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The Current Transcript for February 25, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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VOICE: When I saw these brave girls abandoned by America, I saw that we were entering, we, all of us, Canadians, European, Americans, in a new world.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: That is Bernard-Henri Levy and he thinks we in the West are rolling over, turning our backs and handing control of one of the most strategic places on the planet to five governments that our own leaders pretend to doubt: Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Bernard-Henri Levy is France's most celebrated philosopher, one who heads into the field and wades into the toughest conflicts before he weighs in and he thinks the U.S. and the rest of us, are not only abandoning the Kurds in Syria, we are abdicating the fate of the world. Bernard Henri-Levy is my guest in an hour. Also today, think about walking into your favorite cafe for a morning coffee to go or maybe think about walking into some random store in a mall. What do you hear?

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VOICE: If I have to hear Hamilton one more time, I'm getting a ladder and ripping and ripping out all of our speakers from the ceiling.

AMT: Maybe you don't even notice something playing on an endless loop but if you work in those places that endless loop follows you through the day and for many it's more than an earworm, it is a menace. In half an hour, we're listening to concerns over music in public spaces and how it might be linked to labour rights, let alone aesthetics. But we begin with the sounds of the demands for change in Venezuela.

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[Sounds from protests in Venezuela]

AMT: And we are asking if what's happened at the borders on the weekend has created new boundaries in the fight over who is running the country. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

Border battle over aid in Venezuela helps Maduro opponents make case for intervention, analyst says

Guests: Virginia Lopez-Glass, Phil Gunson

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[Sounds from protests in Venezuela]

AMT: The opposition called it the D-Day of humanitarian aid, but plans for a huge operation meant to defy Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's blockade of international donations of aid, to a country deep in crisis, did not go as expected. Instead, Saturday, violence broke out along the country's borders, leaving hundreds injured and killing some along the Brazilian border. For two days Venezuelan forces opened fire on civilians who were trying to allow humanitarian aid through the border. The U.S. vice president, Mike Pence, attends the Lima Group of meetings today. The countries, including Canada, that recognize Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela now. The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made it clear what the Trump administration is thinking yesterday in a TV interview when he called Nicolas Maduro "a sick tyrant."

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VOICE 1: We're very hopeful in the days and weeks and months ahead that the Maduro regime will understand that the Venezuelan people have made its days numbered. We've already taken action, action to support the Venezuelan people and will continue to do that.

VOICE 2: But no military force?

VOICE 1: We'll set every options on the table. We're going to do the things that need to be done to make sure that the Venezuelan people's voice, that democracy reigns.

AMT: Virginia Lopez-Glass is a freelance journalist who's been covering Latin America and Venezuela for the past 15 years and we've reached her in Caracas. Hello.

VIRGINIA LOPEZ-GLASS: Hi Anna Maria, how are you?

AMT: Well I'm curious to know what it's been like in Caracas these last few days with all of that going on in the border?

VLG: Well it's certainly been very tense. There were a lot of expectations like you said that on Saturday we would be seeing humanitarian aid come into the country or if not that then mass defections of security forces showing their support to Guaido and renouncing the Maduro administration. Neither of that seems to have panned out as people expected.

AMT: Tell me more about what happened at those border clashes on the weekend.

VLG: Well on the border with Colombia, there was this massive confrontation between government security forces and anti-government protesters because it was a bridge also. It seems like you know a lot of the violence was concentrated on a very narrow strip. There was also clashes in the town nearby and we saw you know just a flood of videos coming in through social media of not only formal security forces, but also these informal militia-like groups firing basically at civilians. There were no deaths reported in that area, but on the border with Brazil there have been a handful of deaths reported.

AMT: And given the violence, how much aid it actually made its way through?

VLG: Reportedly only two trucks carrying food and medical supplies were able to cross over from Brazil into Venezuela. Certainly there was no aid coming in through Colombia. There was one truck that seems to have approached the border crossing was burnt down allegedly by security forces, so that didn't come through.

AMT: And what has been waiting in those trucks? What kind of aid are we talking about?

VLG: It's unclear. There were reports certainly on the buses or the trucks coming in through Brazil that there was food and medical supplies like syringes and some sort of first aid kits. On the border crossing with Colombia, there's been very little information. The government has been saying that there was actually a sort of urban guerrilla type material and of course the opposition denies this and saying that there was you know again food and medical supplies to treat a humanitarian crisis in the country. So again very unclear.

AMT: This was supposed to be the moment that if that aid had gotten through that it would have been clear that that Juan Guaido would have seemed to have had more control. Does this signal the standoff is almost at a stalemate?

VLG: I suppose you could say that, but Guaido has certainly garnered a lot of international support and I think that's sort of the stage that we're entering at right now. More than 50 countries have recognized him as the president of Venezuela or as the interim leader of the country. He's meeting today with Mike Pence, which I think is no small gesture. Certainly Maduro has tried to meet with the U.S. president or even with the U.S. vice president and has never been able to successfully achieve that. So there is a stalemate I suppose in the sense that the idea that Maduro would resign and we would enter into a peaceful transition seems very far, but you know this is a long process. I think it would have been naive to think that this was going to go smoothly, peacefully and quickly, given how the government has behaved in previous political crisis.

AMT: And Juan Guaido has also said in the last few days has he not, that he would like the country's backing his opposition to consider all options. Is that code for force if necessary?

VLG: Well they're certainly being very vague. He's echoing what President Trump has been saying all along that they're going to need or that the option of a military intervention is not off the table. It's unclear you know they're specifically leaving it vaguely worded. But there has also been other opposition figures asking for force to be used. Julio Borges, who's now in exile in Columbia, said you know use th word force. So there seems to be an escalation certainly, I'm not sure that that's an option. I think that the region wouldn't be too happy with the idea of a U.S. intervention. There's a past here of action, that type of actually being repudiated. Having said that Colombia and Brazil are also facing a huge threat or a huge problem from the mass migration of Venezuelans into their country. So I think it's a checkered scenario with some countries probably more for a more aggressive action plan to try and change the government and others resisting this type of interventionist policy.

