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From Our Own Correspondent
The Party Animals
00:28:07
Will Grant in Cuba: 50 years after the Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro still has the to...
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent. You can hear the version of the programme we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our site at BBConline. But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Ady.
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Today, the void of understanding between different generations in southern China, the baffling art of spirit possession in Burma. We're in the jungles of the southern Philippines with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. And Berlin, a great city to experience by bike. As long as you wear a helmet. 50 years ago this week, the world came closer to nuclear war than it had ever before or has done since. Soviet missiles placed in Cuba put President John F. Kennedy's White House eyeball to eyeball with Soviet Premier Khrushchev's Kremlin. In the end, war was averted when the Russians agreed to remove the warheads from Cuba in exchange for a guarantee that the United States would not invade the Communist island. To this day, Cuba continues to stand isolated from the United States, despite the fact that it lies just 90 miles from its shores. But slowly and surely, the wheels of change are whirring on the island. The ailing Fidel Castro has long passed the reins of power onto his brother. Five decades on from that week in October 1962, when the eyes of the world were turned on Cuba, Will Grant finds that its slow transition still fuels rumours and makes headlines.
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I arrived in Cuba at an interesting time. The perpetual rumour mill about Fidel Castro's health had been in overdrive for weeks. He hadn't been seen in public since Pope Benedict came to the island in March. Nor had he congratulated his friend and ally Hugo Chavez on his victory in Venezuela's presidential elections in early October. Fidel's on his last legs, certain voices in Miami confidently assured. He's had a stroke. He's already dead, others claimed on Twitter. But on the very night I arrived, 50 years to the week that the world was in the grip of the Cuban missile crisis, the 86 year old former president confounded his enemies one more time. This time, all he had to do was appear in public to prove that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. He turned up at the Hotel Nacional overlooking Havana's famous Malecon, to drop off a Venezuelan dignitary who'd visited him. The following day, a series of photos of Fidel were published in the state newspaper Granmar, alongside an article in which Castro retorted he couldn't remember even having a headache. The pictures showed him wearing a checked shirt and a straw hat, leaning on a cane while tending to the plants in his garden, vaguely reminiscent of Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone in his final scene in the Godfather. I also arrived for another slight quickening in Cuba's glacial pace out of the Cold War. The government recently announced the lifting of certain travel restrictions, an important development which is supposed to allow Cubans to come and go more easily from the island. Critics were quick to point out that when the changes become law next January, it still won't be easy to move away. An expensive exit visa might be scrapped, for example, but it will be offset by a sharp rise in the price of a passport, and the government can still block whoever they want from leaving, be they doctors or dissidents. Still, though few would disagree that change is afoot. Some of the first to be eased into a very Cuban form of capitalism were the country's hairdressers granted the right to own their own businesses two years ago. It was seen as recognition under Raul Castro that the state could no longer spread itself so thinly, a sign, perhaps, that the government would stop trying to control every single economic enterprise on the island, from five star hotels to dingy back street barbershops. A day after Fidel's reappearance, I went to just such a barber as myself. As I peered through the window, I could see the walls were adorned with pictures of the revolution's heroes, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. The doors were locked, as the place had been fumigated earlier in the day for dengue fever. So I waited a while until the barber ambled around the corner to open up for an hour or so, a genial man called Geraldo. His white barber's shirt was adorned with pins of the flags of Mexico, Venezuela and, of course, Cuba. He was 76 years old, he told me as he settled me down into the chair of wrought iron and leather and started to cut my hair with nary a question about style nor what was wanted. I've owned this place since January, he said, snipping away around my ears with confidence. There's four of us here, and we split the costs between us. So how's it working out? I ask, expecting him to extol the virtues of free market capitalism. I preferred the old system, he said, a little wistfully. I was used to that. Geraldo has been in the same premises for 36 years and was previously paid a wage by the state. I used to just cut hair, he explains, but now I have to be an accountant too. I have to balance the books, pay taxes and bills. I used to take paid holidays, he tells me as he begins to slather shaving cream onto my chin. But now I can't get away. If I don't work, I don't get paid. He glides the cutthroat razor around my face with the dexterity of a man half his age, scraping off my two day old stubble and and leaving me as fresh faced as a teenager. Giraldo's view, though, is far from universal. In particular, the young are openly critical about being unable to travel freely. And although there might not be an exodus in January, many people are clearly tired of life being so constantly tough economically. As Geraldo rubs alcohol into a couple of nicks, he says he won't be trying to leave the island when the rules change. He's never had any real inclination to see the rest of the world, he says. That's a young man's adventure. He smiles and charges me $10 for the shave, which he slips quietly into the front pocket of his smock.
