Interviews From The Short Century E-Book

Marco Lupis

• Herausgeber: Tektime
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 344

Beschreibung

Throughout a long career as a special and foreign correspondent for major Italian publications and the state-owned broadcaster RAI, Marco Lupis has been up close and personal with many of the people who have shaped the world as we know it.

In this book, Lupis recalls the most important interviews of his career, not only with brave men and women who dedicated their lives to fighting injustice and abuse of power, but also with some of the biggest names of the modern era: Nobel laureates, heads of state, rock stars and supermodels, to name but a few.
This book offers a unique insight into fifty personalities who in some way shaped the second half of the 20th century (the ‘short century’). It features exclusive interviews conducted by Marco Lupis during his decades-long career as a special and foreign correspondent covering Latin America and the Far East for some of Italy’s biggest media outlets, including Corriere della Sera, Panorama, L’Espresso, La Repubblica and RAI.

You will hear from leading figures from the worlds of politics, culture and the arts, including: rock star Peter Gabriel, singer-songwriter Franco Battiato, supermodel Claudia Schiffer, Mexican revolutionary Subcomandante Marcos, Nobel laureate and Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, Argentine president Carlos Menem, Japanese and Chinese Nobel-winning writers Kenzaburō Ōe and Gao Xingjian, and East Timorese president and Nobel laureate José Ramos-Horta.

Sometimes dramatic, occasionally light-hearted, but always accurate and packed with fascinating revelations, Lupis’s interviews cover the great issues of the modern era: war, freedom, the fight against injustice and the quest for truth, be it through politics, literature, art or cinema.

PUBLISHER: TEKTIME

Leseprobe

Marco Lupis

INTERVIEWS FROM THE SHORT CENTURY

Close encounters with leading 20th century figures from the worlds of politics, culture and the arts

ISBN: 9788873043607

This ebook was created with StreetLib Writehttp://write.streetlib.com

Table of contents

About the author

INTERVIEWS FROM THE SHORT CENTURY

LITERARY PROPERTY RESERVED

Introduction

Subcomandante Marcos

Peter Gabriel

Claudia Schiffer

Gong Li

Íngrid Betancourt

Aung San Suu Kyi

Lucía Pinochet

Mireya García

Kenzaburō Ōe

Benazir Bhutto

King Constantine II of Greece

Hun Sen

Roh Moo-hyun

Hubert de Givenchy

Maria Dolors Miró

Tamara Nijinsky

Franco Battiato

Ivano Fossati

Tinto Brass

Peter Greenaway

Suso Cecchi d’Amico

Rocco Forte

Nicolas Hayek

Roger Peyrefitte

José Luis de Vilallonga

Teresa Cordopatri

Andrea Muccioli

Xanana Gusmão

José Ramos-Horta

Basilio do Nascimento

Khalida Messaoudi

Leonora Jakupi

Lee Kuan Yew

Khushwant Singh

Shobhaa De

Joan Chen

Carlos Saúl Menem

Pauline Hanson

Dmitri Volkogonov

Gao Xingjian

Wang Dan

Zhang Liang

Stanley Ho

Palden Gyatso

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

Cardinal (Jaime) Sin

Võ Nguyên Giáp

Sergio Corsini

Macram Max Gassis

Men Songzhen

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Notes

About the author

By the same author:

Il Male inutile

I Cannibali di Mao

Cristo si è fermato a Shingo

Acteal

On board a US Army helicopter, mid-mission

Marco Lupis is a journalist, photojournalist and author who has worked as La Repubblica’s Hong Kong correspondent.

Born in Rome in 1960, he has worked as a special and foreign correspondent the world over, but mainly in Latin America and the Far East, for major Italian publications (Panorama, Il Tempo, Corriere della Sera, L’Espresso and La Repubblica) and the state-owned broadcaster RAI. Often posted to war zones, Marco was one of the few journalists to cover the massacres in the wake of the declaration of Timor-Leste’s independence, the bloody battles between Christians and Muslims in the Maluku Islands, the Bali bombings and the SARS epidemic in China. He covered the entire Asia-Pacific region, stretching from Hawaii to the Antarctic, for over a decade. Marco has interviewed many of the world’s most prominent politicians, particularly from Asia, including the Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. His articles, which often decry human rights abuses, have also appeared in daily newspapers in Spain, Argentina and the United States.

Marco Lupis lives in Calabria.