AMT: And in the midst of this there are more defections are there not of police and National Guard?

There's been probably less than a hundred. You know the figure changes depending on who you ask, but certainly not as much as the opposition would have wanted to, but certainly symbolic figures and also coming from different security forces, not just the National Guard, but also the armed police branch and also from top Chavez and Maduro allies. We just saw on Thursday that the former chief of intelligence denounced Maduro and made very serious allegations of links between the government and Hezbollah and also narcotrafficking activity. So again you know these, it's not just the defections it's also former allies switching sides and denouncing a government that seems to be lacking legitimacy.

AMT: So there's still lots to watch for this week then as this meeting begins with the Lima Froup and we see how this all unfolds.

VLG: Oh yes absolutely. No dull moment.

AMT: Virginia, thank you.

VLG: Thank you.

AMT: Virginia Lopez-Glass is a freelance journalist. She's been covering Latin American and Venezuela for the past 15 years and she's in Caracas. Well since the crisis in Venezuela began in 2014, more than 3 million people have fled the country. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees calls it the largest population movement in the recent history of Latin America. Cesar Velasquez is a refugee now living in Toronto. Here's what he told us through a translator about his reasons for leaving his home.

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VOICE: So the situation is bad. For instance something happened to my daughter. My daughter was ill and my daughter need to have an ID and we didn't find it. I ran the whole city trying to find a needle to put the IV in my daughter. And you know we didn't find it. So and she was, I was you know sad and stressed and maybe she died of an illness that is nothing in other countries. It was extortion right there. You know they told me you want to be protected and you want to have a good life? You know what I mean. You have to start providing money to us, you know as extortion and we will give you protection. It's a unit of the National Guards. So when they went, December 15th, they talked to my parents, to my mother. But they said very clear, tell your son that we are not playing games here. Then we find him, we are going to kill him.

AMT: That is Cesar Velasquez, who is now living in Toronto after leaving Venezuela. My next guest has been tracking the issues that brough Venezuela to this point. Phil Gunson is a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. He is also in Caracas. Hello.

PHIL GUNSON: Hello.

AMT: So we saw clashes at the border. Hardly any aid got through. How much of a blow is that to the opposition?

PG: Well for part of the opposition I think it was no surprise at all though. I think really more than an attempt to bring aid in, the operation was an attempt firstly to demonstrate just how bad the government we have in Venezuela in the sense that they're willing to go to these kind of lengths to keep the aid from coming in. And also to kind of present the case to the international community, that the only way to remove this government is by force. And that's certainly as Virginia was saying earlier, that's certainly what part of the opposition is saying now and including the interim president or interim president recognized by dozens of countries, Juan Guaido, who is talking about all options, which as he was suggesting is really code for an intervention. It's a blow though in the sense that the military didn't change sides and from the beginning of this strategy, which began in January really with Guaido's declaration that he was now the interim president. That's always been the key issue. If the military stays with Maduro then Maduro feels that he could hang on. And clearly if they were to change sides then that would mean a victory for the opposition. So far that hasn't worked and the question is now ahead of this meeting of the Lima Group today in Bogota, where does the opposition go from here, both the internal opposition and its external allies.

AMT: And so while that goes on, I want to ask you more about what that crisis really means to people. We just heard Mr. Velasquez mentioning a lack of access to medical supplies. What are you looking at in trying to determine just how much worse this could get for Venezuelans?

PG: Well one thing is is the situation there as it is now and the specialists in humanitarian aid tell us that this is what is described in the literature as a complex humanitarian emergency. This isn't just like this when a terrible crisis that you might have following a natural disaster or perhaps even a war situation in which an entire country is subsiding to extreme poverty and disease as a result of the collapse of all basic infrastructure for electricity water the health service obviously food production distribution. And right now you know just to give you some idea of the statistic we're about to see actually a new survey come out that should give us some more more detail but from last year we know that nine out of ten and as well and then were unable to earn enough to put food on the table to put enough food on the table to keep her family alive. Diseases are rampant. We have malaria. We have diphtheria. We have measles. The health service simply doesn't function if you go to a public hospital you perhaps even more likely to die than if you stay home. There is no insulin there's no morphine or basic medicines they're missing. That's the situation right now.

AMT: Phil, before you go any further, I want to just do a little more on what you just said about diseases because we do have a clip that there was a review published in The Lancet just last week that points to a worsening epidemics of infectious diseases. And we've got a clip here of Martin Llewelleyn from the University of Glasgow, one of the authors of the report.

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VOICE: In 2017 there were over 400,000 malaria cases. There are now two and a half million people infected with malaria in Venezuela and that's about a tenth of the population. It's fundamentally a problem of the economy, no money to buy medicines and the economy also means people leave the country in huge numbers and unfortunately we get this kind of classic brain drain where the doctors, professional classes leave first. There seems to be an unwillingness on the part of the regime to engage with any sort of foreign aid or assistance on this, which is bonkers, frankly.

AMT: That is Martin Llewellyn from the University of Glasgow. So what is the effect of the return of infectious diseases like malaria and measles in the long term?

PG: Well it's going to mean that the region as a whole, which saw for example supposedly the eradication of measles, which had brought malaria very largely under control and where you know is a very rare disease. These things are returning and of course Venezuela has thousands of kilometres of borders of land borders with its neighbors, across which these diseases spread very easily ,especially when you have mass migration as was described earlier of hundreds of thousands of people crossing these borders and spreading throughout the continent. This is a major public health concern for the neighboring countries but it also means its impact on the economy and the living standards of Venezuelans well into the future even if this emergency is addressed fairly soon. We have not only disease but we have infant malnutrition which is going to affect an entire generation of children for the rest of their lives. So it's an extremely severe crisis which is not normally feeling like this which has traditionally been fired as a middle income country. And that was about to say the impact of the oil sanctions that the United States imposed in January has not even really been felt yet. Once that really hits then this situation is going to get much worse and the migration crisis is going to get worse too.