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Will grant in Cuba the southern Philippines has a long history of violent conflict with separatists, communists and clan militias all active in the area. Perhaps the best known armed rebel group is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been pressing for greater autonom for the region for over 40 years. More than 120,000 people have been killed in bombings and government retaliation. It's hoped that a recent peace agreement will bring the long war of attrition to an end. Both sides have had to make serious concessions. The rebels have even promised to give up their weapons. Kate McGowan went to visit them on the island of Mindanao.
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Call me naive, but before my first meeting with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, I'd assumed their jungle headquarters would be hidden away somewhere remote. I envisaged driving down dirt tracks for hours and having to beware of armed men hiding behind trees. That's why I was somewhat surprised when a rebel spokesman suggested we met at McDonald's in the city of Cotabato. And sure enough, it was very convenient. The rebels camp is only 20 minutes down the road. It's not got a big signpost, but it doesn't need one. Everyone in Mindanao knows it's there, and that says a lot about this whole conflict. For many years, successive governments have had to live with the realization that the rebels are a very visible presence and they're not going to go away. The majority of the Moro people living in this region support, if not the violence, then at least the aim the rebels are trying to achieve, gaining as much autonomy as possible from the rest of the Philippines. But just as the government has known it needed to compromise with the rebels, so the rebels have also known they had to do the same. Despite the huge cultural differences between the Islamic Moro people in central Mindanao and the Catholic population elsewhere in the Philippines, they have to find a way to live together. So over the past 15 years, both sides have held exhaustive negotiations, resulting in a series of shaky ceasefires and thwarted peace deals. Every time these efforts came to nothing, the violence resumed and innocent people were killed. Now, finally, progress has been made. Last week, the rebel leaders left their jungle camp and flew to Manila to sign a framework peace agreement, standing side by side with the Philippine president. But for this agreement to stick, the Moro people have to support it as much as their leaders do. So I took a plane in the opposite direction, drove past the now familiar McDonald's and went to find out how the deal was being viewed on the ground. On the way to the rebels headquarters, I saw banners saying give peace a chance and Mabuhay, welcome to the new agreement. I met some of the tens of thousands of people who've had to leave their homes during the four decades of conflict. They spoke of relief and hope for the future. And then I got to the camp itself. Multi coloured tents had been laid out on the parade ground. There was a special information area and food for guests. It looked like a village fete rather than the headquarters of an insurgency. Hundreds of rebels had arrived from their hideouts in the nearby hills to mark the signing of the agreement. They were laughing and joking, taking pictures of each other on their mobile phones. If it hadn't been for their uniforms and the rifles and RPGs slung over their shoulders, they would have just looked like friends on a day out. But behind the smiles, everyone knew that this was only the beginning of a very long process. The framework agreement is just that, the bare bones of a deal which needs a lot more detail added in. And there are many obstacles in the way. The lush green hills of central Mindanao hide untapped mineral reserves which many Manila based officials are loath to give up. There are other insurgent groups in the area that have already threatened to scupper the deal. And disarming the rebels is going to be extremely difficult. I only had to look at how proudly these men displayed their weapons to know that I spoke to one of them about what he wanted to do after the group had disbanded. He didn't know, he said he'd do what his commander wanted him to do. I persisted. Maybe he wanted to join a special regional police force. That's one suggestion being made by negotiators, or perhaps start a business. But he began to look worried. He clearly had no idea. He spent 20 of his 38 years as a guerrilla fighter and knows no other life. His joy at possible peace is mixed with apprehension for the future and for Filipinos as a whole, it's a similar feeling. The road ahead is tough. If this deal fails after so much fanfare, there's a high chance of violence. Yet everyone knows that this agreement is the best chance for peace there's been in years.
