← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Watching the World Cup in the Woods
00:28:09
We join the German football fans watching the world cup in the middle of a forest.
Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
A
You have downloaded from our own correspondent. This edition is the latest one broadcast on BBC Radio 4. And here to introduce it is Kate Ady.
- [00:09]
B
Hello. Today, corruption in China runs deep. And so does the campaign to stop it. The police force, which is the butt of Italian jokes, celebrates its 200th birthday. Our man in Berlin ventures deep into the woods to watch the World Cup. And what's the foreign influence making the French language sound more fancy? Here's a clue. It's not English. High profile cases of corruption have been hitting the headlines in China recently. Among the companies caught up in the latest allegations of bribery is the global healthcare giant GlaxoSmithKline, with two of its British managers recently arrested and whisked off into the labyrinthine Chinese justice system. But this latest anti graft initiative is not just aimed at big business. The Communist Party leadership has also shown it is prepared to turn the spotlight on itself. Nobody, it seems, is immune from investigation. But if China's leaders are really serious about stamping out bribes and backhanders, they have a massive task on their hands. As Martin Patience reports, it's a culture which is still deeply ingrained in Chinese society.
- [01:22]
C
Barely a day goes by in China without news of yet another senior official sacked for corruption. Since he began taking up the reins of power almost two years ago, President Xi Jinping has made fighting corruption his administration's top priority. He stresses that unless the Communist Party cleans up its act, then its very existence is at stake. In colorful language, he has promised to go after the flies, low level officials, and the tiger's top leaders who are engaged in the practice. And it's clear some are pretty shameless. One military commander was caught with so much bounty stashed at his home that it took four military trucks to haul it all away. Among the confiscated items was a solid gold statue of Chairman Mao. Another official managed to amass a property portfolio of more than 30 flats. All of this on a government salary. And yet another had the time and the money to apparently entertain an astonishing 46 mistresses. That's just a sampling of the tales we have heard about. Despite all the headlines, President Xi is yet to bag a big political beast. But now there is growing speculation that a former top leader may be charged. Zhou Yong Kan was once a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the civil member body that effectively runs China. If he is charged, it would send a clear signal that absolutely no one, no matter how senior, is safe. But while some see an honest crusade against corruption, others sense a strong political motive. Behind this campaign, accusing a rival of corruption is a smart and efficient way of getting them out of the door and in turn consolidating your own power. With corruption part and parcel of life in China, the question often isn't who's dirty, it's whom should we target? The truth is that the motive for this campaign is probably a mixed bag. What's clear though, is that it's making big waves. It's been seen as the toughest crackdown on official corruption for several decades. In China, a country long used to toothless campaigns, reports suggest that officials carrying out the investigations are exhausted by their workloads. A bit of propaganda perhaps, but. But it does appear they've never been busier. What I found striking about corruption in China is just how ingrained it is in daily life. When it comes to government services, members of the public are expected to pay through the nose. In Beijing, for example, Chinese parents need to make what are called donations to get their children into the best schools. These donations are in fact bribes, as the schools are state run, are supposed to be free. But many parents simply see these bribes as fees and cough up the cash, saying they've got no choice. The same goes at government hospitals. If you want to see the best doctor or get the best bed, then there's a good chance you'll have to grease the right palms. Unsurprisingly, then, President Xi's anti corruption campaign has strong support from the public. But critics say that it's doomed to fail. But because the problem here is so deep rooted. I remember one friend telling me about a relative who worked in the Customs department where kickbacks are the norm. She told me that he wanted to be clean, but it was proving tough. Why? I asked. Well, she said, if someone is honest and everyone else is dirty, then he's a danger. He may report on the others. What happens then? She looked at me and smiled. The clean ones, she said, get accused of corruption. But this isn't the only example of people trying to make a difference. A group of anti corruption campaigners staged a series of small protests, calling on top officials to reveal their assets. In the spirit of fighting corruption, you might have thought their actions would be welcomed. You'd be mistaken. Several of them were detained, tried and then put in jail. So locking up anti corruption activists and then in the same breath, declaring an all out war on corruption could be seen as the unofficial mantra of this campaign. The ruling Communist Party knows that it must tackle this issue to win back public trust. But as it's shown, it will do so on its own terms, fearful that its anti corruption campaign could spiral out of control.