AMT: And along with all of that, the people trying to help have their own dangerous to face. Here's another clip of Martin Llewellyn.

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VOICE: Most of the sort of illicit gold mining in the country happens in the south east, where people are flooding in to try and make money out of gold mining. Theconditions of the mining, the open mine pits, the water and mosquitoes etc. are causing this huge upsurge in local transmission of malaria. And no one can go and treat them because it's so dangerous. My collaborator went in there in December and was mock executed. They had their car hosed down by machine guns and they were all marched off and then essentially thought they were going to die and in the end just had everything stolen. The are doctors. They're travelling in a government vehicle that says doctors on the side of it.

AMT: That just speaks to those trying to help inside right now. Phil, what are you seeing? You're inside.

PG: Yeah it's extremely difficult for anybody trying to provide humanitarian assistance right now, partly because or in very large measure because the government denies that there is a humanitarian emergency. And so the aid and assistance that is coming in has to be almost disguised or kept under the radar because the government doesn't want any publicity. So you do have local and international NGOs, you have multilateral organizations who are bringing inside and giving them assistance, but it's really a drop in the ocean. And the danger here is that even if there is you know in the best case scenario, if this crisis is resolved, if there is a restoration of democracy, a new government comes in, you have in addition to the health crisis and as you were indicating there with that clip, a major problem with internal security, which if we don't see a negotiated transition, in which the security forces are somehow involved and brought on side, the idea that Venezuela is going to be peaceful and democratic and stable in the foreseeable future seems illusory because you have all kinds of armed gangs of different kinds from Colombian guerrillas to mining syndicates to the government's own civilian, elements of the armed forces and all these are competing for you know what's left of the economy, which is very largely illicit, whether it's gold mining or whether it's drug trafficking or gasoline smuggling or whatever it is. So that's going to be a very big consideration, needs to be taken into account by anybody thinking in terms of military intervention for example.

AMT: Right and so it does come down to the guys with the guns and the uniforms really, that's going to be key still always in what happens.

PG: That's absolutely right. I mean you know it's very difficult for people in the opposition to contemplate making a deal with the armed forces, the security forces who've been responsible for so many human rights violations and so much corruption and have been propping up this this government. But unfortunately in these circumstances that is the only way really to at least attempt to obtain some kind of stable and sustainable transition back to democracy and economic and social stability.

AMT: Okay well we have to leave it there. Phil Gunson. Thanks for your insight. T.

PG: Hank you very much.

AMT: Phil Gunson, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. He is in Caracas Venezuela. Stay with us. The CBC News is next and then we're back to talk about a workplace hazard that you can hum along to. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts. A writer says it's a workers' rights issue

Guests: Adam Johnson, Ryu Takahashi, Jessica Grahn

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, Bernard-Henri Levy is an intellectual superstar in France, a philosopher who doesn't mind crawling down from the ivory tower and going out into the world. For his latest project he visited the front lines of the Kurdish-Peshmerga's fight against ISIS. He'll join me in just under half an hour to talk about that. But first, the song remains the pain.

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[Music]

VOICE 1: If I have to hear Hamilton one more time, I'm getting a ladder and ripping out all of our speakers from the ceiling.

VOICE 2: Why is this happening to me? Who did I piss off at corporate?

VOICE 3: I love Hamilton, but I don't want to listen to ten different remixes of Satisfied on repeat for eight hours.

VOICE 1: I'm going to go crazy.

AMT: Well those come from Starbucks workers, driven to the edge by a hit Broadway musical. That what you just heard there was just a few of the stressed out barristas comments posted to Reddit that we had our producers read, where workers had gathered to complain about a new in-store playlist featuring music from the show, Hamilton. Music on repeat because even as the most passionate music lover understands, one way to ruin a really great song is to put it on heavy rotation. The same Starbucks employee who threatened to rip out her store's speakers added another thought and I'm going to quote it here. "I guess it's better than young folks and that anxiety-inducing whistle. And in case you don't know that song.

[Song]

AMT: Oh sure, you're dancing around to it now, but try to get rid of that earworm later today. In a moment we will hear from a music producer, who when faced with annoying music, had his beloved restaurant took matters into his own hands. But first, Adam Johnson thinks the annoying repetition music can actually be a hazard for workers. He's a writer and a podcaster now, but he's spent years working in bars and restaurants. Adam Johnson is in Chicago. Hi.

ADAM JOHNSON: Hi, how are you?

AMT: Well I'm curious to know what are your concerns when you hear what those Reddit commentators had to say?

AJ: Well I think this topic's being covered in the media a few times, but every time it's done a little bit of tongue in cheekness or in a little bit of irony and the one thing I want to convey is that I do think that it can have a real material harm on people's mental well-being and I think anyone who spent 10 minutes in either retail or restaurant work will tell you that is the case.

AMT: And I want to get into that a little more with you, but I'm going to play a little something for you because I want your reaction.

[Song]

AJ: I can't do it.

AMT: First of all, why can't you do it? What does that song do to you?

AJ: It brings me back to a particular restaurant job I had gosh, going on 15 years ago, but I can still smell the Italian food because it was part of a playlist, the very short playlist at a restaurant I worked at, which I shall remain nameless. It is you know everyone in the restaurant industry has that song. They have the song that sort of brings back those memories. Now again I think there are varying degrees of seriousness here. I think there are people who sort of look at that. Okay that's funny but I think that if you spoke to any wage worker who works in these places whether it be retail restaurant about whether or not if they could choose if they get elected to have players be 100 songsvs. 20 or 200 songs versus 10 I would be willing to wager then that they are with a very straight face. That's something that they would want to do.