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Kate McGowan in the Philippines the city of Shengzhen, just north of Hong Kong, was at the front line of China's economic reforms. Situated in Guangdong Province, it found itself at the heart of the country's first and most successful special economic zone, where foreign businesses were encouraged to flourish. Over the last 30 years, Xiongzhen has been transformed from fishing village to one of the fastest growing cities on earth, and now it's attracting a new generation of more affluent Chinese entrepreneurs. As Jill McGivering's been finding out, Mr.
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Lee doesn't wear flashy clothes or jewellery. His manner is modest and amused as he sits at the family's glass topped dinner table with his elderly mother, glamorous second wife and two children. In fact, he's a wealthy man. His elegant home is in one of Shenzhen's most exclusive districts. While most people here live in cramped apartments, Mr. Lee's family has a spacious, stylish house. Mr. Lee has come a long way in life. His father, an active member of the Communist Party, was purged during the Cultural Revolution and sent to the countryside for re education. When I was a boy, I often went hungry, Mr. Lee tells me. I had to leave school early to work. I tried everything. I was a butcher for a while. A butcher on the other side of the table. His daughter looks amazed. She's never heard this before, Mr. Lee continues. I shocked my family, he says, when I gave up a secure job with a state owned company and headed for Shenzhen. It had just been declared China's first Special Economic Zone, the pioneer in the daring experiment in capitalism. I arrived with one small suitcase, he went on. I slept in a generator room in a basement. It was unbearably hot in the summer. I bought three sewing machines, and that was the start of my garment business. It sounds like the stuff of family legend, but again his daughter is taken aback. I had no idea she says, shaking her head. No idea. My father had such a tough time when he started out. Clearly, the past is not often discussed around this elegant dinner table. Mr. Lee's garment business grew to become a thriving international concern. It's a rags to riches story which mirrors the rise of Shenzhen. I first came to this region 24 years ago and remember rice paddy, pig farms and duck ponds? Now it's a sprawling megacity of 12 to 14 million people. A land of office blocks, high tech shopping malls and neon lights. It's one of the world's biggest manufacturing centres. But after decades of growth, China's factories are starting to run short of cheap labour. This province has a shortfall of about a million workers, and that's giving the new generation more choice and more bargaining power. One young migrant worker in her 20s from a rural province told me she could get five or six job offers tomorrow if she felt like a change. As labour costs rise, some Chinese manufacturers are now looking at moving their factories overseas. Mr. Lee's daughter, Nana, has more advantages than most. Her grandmother struggled to survive the Cultural Revolution and to feed her family when food in China was scarce. Nana, now in her 20s, has just come back from studying fashion in London. She's draped in an elegant dress which reveals the tattoo at the top of her spine. Her bottom lip is pierced. Her hair is short, spiky and dyed brown. Her father wanted her to go into the family garment business, but she's broken away to do her own thing, living in Shanghai and designing funky jewellery. Mr. Lee now plans to take his young son and emigrate to Canada. The education system's better there, he says. Here there's too much pollution and corruption. He shakes his head when I ask him about the gap between his mother's generation and that of his daughter. Young people today can't begin to understand what we went through, he says. To them, the stories told by their grandparents are just fairy tales. As I get ready to leave, Nana goes upstairs and brings down a box of her jewelry designs. She likes to search out discarded objects from the past, she explains, like fragments of pocket watches and keys. Then she incorporates elements from them in her ultra modern pieces. Her grandmother comes across to look. She's never seen her granddaughter's work before and seems bemused as she picks through the brooches and bracelets, trying to make sense of them. Nana brandishes a wacky pair of sunglasses which have metal animals mounted on each side. Everyone crowds round as she persuades her grandmother, who willingly plays along, to try them on the family bursts into laughter. It looks so comical, the sight of this old fashioned 80 year old wearing something so stylish and cutting edge. Nana's grandmother laughs too. She's clearly terribly proud of her cool international granddaughter. But there's also a certain astonishment in her face as she looks down through the generations at this person whose life will be so different from her own.