INTERVIEWS FROM THE SHORT CENTURY

INTERVIEWS

from the Short Century

Marco Lupis

Close encounters with leading 20th century figures from the worlds of politics,

culture and the arts

Translated by Andrew Fanko

Tektime

LITERARY PROPERTY RESERVED

Copyright© 2017 by Marco Lupis Macedonio Palermo di Santa Margherita

All rights reserved to the author

[email protected]

www.marcolupis.com

First Italian edition 2017

© Tektime 2018

ISBN: 9788873043607

This work is protected by copyright.

Any unauthorised duplication, even of part of this work, is strictly forbidden.

The journalist is the historian of the moment

Albert Camus

For Francesco, Alessandro and Caterina

Introduction

Tertium non datur

As I walked briskly along Corso Venezia towards the San Babila theatre on an autumnal day in Milan back in October 1976, I was about to conduct my very first interview.

I was sixteen years old, and together with my friend Alberto I was hosting a radio show for young people called “Spazio giovani” on one of Italy's earliest privately owned stations, Radio Milano Libera.

These were incredible times, when it seemed as though anything could happen, and frequently it did. Marvellous times. Horrible times. These were the anni di piombo [the Years of Lead], the years of youth protest, anarchy, strikes in schools and demonstrations that inevitably ended in violence. These were years of hope, filled with a cultural fervour so vibrant and all-consuming that it drew you in and threatened to explode. These were years of young people fighting and being killed, sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right. These were simpler times: you were either on one side or the other. Tertium non datur.

But above all, these were times when every one of us felt, and often knew, we had the power to change things. To – in our own small way – make a difference.

Amid all the chaos, excitement and violence, we were actually pretty laid back, taking things as they came. Terror attacks, bombings, the Red Brigades...these were all part and parcel of our youth and adolescence, but overall they didn't worry us excessively. We had quickly learned to survive in a manner not too dissimilar to that which I would later encounter among those living amid conflict or civil war. They had adapted to such extreme living conditions, a bit like we had back in the 1970s.

Alberto and I really wanted to make a difference. Whereas today's kids are engrossed in selfies, Instagram and smartphones, we poured our boundless enthusiasm and utterly carefree attitude into reading everything in sight and going to concerts, music festivals (it was that magical time when rock music was really taking off) and film clubs.

And so it was, armed with a dictaphone and our heads full of dreams, we made our way hurriedly towards the San Babila theatre on that sunny October afternoon more than forty years ago.

Our appointment was at 4pm, an hour before the matinée performance was due to begin. We were led down to the basement of the theatre, where the actors had their dressing rooms, and waiting for us in one of them was the star of the show and my first interviewee: Peppino De Filippo.

I don't remember much about the interview, and unfortunately the recordings of our radio show must have got lost during one of my many moves.

What I can still remember clear as day is the buzz, that frisson of nervous energy that I felt – and would feel plenty more times in my life – before the interview began. I say interview, but really I see an interview as a meeting; it's a lot more than just a series of questions and answers.

Peppino De Filippo was coming to the end – he died just a few years later – of what was already a legendary career acting on stage and screen. He greeted us without getting up from his seat in front of the mirror, where he was doing his make-up. He was kind, courteous and engaging, and he pretended not to be taken aback when he found himself confronted with a couple of spotty teenagers. I remember the calm, methodical way in which he laid out his stage make-up, which looked heavy, thick and very bright. But the one thing that really sticks in my mind is the profound look of sadness in his eyes. It hit me hard because I felt his sadness so intensely. Perhaps he knew that his life was drawing to a close, or maybe it was proof of the old theory about comedians: they might make everybody else laugh, but they are themselves the saddest people in the world.

We spoke about the theatre and about his brother Eduardo, naturally. He told us how he had born into show business, always travelling around with the family company.

When we left after nearly an hour in his company, we had a full tape and felt a little fuzzy-headed.

That wasn't just my first interview; it was the moment I realised that being a journalist was the only career choice for me. It was the moment I felt for the first time that strange, almost magical chemistry between and interviewer and their subject.

An interview can be a formula to get to the truth, or it can be a futile exercise in vanity. An interview is also a potent weapon, because the journalist can decide whether to work on behalf of the interviewee or the reader.

In my opinion, there is so much more to an interview. It’s all about psychoanalysis, a battle of minds between the interviewer and the interviewee.

In one of the interviews you will read in this book, José Luis de Vilallonga puts it very nicely: “It's all about finding that sweet spot where the interviewer stops being a journalist and instead becomes a friend, someone you can really open up to. Things you wouldn't normally dream of telling a journalist.”

