Unease karmic Knesset can say financial misconduct charges against him should be dropped they claim the case is politically motivated Rupert Winfield Hayes is in Tokyo informal court documents submitted today they allege that Mr Gone is the victim of an unlawful conspiracy that includes not only Nisanit executives and Tokyo prosecutors but also officials at Japan's Ministry of economic trade and industry they say the aim of this conspiracy was to drum up allegations of wrongdoing against Mr go on in order to oust him from his position as chairman of Nisson the paper's claim the alleged conspirators wanted to prevent Mr gone from moving ahead with plans to merge Nissan with its French parent ren know and other Japanese partner Mr Bush Mr Goh is currently free on bail but is not allowed to leave Japan Rupert Wingfield Haye's news from the b.b.c. a Chinese oil survey vessel that's been operating in waters claimed by Vietnam has left the disputed part of the South China Sea The Chinese ship has been involved in numerous close encounters with Vietnamese vessels and the foreign ministry in Hanoi has repeatedly demanded that China remove its chips from the area Hong Kong's police force is trying to dispel rumors that dogs used by the force to stop pro-democracy protests are being harmed by the repeated use of tear gas it says no police dog has died or felt unwell as a result of handling the protests that began in June the Hollywood actress Rose McGowan has far a federal lawsuit against the disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein and 2 of his former lawyers accusing them of trying to silence her and prevent her publishing a book alleging he'd raped Charles haven't reports. The lawsuit says that Harvey Weinstein and the 2 lawyers along with a private intelligence agency Black Hugh conspired to defraud smear and marginalize Ms McGowan it called it a diabolical effort by one of America's most powerful men to silence sexual assault victims Mr Weinstein's current attorney called the charges baseless Rose McGowan has already reached a financial settlement with Harvey Weinstein but her accusations against him helped initiate the me to movement 2 years ago he denies all allegations of nonconsensual sex but faces trial in January on rape and assault charges a long awaited egg situation of Leonardo da Vinci opens in the Louvre in Paris to mark 500 years since the death of the Italian Renaissance master it will host the biggest selection of Leonardo's works ever assembled to sketch out a complete picture of him as a thinker and artist the whole event was in danger after if he threatened to cancel the loan of some paintings accusing France of appropriating Leonardo's legacy b.b.c. Knees. Have you ever wondered how you get that unique look on a pair of blue jeans that uneven shading when it's all down to the magical interaction of cotton with indigo blue dye that's been used for thousands of years . But that's not all that Indigo has been responsible for its role in history culture chemistry and botany spans the 5 continents and even connects icons such as Gandhi and James Dean it can be traced back to ancient Peruvian and Egyptian civilizations and it fueled the slave trade and European colonialism. Indigo is a very chameleon like pigment not just because it can produce a wide range of hues and shades but also because it keeps reinventing itself to color cloth for special occasions as well as every day wear and for military and police uniforms more than that it's been an important element in both an artist's palette and a beauticians Kit people have travelled for thousands of miles to obtain Indigo dyed cloth making some of them very rich and many others very miserable. I am Rajan data for this week's forum from the b.b.c. World Service I'm wearing I'll have you know my most faded toned jeans in honor of the occasion I've been talking to 3 people with intimate knowledge of indigo Jenny Balfour Paul is on the research fellow at Exeter University and author of indigo Egyptian mummies to blue jeans and other books on the topic. Is an artist and textile research here with a particular interest in the history of indigo in Nigeria and the Caribbean especially Jamaica the birthplace of her father and Andre are seller is a professor of chemistry at University College of London who often delights his Judeans with all kinds of colorful experiments with indigo now I want to start by explaining the process of making the Indigo pigment. All natural Indigo comes from plants there is also synthetic Indigo made in chemical factories but we'll get to that later now the plants use for indigo vary on different continents depending on the climate but whichever plant you start with you 1st need to ferment its leaves so Jenny tell us how does that work half the world makes a compost the medieval dyes made of leaf com past and in West Africa they make a leaf compost usually And also the Japanese still do and then they are the whole systems so-called colonial one based on the Indian one you soak the leaves in water the leaves are green by the way no blue in there after a while you take that leaves out and you have what looks like water and amazingly you add oxygen whether it's you know slave plantation scale or whether it's in a village in Yemen by beating it at a certain point you get turquoise foam on the top you leave it on down to the bottom settles a blue clay which you dry and it becomes I bought it got it a lump of indigo there may be dry the pace and you end up with what seems like a stone which was considered a stone for centuries and centuries when it came into Europe from India they did not connect this stone like pigment with the compost they were using now dry Indigo pigment is not soluble but when you dissolve it all concentrated dye paste in a warm vats of alkaline solution and dip cloth or yarn into it something quite magical happens at 1st it doesn't come out blue why is that Jenny Yes extraordinary thing is you know when it says pigment form it can be either being crushed up in considered a painter pigment or you have to get it back into a dye form no other dye works like that by the way so you crush it up into a power in as you say high alkaline solution then you add something to feed the bacteria basically something sweet usually anything fermentation and in a certain point your dive at turns so the yellowy color then you're ready to die. It's blue you can die with it very counter intuitive as they say so you put the cloth him when you put it out it's yellow we green and the oxygen hits it and it turns blue before your eyes and there is a unique process unlike other dyes with the Indigo molecules just the surface that why oh yeah