AMT: Okay so you're making the point that it's harmful. Beyond anecdotal feelings about thism do you know that?

AJ: Well I mean as I understand there are people who've done research into similar fields. I'm not an expert in that. You know I'm not quite sure why we need a panel of experts to deliberate over other research for decades to figure out that yes playing the same is going over again has a diligence effect on one's mental well-being and if anyone thinks it does it then I would submit that there we go into you know the offices of those people and play the same song. No I'm serious. You know if people want to be dismissive about it, I welcome them to try it. This is not sort of academic that the same system that's used to fly people out of you know the Branch Davidian in Waco or was used on terror suspects in Guantanamo they used the repetition of music you know it was one song as opposed to say four or five six seven ten, but the principles are the same. No I'm not suggesting that working at Applebee's is the same as being at Guantanamo, but the principles are the same.

AMT: Okay so what do you think should be done because you are talking about places where people are in and out, maybe for five minutes, maybe they sit in a coffee shop for half an hour. But you're talking about the people who are there eight hours a day listening to, but hte same loop right?

AJ: You know this is not a hard thing to fix. It just takes a lot of thoughtfulness on the part of management. And is you know there is a bigger issue here about how workers are treated as background. You know for the sort of customer experience, the customer forward experience and that mentality I think has led to a lot of borderline sort of sociopathic behaviour about how employers and management treats employees.

AMT: So do we even need background music in public spaces?

AJ: Yeah I think it's you know again if it's a diverse playlist I think workers generally like it. If it's a placylist that is has different options or is sort of you know no no screeching Swedish heavy metal or is there some people like that. What I'm opposed to is taking me time you know to have a customer visit whether it be five minutes or thirty minutes and then reverse engineering the entire physical space to cater to that.

AMT: Okay so you're making a wider point that this should fall under the issue of treatment of workers and so how would you have that recognised as treatment?

AJ: The enforcement mechanism is obviously up for debate. Some people have suggested OSHA, which in the States is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I think health inspectors in cities could probably do some version of it. You know three one one can be a self reporting snitch line they're sending inspectors and things like things of that nature all the time they go in and inspect the you know how many olives are in your olive caddy as a bartender. I'm fairly certain they could figure this one out.

AMT: When you floated these ideas on Twitter, what kind of response did you get?

AJ: I got a torrent of people telling me horror stories about the music. And you know again there's there's degrees of like a little bit tongue in cheek I know in pretty serious stuff. I mean you know especially around Christmas time, but this is not limited to Christmas I want to be clear this is no Christmas issue and people said look if this existed I would make my workplace happy hour in one person even gave me an example about how they worked at a retail clothing store and they were going to try to play Christmas starting in in October and the workers literally walked off the job. They were not working. So you wait to play Christmas till after Thanksgiving. I dont think that's something they would they would do if it wasn't actually something that had a negative material effect on their mental well-being.

AMT: Okay. Well I think the next time I walk into my coffee shop and listen for what you're talking about. Thank you.

AJ: Yes yes ma'am. Thank you.

AMT: Adam Johnson, host of the podcast, Citations Needed. He joined us from Chicago. While it is not solely the servers who are affected by the musical ambience of a restaurant or a shop, for diners who are sensitive to these things, a crummy playlist can leave a bad taste in your mouth. So when world renowned composer Sakamoto couldn't stand the music at one of his favorite eateries in New York, he decided to do something about it. He enlisted his friend music producer Ryu Takahashi to make a playlist for the restaurant and offer the restaurant gladly accepted. So we have reached Ryu Takahashi in New York City. Hello.

RYU TAKAHASHI: Hi. How are you?

AMT: I'm well, thank you. How did you find out that Sakomoto had a problem with music at this restaurant?

RT: So I know his sensibility towards music being played in public spaces and this is a restaurant that we've been together a couple of occasions. But one day he just wrote me saying that I love this, he told me about his love towards this restaurant and the food that they cater, but he was very disappointed about the music. And he was like look, we got to fix this.

AMT: Did the music bother you as well?

RT: Not particularly, not to the extent where he did. I think he had a particular issue at the time when the restaurant was playing all kinds of different genres and music back to back from jazz to brazilian to like a rock record.

AMT: So it wasn't curated, it was just a mass.

RT: Yes in a sense.

AMT: Okay okay. And I've got something here to read. This is what he said when he emailed the head chef. "I love your food. I respect you and I love this restaurant, but I hate the music. Who chose this? Whose decision of mixing this terrible round up?" So that what it was. It was just like this mash up of different genres.

RT: Yes exactly. I mean it wasn't like the worst of the worst, in my opinion, but for him it bothered. It was bothering for him.

AMT: He actually said to the chef, the music in your restaurant is like the Trump Tower.

RT: Yeah. You know he was able to say that because they had a really good relationship. Otherwise he probably wouldn't even bothered doing so.

AMT: So how did you approach making a new playlist for that restaurant? What kinds of things did you take into consideration?

RT: So when we first started he was very busy. So I kind of started initiated based on what he had envisioned what sort of music should be played at the restaurant, which was primarily no drums. It can't be like a beat rhythm oriented music. But also at the same time putting a lot of brain you know kind of Emett music is too predictable. So I had a very sort of this narrow lean to work with. And basically of we started sharing. We had this shared folder that we'd done dumped music into and then kind of compile it from there.

AMT: And so who are some of the ideas you feature on that playlist?

RT: It ranges from like a soundtrack thatr Vincent Gala did to a John Cage piece. It's kind of all over the place, but then we were very conscious about how to create a whole arc throughout the course because it is sort of an upscale restaurant and I think it's currently about three and a half hour long playlist. So it could cycle two rounds of dinner services approximately.