An interview is the practical application of the Socratic art of maieutics: the journalist’s ability to extract honesty from their subject, get them to lower their guard, surprise them with a particular line of questioning that removes any filters from their answers.

The magic doesn't always happen; but when it does, you can be sure that the interview will be a success and not just a sterile question-and-answer session or an exercise in vanity for a journalist motivated solely by a possible scoop.

In over thirty years as a journalist, I have interviewed celebrities, heads of state, prime ministers, religious leaders and politicians, but I have to admit that they're not the ones towards whom I have felt genuine empathy.

Because of my cultural and family background, I ought to have felt on their side, on the side of those men and women who were in power, who had the power to decide the fate of millions of people and often whether they would live or die. Sometimes the destiny of entire populations lay in their hands.

But it never happened like that. I only felt true empathy, that closeness and that frisson of nervous energy when I interviewed the rebels, the fighters, those who proved they were willing to put their (often peaceful and comfortable) lives on the line to defend their ideals.

Whether they were a revolutionary leader in a balaclava, hiding out in a shack in the middle of the Mexican jungle, or a brave Chilean mother waging a stubborn but dignified fight to learn the horrible truth about what happened to her sons, who disappeared during the time of General Pinochet.

It seems to me as though these are the people with the real power.

Grotteria, August 2017

*****

The interviews I have collated for this book appeared between 1993 and 2006 in the publications I have worked for over the years as a reporter or correspondent, primarily in Latin America and the Far East: the weekly magazines Panorama and L’Espresso, the dailies Il Tempo, Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica, and some for the broadcaster RAI.

I have deliberately left them as they were originally written, sometimes in the traditional question/answer format and sometimes in a more journalistic style.

I have written introductions to each interview to help set the scene.

1

Subcomandante Marcos

We shall overcome! (Eventually)

Hotel Flamboyant, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. A message has been slipped under my door:

You must leave for The Jungle today.

Be at reception at 19:00.

Bring climbing boots, a blanket,

a rucksack and some tinned food.

I have just an hour and a half to get these few things together. I’m headed for the heart of the Lacandon Jungle, which lies on the border of Mexico and Guatemala and is one of the least explored areas on Earth. In the present climate, no ordinary tour operator would be willing to take me there; the only man who can is Subcomandante Marcos, and the Lacandon Jungle is his last refuge.

*****

That meeting with Subcomandante Marcos on behalf of Corriere della Sera’s weekly magazine, Sette, remains to this day the proudest moment of my career. Even if I wasn’t the first Italian journalist to interview him (I can’t be certain that the likeable and ubiquitous Gianni Minà didn’t get there first, if I’m honest), it was definitely long before the fabled insurgent with his trademark black balaclava spent the next few years ferrying the world’s media to and from his jungle hideaway, which he used as a kind of wartime press office.

It had been nearly two weeks since my plane from Mexico City had touched down at the small military airport in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of the state of Chiapas, at the end of March. Aeroplanes bearing Mexican Army insignia were taxiing on the runway, and various military vehicles were parked menacingly all around. Chiapas was approximately a third of the size of Italy and home to over three million people, most of whom had Mexican Indian blood: some two hundred and fifty thousand were descended directly from the Maya.

I found myself in one of the poorest areas on Earth, where ninety per cent of the indigenous population had no access to drinking water and sixty-three per cent were illiterate.

It didn’t take me long to work out the lie of the land: there were a few, very rich, white landowners and a whole load of peasant farmers who earned, on average, seven pesos (less than ten US dollars) a day.

These impoverished people had begun to hope of salvation on 1 January 1994. As Mexico entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada, a masked revolutionary was declaring war on his own country. On horseback and armed (albeit mostly with fake wooden guns), some two thousand men from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) were occupying San Cristóbal de las Casas, the old capital of Chiapas. “Tierra y libertad!” [“Land and freedom!”] was their rallying cry.

We now know how that decisive first battle ended: the fifty thousand troops sent in with armoured cars to crush the revolt were victorious. But what about Marcos? What became of the man who had evoked memories of Emiliano Zapata, the legendary hero of the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910?