it's completely unlike any other dye which is why specialise dyes handled it basically it's less of pigment on top of the cloth all the other dyes have to have intermediate chemical called mordant and then you die in a hot Deila to link together and because nothing like that known mordant is really sitting on in lairs on top that gives it its unique quality it means you have to dye it many times to so there are clearly some interesting chemical reactions happening during Indigo dying quite a chameleon Indigo isn't it but let's get Andrea to explain what's going on well the curious thing about Indigo is the fact that it's unbelievably insoluble it's that's really the characteristic of a pigment. And that makes it very very difficult to get it actually on to the fiber so the very clever thing that was discovered in a very long time ago is that if you can actually do a little bit of chemistry on the Indigo you can actually make it saw uble And when you do this essentially the Indigo de colorize is you get what's called Luko Indigo white indigo which is which is pale yellow it's very very soluble in water now you can dip your fabric into this solution and when you pull it out again then oxygen from the air will actually oxidize it back up to blue and so you have this lovely process where you have you heard your colorless solution you dip your fabric and you pull it out it goes blue you dip it again it goes blue or and you dip it again and it goes blue west so chemically what's going on there I mean the oxygen is already playing a massive part in this so if you know from a chemist point of view what's going on so the crucial thing is the initial step which is called reduction essentially you're putting 2 electrons on to the molecule what that does is it suddenly effectively freeze it from its crystal it's now beautifully saw a ball in the water and then when the oxygen does is it steals those 2 electrons away and at that point it locks it on to the fire and that ultimately creates the blue and that ultimately creates the blue and so the neat thing is that this is a very very small very compact molecule with this on believably intense absorption which gives you the blue color and that's presumably why it's always attracted attention because it's such an intense color so as interest said to to get a deep indigo blue you need to repeat the dying process Lucille Yes Dias have different methods of how they build up the depth of color some rinse in cool water in pitying dates and what that does it starts to expose him to go to the oxygen in the water and it removes the particles that have nots. Next to the yarn or cloth I haven't bonded I personally don't do that because I'm really mindful of conserving water but dyes do that the number of dipping times vary on the depth of color required in Nigeria or Europe but Di is distinguished between different shades I guess about 4 light blue midnight blue dark blue and a very deep dark blue they have a preference for the deep dark blues and so do I And you mentioned Nigeria and get billeted even to go to rubble with people who wear jeans like it's also a prize that isn't amongst some inhabitants of African communities most definitely in some cultures particularly Western cultures in the specially if you're making something to sell they have a process where they can fix the colors probably wash out in the final rinse or sort of neutralize the process maybe introduce something acidic like vinegar and do a final rinse in West Africa especially they don't bother with the final process water is at a premium and then also people appreciate it it kind of shows that color has been built up in a careful way in a methodical way of the 12 regs from the north and they still get their Indigo from the house's northern Nigeria so the practice in dying in northern Nigeria is practiced by men in southwestern Nigeria it's the women who do the dying so the try exactly appreciate the rubbing off it kind of shows you that the thing's been done nicely and there's been so many different dips so it's appreciated and I chip in there because in the Arab world I found the same thing they used to put paste on their faces before weddings and so on to make the skin better and whiten it and they've tribesmen to Rabea have it all over their bodies to keep the insects at bay. And jelly Can you explain to us how patterns are created when you die a cloth listeners may be familiar with something. Batty cream Indonesia please explain the technique and in particular something that one hears a lot when talking about textiles which is resist dying yes I mean one of the things about Indigo is it much prefers to be dyed and not printed therefore the patterns are made by as you say resisting putting something on so that when you die with indigo it doesn't die or that thing so if it's Betty gets hot wax which works beautifully vinegar because Indigo is not hot guys look warm so it doesn't melt the wax so it goes with that all the early batiks were indigo or there's a method called ship or it was a Japanese word where you stitch patents for instance and the same West Africa they use raffia and so on or you tie up stones that tie dye which can be primitive or incredibly sophisticated so as John is explained just now there are different ways to produce patterns in indigo cloth the batiks which use wax to draw patterns on the cloth before dying have been produced in Indonesia for centuries and eventually became one of the archipelagos best known exports here's someone who can tell us more my name is a man of the. My family ran an indigo about Dick's business but think it's actually very spacious and it was exported stuff there in the 15 centuries and at that moment. Coal as the blue gold because it's fairly fairly expensive and there historically researchers on the party in years actually the expert is the man you mentioned. But they may be from what is called the peak or the there is a cyclical. Thing using the and then flower and then we did right thing on those. Flowers. And. In Nissho we have a lot of villages that many crafters but the crafters those for ledges. If leaflets even the name is the same the Petron swill be and be difference so I think the most importance in the public is also the craft of fifty's to comes from from certain objects maybe very simple objects like flour or even the chicken fit in 2 very beautiful to signs of buttocks. Jevon is really. Up to London London. Beautiful a 2 hour. So we've already kind of gathered that producing indigo and using it to dye cloth it's highly skilled process it can also be a smelly process that can leave people's skin permanently stained blue so can you give us some examples of how dire is