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Private Notes
Franklin lives in a children's home in Germany. His parents live in Sri Lanka. He is just one of the thousands of child refugees who have been sent, alone and bewildered, to claim asylum in Europe. Everyman explores the fear that makes parents send their children thousands of miles away from home with little hope of seeing them again. It exposes the world of forgers and smugglers that they are forced to enter in order to get their children out of danger, and examines the prospects for the children as they adjust to their new life in Europe.
Should the Government allow state funding for Muslim schools, as it already does for Christian and Jewish schools?
As the Education Secretary, John MacGregor , decides an issue which many see as a test of our commitment to a multi-faith society, Everyman reports from schools in Bradford and London, including a Church of England primary school where 95 per cent of the pupils are Muslim. Is Muslim pressure for separate schooling the start of educational apartheid, as some fear? Or do Muslim parents have the right - as Christian and Jewish parents do - to choose their own type of education within the state system?
This week, 150 years ago,
Britain signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Maori chiefs, and the new colony of New
Zealand was founded. In this anniversary year, many Maori people are angry. They feel the rights guaranteed them by the Treaty have been ignored, and that this is no time for celebration. To throw light on the current tensions, two young New Zealanders retrace their family stories.
Charles Royal is a Maori, John McDonald is from a white settler family. Their findings reveal two very different views of history and of their land, and point to the difficulties ahead for this
'troubled paradise'.
Within two years of parents divorcing, about half the fathers involved lose contact with their children. Everyman provides a personal insight into that frightening statistic through the eyes of five men who have struggled with different experiences of keeping, or losing, the link with their children.
On 2 September 1989, 150lbs of dynamite exploded at the headquarters of El Espectador, one of the largest national daily newspapers in Colombia. The next day the paper was published as normal - with the defiant headline: 'Nothing Will Stop Us!' The bomb was the most recent act of terrorism against El Espectador. The newspaper's crime? It dared to speak out against Colombia's drug barons. Everyman spent two weeks following El Espectador 's journalists.
Anthony Lennon was bom in Kilburn, west London. His parents both come from Ireland and are both indisputably white. Yet Anthony now earns his living as a black actor, because ever since he was a child he has looked black. When his friends, who are mostly black, find out about his background, fierce debates invariably follow; about whether Anthony really can call himself black, and about what black skin means to those who are born black.
Chilling Out reproduces just such a set of conversations - funny, challenging, sometimes angry conversations, rarely heard by white people in Britain.
David Jenkins is the Church of England's most controversial bishop.
Before he was appointed Bishop of Durham, while walking on Holy Island,
Northumberland, he saw a playing card lying face down. Before he picked it up he knew what it would be - the Joker. He remembers thinking, 'I bet God's playing a trick on me!'
Tonight he reflects on the questions and criticisms that he has provoked and, in the light of the Easter story, on his personal beliefs. 'What it comes down to is that I simply believe in God. I believe that there is a presence who is basically infinitely worthwhile and deeply caring.'
Social worker
Martin Ruddock talks about his feelings of guilt on hearing that Kimberley Carlile , a 4-year-old in his care, had been brutally tortured and murdered by her stepfather. Jenni Murray meets four people who have inadvertently caused tragedy. Through a misjudgment at work, a lapse of concentration, taking a chance or just plain bad luck, it could happen to any of us.
On 24 May 1989, French police arrived at the Priory of St Joseph's in Nice to arrest France's most wanted war criminal, Paul Touvier. The first Frenchman to be charged with crimes against humanity, Touvier now faces trial. Many were involved in his protection since the war: politicians, police, and above all the Church. Every man examines the extraordinary career of a man who has forced the French to confront a past many of them would rather forget.
Psychologist James Thompson believes that by expecting soldiers to do our dirty work, we put them in an impossible situation. He knows the effect it can have on professionals trained to kill. Some hate it, some become addicted, but every soldier is affected. How do squaddies in the front lines live with these conflicting moral standards? Three ex-soldiers in the British army talk about the impact of fighting and killing.
Hell stands for that aspect of reality which we can't cope with and can't master, and which is horrifying and frightening to us ...
Rowan Williams
From the second century to the 19th, terrible sadomasochistic images have haunted the Christian tradition, far beyond anything described in the New Testament. Something in the human psyche seems to be drawn to dark and vengeful images. This unusual film explores our preoccupation with the 'nether regions' and goes on to discover what has happened to hell in the 20th century.
Will the March Go On? Ethiopia could be the breadbasket of Africa, instead of the basket case!
Ethiopian scientist
Michael Buerk takes up the issues raised earlier in the evening by The March.
Every month 5,000 Africans arrive by boat at the Sicilian port of Trapani, hoping to make a living in Europe. They are just part of the current migration from Africa caused by the desperate conditions back home. More than a million have come to Italy alone.
Africans from nine different countries - grass-root voices and policy-makers alike - give their views on what can be done to alleviate conditions and develop the rich resources of their continent. They focus on the unequal relationship between Africa and Europe and challenge Europeans to do something about it.
Amid the furore over
Salman Rushdie 's novel The Satanic Verses, an unusual experiment takes place. Eight people with opposing views are invited to share a remote house for four days.
There are three devout
Muslims, two 'liberal' Muslims, a Christian businessman, a female deacon in the Church of England and a bookseller who have to find ways to live together. Words are exchanged in anger, sorrow, love and understanding with some surprising results.
