Should diplomats learn the languages of the countries they’re assigned to?

Diplomat Sherard Cowper-Coles says yes. But, he adds, be careful not to overreach.

Cowper-Coles tells two stories of foreign language overreaching.

The Hebrew Overreach

When he was the British Ambassador to Israel, Cowper-Coles liked to try out the Hebrew that he had learned. So once, in a restaurant, he ordered (he thought) chicken breast. He did this, logically enough, by combining the Hebrew words for chicken and breast. But to the native Hebrew ears of the restaurant’s staff, the dish he had actually requested was not one they had ever before served: a woman’s breast on a chicken.

The French Overreach

Cowper-Coles also tells a story about Tony Blair. Blair “had learned his French in a bar outside Paris” between high school and college. So it wasn’t perfect.

Fast forward several decades. Blair, as Prime Minister, was hosting his French opposite number Lionel Jospin. After a “drinky” lunch, Blair decided to address the French media in French. Intending to say something like “I’ve always been envious of Lionel’s policies and whatever positions he’d taken,” Blair instead said “J’ai toujours envie de Lionel, même en toutes positions.” (Roughly: “I’ve always lusted after Lionel, in all positions”).

At least that’s the way Cowper-Coles tells it.

Music as Language

Yang Ying grew up in the 1960s and 1970s during China’s Cultural Revolution. It was a time when people deemed enemies of communism were forced to work as manual laborers.

That happened to Yang’s father, who ended up working in a coal mine.

He thought his daughter might escape that fate if he taught her to play an instrument-well enough to enter an elite music academy.

And so she learned to play the traditional two-string erhu. She studied under her father’s tutelage for several hours a day. Because the family’s apartment was so small, and the walls so thin, she would practice the erhu in the park.

The hard work paid off. Yang won a national competition playing a famous piece of music called River of Tears.

Her success led to a place at a music conservatory in Beijing. From there she became a soloist with the Chinese National Song and Dance Ensemble. She performed for countless foreign dignitaries on their visits to China, including American presidents.

“I played for Ford, Carter and for Nixon,” Yang says. “I remember three. I probably performed for more.”

More important to Yang though, were her tours of China, where she learned about the country’s regional differences, the music and the dialects. The many dialects of Chinese “really had an effect on the music.”

But while Yang was being exposed to new sounds, she still had to perform the same old stuff.

As an erhu soloist with a renowned national ensemble, “you probably only play two, three, four repertoires your whole life.” Yang says it tired her out. “And I really wanted to do something new.”

It was the late 1980s. China was opening up. Yang started going to rock concerts put on by the US Embassy. Clubs were opening, bands were forming. She taught herself the bass guitar. She said it was like learning a new language.

Yang founded Cobra, China’s first-ever all female rock band. She knew that she was breaking several taboos at once, and that many people would disapprove.

Yang says her father was “not very happy.” And other classical musicians, “thought I was crazy.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fk9mG5kasM]

Yang tried to infuse some of Cobra’s songs with traditional elements. She even re-imagined a traditional folk song as a rock anthem.

That spirit of anything-goes fusion ultimately moved Yang in another direction. She emigrated to the United States, and began studying jazz. She recognized common elements between jazz and Chinese folk music. Both rely on improvisation, and make the instrument sound “as if it’s singing, like the human voice.”

She started playing the erhu with an American jazz group.

That has brought her back to China, where she and her group recently performed at the Beijing Nine Gates Jazz Festival.

Also in the pod this week: teaching in two languages in Massachusetts, where bilingual education is banned. And Pakistan’s Sindh province is introducing mandatory Chinese for schoolkids aged ten and older.

• The World in Words Podcast on iTunes
• The World in Words Podcast via RSS
• The World in Words on Facebook
• Patrick Cox on Twitter

• Watch the slideshow
• Subscribe to our multimedia feed on iTunes

Gordon Brown (left) and Tony Blair at the Labor Party Conference in 2004. (Copyright: BBC)

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said his successor Gordon Brown could be “maddening” and accused him of lacking “emotional intelligence”. In his memoirs, he called Brown a “brilliant” chancellor but claimed Brown put him under “relentless” pressure as he tried to take over from Blair as prime minster. Alex Gallafent explores this ‘special relationship’. Download MP3

• BBC coverage
• Tony Blair’s memoirs: key quotes
• ‘A Journey: My Political Life’ by Tony Blair

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Tony Blair’s successor as British prime minister was, of course, Gordon Brown. It was a succession that was allegedly long overdue, according to a deal the two men supposedly struck early on. Blair and Brown were bonded together in a sort of dysfunctional way. Think of the partnership between Bill Clinton and Al Gore, only much closer, and much more fraught. Now Blair has gone on the record about Brown in his memoir. Here’s more from The World’s Alex Gallafent.

ALEX GALLAFENT:  The Tony and Gordon Show is over. Neither man is in government any longer and so it might seem odd still to be thinking about the pair of them. But the nature of their relationship profoundly influenced Britain’s course over the last decade and more, as this eager book buyer noted.

FEMALE SPEAKER:  It’s that astonishing way that everybody had that dream, that wonderful dream. And I suppose it’s that fascination of finding out with what kind of went wrong.

GALLAFENT: The dream, for some, began in 1997. That year, the Labour Party won a landslide election victory. Tony Blair had shifted the party from the left to the center-left, and went on to deliver two subsequent wins at the polls. As the years went by, Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, kind of like a super-powerful Treasury Secretary, fought to preserve more of the party’s left-leaning policies. Their differences cleaved the Labour Party in two, Tony’s people on one side, Gordon’s on the other. The way Blair put in an interview today, he almost made it sound as if they were a pair of feuding brothers.