well regarded in various cultures and how they protected their trade secrets Jenny what about in Europe 1st of all oh usually dies where the smelly pay. Is a lonely craft on the whole the dyers Yeah it was very often I mean next door I live anywhere in the u.k. Was outside the city walls near the water in London it was famously insolvent you know across the river smelly downwind where all the spices were coming in but was it run by guilds would be was involved yeah there were dire scales I mean people respected the school this is a double story they did respect the skills the dyers but at the same time the actual process was you know there's many rivers and stuff like that so the environmental pollution in them actually And what about in the Caribbean How would die as regarded the the 1st thing I should say is one of the reasons why it was so smelly in your piece because they used to use your. As a way to convert the Indigo into a soluble form I tried it myself it absolutely stinks. That's one of the reasons why it's so smelly and in some countries in North Africa and South America they've used those techniques as well I think there's a lot of investment now in exploring new recipes which answer challenging to work with. And it does have a prestigious hall in the Caribbean there's an issue in the Caribbean in terms of knowledge transfer I mean Jamaica through leaving him fellowship on documenting Jamaica's former Indigo play. Ations but it's so much more than that I should explain that when Africans were enslaved they did come with knowledge but when they were brought to places like Jamaica they were branded like chattel given a new name separated from their families stripped of their African identity this is a process intended to break down the African spirit the willpower to make them passive subservient you know ready for work on the plantations so consequently the knowledge of dying we didn't survive they were and I've done quite a lot of research here they want to allow to grow the die for personal use they want allowed to use it so the kind of practice with dying and the knowledge that exists in West Africa especially has not survived well look at the the role of slavery and all this shortly but let's go right back and look at the some of the key points in the history of indigo the oldest documented use so far goes back to about 6000 years in South America and 4500 years in Egypt the ancient Chinese Greeks and Romans all knew indigo to now the word itself is probably derived from the Greek indecorum which suggests something originating in India and it's Indigo exports from there that revolutionized Tech Stars in Europe and beyond in the 17th and 18th centuries Julie Tell us more it was all to do with 1st get the Garmin really discovering the Syria to India because before that Indigo was coming in and this stone form but it was far too expensive to you know to use a dime they didn't know how to or anywhere because word was a much gentler what's word oh sorry world is the European equivalent so people say there was no indigo in Europe there was this indigenous world plant because Indigo is contained it's precursor is invisible form in the green leaves of different plant species of different genera right across the globe so colonial traders. Got wind of it of the power of the value of indigo what happened when they would bring it in as one of the spices and actually the 1st spice that the Portuguese brought was indigo to Portugal and along at the same time they were bringing these wonderful new cloths cottons Muslins calicos which needed a stronger Di any regs that tended to use Word for war so the 2 things go hand in hand is really chintz them everybody went mad for the cottons and the chances and then they wanted to know how they died them because it threatened word was there some resistance to 2 Indigo coming in the protectionism is exactly the same story today they called it the Devils die and so on and they had edicts in France in Germany against using it especially death penalty sometimes if the diaries were found using imported Indian Indigo rather than word but of course it was going to take over like anything successful you can't stop it well European colonists in the Caribbean and North America wanted a share of the profits from the production of warm climate Indigo So they began cultivating the dye yield in plants they're using in slave labor Lucille Indigo was involved throughout the whole exploitative chain of sales and production was yes definitely is one of the early plantation crops on many islands commercialise on many islands I should say that indigenous species of indigo were there on the islands and then other species were introduced as well through the process commercialized on many islands in the Caribbean including Jamaica Barbados Montserrat Haiti of course Guadalupe told girl and many more I think the crop was favored by planters because it only required a moderate capital investments a compared to sugar or cotton and also it grew in the higher elevations as well as the plains so when you visit the Caribbean and even see that the islands are so different some of the mountainous and hilly and so not everywhere is flat so it appealed to planters in more remote locations where. It was difficult sold by the pound it also had a much higher value than bulkier crops and therefore I think by many planters it was seen as a stepping stone for building investment for maybe more lucrative plantations later the main purchases were Indigo British textile manufactures the plantation economy the labor as you mentioned it is dependent on imported in slaved workforce from Africa typical day would be 12 to 14 hours on the plantation and that would be preparing the land for sowing tending to the crops weeding cutting processing the Indigo it's the tropics so there's a lot of weed so you just need to leave a place for a couple of weeks and there's a lot of weed and the trade was almost rectangular Was it because you had Asian Indigo dyed textiles shipped to Africa exchange for slaves and then that compresses went on around the run the global century but actually what was interesting is that enslaved people also and they came from West Africa that warning to go but they still wore it on the plantations and on their so-called days off on a Sunday you see this in paintings and the African-American museum actually I saw a painting yesterday some are else a lot of the people in slave people in the fields are wearing Indigo jackets and indigo skirts and sometimes that cloth was actually made in India on their grammar drafts and I Coromandel coast about it was named Guinea cloth the name for the next West African name so there's