AMT: Okay so that even the customers won't hear too much repetition and servers won't either. I understand you purposely left Oscar Peterson out. Why? I'm asking you because you know Canadian jazz legend.

RT: He is a CanadianIt was part of his decision. I think it's particularly because of his playing. His playing is very busy and I think that was kind of something that he intentionally left out in general was to sort of exclude music that was very busy.

AMT: And so this runs about three and a half. Have you got like another playlist ready to go or did you do more?

RT: So actually I just went back to the restaurant just to dine and realized that they are obviously still using the same playlist and I kind of felt bad for the workers they're having to, I personally still like it. They have to basically listen to thesame playlist every day. So I think the idea is that we're going to try to do a refresh during the spring season hopefully.

AMT: Why do you think music is such a big part of the dining experience?

RT: I think it's for me all out of the book when we first started this is something that I actually was consciously thinking about when I was dining. I was born and raised in New York City, but then I also grew up in Japan as well in Tokyo. But in New York particularly, I find I guess it's an American thing, but it's very loud in general how people talk. So I think the restaurants and establishments have to pump up the music in order to go against the volume.

AMT: To give you some privacy away from, you don't have to listen to the people next to you almost kind of thing.

RT: I think maybe. I mean in Japanese restaurant there's a lot more quieter in general just because we'd me speak a little lower volumes, in general it's a cultural thing. And also you know when we first started this, there was a discussion about the purpose of even having music in a restaurant in the first place. But we had sort of concluded that in particularly the fine dining Japanese experience like this restaurant, we felt the need to have a little bit of music in the background so that it's not completely awkward to be in very silent, completely silent restaurant environment.

AMT: Do you feel your sonic landscape outside of restaurants? Like when you're like I'm curious to know, what you register, what your ear hears as you go in to different stores or even a doctors office like?

RT: Very much. Very much particularly like a good a chiropractic on a very regular basis and I've tried many, many places, massage places, chiropractic, not once was I pleased with the music that they were playing. When it comes to "healing music," It's usually the worst.

AMT: Have you ever said anything to your doctor or your chiropractor?

RT: I've stopped the CD player many times, but these days obviously for streaming I don't really knowing where the music source is coming from, so I can't really do anything about it.

AMT: They don't call it elevator music for nothing.

RT: Exactly.

AMT: Do you worry at all by selecting music to play in the background at a restaurant, you take art and turn it into like wallpaper?

RT: Not really I mean it was very interesting again because we had sort of tailored this playlist specifically for this restaurant. So when you actually hear it on a Spotify playlist I think it's a very different perspective when you're actually dining with that particular type of food is provided the rest run. So there's more and more almost like a collaboration could because we know exactly what the environment and kind of food that they serve. So in a sense it was kind of like maybe it's a cliché, but it's sort of like a jam session kind of vibe.

AMT: Okay. Well thanks for your thoughts on this.

RT: Thank you.

AMT: Ryu Takahashi is a music producer. He's in New York City. Well those are personal opinions on the effect of music in public spaces, but what about the science? According to Daniel Leviton, the author of This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession. The science is something he gets asked about a lot.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It's interesting because in my line of work people come up to me and start a conversation about it. Typically waiters or waitresses in Montreal know what I do for a living and they'll say you know do you have any research that shows that listening to the same music every single day for six months will drive people crazy, so you can get my boss to turn it off.

AMT: Well for more on the neuroscience of music, we have reached Jessica Grahn. She is an associate professor in the Brain and Mind Institute in the department of psychology at Western University in London, Ontario. Hi.

JESSICA GRAHN: Hello.

AMT: Are all these guys overreacting? Can music, even background music, have a profound effect on people?

JG: We actually know from the science that music is one of the strongest influencers we have mood and some of our physiological responses to music can be quite strong. We use this to our advantage for example, when we're working with maybe patients with dementia, who often have issues with depression or anger because they're confused about where they are or who these people are that are taking care of them, what's going on around them a lot of the time and music can actually be very powerful in helping regulate their mood and calming them down. We also people use it for exercise to get all pumped up and excited and increase their endurance and there is evidence that it does actually do that. So I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that music does have an affect on our emotions and on our physiological state of the body.

AMT: What do we know about how music can burrow into the mind and get under our skin?

JG: Well I don't think anybody is exempt from the experience of an earworm, which is when you get a tune stuck in your head that you really can't get out. I currently have a young daughter at home, so I can tell you my earworms consist of music I find highly annoying, like a jingle from a toy that she has that plays over and over and over again. And I think most of us are familiar with that feeling that we don't necessarily have control when it comes to music at getting something that's irritating like that out of our brain.

AMT: And my first guest made the point that music has been used to torture. What do you know about that?

JG: Yeah that's absolutely true. One of the things that's tricky about sounds as opposed to say something like vision is that we can close their ears so it can be a very effective way at the actual environment impinging without our control on our sensory processing. So it means that because the chemicals are eight years very effective if somebody else has control of our sonic environment, we can do nothing about that and that can be pretty debilitating.

AMT: Do you know what kind of music has been used in that way?

JG: In general, sorry to say to the metal fans out there, but it's often some sort of metal. More because it's loud, very fast, highly repetitive and there's something about the incessive loudness of it. It doesn't have peaks and valleys. It tends to be full on all the time, which means that there is absolutely no break for the person listening to it. And if you pump this in at 100 decibels, it's really difficult. You can't as I say close your ears and it's relentless.

AMT: You know the very first conflict I covered was the U.S. invasion of Panama and Manuel Noriega who was the leader of Panama went to the people, as sort of a diplomatic place where he couldn't be touched by the Americans and so they in the parking, for days they blasted heavy metal at him. Tried to get him out of there.