TONY BLAIR: The relationship with Gordon was very very difficult. It was also very close. And even though towards the end I think frankly it was hard going, on impossible, for a large part of the time we were in government he was an immense source of strength, his contribution to the successes of the Labour government was clear.

GALLAFENT: In 2007 Blair stood down and Brown took over. And Blair’s New Labour project more or less came to end. Brown lost this year’s election.

BLAIR: I always took the view that if we departed a millimeter from New Labour we were going to be in trouble.

GALLAFENT: That’s a long way of saying told you so. Anyway, with Labour now out of power, the party is on the verge of choosing a new leader. And this is where the feud between Blair and Brown lives on.

JOHN PRESCOTT: We have a fight now between, is it left, is it right, is it new, is it Labour. Forget all that. Let’s all be Labour, get behind the new leader.

GALLAFENT: So pleads former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. The Labour Party, he says, should simply focus on defeating Britain’s new government.

PRESCOTT:  Get out and start fighting!

GALLAFENT: The trouble is, the Blairites and Brownites are still fighting each other. In his book, Tony describes Gordon as a “strange guy” who had “no instinct at the human, gut level.” He writes that Gordon was “difficult, at times maddening.” Tony acknowledges Gordon’s “enormous ability,” ticking the boxes marked “political calculation” and “analytical intelligence.” But “emotional intelligence”? Tony gives him a big fat zero. Blair, according to the book, did consider firing Brown on more than one occasion. A former press adviser to Tony Blair, Lance Price, says Blair ultimately decided against it.

LANCE PRICE: He took this judgment that, to use that famous old phrase, I’d better paraphrase it, better to have him inside the tent peeing out than outside the tent peeing in. I think part of problem actually was that he was inside the tent but still peeing in.

GALLAFENT: Blair’s memoir has freed his allies to come out of the shadows too. One Baroness Morgan, Tony Blair’s former political secretary, said this about Gordon Brown today.

BARONESS MORGAN: He did have a habit of not necessarily being around when some tough things were happening.

GALLAFENT: Yowza. Gordon Brown has yet to respond to all this. But here’s the view from his hometown, where for some he’s more superman than politician.

MALE SPEAKER: Gordon Brown is a man of steel and Tony Blair before he handed over actually said it publicly that Gordon Brown was the best man to take the job. So how can he be writing this? That’s hypocrisy.

GALLAFENT: It’s not the first time someone in Brown’s camp has accused Tony Blair of hypocrisy. But then again, trading accusations is familiar territory for these two political brothers-in-arms. The Tony and Gordon Show isn’t over after all. For The World, I’m Alex Gallafent.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Listen to the interview on the PM page

John Chilcot

The man in charge of the official British inquiry examining events surrounding the Iraq war has said his committee will not produce a report that is a “whitewash.” John Chilcot, a retired career civil servant, has promised to produce a “full and insightful” account. Evidence from senior government figures will start on Tuesday and politicians, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair will be expected to testify in due time. Laura Lynch reports.

• BBC coverage
• FAQ British Iraq inquiry

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Britain is revisiting one of the most divisive issues in its recent history. An independent panel will begin public hearings tomorrow into the country’s role in the war in Iraq. It’s the third time a government appointed panel has investigated circumstances surrounding the war and supporters say this inquiry will be the definitive one. But as The World’s Laura Lynch reports others are already saying these hearings won’t do much to shed light on Britain’s decision to go to war.

LAURA LYNCH: From the day Sir John Chilcot took on the role as chair of the Iraq inquiry he’s heard the accusation – it will be nothing more than a whitewash.

SIR JOHN CHILCOT: It won’t be but the judgment is to whether people think it is and will lie on how it’s read when it comes out.

LYNCH: Britain’s decision to go to war in Iraq was and still is controversial. Then prime minister, Tony Blair, pushed ahead with the plan to send 45,000 troops despite widespread opposition and some claims that the war was illegal.

TONY BLAIR: This is not the time to falter. This is the time for this house – not just this government or indeed this prime minister – but for this house to give a lead. To show that we will stand up for what we know to be right. To show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk.

LYNCH: Blair himself is expected to testify at the inquiry early next year. Other senior politicians, bureaucrats, military leaders, and intelligence officers will also be on the witness list. Sir John Chilcot insists the five-person panel, all appointed by the government, is ready to take on anyone including members of the government itself.

CHILCOT: What you can’t do is make up a committee like this of people who have no experience of the workings of government from the inside. There is one other point worth making. When you set up an independent inquiry of this sort you set the members of it free to do what they will and our determination is to do not merely a thorough job but one that is frank and will bear public scrutiny.

LYNCH: Already though his inquiry is facing criticism. Carne Ross is a former British diplomat and an expert on Iraq who resigned after testifying at a previous inquiry. Ross reels off a list of problems with the current inquiry starting with the names on the witness lists.

CARNE ROSS: They’re all the most senior people. These people were deeply implicated in having carried out the execution of the war. Why would they reveal an account at odds with the government’s own narrative of what has happened. How will the panel get to that deeper truth of what took place here? What is the mechanism of accountability if dishonesty is uncovered or even God forbid illegality by certain members of the government?

LYNCH: That’s also a concern for many of those who lost relatives in the Iraq war. Elsie Manning’s daughter staff sergeant Sharon Elliott died in a bomb attack in 2006.

ELSIE MANNING: You know it’s alright having these inquiries and for someone to sit at the other side of a desk and listen and write everything down but where does that leave us? Where does that leave the families? Where does it leave the soldiers who are serving now?

LYNCH: Manning and others want Tony Blair and his cabinet to answer for their decision to send British soldiers they believe was illegal. But they also worry that even if this inquiry confirms their belief it can only say that without punishing anyone for what happened in the past. For The World I’m Laura Lynch in London.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.