a very curious thing going on there and listen I think people would know about the role of sugar coffee and tobacco in slavery but they wouldn't really know about the role of indigo I mean was it on a par with those things. Yes or No I mean places like Haiti most definitely because it was not a bulky crop and it had such a high value it's a really lucrative crop even in Jamaica it was lucrative but as protectionist taxes to be. The word industry were introduced tropical Indigo became less favorable and I think part of the intention there was to encourage the planters to move into other crops like sugar I think if it hadn't been for those taxes maybe places like Jamaica would have continued in the 18th century Indigo became an increasingly important cash crop in the southern United States as in the Caribbean the planters exploited slave labor and the toll that the processing of the indigo plant into the diet took on the lives of the enslaved workers is vividly illustrated in a memoir of one of them James Roberts who spent a large part of his life in Louisiana. From 50 to 60 hands work in the Indigo factory and such is the effect of the indigo upon the lungs of the laborers but they never live over 7 years. Everyone that runs away and is caught is put in the Indigo fields which are hedged all around so that they cannot escape again. The disruption to indigo supplies caused by the independent struggles of United States and what is now Haiti led to an increase of indigo production in British controlled India in the 19th century especially in Bengal but the conditions for the Indian farmers there were so bad that this eventually led to a revolt to lose what happened Jenny it was a loan system so the farmers were forced to grow it by their British overlords who didn't own the plantation is mentally complicated but they got into debt and so they were forced to go and to go year after year which meant they couldn't grow rice and so on I was studying a Young Victorian mother subject my latest book and he says if we go on like this they're going to revolt me predicted that and they did revolt just after the end of the so-called mutiny the uprising in India had been put down it started up again in Bangor just with indigo workers what was the result is a very complicated story because the liberal British were also against the plotters and so was the government the liberal British were against it because of the treatment of the workers by then in Calcutta itself they didn't like the planters treatment but the government didn't like it because they were in much more shady stuff because they were in opium that took the same lands they didn't like the Indigo planters because they were taking up the opium land and the opium is just as exploitative a crop so it's a complicated because you've actually got liberal British down in Calcutta disseminating a play against the planters and siding with the liberal intelligentsia Indians is really crucial for the politics of India and in fact they've theatre in Calcutta started the National Theatre by sharing the Indigo play the Indigo of all play Camille Dar pan the Indigo plant as Mira and this play was crucial in Kolkata and is still taught in schools today it's about the Indigo revolt the planters tried to suppress the revolt but a legal decree eventually forced them to stop their most exploitative and dishonest practices the production of indigo moved from Bangalore further north in India to Bihar but as we will see. In the 2nd part of this form from the b.b.c. World Service after the news bulletin there was more trouble in store. Now on the b.b.c. World Service how do you save one of the oldest religions from dying out I love my community I love my religion it's a way of life for me Youngs of Austrians are faced with a growing problem several Asian faces extinction of color of responsibility towards keeping this Russian face going the solution is to get married members of the faith can traditionally only marry fellows the Austrians and now with fewer than 200000 in the world it's a challenge trying to find someone literally it's like an international search where in l.a. Hundreds of young the Austrians are heading to. But also another important race and I wouldn't be surprised were for my future wife your phone line to find out as they can they find out in just 5 days and helps a fab religion from becoming extinct looking for love there's a lot straight away at b.b.c. World Service don't call it slash documentaries Still to come on the forum more on the history of what was referred to as blue gold and the devil's Di Indigo as we'll find out in part to the invention of synthetic indigo in Germany didn't follow the expected path until it was given a huge Philip by the explosion in popularity of the formally workaday denim jeans but that wasn't before the rebellion in India but a certain 100 Gandhi to global attention will be back after the news. B.b.c. News with Jerry Smit the body of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco is being Exuma Embry buried alongside his family in a cemetery near Madrid he was interred in 1975 in a vast mausoleum which critics say glorifies Spain's fascist dictatorship Spain's socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez who ordered the removal has called it a victory for dignity. 16 people in Bangladesh have been sentenced to death for the murder of a female student. Raffi died 4 days after being set alight after she refused to withdraw an accusation of sexual harassment against the principal of a religious school lawyers for colors go on the former boss of the Japanese carmaker Nessun have covert charges of financial misconduct against him to be dropped they say a secret task force had no sand drummed up about allegations of wrongdoing to prevent a closer integration with. Pakistan has signed an agreement to allow Indian pilgrims to visit one of the holiest seat try without a visa the good war a Garber Sahib is about 4 kilometers from the border with India it marks the side where the founder of Sikhism go Nanuk died a Chinese oil survey vessel which has been operating in waters claimed by they had now for 3 months has finally left the disputed part of the South China Sea police in Hong Kong are trying to scotch rumors that dogs used by the force in recent protests are being harmed by the repeated use of tear gas opposed on social media says that no police dog has died of town well since the protests began in June. An exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci opens today in Paris the long awaited display comprises the biggest selection of defense his works have resembled b.b.c. News. Welcome back the form from the b.b.c. Will