EU El Dorado

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Louise

It was back in 2007 or 2008, I got a one-way ticket to Accra and slowly made my way to Dakar in Senegal where I started recording for a radio programme about fishermen squeezed out of business by European trawlers, who decided to set sail for the European shores of the Canary Islands, a perilous journey.

I travelled the road up along the coast of Senegal, into the desert of Mauritania, all the way up to Noudhibou and then across to the Canary Islands on a small plane. The programme got a nomination (but no award) from One World Media, it’s in two parts.

Threshold

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Louise

I’m quite close to finishing up my course, it’s been a tough few months at the books, I’m studying for an LLM in Human Rights and Transitional Justice. Dark winter nights and early mornings spent commuting to Belfast, squinting at law books, juggling lousy finances, grappling with this new language of human rights.

Every now and then though, an insight, an idea grabs me and doesn’t let me go. I expected to have my brain prised open by my course but it’s been affected a lot more than my brain – I’ve shifted internally during this past year, these studies have changed me, my understanding of the world, the place I want to take in it. It’s been very exciting and I feel really grateful.

It’s not over yet but the end is in sight, just two more essays and a thesis, then I’m finished, at the end of August.

So what next, who will reward me for these hard-fought skills? I’m ready, I’m ready for a new phase. I’ve been a journalist for about 15 years, I’ve loved it, I still do. But I want something more, I want to move beyond the role of storyteller, observer. But where will I end up?

Swastikas in Tuscany

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Louise

I’m on the wireless this weekend, talking about how swastikas have come to haunt Lucca. My report starts at 11.11 if you click here. I was there on a wee break, while I was visiting, the office for a fascist candidate had its door smashed with a passing brick. The office is all of 3 doors from my family’s front door. I heard nothing that night but as I was leaving my house the next morning I saw their man stringing together a few words for local tv. Note the bushy ‘tache.

I couldn’t work out the origin of his party’s name ‘Casa Pound’ at first. It turns out they’re inspired by Ezra Pound and Mussolini. Their leader is a laconic punk rocker who apparently dabbled in journalism *I spit in disgust*.

While I saw swastikas in picturesque Lucca, I did hear lots of opposition to these guys too – they’re a really unpleasant bunch of disaffected youth, mostly young men with some craze for, literally, whipping themselves into a frenzy by taking off their belts and whipping themselves. Local elections are in early May in Lucca, they’re trying to make an inroads – not everyone is welcoming them to the city – ‘feccia’ means scum in Italian.

Italians are so good at ‘fare bella figura’ going about life looking at each others’ clothes and eating exquisite food. But under this appealing surface, there’s a nasty undercurrent trying to feed off the pain of the austerity measures that have been brought in. The house where we have our apartment is still a bastion of sense – our upstairs neighbour has hung out a bright orange flag from her shutters which proclaims the whole house’s support for the union representative for mayor in Lucca. Forza Tambellini!