JG: Yeah. And I imagine that was not the best for you, but there is something else about having control over your environment that makes the difference. So you knew that at some point if you wanted to, you could probably leave or turn on your own music to try and combat it in your room. To do something to take this away and often the lack of control is a problem.

AMT: I came in at the end and there was another reporter who left, yeah. But what about in restaurants or coffee shops specifically, has research been done into the effect music can have on people as they eat or drink?

JG: Yes there is some research, although not as much as you would think given the pervasiveness of music in our environment in that every single restaurant owner or elevator manager has to choose what sort of music they're going to play to us. So a number of things are achieved with the musical environment one is decreed and on be us. So we know for example of people in a restaurant that's playing classical music they tend to make them more expensive choices and they might linger a little longer probably because their associations with classical music and everything that goes along with it that may be great if you want people to have a good impression of your address. But if you're place we are trying to get high turnover people in or out then you might not want them to linger very long. And in that case it looks like music that has a faster tempo or a beat to it and is a little bit louder might move people along a little bit faster. So it does have an effect on people's behavior.

AMT: What about the positive effect overall of music?

JG: So music can have several positive effects when we control and like it. So if I'm in a bad mood and I want to really wallow and feel that bad mood, I could use music to really enhance that which helps me perform some cathartic processing of what's going on. But we also use it if you have happy upbeat music. People do tend to report feeling a little bit cheerier. We know that listening to happy music can sort of boost cognitive performance not because of something magic about the music itself, but because you know happy and upbeat music tends to make us be a little bit more happy and alert ourselves.

AMT: And so you know my first guest talked about that this is also an issue of workers rights. What advice would you have for the owners of retail spaces or restaurants or coffee shops who want to attract their customers, but also want to keep their employees happy and who actually want to respect their employees ears?

JG: Yeah keeping employees happy is probably pretty important to having an establishment that works well. I would suggest as is almost always the case when you have different views is communication. So if they can talk to their workers and explain the constraints that they're operating under, perhaps they only have access to certain kinds of music because they can't afford to pay royalties for other types of music or that they are trying to create a certain atmospherein the coffee shop and they can explain that's what they're trying to achieve then I think people who work there can help try to give input on what they would find tolerable but at the same time are working toward the overall goal of running a successful establishment with their particular arm. I think when people have input or a sense of being worth to that control actually make any big difference in their response to what they're listening to. If the music isn't your favourite but you feel like you've at least been able to swap out the most annoying songs that might help or if there's just variety. So it's not the same music over and over again, but some sort of variety, even if again it's not your favorite that variety can make it a little bit less incessant and pervasive in getting into your brain.

AMT: And what warning might you have for those who underestimate the power of music?

JG: Oh I don't know, if there's something like that's pervasive, unpleasant aspect of your environment, I think most of us would choose to leave a position where we felt we had no control that, if we had that option.

AMT: So underestimated at the peril of your profits.

JG: Very likely.

AMT: Well it's good to speak to you about this. Thank you.

JG: Yeah, my pleasure.

AMT: Jessica Grahn is a cognitive neuroscientist in the department of psychology and in the Brain and Mind Institute at Western University in London, Ontario. We have a little more music from the musical Hamilton, the song, the one that was played on a loop that was a particular target of ire for the Starbucks employees we heard about earlier. This is Satisfied.

[Song: "Satisfied" from the musical Hamilton]

AMT: We should remember that Hamilton did sweep the Tonys in 2016. Stay with us, in our next half hour, forecasting the fate of the world with French thinker, Bernard-Henri Levy. He has written about the empire and the five kings. He'll explain. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

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Trump's withdrawal from Syria is a 'big political fault,' Bernard-Henri Lévy warns

Guests: Bernard-Henri Levy

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

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[Sounds of gunfire in Kirkuk]

AMT: Those are the sounds of war in the streets of Kirkuk in 2015, as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters battled the gunmen of the Islamic State. The Peshmerga were the front line fighters in that war, with its nightmare images of massacre, torture and rape. And according to the French philosopher and documentarian, Bernard-Henri Levy, all of civilization owes an awful lot to the Kurds for their fight against ISIS. He traveled to the warzone to document their struggle and his experiences included in his new book, The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World. Bernard-Henri Levy, who is known simply as BHL in France, is seen as that country's premier and most controversial intellectual. And he joins me from New York City. Hello.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY: Hello.

AMT: Tell me what is it that drew you to the Peshmerga.

BHL: I knew that the Peshmerga, the Peshmerga, which means the Kurds, most of them they practice, they worship a democratic Islam, practicing equality between men and women, respecting minorities, friendly to the Christians and to the Jews and fond of liberty. This is what draove me to them since long. Now more recently I knew also that they were rampart, the barricade, for us against ISIS and radical Islam. So I went to them to see by my eyes, to support, to film and to write this new book, The Empire and the Five Kings that starts in Kurdistan and that starts with the mystery, the enigma of why we the West and especially America and especially Trump, betrayed, abandoned, delivered on a silver plate our best allies to the bad guys, which is to Iran.

AMT: You write in Erbil, I felt the icy breath of the evil spirit of the world. What did you mean by that?

BHL: I saw in Erbil there is moments like these in the life off of a man or a woman where suddenly in a little stage, you see like an image of the world, a moment of revelation. I had the revelation of this book, which is not the most important, but of the new geopolitical situation in Erbil. I understood in one day, when I saw these brave Kurds abadoned by America, I saw that we are, that we were entering, we all of us, Canadian, French, European, Americans in a new world. A new world characterized by two rules. Number one, United States of America forgets its role, its value, its responsibility. Number two, five powers, which I call five kings take advantage of these vacuum of this emptiness created by America in its retreat to advance, to push that advantage and to grow and to try to rebuild at our expense, a sort of new empire. And this for me is a world in which we entered, the West that retreats and the five kings: Iran, Turkey of Erdogan, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, who push their advantage against the people, against their own people of course and against us because they are our war enemies.