*****

It’s seven o’clock at the reception of Hotel Flamboyant. Our contact, Antonio, arrives bang on time. He is a Mexican journalist who tells me he has been to the Lacandon Jungle not once, but dozens of times. Of course, the situation now is very different to how it was a year ago, when Marcos and his comrades enjoyed a relatively quiet existence in the village of Guadalupe Tepeyac, at the entrance to the jungle, equipped with phones, computers and the internet, ready to receive American television reporters. Life for the Mexican Indians has remained constant, but for Marcos and his fellow revolutionaries everything has changed: in the wake of the latest offensive by government troops, the leaders of the EZLN have been forced to hide in the mountains, where there are no phones, no electricity, no roads…nothing.

The colectivo (a strange cross between a taxi and a minibus) hurtles between a series of hairpin turns in the dark. The inside of the vehicle reeks of sweat and my clothes cling to my skin. It takes two hours to reach Ocosingo, a town on the edge of the Jungle. The streets are bustling and filled with the laughter of girls with long, dark hair and Mexican Indian features. There are soldiers everywhere. The rooms in the town's only hotel have no windows, only a grille in the door. It feels like being in prison. A news item crackles over the radio: “A man has revealed today that his son Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente, a thirty-eight-year-old university professor from Tampico, is Subcomandante Marcos”.

A new guide joins us the next morning. His name is Porfirio and he’s also a Mexican Indian.

It takes us nearly seven dust- and pothole-filled hours in his jeep to reach Lacandón, a village where the dirt track ends and the jungle proper begins. It’s not raining, but we're still knee-deep in mud. We sleep in some huts we encounter along our route, and it takes us two exhausting days of brisk walking through the inhospitable jungle before we finally arrive, completely stifled by the humidity, at Giardin. It’s a village in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve that is home to about two hundred people, all of whom are either women, children or old. The men have gone to war. We are made to feel welcome, but few people understand Spanish. Everybody here speaks the Mayan language Tzeltal. “Will we be meeting Marcos?” we ask. “Maybe,” Porfirio nods.

We are woken gently at three in the morning and told that we need to leave. Guided by the light of the stars rather than the moon, we walk for half an hour before we reach a hut. We can just about make out the presence of three men inside, but it's almost as dark as the balaclavas that hide their faces. In the identikit released by the Mexican government, Marcos was described as a professor with a degree in philosophy who wrote a thesis on Althusser and did a master’s at Paris-Sorbonne University. A voice initially speaking French breaks the silence: “We’ve got twenty minutes. I prefer to speak Spanish if that’s OK. I’m Subcomandante Marcos. I'd advise you not to record our conversation, because if the recording should be intercepted it would be a problem for everybody, especially for you. We may officially be in the middle of a ceasefire, but they’re using every trick in the book to try and track me down. You can ask me anything you like.”

Why do you call yourself “Subcomandante”?

Everyone says: “Marcos is the boss”, but that’s not true. They're the real bosses, the Zapatista people; I just happen to have military command. They've appointed me spokesperson because I can speak Spanish. My comrades are communicating through me; I’m just following orders.

Ten years off the grid is a long time. How do you pass the time up here in the mountains?

I read. I brought twelve books with me to the Jungle. One is Canto General by Pablo Neruda, another is Don Quixote.

What else?

Well, the days and years of our struggle go by. If you see the same poverty, the same injustice every single day... If you live here, your desire to fight and make a difference can only get stronger. Unless you’re a cynic or a bastard. And then there are the things that journalists don’t usually ask me. Like, here in the Jungle, we sometimes have to eat rats and drink our comrades’ piss to ensure we don't die of thirst on a long journey...things like that.

What do you miss? What did you leave behind?

I miss sugar. And a dry pair of socks. Having wet feet day and night, in the freezing cold...I wouldn't wish that on anyone. As for sugar, it's just about the only thing the Jungle can't provide. We have to source it from miles away because we need it to keep our strength up. For those of us from the city, it can be torture. We keep saying: “Do you remember the ice creams from Coyoacán? And the tacos from Division del Norte?” These are all just distant memories. Out here, if you catch a pheasant or some other animal, you have to wait three or four hours before it's ready to eat. And if the troops are so famished they eat it raw, it’s diarrhoea all round the next day. Life's different here; you see everything in a new light... Oh yes, you asked me what I left behind. A metro ticket, a mountain of books, a notebook filled with poems...and a few friends. Not many, just a few.

When will you unmask yourself?

I don't know. I believe that our balaclava is also a positive ideological symbol: this is our revolution...it's not about individuals, there's no leader. With these balaclavas, we're all Marcos.

The government would argue that you’re hiding your face because you’ve got something to hide...