- [05:57]
B
Martin Patience in Beijing in the east of Mexico is the state of Veracruz, an area which has traditionally proved popular with tourists, its towns and villages thronged with workers from the lucrative coffee, sugar cane and oil industries too. Today, however, the region is at the centre of a territorial dispute between the feared Zetas criminal organization and their one time paymasters, the Gulf Cartel. Although people don't like to talk about it, a culture of silence exists when it comes to the violence in Vera Cruz. With journalists self censoring and locals wary of speaking out of turn. It's hardly a welcoming place, as Will Grant discovered when he travelled to the state.
- [06:42]
D
Dear guest, in the case of an attempted extortion, you hang up immediately, inform reception, report the incident on the following not the most reassuring message to find in your hotel room and certainly not conducive to a relaxing night's sleep, but a lot of journalists find it difficult to sleep soundly in Veracruz. Since the current administration took office in 2010, a dozen reporters and photographers have been killed in the eastern state, more than in any other part of Mexico. Two cases particularly stand out Regina Martinez, a veteran crime reporter for the Mexican Weekly Processor, who was bludgeoned to death in her home in 2012 and more recently, Gregorio Jimenez, also a crime reporter whose tortured body turned up earlier this year in a shallow grave in the town of Las Choapas next to their grisly ends. An attempt at extortion by telephone seems little to worry about, particularly in the case of Gregorio Jimenez. The authorities initially suggested that the killing was not related to his journalism, was instead the result of a personal vendetta. But considering he'd been writing about a series of kidnappings in the area, that that didn't seem to add up to his colleagues. Things not adding up, not being quite what they seem, unfortunately, that has come to characterise Veracruz recently, a state which should be better known for its rolling countryside, sugarcane plantations and coffee production, its once thriving fishing industry and rich coastlines, its bustling colonial cities like Jalapa and Cordoba. But there is a pervasive sense of discomfort in Veracruz that is hard to ignore, particularly when you ask about things which people would rather not speak of. The recent events in the town of Tres Valles, for example. Last month a mass grave was found at a ranch called el Diamante, with 31 bodies inside. Local rumors suggest 10 more were exhumed that haven't been publicly acknowledged in the sleepy main plaza in Tres Valles under the soporific midday sun, such talk is limited to whispers and furtive chats in hushed tones. Little wonder, when you consider the people who carried out such an atrocity are probably still in the small town, now, catapulted from obscurity to the latest battlefield in the endless fight for supremacy between rival drug cartels. Outwardly, life in the town continues pretty much as normal, with no obvious sign of anything untoward, much less that more than 30 people were slaughtered, then dumped within walking distance of the picturesque church. No TV crews, no satellite trucks, no live link ups to the outside world. Yet you still know you're being watched. I'll be honest, I'm afraid, our contact in the region told us as he got into our hire car. His eyes widening, he explained how many local journalists had abandoned reporting crime altogether after receiving thinly veiled threats from one gang or the other, opting to cover music or culture stories instead. I'd love to be able to talk about what I know, he reiterated, but it's just not worth the risk. Indeed, it's not. Down an unpaved road in Tres Valles, we met Doa Alberta Dias, a woman whose life certainly hasn't continued as normal since the mass grave was uncovered. The bodies of five members of her family were in there, her daughter and four of her grandchildren, the youngest of whom was just 15. Doa Berta's home, a wooden shack surrounded by banana trees and sugar cane, is as poor a place as I've seen in Mexico. It has no running water and is illegally hooked up to the electrical grid by wires that dangle over our heads. Her barefoot grandchildren are playing on the dirt floor as we talk. All five coffins were laid out here until just a few days ago, she explains, motioning to where I'm sitting. She'd feared for her life during the wake, knowing that the cartels sometimes exact their revenge on the extended family as they mourn. The public security secretary in Veracruz said that the victims found in the mass grave weren't decent people, I say cautiously. With a resigned nod, Doa Berta acknowledges her daughter's alleged role in Mexico's criminal underworld. I never knew anything about what they did, she begins, before adding, but I imagine this is what happens to people involved in such things, her voice barely audible. As we leave Dona Berta's home, a group of men in civilian clothes and dark glasses suddenly appear, carrying automatic rifles. Fortunately, our worst fears were quickly allayed. We're from the state attorney's office, the boss explained, carrying an official looking piece of paper. We're here to protect her. Nodding towards Doa Berta, who didn't move from her chair. Still, though, we left the town shortly afterwards, after all, not everyone in Veracruz is exactly who they seem will grant.