serve as a mirage and data and today I'm talking about the history of Indigo with Jenny Balfour poll and Lucille and Andrea Sella And if you're interested in the history of other commodities there are free downloads of programs on common sugar cocoa Cole salt and others on our website. As the European market for natural Indigo is reaching its peak in the 2nd half of the 1900 century advances in chemistry began to threaten its position now tell me why was Germany crucial to all this well Germany is absolutely central because Germany was one of the places where some of the most important theoretical developments in chemistry were taking place and the key debate at the time is really how important are you know what atoms there are as opposed to how they are connected together and what you have is the emergence of what became known as the structural theory of chemistry now as the structural theory of chemistry emerges and people begin to understand the rules by which you connect things together now you can really move beyond what had driven chemistry up to that point which was simply analysis what are things made up in other words how many carbons how many 100 genes to this idea of how they're linked up and once you know that you can go to synthesis you can start making things and Germany was crucial to that central to that and Germany was absolutely central to that I mean there were tremendous schools of chemistry that were springing up there were absolutely brilliant thinkers who are leading the charge there were also vitriolic opponents of this who had chairs and it was a time of tremendous intellectual debate. But you know all this appears a young man whose name was off by air and out of fire falls under the spell of one of the great sort of structural ists a man called day and calculate a Amongst other things had been one of those who had proposed a structure for benzene and benzene turned out to be one of the key fundamental units of the dye industry. And buyer fell under his spell and began to systematically take apart indigo and once he had taken this little sort of clockwork molecule apart This left him in the position of being able to reassemble it and by the time you get to about 88882 he comes up with a beautiful elegant synthesis something that we still teach your undergraduates and a kind of crucial milestone because this is chemistry but I design it is you know I've set a target I'm going to get to it I'm going to put the nitrogen in this place I'm going to put the carbon in that place now I'm going to link them together and what happened was that out came sort of almost miraculously this intense blue he would eventually really start off this the school of synthesis and be awarded the Nobel Prize in $1005.00 with indigo being cited as a key milestone but the other aspect of this I think is that one but never actually produce something that was efficient enough if you like to be used on an industrial scale and I'm thinking that chance or I understand the chance played an important role in this and the experiments of a Swiss chemist women come into play well that's right I mean there is a huge difference I mean all chemists understand this between what you do in the laboratory scale you know when you've got a small flask of stuff and what happens when you go into industrial production and when you go into industrial production a you have the issue of it just being bigger. But you also have to think much more carefully about what the costs of you're starting with cereals or what profit you're going to be able to derive and so on and it turns out that buyers original method was just much too expensive although it was quite efficient just getting to that starting material was a problem a Swiss chemist called Hyman came up with an alternative route and the alternative route turned out to rely on a rather curious accident the fact is that they had a thermometer actually in the reaction mixture the thermometer broke and what it did was it provided a tiny amount of catalytic mercury which actually allowed the reaction to go and this suddenly provided an industrial route to making indigo and yet And yet it wasn't really good enough because actually the conversion of starting material into final Indigo was only about 10 percent and that means that it wasn't close really to be able to compete with the natural stuff that was being brought in from countries like India and so the next stage is really an improvement in the Synthesis a modification of that basic idea which then worked on a sort of 90 percent yield that's a complete game changer and now India becomes a cheap almost commodity chemical but in a sense because of what happened in the 1st World War and supplies from the German factories being interrupted and with armies needing Indigo if they uniforms where did actually Indigo Then come from it hadn't died out especially in been hard had moved up from Bangles been hard but it was still going on in a smaller scale behind it being in it and didn't know that yes it did move further north yes north of Bengal and they're sort of had themselves up there because Bengal had the great capital of Calcutta and so on the heart was a poor area so they just moved up there to hide then carry on exploiting people base. Clee So when Gandhi returned India he wanted to start this sort of revolution against the British and he saw this unjust system of taxation and forcing farms to grow indigo and a user for the 1st piece rolled and then there were people went on strike and there was a court case and he won and that was the beginning of the path to the road to independence in India but Indigo is hugely embarrassing up in the Indian psyche with the 2 revolves Gandhi and independence and the previous one in Bengal the reprieve for natural Indigo didn't last long and by the middle of the 20th century the future of all Indigo seemed uncertain as modernization proceeded fewer people who were willing to do arduous complicated manual jobs such as dying and even synthetic Indigo looked like they might be replaced by new or dyes which are more color fast and easy to use and then Jenny blue jeans came to the rescue tell us how that happened is the American g.i. Is because well it comes back to Levi Strauss because you know Levi Strauss he was the one invented jeans but they weren't called that there they were waist overalls and they were still natural Indigo that he was importing the cloth from France name the name denim comes from need him jeans comes from Jan with a generous soldier's used to wear sailors uniform so it was a hard working cloth because Indigo coats the fibers and it's practical it's dark you know dark blue as they were then so Levi Strauss