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From Our Own Correspondent
The Lap of Luxury
00:28:07
When Madeleine Morris returned to her native Australia after twelve years in the UK a...
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- [00:00]
Kate Adie
Hello from the from our own correspondence studios at Broadcasting House in London, you've downloaded the latest edition of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It's introduced by Kate Ady.
- [00:12]
Programme Narrator
Today, a tough first job for the new Secretary of State as he heads for the Middle east in search of a formula for peace in Syria. We visit the sleeping beauty of Palermo as Sicilians prepare to vote in the Italian general election. Ahead of today's big match at Twickenham, we find out who's been praying to our lady of Rugby and how can anyone afford to eat here? An Australian colleague returns home after 12 years in the UK and is bowled over by the prices. John Kerry leaves for his first foreign trip as America's new Secretary of State. Tomorrow, and top of his agenda in talks with American allies in the Middle east and Europe is the civil war in Syria. The violence there continues unchecked. More than 50 people died in a car bomb explosion in Damascus on Thursday close to the offices of the ruling Baath Party. Earlier in the week, two mortar shells exploded close to the Presidential palace in the capital. Ian Panel says that while the talking the international diplomacy go on, the situation on the ground in Syria becomes ever more desperate.
- [01:25]
Kate Adie
A small band of rebel fighters pointed toward a gaping hole in the ground in the middle of an orchard. Sometimes families live there to keep safe. I was told we were in the north of the country, on one of Syria's multitude of front lines, the thunderous sound of war ebbing and flowing around us. Steep, rough cut steps led the way down. The fighters said it was an old Roman burial chamber. We edged forward carefully, torches in hand, to explore the abandoned hideaway. It was immediately clear that it wasn't empty at all. Seven small pairs of eyes were watching us intently. Sat quietly in the dank gloom of this subterranean cavern were seven boys, grubby faces and eyes wide with fear of the strangers in their midst. I asked who was the eldest. The boys all looked at 13 year old Mohammed and he reluctantly spoke up. In the softest of voices. He explained that they were brothers and cousins and that they were hiding there. Its bad here, said Mohammed. Were all afraid. That's why we're staying here. We're afraid of the bombing and the shelling. I asked about his parents. His father had been killed in the fighting weeks ago. His mother was looking after them, but she told the boys to hide while she went off to look for food. But that was hours ago and the boys were still waiting on their own, cold, hungry and scared. As we got ready to leave, Mohammed Spoke to our translator. What did he say? I asked. He said, when will my mum be back? The conflict in Syria is threatening the very fabric of the country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions have been uprooted as the fighting and the and the destruction get ever worse. If you stay here, you should expect that you could be killed at any time, said Abdul Rahman. The young fighter had a point. His town of Al Safirah in Aleppo province has been under bombardment for weeks. The population of more than 100,000 has been reduced to just 100 or so as people fled the fighting. The town is a testament to the shocking struggle for control of Syria. Entire homes have been ground to dust. The outside walls of buildings have been ripped off, bearing the battered remnants of the lives inside. The roads are blackened with the hallmarks of war, the burnt carcasses of tanks, vicious shards of shrapnel, and gaping holes where rockets have landed. Every few minutes, another artillery shell is launched. There's a two to three second hiatus before it lands and explodes, and. And in that brief time, people stop and listen, waiting to hear where it lands, hoping it's somewhere else. Hundreds of thousands of people have struggled across Syria's borders to escape this. But many more than that have been made homeless in their own land. Families sleep in large plastic greenhouses on farms. Tents have been erected in gardens and homes that were built to house a single family. Now shelter died dozens of people. We met hundreds of internally displaced families living in a small Alawite village in the north. The Alawites are a minority Islamic sect whose adherents, led by the Assad family, have essentially run Syria for more than 40 years. The people living in the village today are not Alawites, though. They're Sunnis, who are the majority in Syria and dominant in the armed rebellion. A local political leader explained how the Alawites had fled as the Sunni fighters advanced in what he described as the liberation of the village. I asked how you could liberate a village if the residents didn't actually want you to be there. He said the Alawites had sided with President Assad and that was why they ran away. But he insisted the battle is with the government, not one specific group. I've heard many insist that this is not a sectarian war. I don't doubt the sincerity of some who claim that. But whether by default or design, the country is becoming increasingly divided along dangerous lines. The presence of growing numbers of influential hardcore Islamist fighters who regard the Alawites as impure, only exacerbates that as does government propaganda. I was shown a tiny Alawite building, a place of worship that had been burned. A fighter gestured with pride. How he'd shot up the inside. It's an ominous warning of what may follow. There appears to be no end to the civil war in sight. Even now, the task of rebuilding the country and its economy is staggering. But if the ethnic and religious cohesion of Syria starts to come apart, that'll raise questions about the very viability of the state. This is the Gordian knot facing America's new Secretary of State. His challenge is to find a workable political settlement that ends the war. But so much blood has been shed, so many lives destroyed, and positions have become so hardened that it may already be impossible to stop Syria's civil war.