- [11:30]
B
In eastern Mexico, the Italians, it seems, love a man in uniform. It was, of course, a big part of the macho cult of personality created by Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, his followers too, clad in their now infamous black shirts. But today, most of the men and women seen in uniform on Italy's streets are likely to be working for one of the country's multiple law enforcement agencies, be they from the National Forestry Department or the Guardia di Financa, those working for the Finance Ministry. And this weekend, the country's oldest police force, the carabinieri, celebrates its 200th anniversary. Danny Mitzman charts their curious place in Italian popular culture.
- [12:16]
E
I've always been puzzled by the fact that Italy has two police forces, although Italians don't seem to find it strange at all. If you ask why two, by way of unsatisfactory explanation, they'll tell you the policia are the regular state police, while the carabinieri are part of the army. The real reason is a quirk of history. The carabinieri are actually older than Italy itself. Their force was founded almost half a century before the unification by Victor Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia. Their name comes from the carabine, the rifle they traditionally carried among the famous people they've arrested over the past two centuries. They can even boast one of Italy's founding fathers, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Twice when Italy was unified, the Royal Corps of Carabinieri remained a nationwide military presence, performing law enforcement duties, so in many ways functioning as a duplicate police force. In fact, you're just as likely to hear an Italian threatened to call the Carabinieri as the Polizia. For one, you dial 112, for the other 113. But most Italians I've challenged don't know which is which, even though it says 112 on the side of the Carabinieri's cars. And just like the police, they're loved and loathed, hailed for acts of courage, condemned for excessive violence. But the one thing they're best known for is being the national butt of politically incorrect jokes. Where the English feature an Irishman, the Italians have a carabiniere, regularly lampooned in films and on tv. Their archive of historical regulations doesn't help shake the comic image. For example, their strict moustache, beard and sideburn protocol went from none to some to facial bush is fine as long as it's trimmed at a certain point. There was one directive allowing only the highest ranks to sport moustaches and another banning them altogether. Some might call that carabiniere logic. Joking aside, it's historically been a lonely career for two reasons. Carabinieri weren't allowed to serve in their home region and were subject to very restrictive rules regarding marriage. Even today, echoes of those old regulations still exist. They can't return to work in their region of origin until they've served for at least eight years. That's why on long distance train routes, you'll so often find yourself sharing a carriage with a young off duty carabiniere going home or returning from leave. In the sleepy satellite town of Pianuro, near Bologna, my local carabinieri are a friendly bunch. One of them, who prefers not to be named, talks enthusiastically about the job. He always wanted to be a carabiniere and points proudly at the little stars on his collar. The police don't have these because they're a civil service. We're a military corps. We have a very different kind of training. I ask him what's different, and he explains that it's all in their relationship with the citizens. Even in the smallest mountain and rural communities, he boasts, you'll find one of our stations. I know from his accent that he's not from the north. I tell him I've never met a carabiniere who wasn't from the south. He nods. It's true. Most of us are. I'd say about 70% of the entire force. Not just the south. Four regions in Sicily, Campania, Calabria and Puglia. At this station, all of us but one are from Campania. He says it's no coincidence that so many carabinieri come from precisely the same four regions as Italy's four major mafia organizations. There are two reasons why you become a carabiniere, he tells me. The main one is a sense of justice and rivalsa retaliation or payback. When you grow up in that environment, he explains, you have to choose sides. Becoming a carabiniere is like making a statement to say, I choose legality. The second reason is simply that it's a profession which gives you job security. The hardest thing, he admits, is being so far away from your family and your land. But he says it's worth it. I've been in the force for 17 years and yes, I'd like to be transferred back down one day, but I'm happy here for now.