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Jill McGivering earlier this week, Burma's president held his first local news conference in what is seen as another attempt at reform in the country. Thane Sein, who took power last year, spoke on issues ranging from the cooperation with the Aung San SUU Kyi led opposition to the unrest in the north. He also admitted that he has struggled to overcome his fear of the media. As Burma opens up after 50 years of military dictatorship, it seems likely that it'll become an increasingly popular holiday destination. It has beaches to rival the best in Southeast Asia and a rich cultural and spiritual life, as Kim Filly discovered on a recent trip there.
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The spirit medium's name is Nan Nguyen and he commands the only comfortable seat at the festival grounds, a high backed gunmetal gray brocade lawn chair set back on a rickety bamboo platform. He is a sinewy 75 with the elastic, rouged and powdered face of an old vaudevillian at his feet. Sitting cross legged on the floor amid stacks of popular energy drink, are his half dozen disciples. The men and women range in age from about 30 to 60, like a gaggle of mature students, but for them the curriculum doesn't cover social work or economics or literature, but the baffling Burmese art of spirit possession My friend Will and I have been staying in Mandalay, crossing the Irrawaddy river each day to the village of Mingan, home to an annual Nat, or spirit festival. You know Burma is Buddhist, our guide Tong Wen explains, But beyond Buddhism, they believe everything. The three of us are huddled with the disciples at the base of Nan Wen's deluxe lawn chair. When we give the medium a bottle of Mandalay rum, we are off to a rollicking start. The drink is a favorite of one gnat called gojija. He was a 12th century drunkard, cockfighter and all time party animal. Nanwin's task is to channel gojija and other spirits during the five day festivities. Nat worship, spelled N A T, is an animism that predates Buddhism and is inextricably linked to Burmese national identity. When a prohibition against Nat worship failed nearly 1,000 years ago, King Anurata of the Bagan dynasty designated a fixed pantheon of 37 NATs and placed them at the feet of Buddha, thus solving the problem of religious hierarchy. Nearly all of the 37 official Nats are historical figures who died a green death. That means they were young, cut down in their prime, and sometimes murdered by royal decree for subversive acts, such as failing to carry two bricks to help build a pagoda. As the sun sets over Mingan, the Gamelin orchestra begins gonging and click clacking on the stage opposite Nan Wen's camp. I asked the medium when he feels closest to the Nat spirit Kochi Ja. When he dances, he says he is sometimes close to the spirit, our guide translates. Other times he says he is closer to his own consciousness. Nan Win puts out his cigar at the clawed feet of a peacock ashtray and smiles broadly, revealing a nubby row of teeth stained blood red from betel nut. With this answer, the medium, paid in cash for his spirit channeling, has given himself ample wiggle room. We sit shoulder to shoulder on the small stage, packed in with about 70 Burmese, hemmed in by a wooden balustrade. I hug my knees to my chest to make way for Nanwin's ritual entrance. His satin headdress is the color of rubies, its material ruched and fanned at the top of his head like the shuddering splay of a peacock. As he begins to dance, attendants pass him a steady stream of beer, whiskey, roasted quail cigarettes. He tosses quail eggs to the crowd as one of his disciples kneels at his feet, spritzing him daintily from a bottle of perfume. As the musicians bring the melody to summon Gojija, the party knot, to fever pitch, a woman sitting next to me opens her handbag. Nunwin dances toward her, bowing his head as she stands up and lifts the loop of stitched together money from her purse. He drapes it across his chest as if it's the wide sash of a beauty queen. She whispers something and the medium appears to answer in tongues, rapidly moving his lips while his painted face remains fixed. As I watch them, I see in her hopeful face a longing for security and a stable future. In this country, which has faced so much uncertainty and flux, people yearn to know what lies ahead, and here they hope the spirits have the answers.
