SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (XI)

… Well, not yet. Hillary is still widely predicted to win the next two scheduled primaries. But... that’s about it.

[And, evoking Mothers’ Day, here’s how he answered when asked, in specific reference to this cover, during this interview, how he thinks his mother, if alive, would react to where he got now: “she would just say ‘don’t let it go to your head, just keep on working hard”…]

Now, apart from the obvious reason of this cover, what made me retake this series after a while was the interesting fact that, for the first time in this race, I actually heard someone in the mainstream media (or on any other media for that matter) referring to it as “The Mother of All Battles”! And, not only that, it was within a poem… by ‘BBC World News America’ anchor Matt Frei, on the BBC2 ‘This Week’ show of 24/04/08. Unfortunately, so far I couldn’t get the video of that show (it doesn’t seem to be available online any longer) or a transcript of the poem, but I had to mention it…

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TIBET

Two days ago, I stayed up late into the night watching an episode of a new BBC documentary series, “A Year In Tibet” , whose advert, featuring an excerpt from the song “Ordinary People” by John Legend, I had been seeing in the last few days.

According to its producers, “the documentary follows a calendar year inside the secret confines of a Tibetan monastery and charts the lives of those living in Gyanste, the small town which surrounds it and surrounding villages. The series examines the reality of life today for Tibetans living under Chinese rule. The filming crew has gained unparalleled access to one of the most isolated and spiritual parts of the world and their cameras were the first ever allowed to follow members of the community, offering the Western audience a rare insight into their lives, religion, servitude and family.”

Yesterday, as I started following reports of the protests in Lhasa and other locations in Tibet and India, all I could think of was whether the people – the woman and her three husbands who, after being refused a state student loan, partly thanks to the year’s bumper crop of barley still managed to make their son the first person from Gyanste to be sent to a University in “China proper”; the young 11-year old student monk who, during his home holiday, finally learns to drive his father’s tractor, having crashed it on his first go; the mother who could only smile at her daughter’s uncontrollable crying all the way to her new husband parent’s home for a wedding she was not supposed to know anything about beforehand; the monks who had a special day out to indulge in gambling, a little beer and bathing in the river - all those ordinary people, part of whose lives I had followed in the previous day, could have been involved in the protests, or victimised by the brutal repression that ensued.

Is any of them in these pictures?

Could any of them be among the now dead?

Is any of them dreaming about this year’s Olympic Games?

Is any of them praying for next year’s crop?

"SAO PAULO FASHION WEEK GREAT FOR WHITE GIRLS"

That’s how the blog ‘Gridskipper’ echoes a BBC report on alleged racism at that fashion event in Brazil.

According to the report, Helder Dias, the owner of one agency that promotes the work of black models says slavery may have been abolished long ago in Brazil but the shadow is lengthy. "It is like abolition never existed. It is a facade and the history continues. The black models can't get jobs and have no access, don't have a good distribution of money or earnings and live in a sub-world, because there are no job opportunities," he said.

"I think this reflects Brazil's social exclusion," says Paulo Borges, the man behind Sao Paulo Fashion Week. "I think fashion works with a wide range of profiles and a wide range of aesthetic qualities. There are several black models who do shows, and there aren't more because I believe the history of the black race in Brazil is still about having little access."

The report concludes that "there seems little doubt that the major fashion weeks here have brought some distinctive Brazilian flair and excitement to the industry. But it appears those who want to see the public face of fashion here truly reflect the diversity of this society may have to wait some time."

LOCAL VOICES OFFLINE (3)

Things someone, somewhere in the world, was talking about but you probably weren’t listening…

I found this speech particularly interesting for what it has to say about the deterioration of the situation in Zimbabwe since its independence.
The speaker, Jeremy Thorpe, addresses the situation in then Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) at the time. He directs his ‘punches’ at the “internal government” then headed by Ian Smith, who once famously said "I don't believe in black majority rule over Rhodesia, not in a thousand years." It should be noted in passing that Smith has recently passed away and has been hailed in some circles of the blogosphere as a “African Hero”.

The talks Thorpe refers to eventually led to the ‘Lancaster House Agreement’ and Zimbabwe’s independence. Retrospectively, it may be said that there was a formal agreement but no implementation of it, in such a way that, paraphrasing his speech, “there was no delivery of the goods agreed to at Lancaster House and the life of the average African has only altered for the worse”…

Taking this speech somewhat out of context, one might suggest, in relation to the current negotiations on the EU-Africa EPAs, that “they have got now to generate such activity towards genuine partnership they will begin to not only astonish the world but, in particular, they will astonish the African population within Africa itself”…

Thorpe’s Last Stand

JEREMY THORPE was forced to resign the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1976, and survived scandal and a major trial for incitement and conspiracy to murder. He lost his North Devon seat in 1979. This is possibly his last major speech in the Commons, where he once had a reputation as a sparkling wit, well informed and fluent. He spoke in a debate on Rhodesia, which was still in turmoil, as MPs sought ways to end the fighting. (2/8/78)

LOCAL VOICES OFFLINE (1)

Things someone, somewhere in the world, was talking about but you probably weren’t listening…


GREAT PARLIAMENTARY SPEECHES

"It took a long time to broadcast the British Parliament. It was one of the last in the Western world to agree to it. And that was after a long series of votes, narrow majorities against, and limited experiments in the Sixties and Seventies.

But it wasn’t for want of trying. Almost as soon as the BBC was founded questions were asked in Parliament. In 1923 the Prime Minister Mr. Bonar Law said that it would be “undesirable” – and that continued to be the official view till well after the Second World War. In the same year, with remarkable prescience, the first issue of the “Radio Times” began on its front page: “When WE broadcast Parliament – and it’s bound to happen this century or the next…”. Even at that time, ‘Popular Wireless’ was making jokes about it. But despite the continuous pressure from Sir John Reith, politicians remained hostile to radio. “The Week in Westminster” was founded in 1929, as an attempt to bring Parliament to the housewife, if microphones were barred in the House.

Throughout the Thirties the BBC was not permitted a permanent representative in the Press Gallery – that only came in 1945, with the start of “Today in Parliament”. Clement Attlee had written a dissenting note to the Ullswater Report of 1935, - which modestly recommended allowing a BBC reporter access to the Gallery to report debates, - on the grounds that he could not be objective. Direct broadcasting of Parliament, said the report, was “impracticable”.

Winston Churchill took a different view. He tried to get microphones installed so that an “electrical recording” could be made of his speech on a Vote of Confidence in January 1942 – he persuaded the War Cabinet, but not the House."

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First Day

At the end of Question Time on the first day the Commons was broadcast, the Speaker, GEORGE THOMAS, had a humorous comment in reply to a point of Order from JULIAN RIDSDALE, (Con., Harwich). The first MP to speak on the air, after the Speaker, was John Morris, Welsh Secretary, answering Welsh questions. (3/4/78)

“Turkeys voting for Christmas”

March 28th, 1979 was a fateful day for the Labour government – the Lib-Lab pact had collapsed, the Nationalists had turned on Labour after the failure of its devolution bills, and a few crucial Ulster votes could not be guaranteed. At ten o’clock, the vote (of confidence) was taken, the government lost by one, and the Prime Minister, JAMES CALLAGHAN, was forced to call an election. Labour were out of power throughout the Eighties. Opening the debate, Callaghan derided the Liberals for “spinning like a top” over talks on devolution, and the SNP for destroying their own future. (28/3/79)