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Hello. Welcome to Witness at the British library in London. This | :00:00. | :00:45. | |
month we have another five people who have witnessed extraordinary | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
moments in history first-hand. We will hear from a woman who led a | :00:51. | :00:53. | |
protest against the contraceptive and in Ireland. A student who took | :00:54. | :01:02. | |
past in the legendary protests of May, 1968, in front. And a Cuban who | :01:03. | :01:14. | |
protested. And for many years, two giant Buddha is carved into cliffs | :01:15. | :01:18. | |
in central Afghanistan dominated the surrounding landscape. -- Buddhas. | :01:19. | :01:24. | |
That changed in 2001 when the Taliban ordered the destruction. A | :01:25. | :01:29. | |
local farmer was forced to help destroy the ancient Buddhas. | :01:30. | :01:51. | |
And he still lives in the valley there. In May, 1971, a group of | :01:52. | :05:28. | |
Irish feminists staged a protest calling for legalisation of | :05:29. | :05:35. | |
contraception. This woman spoke to us about what became known as the | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
contraception fight. I was one of the 12 founders of the Irish Women's | :05:42. | :05:49. | |
Liberation Movement. We wanted to legalise contraception in Ireland. | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
It was forbidden at that time. If we were caught in possession we faced a | :05:55. | :06:00. | |
fine or a jail sentence and social and disgrace. We were all Catholic. | :06:01. | :06:08. | |
Church and state where hand in hand. A Catholic state for a | :06:09. | :06:19. | |
Catholic people. It was a license for sex, they said. If you had sex | :06:20. | :06:29. | |
you had babies. 1971, the average family size was 12. Not unusual to | :06:30. | :06:36. | |
have 13 or 15 children. Northern Ireland was under British rule. We | :06:37. | :06:43. | |
thought, right, we will get the train to Belfast, break the law, get | :06:44. | :06:47. | |
the contraceptives, and come back to Dublin. The contraceptive train. | :06:48. | :06:54. | |
Some people call it the condom train. I say no. It was never that. | :06:55. | :06:59. | |
We were never going to give control of our sexuality to main. If you | :07:00. | :07:06. | |
call it the condom train you are drawing attention to the penis and | :07:07. | :07:17. | |
sex. There were 40 of us. We went to the shops. I go up to the counter. I | :07:18. | :07:31. | |
am the leader of the pack. I said, I would like, please, a contraceptive | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
packet. And he said, where is your prescription? And I said, what | :07:37. | :07:44. | |
prescription? I don't have one. He said you can't have any. But I said, | :07:45. | :07:53. | |
well then, give me one. And then I had the idea, customs officers, they | :07:54. | :08:02. | |
had never seen it. We ordered 1000 aspirin and we stripped them out of | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
their packets. We got back on the train. We get to Dublin and the | :08:08. | :08:15. | |
customs men are standing there at tables. I have that and I am not | :08:16. | :08:26. | |
giving it to you. You are not getting it. Open up your bag. The | :08:27. | :08:36. | |
rest of us lined up and they did not raise a hand. We hear shouting. Let | :08:37. | :08:44. | |
them through! Let them through! People agreed with us. And that was | :08:45. | :08:48. | |
massive. We were against the church. We were no longer afraid. | :08:49. | :08:56. | |
You were touching a popular nerve. It resonated with women who thought, | :08:57. | :09:04. | |
I do not need to get pregnant. But that day, the shouting was let them | :09:05. | :09:16. | |
go! Let them go! And there was joy! I am not sure I have ever had an | :09:17. | :09:20. | |
experience as joyful as that in my life. Nell McCafferty. A lifelong | :09:21. | :09:32. | |
women's rights campaigner. In 9091, at the end of Ethiopian's long civil | :09:33. | :09:39. | |
war, they did a deal to bring some Jews to Israel. -- 1991. It was | :09:40. | :09:52. | |
called Operation Solomon. Daniel, 11 years old, was one of those | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
airlifted according to the operation. | :09:57. | :10:23. | |
The airlift of the Ethiopian Jews continued around the clock. The plan | :10:24. | :10:31. | |
to reunite them with their families in Israel. Israel was eager to get | :10:32. | :10:40. | |
all of them out of Ethiopian as quickly as possible. | :10:41. | :12:00. | |
At least 15,000 were flown to Israel in the operation, which lasted less | :12:01. | :12:08. | |