- [16:59]
B
Danny Mitzman there. Here in the uk, the ability to speak plain English is often seen as an asset, especially if you're a politician or a journalist. Even in France, however, perhaps unsurprisingly, they aspire to something more sophisticated, with the media and political leaders alike behaving in a decidedly more highbrow manner. As Hugh Scofield has discovered, simple common sense layman's terms have been discarded in favour of far more grand Latin phrases.
- [17:31]
F
One of the many phrases that they don't teach you at school, but which you're going to have to master when you come to live in France, concerns the capital, Paris. As is commonly known, Paris is surrounded by a motorway ring road, the perife. Everything inside the perife is Paris proper, department number 75. Everything outside the perif, though separated by just a few yards of pavement, is suburb. The dreaded banlieues. Department numbers 92, 93, 94. The phrase used to denote this distinction is the glorious Latin expression intramuros, or to say it the French way, intramurus, that is, within the walls. There are no Paris walls, of course, just imaginary walls in people's heads. But the phrase captures that weird snobbery that still seems to separate the capital's lucky insiders from their benighted neighbours across the periphes. Coming across an expression like intramuros on the radio or the television is puzzling at first, but then you quickly start hearing other Latinisms that have crept into intermediate French. No discussion of the health system, for example, is complete without mention of the numerus clausus. No one ever explains what it means, of course, so you end up having to figure it out for yourself. It refers to the official limit put on the number of doctors who can be admitted for training every year, seen by some as a prime cause of understaffing in hospitals. Numerous clausus means closed number. The longer I lived in France, the more I noticed how these little Latin tags are being dropped into public discourse. Not or less so in ordinary conversation, but by journalists, politicians, administrators. Just yesterday, a man on the radio was making a point about the political parties. Such a thing was true of one party, he said, idem for the other. Idem is Latin for the same. Journalists sometimes even write, rather pretentiously, dixit for he or she said, and asking a rhetorical question, they'll start quid of this or that notion, meaning what to make of it. When President Holorne sends troops to Mali, he's acting manu militari with the hand of force. Incidentally, manu militari is also the name of a French language rapper from Quebec. And if the writer means what he says quite literally, he'll add stricto sensu in the strict sense. Other Latinisms are more colloquial. Lots of people say grosso modo, meaning roughly speaking, and a quip pro quo does not mean an exchange or a tit for tat, but a case of mistaken identity. If you come equal in a race or a competition, you are ex aikuo. And in France, Willy Nilly hasn't changed as the English has from the Latin original. It's still volens nolens, whether you like it or not. So what I hear you say in English, we have lots of Latin expressions. Habeas corpus, cui bono, primus interpares. What's the difference? Well, I think the big difference is that, at least in public life, France continues to make far more use than we do of these classical imports. Latin and Greekisms haven't been phased out here as they're being in the uk. It's in the interests of intelligibility. If a British journalist, for example, used an expression like mutatis mutandis, those things which must be changed, having been changed, he or she would be drummed out of the newsroom to a CD of the voice of John Humphreys, intoning, like a Welsh prophet on the evils of ostentation, or at least be given immediate leave of absence to take a course in how to write plain English. The French reporter would probably get a pat on the back for showing how clever they were. It's an ironic difference in culture in Britain, with its historic class divisions. We used to think that knowing the classics was a hallmark of superiority, but now we're obsessed about being intelligible to every man, so we simplify, even if it means saying goodbye to some rather lovely Latin expressions. In France, with its republican egalitarianism, the theory is that every man has been to the same schools as every other man and no one has had a privileged education. So using fancy classical language is simply making use of the linguistic canon and hang it. If, in fact, half the population has no idea that quodirat demonstrandum means, well, I think I've made my point.