- [06:30]
Programme Narrator
And that was Ian Pannell. They start voting tomorrow. In Italy's general election, there have been no opinion polls for two weeks, so no one's forecasting the winner with any great confidence. The leader of the Democrats, Pierluigi Piassani, remains the favourite, but Silvio Berlusconi, Mario Monti and the anti establishment candidate, Pepe Grillo are still in the running. Observers feel the election could be won or lost in two key battlegrounds. Industrial Lombardy in the north and the island of Sicily in the south. Our man, Chris Morris is in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, where all the major candidates seem to believe victory can be theirs.
- [07:12]
Chris Morris
In October 1599, they ran out of space to bury the bodies. So faced with a full graveyard, the monks of the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, the began clearing out their crypts to create more space. Sometimes when you're covering election campaigns, you need to put things into perspective. Everyone is offering change or rebirth or redemption. And in a world where apparently only two things are certain death and taxes. It's always taxes that spark a better election debate. So I decided it was time to redress the balance and pay a visit to the dead. Stepping down into the Capuchin catacombs today, the first body you encounter in a small alcove next to the fire alarm is that of the first man entombed here, a well known 16th century monk, still wearing his habit, called Silvestro of Gubbio. Over the centuries, the number of mummified remains grew steadily. It became something of a privilege to end up under the monastery, often in the clothes of your choice. There are still an estimated 8,000 bodies in the catacombs. Many are on display, embalmed, hanging from the walls on hooks along the limestone corridors. One of the last to arrive was a young girl named Rosalia Lombardo who died in 1920. Her remains are so well preserved under glass that she sometimes called the Sleeping Beauty of Palermo. But what you may be wondering has been, has any of this got to do with Italy's general election? Well, there is an old Sicilian proverb, you'll be a better person if you think about death. So as I wandered through the catacombs, I thought about the election and whether perhaps we were witnessing the slow death of old style Italian politics. Nothing lasts forever, not even the political career of Silvio Berlusconi. And while the traditional battle between centre left and centre right still dominates the the wild card in this election has been the continuing rise of the anti politics movement Five Star. Its founder and leader, the stand up comedian Beppe Grillo, has been attracting huge crowds as he's crisscrossed the country in a camper van. When he arrived in Sicily last year to campaign for the regional elections, he swam across the Straits of Messina from the mainland. Five Star won more votes in that election in Sicily than any other party. And they could do surprisingly well on the island in this national election as well. Their opponents speak of a dangerous trend of populism without responsibility, of opposing everything and governing nothing. But if this is just a protest vote, it's one that goes pretty deep. It's prompted by increasingly desperate economic times and mounting frustration with a political system that often seems to look after itself rather than the citizens it's supposed to serve. A few months ago, Sergio Troisi was working for an engineering company at London's Heathrow Airport. He didn't really expect to get elected to the Sicilian Regional Assembly. We're just ordinary people in the Five Star movement, he said as we stood in a courtyard of the spectacular medieval palazzo which now houses the parliament. We're just here to help. And Sicily could certainly do with some assistance. Unemployment is high and rising, companies are closing down and public investment has been slashed by the imposition of austerity programmes written in Brussels and Rome. The opinion polls say the centre left and centre right are running neck and neck in Sicily. The outcome could help decide the balance of power in Rome. But the Five Star movement, which says it won't enter into coalition with anyone, could become a Sicilian spoiler. The other parties are aware of that and have been paying court to an island which national politicians are routinely accused of ignoring. The great survivor, Silvio Berlusconi packed out a beautiful old theatre and talked and talked and talked. Don't underestimate how many Italians still love him. His main rival, the man most likely to become the next prime minister, Pierluigi Bessani, was from the centre left, was also in Palermo this week. His rally in a central piazza was well organised and the party faithful were loyally enthusiastic. But it was hardly an affair of great Italian passions. These simply aren't the times for that on the other side of the island. Meanwhile, over the last few days, Sicily's famous volcano, Mount Etna, has been erupting in all her raw and terrifying glory. Fountains of gas and lava have been shooting into the sky. Another reminder, like the mummified remains of the Capuchin monastery, that there are some things with which even the soap opera of Italian politics simply can't compete.