They don't get it. But it’s not even the government that is the real problem; it's more the reactionary forces in Chiapas, the local farmers and landowners with their private “white guards”. I don't think there’s much difference between the racism of a white South African towards a black person and that of a Chiapaneco landowner towards a Mexican Indian. The life expectancy for Mexican Indians here is 50-60 for men and 45-50 for women.

What about children?

Infant mortality is through the roof. Let me tell you the story of Paticha. A while back, as we were moving from one part of the Jungle to another, we happened upon a small, very poor community where we were greeted by a Zapatista comrade who had a little girl aged about three or four. Her name was Patricia, but she pronounced it “Paticha”. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and her answer was always the same: “a guerrilla”. One night, we found her running a really high temperature – must have been at least forty – and we didn't have any antibiotics. We used some damp cloths to try and cool her down, but she was so hot they just kept drying out. She died in my arms. Patricia never had a birth certificate, and she didn't have a death certificate either. To Mexico, it was as if she never existed. That’s the reality facing Mexican Indians in Chiapas.

The Zapatista Movement may have plunged the entire Mexican political system into crisis, but you haven't won, have you?

Mexico needs democracy, but it also needs people who transcend party politics to protect it. If our struggle helps to achieve this goal, it won't have been in vain. But the Zapatista Army will never become a political party; it will just disappear. And when it does, it will be because Mexico has democracy.

And if that doesn’t happen?

We’re surrounded from a military perspective. The truth is that the government won't want to back down because Chiapas, and the Lacandon Jungle in particular, literally sits on a sea of oil. And it’s that Chiapaneco oil that Mexico has given as a guarantee for the billions of dollars it has been lent by the United States. They can’t let the Americans think they're not in control of the situation.

What about you and your comrades?

Us? We’ve got nothing to lose. Ours is a fight for survival and a worthy peace.

Ours is a just fight.

2

Peter Gabriel

The eternal showman

Peter Gabriel, the legendary founder and lead vocalist of Genesis, doesn't do many gigs, but when he does, he offers proof that his appetite for musical, cultural and technological experimentation truly knows no bounds.

I met him for an exclusive interview at Sonoria, a three-day festival in Milan dedicated entirely to rock music. During a two-hour performance of outstanding music, Gabriel sang, danced and leapt about the stage, captivating the audience with a show that, as always, was much more than just a rock concert.

At the end of the show, he invited me to join him in his limousine. As we were driven to the airport, he talked to me about himself, his future plans, his commitment to working with Amnesty International to fight racism and social injustice, his passion for multimedia technology and the inside story behind Secret World Live, the album he was about to launch worldwide.

Do you think the end of apartheid in South Africa was a victory for rock music?

It was a victory for the South African people, but I do believe rock music played its part.

In what way?

I think that musicians did a lot to make people in Europe and America more aware of the problem. Take Biko, for example. I wrote that song to try and get politicians from as many countries as possible to continue their sanctions against South Africa and keep up the pressure. It's about doing small things; they might not change the world, but they make a difference and it's something we can all get involved in. Fighting injustice isn't always about big demonstrations or grand gestures.

What do you mean?

Let me give you an example. There are a couple of elderly ladies in the Midwest of the United States who annoy the hell out of people who inflict torture in Latin America. They spend all their time firing off letters to prison directors, one after another. Because they're so well-informed, their letters are often published prominently in the American newspapers. And it often just so happens that the political prisoners they mention in their letters are suddenly released, as if by magic! That’s what I mean when I talk about how little things can make a difference. Basically, the music we make is the same as one of their letters.

Your commitment to fighting racism is closely linked to the work of your Real World label, isn’t it, which promotes world music?

Absolutely. It's given me immense satisfaction to bring such diverse musicians together from places as far apart as China, Africa, Russia and Indonesia. We've produced artists such as the Guo Brothers from China and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan from Pakistan. I've taken so much inspiration from their work, as well as from other artists on the Real World label. The rhythms, the harmonies, the voices... I had already begun to head in that direction as early as 1982, when I organised the first WOMAD [World of Music, Arts and Dance] festival. The audience were able to take part in the event, playing on stage alongside groups from Africa. It was such a meaningful, life-affirming experience that the festival has since been held in other parts of the world, including Japan, Spain, Israel and France.

Is that why some people call you the ‘father of world music’?

