifal. My preconceptions were wrong again. We get a lot wrong about Germany from outside. Hard working. Look at the figures. The German working week is shorter than that of the Greeks, efficient. Except the well publicized string of big projects which are vastly over budget and way behind time, including the revamping of the opera house in Berlin, which remains behind scaffolding, silent to the sounds of Wagner or anyone else, militaristic or non militaristic. Germany does remain reluctant to get involved in foreign wars, but its arms industry is booming thanks to Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Submarines capable of delivering nuclear warheads to Israel. And over this there's much debate because a line has been crossed. The unwritten rule used to be that Germany sold things that floated, but not things with wheels, that is not material which could be used against a country's own people. But that has changed. There is one big misconception outside, particularly in Britain, which is delightfully wrong. The absence of a sense of humour. The other day I went to the site of an unexploded World War II bomb. They frequently turn up in building work and this one was near the main station in Berlin. The bomb disposal man was there. He's the chap who walks calmly up to these rusting lumps of danger with a wrench and makes them safe. He had a badge which said, in English, if you see me running, make sure you catch up. Now that is a sense of humour.
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Steve Evans
And that's it. Steve Evans revising his opinions about the Germans and bringing another edition to a close. We're back next Thursday and Saturday with more from correspondence far and wide. Why don't you tune in? Goodbye.