AMT: Well let me take you through some of the specifics of the five, the empire and the five kings then. First of all, how has the United States treated the Kurdish fighters as its allies in the fight against ISIS?

BHL: During the fight against ISIS, America was other side helping them. I did a testimomy for that. I made two documentaries. I was on the frontline. I shared the daily life of these Kurdish fighers and I saw that they were the good allies of America and that America was there with allies. But as the as America thought the job was done. That the war was over which Obeida were be a mistake because until to or for or that there was the war is over. Again say she's when they thought when Trump believed that the war was over he said okay guys now go to hell or go wherever you want retreat and we take shelter behind our well fortress. So this is weapon. As long as we need them we were on their side when we thought when America thought that she didn't need them in their anger. She betrayed and for me this is not only heart breaking. It draws some some Teal's from me from my eyes. I really cried when I saw that in Erbil, but for me it is a moral huge mistake and a big political fault.

AMT: You know we can't forget that Canada ended its military's support of the Kurds a couple of years ago after pressure from Iraq, which is opposed to them getting an independent state.

BHL: It is a shame. I'm sorry to say that it is a shame. I was about to say it for Canada too. We cannot we have never interest to accept blackmail of these sort of people of. We have partnership with all countries in the world but partnership does not mean to to to to to accept a compromise or to accept blackmail or to accept a Munich attitude. You did it. America did it. Europe did it. It's in our worst interest. We will have the shame, as Trotsky would have say, the dishonour and the war. We would have the shame and the terrorism if we accept the law of these terrorists.

AMT: What do you think of Donald Trump?

BHL: I think that we speak too much about him. First of all in Canada, in America, in general and in Europe, we speak too much about him. He's too happy for that and he's not the key. He's an epiphenomenon. Donald Trump is it just cue of the comet. There is something going on in the United States of America which is much more deeper which happens inside the core of the DNA of this country and Donald Trump is a symptom of that.

AMT: I want to play you a bit of President Trump's inaugrel speech from January 20th of 2017.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power, from this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward it's going to be only America first. America first.

AMT: Bernard-Henri Levy, do you remember watching that?

BHL: Yes of course and I wrote a piece in The New York Times after addressing especially the Jews of America and begging them to be very careful not to embrace with too much enthusiasm with this new president. To be polite of course to he. He was regularly regularly elected but not to embrace him to craws. That's what they were they thought and Lee's speech when you see it with the with the time the past just is just ridiculous because in every city of the world he says why do this again. I think today the Democrats in Syria who abaonded Bashar al-Assad, what do the Kurds in Syria believe who are abandoned to Turkey. What do the Iraqi believe, who are abandoned to Iran. What do the Afghan think of this speech hear us the Afghan. The inauditors of Commader Masood who just learned that America will withdraw also, they abandoned to Talibans. What do the Europeans believe, the Europeans who were informed by Donald Trump a few months ago that the rules of involvement of NATO are not so clear and that it is not sure that the alliance is the iron link we thought. What do the people in Lithuania think retrospectively of this ridiculous speech of President Trump? This is the question I raise today.

AMT: You watched that inauguration with the late American writer Philip Roth.

BHL: I had this privilege, yes this privilege and honour to spend this day with Philip Roth who was and is one of the writers I admire most, much and Philip Roth wrote a book called Plot Against America about becoming president of America. The first time of America first in 1940 and.

AMT: As a pro-Nazi.

BHL: Prodigy of course now because America first, the slogan of Donald Trump he knows it was a Nazi slogan at the end of the 30s. And I will never forget the face of Philip Roth hearing this America first speech of Donald Trump as repeating in reality what he imagined in fiction. Sometimes he laughed and sometimes there was an air of anxiety in his eyes who said a lot.

AMT: What message do you think President Trump sent to autocrats and violent anti-democratic movements around the world?

BHL: The message was gone. Move on. Proceed. The stage is yours. The floor is yours. This is what Donald Trump tell them, the floor is yours. This is what he said to Erdogan in Syria. This is what he said to Iran in Iraq. This is what he said to Putin in the Baltic states. When he's says that the rules of engagement of America inside the NATO agreement are not automatic. The floor is yours. This is the message of Trump.

AMT: You know there are many who would argue that the United States has caused a lot of damage in the world by intervening in foreign conflicts and stepping in to other nations, that the U.S. should not be the world's policeman. What do you say to them?

BHL: I can say to them as a French man and a Jew that I would not be born. I would not exist if America had not involved in the affairs of Europe in 1944. You know if America didn't decide to enter in the war to crush Hitler, to defend democracy, I would not exist and the last Jews in Europe and Democrats in Europe would have been exterminated and the minorities in general exterminated till the last. So of course some America did some mistakes of course, but globally it is not only Europe, it is not only Nazism, but globally I believe that America has been more a good cop bad cop that America has faults for democracy more than for autocracy. It was a kind of self-conscious breakdown of self pain imperialism. There is a world to yours in my book which is that Americans even when they were imperialists in the past, they were unvoluntary Romans, like Roma, the capital of Roman empire, unwilling romans, unvoluntary, unwilling Romans. There is a sort of reluctancy reluctancy to be an empire, which of course did not prevent America to make some damage, but restricted the damage. If you compare it to the enthusiastic imperialism of China today, with unlimited imperialism of Russia since one century or of the Ottoman Empire which is reviving today, believe me it makes a difference. If you compare it to the imperialism of the the Sunni Arab radical Muslims who really want to build an ummah at the expense of the women, of the minorities, of the Democrats and of the West, this is an empire which makes damage and which is an empire for the worst. Please we have to make the difference and to draw a dividing line between America who of course made some damage, but which is because of its metaphysical reluctancy who has been at the end of the day an empire for the good or for the less bad and all the others who I quote who are and still today criminal empires.