Real World and world music are commercial labels above everything else; we publish music from artists the world over so that their music can be heard the world over, on radio stations and in record stores. But I want the artists who record an album on my label to become famous in their own right. No one says “is this reggae?” any more; they say “is this Bob Marley?”. In time, I hope that no one who hears a song by one of my artists asks “is this world music?”

You've recently shown a great interest in multimedia technologies, and your interactive CD ‘Xplora1’ has really got people talking. How does all this fit in with the activities of Real World?

There's so much you can do on that CD, like choose tracks by each individual artist just by clicking on the album cover. But I want to see so much more of this kind of thing; interactivity is a great way of introducing people to music. Essentially, what Real World is trying to do is blend traditional, analogue music, if you will, with the new digital possibilities that modern technology gives us.

Are you saying that rock music itself isn't enough any more? That it needs some kind of interaction with the listener? Do you want everyone to play a part in creating the final product?

Not always. For example, I tend to listen to music in my car and I don't want to need a screen or a computer to do that. But when I’m interested in an artist or I want to know more about them, where they come from, what they think, who they really are, that’s when multimedia technology can offer me some relevant visual material. Basically, in the future I would like to see all CDs offering this dual functionality: you can either simply listen to them, or you can ‘explore’ them. With Xplora1, we wanted to create a little world in which people could move around, make choices and interact with the environment and the music. There's loads of things you can do on the CD. Like take a virtual tour of the Real World recording studios, get access to events like the Grammys or the WOMAD festival, listen to live tracks, learn about my career from the early days with Genesis until the present day, and even remix my songs to your heart’s content!

And also have a virtual rummage in your wardrobe, right?

Absolutely (laughs). You can have a rummage in Peter Gabriel's wardrobe!

All this seems light years away from your experience in Genesis. What has stayed the same since those days? Have you never wanted, for example, to do another rock opera like “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”? Have you moved on from all that?

Good question. I think I’m still interested in some of those ideas, but in a different way. In one way, the things I was trying to do during my final years with Genesis were linked to the idea of being multimedia. It’s just that back then, sound perception was restricted by the technology of the time. Now, I want to go a lot further down that road.

Going back to your political and humanitarian activities, now that apartheid is over, what are your other causes célèbres? What global injustices are you looking to rail against?

There are loads. But right now, I think the most important thing is to help people get their voices heard. Everyone should be able to appear on TV or have access to means of communication such as fax machines or computers. Basically, I think we have a chance today to use network communication technology to better defend people’s human rights.

That's very interesting. Can you give a concrete example?

I want to set small, tangible goals. Like making sure a particular village has phone lines, twenty or thirty PCs, that kind of thing. You can set that kind of equipment up almost anywhere in the world - India, China, up a mountain, wherever... Within three or five years, the people living in these places could learn how to create, manage and process information. With just a little bit of hard work, we could transform the economies of many countries from being based on farming to being based on information. That would be a huge step.

So, what next for Peter Gabriel?

A holiday (laughs). We’ve been on tour for months. We’ve had the odd break, but I think I need to get away. On tour, there's always time pressure and the stress of travelling...and I don't get time to play any sport. I mean, I love to play tennis. As far as work is concerned, I’m thinking about doing something similar to the interactive CD. I've just finished my new album, Secret World Live, which was recorded over the course of this long tour. It’s an overview of my career to date, kind of like an anthology. The only track that hasn’t been on one of my previous studio albums is Across The River. Basically, the album is also a way for me to thank all those people who have performed with me on this back-breaking tour. There's the usual suspects like Tony Levin and David Rhodes, but also Billy Cobham and Paula Cole, who accompanied me in Milan, Billy on the drums and Paula on vocals.

Do you have a dream?

I do. I wish there was already a United States of Europe.

Why?

Because it has become clear that small countries can no longer be important to the global economy. We need an organisation that protects their cultural identity and represents them on the world stage and the financial markets. In order to survive, and in particular to compete with places that can offer cheap manual labour, these countries need solid economic representation and a proper commercial union. We also need to stop dividing the world into two groups: the traditional Anglo-Saxon elite and poor countries that are there purely to be exploited. We should be celebrating the differences between people in each individual country, not trying to make everybody the same.

3

Claudia Schiffer

The fairest of them all

She was the most beautiful and highly paid woman on earth, and probably also the most censored. “I’m the only model who's never been photographed topless”, she used to boast. Even her multi-million-dollar contract with Revlon forbade her from posing nude.