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Kim Filly ON Burma's SPIRIT Life First Bradley Wiggins triumphed in the Tour de France, then British cyclists took a haul of 12 medals at this summer's Olympics. Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy have helped turn cycling from a cheap way of getting from A to B in into a national obsession In London, the numbers of those cycling on public roads has increased by over 100% in the last decade. But despite improved bike lanes and safety campaigns, the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured on Britain's roads is still on the rise. Steve Evans was a regular bike rider in the UK and continued pedalling when he moved to Berlin. But he's found cycling around the German capital a far more relaxing experience.
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The Berlin bureau of the BBC is debating whether to buy a bike trailer to carry around our recording gear. We could get what's called an eco trailer for €39.99, but this just wouldn't be big enough. It's meant mainly for a box of organic vegetables or a heavier duty big Cargo trailer at €139.92, capable of carrying, so the maker says, a load of 100kg. Hard work over Berlin's cobbles, but still a money saver for the license payer. Berlin makes getting around on two wheels a pleasure. I have cycled in London, but gave it up after too many rants at white vans. But in Berlin, it is a joy. Firstly, the city's pretty flat, and secondly, there are endless cycle tracks. Thirdly, everybody has a bike. So car drivers are probably also cyclists in their other lives and so keep their eyes wide open. The test of whether cycling has really taken off in a city is who does it. In New York, it is urban warriors, young men usually, who zip aggressively between lanes. In London, it's a bit of that, but also, I suspect it's eco zealots who are asserting their credentials. Though the Boris bike scheme may be taking it more mainstream, in Berlin, it is the people. Old ladies cycle in stately and elegant fashion. Old men pedal so slowly that it's a wonder the bike doesn't fall over. Young mothers tow toddlers in trailers. I followed one this crisp autumn morning down Bernauerstrasse. The baby couldn't have been much more than a year old. Every time we all stopped at a red light, the infant in the trailer would whine a little. The mother would turn and comfort the baby, who would then stop crying as the bike and the buggy took off smoothly again. The rise of the bike follows a decision by the city Senate in 2005 to promote it. So Berlin now has about 400 miles, or 600 kilometers of bike lane. Woe betide any tourist who strays from the walking bit of the pavement to the red cycling bit. They are fair game. The city is also integrating bikes into the whole transport system. You can take a bike on a train or a tram, though you need a special ticket for the bike. The state railway, Deutsche Bahn operates what it calls, using the English that infuriates language purists, a call a bike scheme. You go to its banks of red bikes outside the station. On the bike there's a telephone number which you call, and the voice at the other end gives you a code to unlock the bike. When you've finished, you lock it to something fixed and call the number with a code and somebody picks it up. Your card will be charged and 8 cents a minute. But most of us have our own bikes. We do not wear helmets. It is foolish not to, but we don't. I always mean to, but I don't. I realise that the brain is man's second favourite organ, but still I leave my helmet behind. There is an argument now that if cities insist on helmets for bike hire schemes, then people simply don't ride bikes. And if people don't ride bikes, then they're less fit, and that means that more of them die of heart attacks. On this argument, insisting on helmets raises the overall death rate. I haven't ridden a bike in Melbourne, for example, though it's an Australian city I know well it has a bike hire scheme. But officialdom insists on helmets, with the result that few people ride bikes, or what they call their deadly Treadleys. What you really need to get people on a bike is a general atmosphere of safety and a tolerance of cyclists. And in Berlin, the authorities are benign. It's true there are regulations against cycling on the pavement, but I've been chided only once, and then by a member of the public and not the police. Penalties are usually imposed if someone is hurt. The rules say, with admirable German precision, that jumping a light that's been read for more than a second incurs a fine that deters all but the most reckless peddlers. Jumping a red light is clearly a bad idea. So is not wearing a helmet.
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Steve Evans with his guide to the etiquette of cycling in Berlin, bringing us to the end of this edition. Do join us on Saturday for more from our own correspondence.