- [12:10]
Programme Narrator
Chris Morris in the Italian city of Palermo, the Prime Minister made it clear this week that Britain won't be putting any restrictions on the number of Indian students coming to Britain for higher education. Speaking to Indian businessmen in Mumbai, he described it as a very clear, very straightforward offer to a new generation of extremely bright and talented Indian students. Craig Jeffrey tells us that while the chance to come to Britain to study will be welcome, standards at many Indian colleges have improved sharply in recent years.
- [12:44]
Craig Jeffrey
Anything goes. That's what many of my friends said when describing the north Indian city of Meerut, and the statement was meant as a criticism, not a compliment. At Delhi's interstate bus station, the touts patrolling the departure area were really quite insistent. Meerut, one man said disbelievingly when I said where I was going, you don't want Meerut, you want Rishikesh, another tout said, you want Agra. They weren't just looking for business. They actually felt it was their duty to warn me off. In 1996, which was my first trip to India, it was something of a relief to be finally on the bus and travelling to Meerut, a city of 1 million that serves as an administrative centre for western Uttar Pradesh. Leaving Delhi, I watched a mixture of high rise residential projects and slums give way to sugar cane fields and buffalo carts. Mirut announced itself in an unprepossessing flurry of commercial outlets of different sorts. Small grocery stores, medical shops and and private English medium schools. Signboards queued up for attention along the road. Fruity fruit juice, one hoarding said, contains no real fruit. I was doing PhD fieldwork at the time and I started at Meerut College, which was designed to resemble an Oxford college but had fallen into disrepair. Weeds grew through cracks in the campus pavements. Anything goes. The phrase kept ringing in my head. A few days after I got to mid at college, students demonstrated about their right to cheat in examinations. Later it emerged that a college official was lining his pockets by sending university examinations to be marked by school students as young as 12 years old. Students took to the streets to burn their degrees. I chatted about this to Jhelwant Singh, a 30something student with greying hair. We were sitting by a rusty piece of gymnastics equipment in the centre of his hostel. The weary look of the hostel courtyard was like some type of giant projection of Jelwantt's mood and situation. What am I to do? He said. I've five degrees but I can't get a job. He was also depressed about the college. There is maximum corruption, he said. The the facilities have not been repaired, the teachers don't teach and the administration is embezzling the money meant for students food Miruk College students lacked opportunities. They got poor quality degrees that are not valued by big firms in Delhi or abroad. The odds against them getting a government job were ridiculous. Thousands of people for every post and educational entrepreneurs in the city exploited their vulnerability, persuading them to enroll in all sorts of tutorial institutes that did little to improve their chances. Jell once said, life here is basically some study, lots of waiting and hp. What's hp? I asked. Imagine trying to get HP source out of the bottle. Jelwandt began shaking an imaginary bottle above his crotch. I recently returned to Meerut. It looked much more like Delhi. The universities and colleges had spruced up beautification, a university official explained as we drank tea from porcelain cups. The colleges were definitely working a bit better, although students still complained. I met up with someone called Lal Singh, a wiry young man who's working to fight back against corruption in Meerut. Over a coffee at one of the new espresso bars in the city, Lal said that the students were now Jagarooq, which means awake. I'm using my connections with the Human Rights Commission in Delhi to expose corruption in the universities. So things are improving? I asked. Yes, the Right to Information act has made a difference. There are more NGOs. We've stopped the worst abuses in colleges. The Right to Information act was introduced in 2005 and made it possible for citizens to investigate government wrongdoings. Is unemployment still a problem?