But everything changed when two Spanish photographers from the Korpa Agency lifted the veil, allowing the whole world to admire the legendary Claudia Schiffer's perfect breasts.The international press had a field day; only German weekly Bunte spared her blushes on the cover, and even they plastered the topless photos on a multi-page spread inside the magazine. Claudia protested furiously and announced she would be suing and seeking astronomical damages.

I had a couple of contacts in the fashion industry, so I decided to strike while the iron was hot and try to arrange an interview with her for the Italian weekly Panorama. It was certainly no cakewalk, but after dozens of phone calls and protracted negotiations with her obstructive agent, my persistence was rewarded in August 1993, when I was invited to interview Claudia on a family holiday in the Balearics.

This was a genuine scoop. Claudia had never previously spoken to the Italian press and I was the first journalist to be invited into the intimate family surroundings of her holiday home. This was the very place where the photos at the centre of the scandal had been taken: Port d’Andratx, an exclusive resort west of Palma on the island of Majorca, and the location for many years of a holiday home belonging to the Schiffer family.

In 1993, Claudia had a particularly good reason for heading down there to relax. She had just finished playing herself in a long film / documentary entitled Around Claudia Schiffer, directed by Claude Lelouch's former assistant director Daniel Ziskind and filmed in France, Germany and the United States. Filming had just ended, and TV stations the world over were scrambling to acquire the rights.

Just before I set off, I let it slip (probably not entirely by accident, if I’m honest) to a rather wealthy friend whose family owned a renowned tool company that I was going to Palma de Majorca to meet Claudia. At which point my friend assured me I wouldn’t need to book a hotel: “I've got a [magnificent hundred-foot sailing] yacht down there. There are five sailors and a cook swanning round Palma right now at my expense with nothing to do. At least if you head down there, they’ll have to work for their money! And you’ll get to enjoy a nice little cruise from Palma down to Port d’Andratx!”

I didn’t need a second invitation, and so on the day of the interview I stepped down off my buddy's yacht on to the marina at Port d’Andratx after a two-hour journey from Palma. Giving a cheery wave to the crew, I headed for Café de la Vista, a nice little spot opposite the throng of moored yachts, where I was scheduled to meet Claudia at three-thirty.

Surely no journalist had ever arrived for an interview in such style!

*****

I don’t have to wait long before an Audi 100 with a Düsseldorf plate rolls up. They’re here. Two men are in the front, and on the back seat I can see her ever-present agent Aline Soulier. ‘Where is she?’ I wonder anxiously. I’m not disappointed for long. A wavy-haired blonde appears from behind Aline and leans forward in her seat. “Hi, I’m Claudia,” she says, extending her hand and flashing me a smile. She's astoundingly beautiful, a mesmerising mix of Lolita and the Virgin Mary.

No one gets out of the car. “There are paparazzi everywhere,” whispers Aline as we make the short journey to the family holiday home, a brick-red, single-storey villa. Leading the way, Claudia tells me I am the first reporter she has ever invited here, before introducing me to her family: “This is my little brother, my sister Carolin, my mother.” Claudia’s mother has a typically German look: short blonde hair, very refined and standing even taller than her five-foot-eleven daughter. Her father, a lawyer practising in Düsseldorf, is not here. Those in the know say he is the one who has orchestrated her success from the shadows, the man responsible for her fame as one of the world’s most beautiful women.

It all started for you in a Düsseldorf night club, didn’t it?

I was so young. One night, I was approached by the head of the Metropolitan agency, who asked me to work for him.

How did you react?

I said to him: “If you’re being serious, you can talk to my parents tomorrow.” I mean, people try all sorts of different chat-up lines in clubs. That could easily have been another, and not a very original one at that...

Are you close to your family?

Very. As a family, we have our feet on the ground. My father is a lawyer and my mother helps him with the admin side of things. They haven't been changed by my success; it takes a lot to impress them. Of course, they’re very proud of me, but to them it's just my job and they expect me to do it to the best of my ability.

Aren't your siblings jealous?

Of course not! They’re just proud of me, particularly my twelve-year-old brother. I have a sister who’s 19 and goes to university, so there's no competition between her and me, and finally I have a twenty-year-old brother and we get on great.

Do you always come on holiday with them to Majorca?

I have done ever since I was very young. I love this place.

But now you're older, it looks like you find it hard just being able to go out for a walk around here...

You're right. There are paparazzi everywhere, hiding in plants; it’s embarrassing. Every move I make is observed, studied, photographed... It’s not exactly a holiday if you look at it like that! (laughs).