A fusion of drama and documentary written and performed by Nabil Shaban (star of last year's Royal Court Theatre production of Iranian Nights) with Tina Leslie. 'Why me? Was my soul especially wicked that I should incur a greater curse? Do I want a miracle?' A young disabled pilgrim to Lourdes confronts her inner torments about the 'miracle' which might make her 'whole' and thus 'good'. Her guide is a Victorian magic lanternist who has strayed into the 20th century to ask some uncomfortable questions about the nature of miracles, and about how the Christian church has treated disability.
How bad does someone have to be to deserve to die? In California, the members of a jury who convict a murderer have to make that decision. Casey Cohen is an investigator who works for the defence on such trials. A Life on Trial retraces one of Casey's most difficult cases: that of Richard Ford, Los Angeles policeman-turned-contract killer.
Detroit, 1982: a young Chinese auto-worker is beaten to death with a baseball bat outside a nightclub. A barroom brawl which got out of hand, or a racist killing born out of hatred for the Japanese car industry that seemed to-be squeezing the lifeblood out of Detroit? This film follows one family's quest to win justice for a dead son.
Going Home Pedro and Blanca are 9-year-old twins from Colombia. At the age of 6 months they were adopted by a couple from Norwich and came to live in England. Now the twins have returned to Colombia and are going in search of their roots.
How bad does someone have to be to deserve to die? In California, the members of a jury who convict a first-degree murderer have to make that decision. Casey Cohen is a private investigator who works for the defence on such trials. His brief is to prepare a picture of the accused to put before the jury, presenting a positive image using personal testimony of friends and relatives. A Life on Trial retraces one of his most difficult cases; that of Richard Ford , a former Los Angeles police officer turned contract killer. The programme features interviews with some of the people Cohen tracked down to testify in favour of Ford, the jurors who had to decide his fate, and Ford himself.
'Why me? Was my soul especially wicked that I should incur a greater curse? Should I wish for a cure? Do I want a miracle? Do I believe in them?' With these anguished questions, a young disabled pilgrim travelling to Lourdes confronts her inner torments about the 'miracle' which might make her 'whole' and thus 'good'. Her guide is a Victorian magic lanternist who has strayed into the 20th century to ask some uncomfortable questions about the nature of miracles and how the Christian church has treated disability.
'No great trauma' was the phrase used by the judge in the Ealing vicarage case to describe Jill Saward 's experience of rape, which at the time attracted enormous publicity. Few women report rape. Even fewer talk openly about their suffering. Jill is an exception. She has decided to break the silence in order to explain the long-term effects rape has on women.
For over a decade Edward Daly , the Bishop of Londonderry, has campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six, convinced they are innocent men. For Bishop Daly , that case is just part of a whole cycle of injustice, IRA as well as British, which has scarred his world. This film is a deeply personal record of that experience: the friends who have been killed, the bombs, the knee-cappings and the cover-ups.
How does the Muslim conscience face up to the agonising dilemma posed for Islam by Saddam Hussein 's invasion of Kuwait? On the one hand, such aggression by one
Muslim country against another must be condemned; on the other, the intrusion of the forces of the west in Saudi Arabia, guardian of the Holy Places, must be resisted. Why is the Muslim world so divided? And why is it so often thrown into conflict with western values? Many Muslims yearn for the supremacy of 'umma, the universal community of all Muslims, but must their faith in Islam override their allegiance to the State?
'I've got a tune that will knock 'em, knock 'em flat', said Elgar, of the melody we know as Land of Hope and Glory. It is a song that brings a lump to the throat for millions when it is sung at the Proms and has become a second national anthem. In time of war it becomes a rallying cry. And yet for many it is aggressive and outdated and belongs to an imperial past that bears no relation to the Britain of today. Everyman dips a toe in to the current waters of patriotism by taking a fresh look at an old song through the eyes of five people in and around this year's Last Night of the Proms.
Ten years ago, four American churchwomen were raped and murdered by Salvadorean soldiers. Their deaths marked the start of a decade of persecution against the church in El Salvador. The carnage culminated in the killing of six Jesuit priests in November last year. Everyman tells the story of three men whose lives have been profoundly affected by these killings. Each of them - a Wall
Street lawyer, a Salvadorean priest, and a social activist from New
York's South Bronx - has reached an extraordinary conclusion: that hope can emerge from tragedy, that murder can be good news.
One evening more than 16 years ago, six men walked out of their front doors and have yet to return. They were arrested, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of 21 people in the 1974 bombing of two Birmingham pubs. This is the story of the wives and daughters of the Birmingham Six, the women who wait. They talk about the pain of lost relationships, the isolation and insecurity, the threats and the shattered expectations. Above all, they are driven by an absolute faith in the men's innocence and a determination to see their names cleared.
A year after the revolution which overthrew the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceaus. escu, Everyman returns to the towns and villages of Transylvania. In some villages, peasants are recovering their sense of trust. In others, old conflicts are revived as the rich peasants reclaim their land from the collectives and the landless poor fear for the future. And in the beautiful village of Hadoc, villagers describe the murderous conflicts that have broken out between Romanians and Hungarian-speakers.
Sam Oliner has devoted his life to the study of why some people give while others walk on by. His research shows some surprising results.
James Thompson looks at
Oliner's work and meets two people who have made a choice: one to donate bone marrow to a stranger and the other to risk her life in order to save a family of social outcasts.
Fr Benedict Ramsden is a Russian Orthodox priest who lives with his wife Lilah and three of their eight children in a 17th-century priory in Devon. For the last 20 years they have shared their home with potentially violent young schizophrenics - giving them a chance of independence.
Benedict and Lilah believe that mental patients should live alongside the rest of society. But strong and humane support is needed if they are to survive the trauma of being let out.