AMT: What do you think is driving the rise of anti-Semitism around the world right now?

BHL: Anti-Semitism has always been there and will always be there. We will not eradicate the anti-semitism. This is another of my thesis. This is another thing which they tried to explain in the book very dream of feel educating it. It's agreed remember when it had to happen. What has to happen is to contain and place semitism. How do we con pain anti-Semitism by establishing a good readership and force and by making by putting some barriers by putting some some levies against anti-Semitism. What part of these levees. What of these waters. It is democracy labor and values and so on. These values are under attack today. So when the Levy is under attack or when the war is and is there is breech in the war. The wall of democracy then the Jews are thread turned and weak. This is what happens today. When the liberal values are crashing, when the democratic values are weakened, the Jews, not only them, but they're on the frontline of those who are threatened.

AMT: So as you watch the world and what seems to be an emboldening of authoritarian regimes, what impact does all of this having on the truth and our understanding of what is true?

BHL: It destroys the truth. The authoritarian regimes, the totalitarian new state, what I call the five kings. The five kings, they have one get which is the West. They have another target, which is their own people. They declare all war to their own people and especially the democrats, their own people. They have a third target, which is the truth. You remember Goebbels, one of chief of Nazis, Goebells, he said I am the one who decides who is Jew and who is not a Jew and he added that I am the one who decides who decrees what is the truth and which is not the truth. This is what characterizes the five kings. They say what is true, what is not true. They say that the sun that there is a sun admit they there is that law or that there is no sun at midday. They are the they give themselves a right to deny the very evidence. This is how Outlook man acts. This is how Putin acts. When Putin says that Ukraine for example is the cradle of Russia. It is a lie. It is not the truth. It is all you that are and that pack untruth but it is the right he affords to himself and puts in his to the he makes war against Ukraine gains a big part of me e against the West with sometimes his soldiers but very often. With the help of propaganda of social network of Twitter and so on and he does that by attacking the truth. So there is to be truth is under attack with less and less even our listeners knows know what is the truth then what is not rules and are responsible for that are in large but these five kings and I did not speak of China. The way the Chinese are reinventing the social networks, the way they are in reinventing the digital, Internet revolution goes in that direction. They are splitting, they are breaking into pieces these old brave good idea of the truth on which democracy relied.

AMT: You made the point that nowwhere are idiots more warmly incubated or does misinformation spread faster than in the online community.

BHL: Exactly. The online community are often bubbles off idiocy, bubbles of disinformation, bubbles of conspiracy theories. Very often these online communities look like that and sometimes they are built from ground to floor by officiants, which are based in Russia, in China, in Turkey, in Iran and so on. This is the bad game again of what I call the five kings and sometimes with the help of parts of the West and sometimes with the help of the Internet companies in America too. They should get awake. This book is also a wake up call addressed to the users of internet in our world, in the United States of America, in Canada, to say that there is a good use of the Internet and a bad one and we have to make a dividing line here too.

AMT: So how will this battle between the forces of anti-intellectual populism and liberal democracy play out?

BHL: The battle for the moment is what you say. There is battle between wisdom and idiocy. A battle between the courage of moderation and extremism. There is a battle between the respect of art of beauty of intelligence and the idea that all these values have to be torn into pieces and this battle for the moment is uncertain. There was a time not so remote weather when I was a young man in May 68 for example. The dream which we had there was that the maximum of the people got access to all the beauty to green germs to the expertise to low works of spirits. We tried for that for the democratization of the of the beauty and all the wisdom to tease the reverse. What does the popular. What is the definition of populism which is unreal as a name for new fascism it is still posit no access to that for the majority of the people the wisdom the beauty the intelligence work of spirit is evil is bad there has to have to be erased. The elite as they say the elite as well as themselves have been eradicated. So yesterday the true liberal says all of that, we have to give access to the maximum of the people. Today the new left, the new populist, which Is the new right or so, says no access, all that has to be destroyed. Has to be torn into pieces.

AMT: Bernard-Henri Levy, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. There's so much to think about in what you're saying. I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me today.

BHL: Thank you.

AMT: Bernard-Henri Levy is a philosopher and filmmaker. His new book is called, The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World. Let us know what you think of what he had to say. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, find us on Facebook or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. We're going to want you to hear something else to think about and it's coming up later this week.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: When I look at the night sky, I feel like I'm sort of drifting away like in a spaceship. Makes me feel dreamy, sleepy, like I want to grab a couple of stars and keep it in my pocket. I would just pull myself up and just leave planet Earth, if I could.

VOICE 2: When I look into the night sky, I just wonder how vast it is. We always think of Earth as like this big planet, but when we're actually not even a dot when we look at our universe.

VOICE 3: Space makes me feel like more kind of adventurous, like I want to see. I want to know.

VOICE 4: Things like black holes and light bending time and time and all that. It's kind of nuts.

AMT: The voices of kids in Vancouver, full of wonder about outer space and I'm sure they make you full of wonder as you listen to them. It is something that Astro Physicist Jo Dunkley wishes adults would also feel. She worries that for most people the universe has become too daunting to contemplate. She has written Our Universe: An Astronomers Guide to Counter that Intimidation You May Feel and she'll be my guest this Wednesday. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Q's screen panel will be disecting last night's Academy Awards. Finally in our discussion of workplace music that grates on the ears, music producer Ryu Takahashi told us that he'd compiled a new playlist for a friend's favorite restaurant in New York City. We're going to leave you with one of the tracks he included on that. And it is some certified appropriate dinner music, dinner jazz. The singer is Millie Vernon and the song is My Ship from 1956. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Song: "My Ship" by Millie Vernon]

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Feb. 25, 2019 episode transcript

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