is making these waste overalls for miners and cowboys and people and then they became Mufti for the soldiers so when the G.I.'s left the 2nd World War left where houses for their old clothes they were became immensely popular suddenly because everybody wants you know Europe is just on its knees and Americans that come in to save the day and had worn these so-called you know of them became jeans and that's how the whole story began and they became cool yeah they did become cool because Marlon Brando in film stars and then rock stars. James Dean they started wearing and they were symbol of revolution and then the young war because their parents hated them because they all wore their nice trousers and the young wearing jeans to be like the pop stars there was a rebellion then in the sixty's so they had a whole life of their own and only Indigo gives that quality that genes have so if you died a blue your wearing a blue top which is dense blue that's hopeless because that is not going to say keep its color. Indigo is the only die that doesn't change color as it fades so archaeological textiles you can get a textile 4000 years old the blue is blue you have to analyze the other colors because the Reds are gone brown the yellows are gone yucky so Indigo is always blue but it fades beautifully and it's built up in Lair so it wanted to braid you know the cowboys rocking people have a jeans did it still the feathering and then all the seams and everything that hark back to the cowboy days and this is the problem today with trying to replicate that with stone washing and things it's immensely polluting genes are a disaster for the world and there is a solution to go back to natural indigo now at about the same time that genes were becoming popular in the West a different type of indigo cloth was came back to the fore in Africa the a deer a I think of that right another West African textiles Lucille it was a really interesting group of people wasn't he breathed new life into this clothing get a little bit more about that yes I can so by the 1950 s. The dairy production had really slowed down and there were very few young people being trained in the craft which is how the industry continues to survive but it did survive and so then newly independent Nigeria there was an artistic Renascence lots of organizations including the famous struggle art school that's based in southwestern Nigeria known as Europe a land and there are international artists such as really be Suzanne vendor local artists a series. Of metal making I love his work when 77 and make a token day they all contributed to a really sort of exciting postcolonial national pride in cultural identity and that was all inspired by Europe a culture Nikkei open day she went on to be one of the most well known Derian boutique artists. And the fashion is worn by prominent writers like well a shilling k. Chimamanda Adichie a and even Michelle Obama she wears at the rate dresses designed by Nigerian fashion designer who uses idea and that's Macchio maybe we should describe right now for people who don't know what a direct cloth looks like and what makes it uniquely seal idea is the euro the word and I think it means that which is tie and soaked a direct cloth it's a Europe of cloth incorporate into patterns complex in booths these provide a really useful and interesting insight into your religion and culture the patterns are made communally they are passed down through generations and the cloth functions as clothing and a means of communication is specially for Europe where women initially the cloth was made entirely by women in their number of really well known idea of patterns there's the bad London meaning that the city of the bad another southwestern city famous for directly means the city of the bad and is sweeter is good Sunday another important well known cloth it calls on here about women to wear their waists beads beads that day is a celebration of female beauty there's another pattern apologies in my year of a pronounce the nation by the way Henri me play my head is correct meaning I'm wise and often that's used by women to assert their intelligence now Indigo also plays an important role in the lives of some of the ethnic minorities in southwest China in the absence of written histories Indigo dyed banners preserve the memory of seminal events among the Mel people as Martin Conlon who's been studying these fabrics for decades explains there is special festivals on ancestor days where they produce these long clan banners and this is a narrow length of cloth. It's drawn with wax patterns and symbols that represent their clan story so different plans have different stories and it's not necessarily this story of the whole group or individual elements and it's using plants animals dragons many different forms to represent their story so it's all symbolic and not necessarily. A story we could relate to we can of find it very attractive but we can't necessarily understand it until the elements xplained and these Indigo banners long Indigo banners the whole the tall bamboo poles as people gather in the village on the ancestor days and they'll stand for hours in the wind and let the ancestral stories blow in the wind which has a strong symbolic influence in the way that they actually perceive that and sisters because for most of these minority people Indigo is a spiritual cloth. We're going to was in the program and we've seen Home Depot meeting Indigo dyed cloth all around the world but we should briefly mention applications of indigo beyond dine perhaps give me an example of what you think its most important uses outside of textiles Lucio come to you 1st on that in places like the Philippines it's used to heal the soil as a green fertilizer and that's because it's a good nitrogen catch crop it fixes nitrogen to the thought and so enhanced this sort of fertility so it's a really useful prop in that sense but I also feel that Indigo can be used as a tool for healing and b. Connection I take inspiration from the structure and storytelling of your About idea a cloth and the Indigo dying and I use as a guide in my practice I enjoy the aesthetics of the Deep Dark Blues prized by the euro but people the dispossession means that people like myself may never know our effort my African identity we may never know African identity but for me. Being around the materials using the materials teaching workshops with the materials there's something about that that feels really strong and connected it feels healing maybe it's not the solution but I feel like it's a really important part of the journey Ok Lisieux has mentioned fertilizer healing journey any other uses of India and I agree about the healing