I suppose that’s the price of fame...

Exactly. But I often go out on the boat with my mum and my brothers and sisters. I feel like they can't hassle me as much at sea.

Really?

Oh, you mean the topless shots? I honestly don’t understand how that could have happened. I was out on the boat with my mum and my sister Carolin. We were anchored and taking the chance to soak up some sun. Peter Gabriel was also there. He’s a dear friend of mine...

We saw...

Well, there you go. He was also in the photos. But I’d rather not talk about it. Anyway, I’ve already instructed my lawyers to seek damages...

People say you'd like to become an actress.

I’d like to give it a go, that’s all. People keep offering me scripts, and the more I read the more I want to have a go... Right now I’d love to do a film. I really would.

But you won't be appearing in Robert Altman's film Prêt-à-porter next year?

It’s absolutely unbelievable. The press all over the world keep talking about it, but it’s categorically not true. Plus, I don’t want to do a film where I’m just playing myself.

If you had to choose between a supermodel and an actress, what would you be?

You can't be a model all your life. It’s a career for really young girls and you can only do it for a few years, a bit like playing tennis or swimming. So you need to make hay while the sun shines. Afterwards, I'd also like to go to university and study art history.

You've always said you will defend your privacy at all costs. Isn’t it a bit of a contradiction doing this documentary about your life, in your home, your parents’ home?

I don’t think so. The truly private moments will remain as such. In the film, you only see what I have consciously chosen to reveal: my family, my friends, my holidays, my hobbies... Basically, the things I love. And then there's also all the travelling around, the fashion shows, my photographers, the press conferences...

Do you live sometimes in Paris and sometimes in Monte Carlo?

Essentially, I live in Monte Carlo. I always go back there when I’m not working, at weekends for example.

Does your agent travel everywhere with you?

Not normally. I need her when I have to work in countries that I’m not familiar with. Like Argentina, Japan, Australia or South Africa. In those places, there are so many fans, reporters, paparazzi...

Does it get tedious travelling around so much?

No, because I love reading and a good book always makes the time pass more quickly, even on a plane. Plus, it’s my job; it’s not a holiday!

What sort of books do you read?

Mainly books about art. My favourite movements are Impressionism and Pop Art. I also really like history and reading biographies of great men and women. I read one on Christopher Columbus. It was incredible!

People have said you’re half Brigitte Bardot and half Romy Schneider. Do you think that's fair?

Yes, although not so much physically. It’s more that I think I share certain aspects of their character and lifestyle... I find Bardot an extraordinary woman as well as incredibly beautiful. What a character! I also kind of worship Romy Schneider. I've seen all her films and it was just horrible when she died. Such a tragic life...

Apart from the tragic events, would you like to be the new Romy Schneider?

Wow, what a compliment! Being compared to all these beautiful women. It’s really flattering, but above all I just want to do everything I can to be me.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I certainly didn't think I would become a model. I guess I wanted to be a lawyer.

Like your father?

Yeah, I was all set to go and work for his firm. And then all my plans changed. I realised this was too good an opportunity to turn down, so I grabbed it with both hands.

Your story is a bit of a fairytale for the modern ages. There must have been some tough times?

Oh, sure. But I’m always confident in my own ability.

What’s your secret?

Plenty of discipline. And also being able to be around others. I’m a people person. I like being able to think on my feet when I’m facing a barrage of questions from reporters at a press conference. I see it as a challenge; it doesn't scare me.

Is it just about discipline?

You also need to stay level-headed. And that’s where the way I was brought up comes in. My family have helped me a lot. They made me who I am: confident, pragmatic and well-balanced. I can stay in control even when I’m out of my comfort zone. For example, it’s thanks to my parents that I’m now able to speak in public without feeling shy.

If the media is anything to go by, you move pretty quickly from one relationship to another: one day it’s Prince Albert of Monaco, the next Julio Bocca. Who is the real Claudia?

The real Claudia is a girl who has lots of friends. Prince Albert is one of those, Julio Bocca is another. But there’s also Plácido Domingo, Peter Gabriel and a load of other famous people. As soon as I’m photographed with them, I have the entire world’s press immediately claiming they're my boyfriend! It’s not like that.

But do you eventually see yourself settling down, getting married, having kids?

I’m absolutely ready to fall in love, the sooner the better. But I don't have a partner right now simply because I’ve not fallen in love with anyone.

What do you look for in a man?