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Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents and writers.

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From Our Own Correspondent: Afrikaans: The Language Which Still Divides

11/06/2022

Afrikaans: The Language Which Still Divides

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Afrikaans: The Language Which Still Divides

Why South Africans are outraged at a plane passenger test in the Afrikaans language.

Why Afrikaans is still divisive, a new exodus from Cuba, and a journalist's first experience of war. Also, France and its 'amateur' MPs, and the nomadic way of life under threat.

Passengers travelling with Ryanair to the UK on a South African passport are being asked to complete a test to prove their nationality. The airline says this necessary to combat a substantial increase in fake South African passports - an airline found to have taken a passenger to the UK on a fake passport can face a fine of £2,000. However, the required test is in Afrikaans, which has outraged many South Africans who view it as the language of apartheid. Audrey Brown is one of them, and explains why.

More than 100,000 Cubans have fled the island this year - the biggest surge since1980. Some have set off on the tested route towards Florida in small boats, but others are taking detours via other Latin American countries. So why this sudden exodus? Will Grant has been talking to Cubans about their new desperation to leave.

When BBC producer Mat Morrison was sent to Dnipro in Ukraine, it was his first experience of reporting in a country at war. Slowly, he says, he has learned how to recognise the sound of missile attacks, and what to do when they land nearby. 

When he first stood for election, Emmanuel Macron promised to shake up French politics. One way he proposed to do this was by radically changing the make-up of parliament, encouraging people from all kinds of social and professional backgrounds to stand as MPs. Five years later, and the French people are returning to the polls, to vote for a new parliament. As Lucy Williamson reports, some of the political neophytes from the previous contest are now feeling rather jaded.

The nomad's way of life is under threat. Peoples who have been on the move for millennia are increasingly being told by governments to give up their wandering and settle. Anthony Sattin has spent the past few years with nomads in different parts of the globe, including a group of shepherds, based in a small corner of the Middle East.

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Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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