and I think it's incredibly important at the fertilizer thing to say we're not talking about just small stuff here this is the future of genes and that and I've just been Stony Creek colors in American Tennessee they're growing a Can hundreds of acres of indigo where it was tobacco before and so you can have organic dye and actually that's good for the soil same in India now they're growing more and more but also it's a paint and people are rediscovering that and it was often used to painting the most valuable my favorite things are they of the Qur'an is in the Buddhist texts they've cut the paper with dark indigo in them but gold writing on top the very best ones with that and feel when we know the really sad thing is here I have to admit defeat as a chemist because one of the great ironies is that whereas normally a molecule like Indigo you know with its very very intense blue color something that dark Emmett's came to call a chroma for you might think that it would have been wonderful to ring the changes to change the structure slightly to tune it from red to blue to green to you know all the colors of the rainbow and in fact in a strange sort of way you know Indigo proved to be a dead end it was a few years later after buyers discovered the people realize that the legendary sort of Roman dye called Tyrian purple which was isolated from snail shells was in fact a bromo derivative a bromine derivative of indigo. But beyond that there really isn't terribly much and so in the end all we're left with is the fact that it's colored sadly that's all we've got time for thank you to Jenny bell for pul Lucilla's on here and and wrestler I'm Rajan data and I believe you with these admiring words about Indigo from the great 19th century designer William Morris goodbye and thanks for listening to this edition of the foreign. Indigo is the great substantive die all shades of blue can be got by plunging goods into Indigo solution from the pale watch it as our forefathers called it up to the blue which the 18th century French style is called the blue of hell. Navy blue is the polite a name for it in England but I must add that though it seems an easy process the setting of the blue is a ticklish job and requires I should say more experience than any other dying process I might also note that no textiles died blue or green otherwise than by Indigo keep an agreeable color by come to light. Now sporting witness with me Rebecca b. And if you've ever doubted the power of sport to effect change put aside your cynicism because this is the story of how a competitive event brought together a deeply divided country relaunched it onto the world stage and made a hero of the only man of color in the team we're going back to the Rugby World Cup of $995.00 in South Africa just one year after the end of apartheid was shot after it was the stuff of fairy tales host nation South Africa years in the wilderness of sporting boycotts over the racist apartheid system united in victim was it was a racket turnaround in public opinion just a couple of months earlier the majority of the nation despise the sport hated the strip and some even wanted the name Springboks' banned rugby was seen as a white sport and they appeared to me of everything wrong with the oppressive racist system there were many more said well this or there were selling out when I said let us know how supportive but newly elected President Nelson Mandela believed rugby could heal divisions that's a card that those boys as our boys sports they choose areas which are far beyond the reach of politicians not using the little that have occurred to hasten white man's game appeal to the majority black population there was only one man of color in the Springbok side Chester Williams The Wenna from Western Cape whose death last month was widely mourned in South Africa and beyond there was a lot of weight on his shoulders because just there was a shade of face Specter not South African rugby east face was an. Boat though it was only one person but it was a start it was the start of the new beginnings for South Africa for rugby Jerome Pavol is one of Chester's best friends from childhood they played rugby together from that teenaged years the whole country was looking up to you and the how old was looking at South Africa and we fortunate that we had Nelson Mandela and we had just the Williams the. Show here to continue being this role model but it wasn't a sort of a Saudi put up that's just how we. As youngsters Jerome and Chester loved rugby but coming from a so-called colored community as it was described under apartheid there was serious criticism for playing the hated game and especially playing it with white people my house will always stone my car war wish creates people within our community who don't believe that we are doing the right things your house was targeted then by people who were against you playing with white players Yeah a lot because I grew up in a rugby match family at 6 progress we all played rugby which started at school really something with threatening that they're not going to give class when I'm in a class because rugby was seen as a time as a white sport but my family and also chased his family we decided look we're not politicians and we decided to play makes rugby because we were competitive in that we always wanted to mess ourselves against the best we didn't want to just made ourselves against the blacks or college we want to make ourselves across the board I think Tony's college children in the states into battle grounds towards the end of apartheid in the late 1980 s. The violence intensified they set up the logo of. The u.k. Yeah I can still remember its cool when there was boycotts when the guys came in with we call Back then the Casper's it looked like. Danke in just the last gaze into your classroom he's decided to get out seeing our children who were running over each other in the passage just to get away and seeing how the white policeman were getting the children I had to run you talking about the criticism you faced in your own community but what Alva did you face with the white community Yeah look I can remember we're now into go play in a place called they were off the peg and I was only play off color on the field and there was about I think 25 to 30000 people at that stadium and one guy actually to me with a beer bottle while I was standing behind the poles and told me go back to we don't belong here you not supposed to be on this field we're going to kill you you'll hit with a bottle with threats to kill you when you scared yeah obviously like I say. You're only person of color amongst 25230000 white people you never knew what could have happened because that