than 24 hours. The seats were taken out of civilian airliners so that | :12:09. | :12:11. | |
the refugees could be crammed on board. One jumbo jet carried more | :12:12. | :12:21. | |
than 1000 passengers. It is a great, historical moment for us. It | :12:22. | :12:25. | |
is one of the greatest humanitarian relief operations of all time. One | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
of the greatest, one of the swiftest, and one of the most | :12:31. | :12:32. | |
successful. Daniel Nadawo, who still lives in | :12:33. | :13:51. | |
Israel. Remember, you can watch Witness every month on the BBC News | :13:52. | :13:55. | |
Channel or you can catch up on over 1000 radio programmes in our online | :13:56. | :14:01. | |
archive. Just go to BBC .co .uk /witness. In 1968, disaffected | :14:02. | :14:09. | |
students and workers in France came together to protest badly run | :14:10. | :14:12. | |
universities, the war in Vietnam, and low wages. Our next witness | :14:13. | :14:19. | |
helped to produce posters to illustrate the frustration of the | :14:20. | :14:25. | |
country's youth. Paris, the worst street fighting in the French | :14:26. | :14:28. | |
capital since the liberation in 1944. Students and police clashed | :14:29. | :14:34. | |
following extremist action following the war in Vietnam. | :14:35. | :14:45. | |
Paris was full of young people in 1968. The protest came because too | :14:46. | :14:56. | |
many people were at the same moment unhappy. The strike, the university | :14:57. | :15:05. | |
were on strike, everybody decided to go down in the street at 6pm, it was | :15:06. | :15:14. | |
the 13th of May, that is when the workers and students were together. | :15:15. | :15:22. | |
During the early hours of this morning, the student leaders were | :15:23. | :15:26. | |
meeting in Sorbonne to plan their next moves. The most solid evidence | :15:27. | :15:31. | |
of course of the political tie-up between the students and unions was | :15:32. | :15:45. | |
when a crowd marched through Paris. They were fighting for their rights. | :15:46. | :15:49. | |
They were fighting to get a better life. I met my friend, and we | :15:50. | :16:03. | |
decided to go back and try to get involved with doing posters to | :16:04. | :16:09. | |
illustrate the movement. The first thing we did was to organise | :16:10. | :16:15. | |
meetings and give paint and brushes and paper to all the people coming | :16:16. | :16:25. | |
to the Beaux-Arts. The Beaux-Arts became very famous, and everybody | :16:26. | :16:28. | |
wanted to get posters to stick on the wall. My job was to work at the | :16:29. | :16:34. | |
Beaux-Arts, get the paper and the posters out. Get the posters on the | :16:35. | :16:38. | |
wall, get contact with the factories, and we had a meeting, a | :16:39. | :16:44. | |
special meeting so we could decide which one was good, was not good, | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
and everybody has to say something about it. We did the posters at | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
night, the next morning it was on the wall. We worked like workers. We | :16:55. | :17:00. | |
can make late 2000 posters, make one big poster, with UUU. That was the | :17:01. | :17:13. | |
beginning of the saying that the workers on the street are going to | :17:14. | :17:20. | |
work together. What the government was trying to separate the people. | :17:21. | :17:25. | |
They thought it was the end of society, instead of that, the young | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
people, the young students and workers, think they can do a new | :17:31. | :17:48. | |
republic, we can work together. Philippe Vermes is a renowned | :17:49. | :17:53. | |
photographer still based in Paris. And for our final film witness has | :17:54. | :17:59. | |
travelled to Cuba. For almost 20 years the Nobel prize-winning author | :18:00. | :18:02. | |
Ernest Hemingway had a house on the Caribbean island. Alberto Ramos | :18:03. | :18:10. | |
worked there at as a cook. Now in his 80s, he shares his memories of | :18:11. | :18:12. | |
the novelist. Alberto Ramos, remembering one of | :18:13. | :21:40. | |
the great American authors. And that's all from us this month. I | :21:41. | :21:45. | |
hope you will join me next month, a care at the British library. We will | :21:46. | :21:50. | |
have five more extraordinary account of history through the eyes of the | :21:51. | :21:55. | |
people who were there -- back here at the British library. But for | :21:56. | :22:00. | |
now, from me and the rest of the team at Witness, goodbye. | :22:01. | :22:05. |