- [22:13]
B
Hugh Scofield in Paris. After their 71 drubbing of Brazil earlier in the week, Germany are now favourites to lift the World cup on Sunday. Throughout the tournament, they've been championed for their sterling teamwork and not just relying on the efforts of a solo superstar. Like so many other teams, so very German, Germany is also in with a chance of winning the tournament's Fair Play award in recognition of good sportsmanship. But as Steve Evans has found out, that side of the game is perhaps not such a long standing German footballing tradition. Especially back in the days when Berlin was a divided city.
- [22:52]
A
In the old East Germany, the spooks used to have their own football team. And not just any old football team, but the best. How could it be anything else since its biggest fan was the head of the Stasi who decreed that the best of the rest should be transferred to his favourite side. BFC Dinamo Berliner fussball club Dinamo. You see, clubs in the old East Germany were often work sides. FC Karl Zeiss Jena was the club of the Karl Zeiss lens manufacturer in Jena. Clubs with for Vertz in the title forward, as in Vorwaertz Leipzig were usually army sides. Dinamo Dynamo signified a police side and BFC Dinamo was the club of the Stasi. Its biggest fan was Erich Mielke, the Minister for state security, that is the Stasi for more than 30 years, until East Germany collapsed. Mielke's hands were drenched in blood. He'd actually pulled the trigger in a political killing in 1931, for which he was jailed. Once the Berlin Wall came down in the 30s, he fled to the Soviet Union where he became one of Stalin's henchmen in the murderous purges after the Second World War he was reintroduced to East Germany as head of security and Stalin's hard man. Milke loved Berlin Dinamo. The Stasi archives have pictures of him smiling starstruck next to its players. The players smile back, though I think nervously, as you would if your biggest fan has the keys to the torture chambers and a finger on all the triggers. In 1954, Mielke decreed that Dinamo Dresden's players should be transferred to the newly formed Dinamo Berlin. The Dresden Stasi team became Berlin's Stasi team, Mielke's Stasi team. This was double edged. Being the chosen players of the head of the Stasi gave you favours. But it could also mean that the opposition wanted to give you a good clogging. And the opposing fans could also be hostile. One of my East German friends tells me that the chant was wir wollenkanner Stasi Schweine. We want no Stasi swine. In one game, benches were ripped out and the Dinamo Berlin stadium trashed. Since German unification post Stasi Berlin Dinamo has languished, playing in the lower reaches of the league. But its big Berlin rival is thriving FC Union Berlin Eisen Union or Iron Union, as it's sometimes called, is still going strong and getting stronger. It is like no other club, if only because its sizeable stadium for 21,700 people is deep in the woods. To get to what's called the stadium by the old forester's house, you trek through the trees and suddenly there it is, like a spaceship landed in a clearing. Getting there is a challenge, particularly if you're carrying a sofa, which 750 people have now done for the World Cup. The club came up with the brilliant idea of inviting fans to take their own sofas to the ground and turning the stadium into a woorn zimmer, a living room for the whole of the World Cup. And that's what the fans have done, hauling those sofas through the woods and placing them on the pitch in rows in in front of the big screen. I watched Thursday's semi final there, and it was magical. Soft lights on lounge tables in the open air in the forest and hundreds of fans sinking into sofas. Couples snuggling, but not quite snogging, and children and men with tattoos and kindly older ladies who walked over to say Guten Tag to me. I, a stranger, and an atmosphere warmed by sausage and beer and thick cabbage and pork stew. Union Berlin is in the second division of the Bundesliga and the fans are happy with that. Some were worried that they might get promoted and what would happen to the atmosphere then? The club scarf remains the favored adornment. The overpriced replica jersey remains rare. But they're not against change, not quite. There are now 3,800 seats at the ground, as against nearly 18,000 standing places on the other three sides, which remain as terracing. When they built the new fangled seating extension, the fans did it themselves. Their money, their muscle. The people who built the club that beat the Stasi team will be watching the World cup final on Sunday from the sofas they brought themselves. They will have beer and they will have sausage. It doesn't get much better.
- [27:53]
B
Steve Evans in Berlin. And we hope you enjoy tomorrow's game too. Wherever you're watching it, or avoiding it, whichever the case may be, that's it. You can hear more stories from correspondence far and wide next Thursday and Saturday. Do please join us then. Goodbye.