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Kate Adie
I asked.
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Craig Jeffrey
Lal grinned. Yes, but some of those students you used to know have become educational businessmen or brokers. They're doing dodgy deals with the university and trying to profit from the education boom. They run tutorial institutes and that sort of thing. So unemployment and educational corruption have led to more educational corruption? I asked. He looked serious, it's true. But there is also a new optimism. Even those who've got involved in corruption want the system to change. And there are also people like me really trying to change things. Anything goes. The phrase still rings in my head, but I wonder whether it might now also mean something positive.
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Programme Narrator
And that's Craig Jeffrey. Just over five hours to go until kick off in the big rugby match at Twickenham this afternoon. England are playing the old enemy, France, in the annual Six nations tournament. It's all going rather well for England, Touchwood, of course, they're unbeaten so far and another win today will set them thinking they can surely be champions this year. France, on the other hand, were many people's favourites, but they've lost both games to date. However, all is not lost. Chris Bockman knows a place where the French can go for inspiration.
- [18:15]
Chris Bockman
The French had been really looking forward to this year's Six Nations Rugby Championship and felt their favourites to win status made sense. But now there's a sense of dismay and shell shock. Nowhere more so than in the southwest of the country where rugby is king. Most of the top clubs and players on the national side come from the region. In fact, it's one of the few places in Europe, apart from, say, some Welsh valleys, where young boys want to grow up to be rugby players rather than football stars. Local cafes in beautiful villages have names like Fair Play or the Oval Bull. This year, the French said they had a generation of new players who would dazzle on the international stage, like Wesley Fofana and comeback kids at the top of their game, like Fred Michalak. But it's all gone so horribly wrong for the team that has a rooster as its national symbol. But not all is lost. As the French prepare to play England in Le Crunch, there's still hope for them. A powerful force they can count on. Divine intervention. Rugby is a religion in this corner of France, and to prove it, all you have to do is head to La Chapelle Notre Dame du Rugby, literally the Chapel of Our lady of Rugby. Perched on a hillside surrounded by forest on the outskirts of the small village of La Riviere Saint Savin, about two hours south of Bordeaux. The small, simple but elegant chapel gives little away at first. But as you approach the entrance, in the exterior alcove, below the bell tower, is a statue of the Virgin Mary being handed a rugby ball by a small boy. But it's when you go inside the chapel, which, unlike Most rural churches these days is always open. You quickly realize this is no ordinary place of wor. The beautiful stained glass windows show rugby scenes. Scrum another of the Virgin Mary holding a baby Jesus in her arms while Jesus himself is preparing to throw a rugby ball into a line. Out in another is the Virgin Mary cradling an injured player in her arms. To understand the chapel's connection with the sport, you have to go back to a tragic event in 1964. Three young players with the well known local club Dax were killed in a car crash after a game. The community grieved. A local priest, Michel de Vere, convinced everyone that the forgotten ruined chapel should become a place of remembrance for the young players and a center of worship for the world of rugby. These days, the restored chapel is in a beautiful state and even has a busy committee called the Friends of Notre Dame raising funds and getting players around the world to send in mementos. There are less than a dozen simple wooden pews and just one official service a year at Pentecost, which is packed and spills over outside, especially when the weather is good and the local rugby clubs bring along brass bands. Often an additional mass is held ahead of a particularly important international game or tournaments where French honour is at stake. The events are usually filmed and broadcast on the French news channels. Most of the visitors are men who visit during the Six nations or over the summer when on holiday in the area, taking a break from the beach to make a special pilgrimage to the site. Alas, you won't see much fair play in the comments left in the visitors book on the altar. Absolute pride and admiration for the chapel, rather less so for foreign teams, especially England. Sifting through the pages of written comments left over the years are amusing quips. This team will need nothing less than a miracle to win anything. Forgive them their sins on the pitch or please, when will the Virgin Mary bear a fly half worthy of their name? But one priest, Gilbert Lavigne, told me, while he prays for all the players, he never prays for a French victory. He said, God believes it's up to the Cannes de France to do the hard work.