people were really extreme and yeah it wasn't good times our money was. Stored in remote suddenly there he was walking hand in hand with wife Winnie in February 990 after 27 years in jail now so Mandela was released from prison. Changed was finally coming including in rugby black South Africans are now allowed to try out for the national side Jerome and Chester went together unfortunately for me because I didn't like it but chased them into on the make the Springboks chase there was a shade but I said to change the look it's used time you must go on to make his family proud and you mustn't worry too much about me and him and just enjoy it so he's always looking out for other people and that's just the person that he was historically the Springboks had a face and reputation on the rugby pitch but ahead of the World Cup in 1905 and in front of a home crowd before. Almost questioned Chester Williams was injured and New Zealand with the favorites it was very sad for him because he's old Rheem wants to play in the World Cup and then he got injured and I had to keep him positive and say like look put everything in God's hand because he's a big Christian I'm a big Christian we prayed together and fortunately got back into the squad there was no turning back then after that. South Africa had made it to the final in a campaign that had already united the country but New Zealand where formidable and the hosts would need a touch of magic to win just ahead of the match President Nelson Mandela stepped onto the field where ring a Springbok show I just watching when Nelson Mandela went on with the chairs you have to kept in the front or piano people were just singing and dancing we need got to chased and he talked to chase the people with this outing and assist amazing it's like a fairy tale movie the green and gold shirt that's at the time was despised What did that mean in terms of redefining what that uniform meant it gave a lot of hope I'm not just talking about rugby I think in general for everybody it means so much for you to put on a Springbok rugby it is it the scrum is turn and it was a gruelling match South Africa constantly forced to defend against the relentless New Zealand attack Naing all at full time for the 1st time ever in a Rugby World Cup The match went into extra time there was a god then with 7 minutes to go a breakthrough for the Springboks like I was dispatched before the drop check was rejected I was too hung on telephoning a whistle when it came the whole nation erupted I was sure it was I was watching at home with 3. In the family and when the final whistle when I remember in our street people were celebrating people were dancing in bars and possibly even they were and it was the whole country. Just to Williams played for the Springboks till 2000 and then went into coaching when he died suddenly of a suspected heart attack he was awarded a state funeral in Alma of his contribution to sport he was just 49 you normally phoned me 3 times a day and not to your date now my phone is quiet it's still tough there. My best friend passed away awfully one day with gets up in past that r.v. Paula gave us Jerome pub a water friend and teammate of South African rugby legend Chester Williams he was speaking to me as being a sporting witness. You're listening to the b.b.c. World Service and here's what's happening in the studio this week. $200000.00 works of a big church rethink in how to present the collection with a completely hang of everything on show and only 4 months to do it in New York's Museum of Modern Art prepares itself for 21st century art in the studio at b.b.c. World Service dot com slash in the studio. And it's 1030 g.m.t. It's the food chain with Emily tell Miss ever thought you'd like your other half to be an extraordinarily good cook possibly with me since Star ot you might just have to thank you Dan as we sit down with 3 people who know exactly what it's like to be in a long term relationship with the top sat face is the b.b.c. World Service the world's radio station. 10 am in London 5 am in Washington midday in Nairobi this is Dan Damon at the b.b.c. . After decades of debate in the next hour the remains of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco are expected to be examined unmoved we'll hear from one of his victims he was sure the character of Clearwater creaming out our case with anybody in a nutshell Kerrick shutter speed backward memory our play 16 people sentenced to death in Bangladesh for the murder of student not structure roughly u.k. Police continuing to question a moderate driver after 39 people were found dead in a refrigerated trailer Petey's the tragedy at the tip of your eyes but for sure the loss of life here is significant but it's surprising for those of us who work in nationally and internationally and after years of planning arguments and court battles and Leonardo da Vinci exhibition finally opened in Paris 1st the news. B.b.c. News Hello this is Gerry Smit 44 years after he was honored in an elaborate state funeral the remains of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco are being Exuma from a national monument and reburied at the cemetery outside the capital Guy Hedgecoe is in Madrid this is happening now because the socialist government of Pedro Sanchez believes that it's inappropriate for Spain a modern western democracy to have its former dictator lying in the Valley of the fall and huge more psyllium that he built this mall psyllium is hugely controversial for many Spaniards they feel it glorifies the memory and the legacy of Franco and he needs to be put somewhere else somewhere more low key and that's what's going to happen today a court in Bangladesh has sentenced 14 men and 2 women to death over the murder of Jon Rafferty a female student in a case that shocked the nation his amber sanity Rajan to good outrage and people are demonstrating in the capital Dhaka another part of the country the very nature of the crime the gruesome need to how a student who went to the mother start at only just school to take her exam was alluded on to the rooftop of this building and then hands were tied up and set on fire and later on how politically influential people were trying to you know talk to the family to withdraw the charges they were being threatened not that she was also threatened even before this incident happened so that national outrage kind of forced the government and authorities to have the case being heard in a special court so this sends out a warning to other people because you know you need to have some kind of the 10 spot people but they carry out the crimes are not lawyers for Carlos Ghosn the ag sponsor the Japanese carmaker Nessun So financial me.