- [22:20]
Programme Narrator
Chris Bockman at the chapel of Our lady of Rugby, the Australian economy continues to dazzle. The country's Federal Reserve bank is forecasting a growth in gross domestic product this year of at least 3%, a far higher rate than in most advanced economies. One of the biggest drivers of its success has been its boom in resources. Mining for iron ore, coal, gold and diamonds has generated billions. The Australian dollar has soared in value. The cost of living and the prices in the shops have also taken off. A reporting colleague of ours, Madeleine Morris, recently moved back to her native Australia after 12 years in the UK. She knew things would be different, but she didn't realise that her wallet would take such a hammering.
- [23:08]
Madeleine Morris
It was the limes that finally tipped me over the edge. In the sleepy Australian seaside village where my parents lived, not that far away from several citrus orchards, I was in a supermarket staring at a sign. Limes. Two Australian dollars 25 cents. That's £1 50. Not for a bag, not for a pair each. Infuriated, I stormed out of the shop. Limeless. The country's lost it. I fumed to my mum and dad over dinner that night. The end is nigh. How can anyone afford to eat in this place? Darling, my father replied. Look around. People here are rolling in money. We live in an unbelievably wealthy nation. And he's right. In the 12 years since I last called Australia home, it's changed. It was always the lucky country, blessed with fertile land, abundant sunshine and plentiful natural resources. Now we're more than lucky. We're rich. Bloody rich. So rich that no one blinks an eye at paying as much for a lime as as some of our neighbours in Asia earn in a day. And you can feel it just by looking at the small stuff. For example, there's no litter on the streets nowhere. And I'm yet to see a central reservation where the grass isn't well tended and the attractive shrubs perfectly pruned. It's the cars, I swear. There is none on the road that is older than eight years. They're clean and dent free and meet strict safety standards. It's the obsession with gourmet food shows the shiny European appliances in the shiny designer kitchens that seem to be a feature in even the most average family home. It's the seriousness about single origin coffee made by baristas who get paid £17 an hour before tips to bestow their caffeine laced munificence on their devoted followers. I don't mean to sound flippant, of course there is poverty too, and the gap between rich and poor is growing. But the overall feeling I get is that this is a country that can afford to be worried about the small stuff, because the bigger things food, shelter, water, employment are pretty much taken care of. Australia was one of the few developed nations that came out of the global financial crisis without a recession. It was down to the prudent economic management of the government at the time. But it was also largely because of the huge mining boom we've been rid for nearly a decade. The world, especially China, wants what Australia has in the ground and it's been willing to pay for it. And it feels to me, a long lost daughter, that the country has been irrevocably changed as a result. My parents sleepy seaside village used to be inhabited by retirees and fishing families. Now we share the one pub with hundreds of mine workers who come for their days off to burn money on bottles of spirits and the newly installed slot machines. Their driveways are stacked with fishing boats, jet skis and monster trucks, all the boys toys. We call them cashed up bogans, which roughly translates as rich urban rednecks. Plenty of money, not much sense. It's a term my middle class tribe uses disparagingly to make us feel better about being educated for comparatively poor I asked my taxi driver the other day if he thinks Australians are rich. He was originally from Turkey. He looked at me as though I was stupid. We are living in the lap of luxury here, he said, gesturing to the blue sky and the magnificent city skyline. So I asked him if he thinks Australians are happy this time. He sighed. When I was at school, my teacher asked us who had to work harder, the poor Africans or the rich Americans? He began. A lot of us said the Africans, but my teacher told me no, it was the Americans. They were always working to find ways to pay for their lovely life. Australians are the Americans now. It made a lot of sense. As a country we are richer than we could have ever imagined 20, even 10 years ago. But we're more anxious too. Worried about our non existent public debt. Worried about what we'll do when the mining boom is over, which it will be soon. Worried about how we're going to pay for our next overseas holiday because that's what we've all come to expect as normal. And me, I'm especially worried about how to make sure the limes on my newly planted lime tree grow because I sure as hell won't be buying them in a supermarket anytime soon.
- [27:53]
Programme Narrator
Madeline Morris there looking for gardening tips amongst the cashed up bogans of Australia and bringing this edition to a close. I I'm here next week with programs on both Thursday and Saturday and I hope you'll join us then. Goodbye.