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The AIH Transcript for August 10, 2020

Hosts: Peter Armstrong and Ali Hassan

Prologue

PETER ARMSTRONG: Hello. I'm Peter Armstrong, sitting in for Carol Off.

ALI HASSAN: Good evening. I'm Ali Hassan, sitting in for Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

AH: Tonight:

PA: Pressing on. Journalists in Hong Kong say they won't be deterred from reporting on politics and the region's pro-democracy movement, despite an alarming raid on a major newspaper and its founder.

AH: Competitive advantage. Researchers in the U.K. compare thousands of soccer matches from before and during the pandemic. The head researcher tells us he may have figured out what home field advantage is really all about.

PA: Ship wrecked. Oil pouring from a damaged cargo ship near the island nation of Mauritius has turned its clear blue waters black. Our guest says it may be about to get much worse.

AH: Laying the ground. When India's prime minister laid the cornerstone for a controversial new Hindu temple, our guest says he was also laying the groundwork for the further mistreatment of Muslims in the country.

PA: We remember singer and performers Salome Bey. She died over the weekend at the age of 86. A friend and colleague tells us what made her Canada's first lady of the blues.

AH: And kitty quitter. A key political operative in the UK's Foreign Office has resigned, surprising his many fans. His duties included photo ops with visiting dignitaries and killing as many mice as possible. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio that knows a pounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Raid on Hong Kong newsroom, arrest of Jimmy Lai and others 'very sad development'

Jimmy Lai Arrest

Guest: Chris Yeung

AH: Staffers at Next Digital and its Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong say they'd been expecting some kind of crackdown. But that didn't make today's police raid on their offices any less jarring. This morning, officers stormed into the building, questioned reporters, rifled through their belongings and left with more than two dozen boxes of documents. At the same time, police arrested Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai, along with a number of other company executives and political activists. Mr. Lai's is the highest profile arrest yet under Hong Kong's controversial national security law. And Chris Yeung says it's a frightening attack on press freedom. Mr. Young is the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. We reached him in Hong Kong.

PA: Chris, tell me about today's police operation. We're talking, what, hundreds of police officers involved, right?

CHRIS YEUNG: Yes, probably more than 200. It's unprecedented. I think we had never seen such a massive, say, police raid at a media organization in Hong Kong for many decades. I myself have never seen it -- and it's horrifying, I think, to a lot of journalists having seen police officers around every corner of the newsroom.

PA: In addition, of course, we had the raid on the Apple Daily offices, Jimmy Lai and a number of others were arrested. What do we know about the other individuals who were detained today?

CY: Most of them are senior executives -- the bulk of the Next Media group. Of course, the details are unclear at this moment. But the main thing, of course, will be the national security law, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted -- at least 10 years in jail if convicted. It just happened that the police arrested a student leader at Agnes Chow on suspected breach of our national security law. So it seems that now about one and a half months on, after the national security took effect, they have kind of intensified the enforcement and perhaps more cases of arrests followed by prosecution will follow.

PA: I mean, almost this exact scenario is what everyone was so concerned about when this new national security law was passed and was introduced. I mean, you know, Jimmy Lai made no secret of his criticisms of the Communist Party. He's been arrested many times in the past. With this new law in place, what makes his arrest so different this time?

CY: The law, I think, will become a pretty powerful political tool to send him to jail because one major crime he will be facing collusion with foreign forces, which is poorly defined -- and can be, say, politically manipulated, to say, cook up a case. We don't know whether the case will be even happen at a local court, because under the law, the mainland authorities have say a decision to say I have power, and decides whether that case should be or could be handled in a mainland court. So even in Hong Kong, of course, the protection to say defendants is highly questionable because the law is being written in the way that it's, well, you get (in) serious trouble if you face charges of those crimes in the law.

PA: What do we know at this point about what this raid really means for his media company, Next Digital? The Apple Daily newspaper? I mean, are they going to be able to continue publishing?

CY: In the short run, of course, they have a lot of support in this society, their supporters, and there's a sense of crisis. So one indicator, of course, is the share prices went up sharply because of supporters buying their shares. And some even said that they are going to buy the newspaper tomorrow even if it carries nothing but just write paper. So I think that's the kind of a sentiment among their supporters and among the democracy supporters here. But that may be a short run. It probably won't take long for the newspapers to face hard times -- for instance, stabilizing their staff sentiments, giving promises on how they are going to carry on their work without facing threats to their personal safety of a journalist. They have already faced problem in getting a [inaudible] when for many years because of the political trouble Jimmy Lai was facing so advertisers fear offending China, so they avoid putting ads in the newspaper. So they can only survive on, say, street sells and also supporters and other sources. So the major source of advertising revenue is already being cut because of political reasons. So they will face more difficulties, well, even in the short run.

PA: The change that we're seeing has come so quickly. I mean, over the summer, we've seen a bunch of arrests. We've seen pro-democracy candidates disqualified from elections. Pro-democracy scholars fired from their jobs. The upcoming elections been delayed by a year. And now all of this. When you sort of pile all those things together, what do you now expect to happen? What's coming next?

CY: I think a lot of people here in Hong Kong now just don't have high expectations that, well, life will return to normal in the near run. We are going to face a lot of unknowns, uncertainties, surprises and the ugly scenes like what we see now today in the newsroom, in the news building. Journalists never expected that would have happened in a society like Hong Kong. People here, well, our older generations they built up a very successful Hong Kong from nothing. But it seems that within months we are doing a lot of self-destructions of what we have done in the past decades, through the hard work and diligence and an enterprising spirit of our older generations. It's very sad. It's a very sad development for Hong Kong.

PA: It's been quite something to watch from afar as well. Chris, thank you so much for making the time today.

CY: Thank you.

AH: Chris Yeung is the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. We reached him in Hong Kong. And for more on this story, visit our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Mauritius Oil Spill

Guest: Sunil Dowarkasing

AH: It's by far the worst oil spill Mauritius has ever experienced. On July 25th, the Japanese cargo ship ran aground on a coral reef just off the small island in the Indian Ocean. And since then, nearly a thousand tons of oil have leaked into the ocean and onto the shore. The spill has damaged important ecological habitats and left the islands scrambling to save already endangered animals. Now residents fear that the ship, which still has oil onboard, is about to break in too. Sunil Dowarkasing is a former global strategist for Greenpeace and a former member of parliament. He's been taking part in the recovery efforts. We reached him in Curepipe, Mauritius.

PA: Mr. Dowarkasing you've been at the site of this spill. Can you describe what you saw when you were there?

SUNIL DOWARKASING: Well, what I saw was like a horrible stream of black substance coming right from the reefs and slowly dispersing around on the shoreline. And this was like heavy oil -- very thick, nasty smelling, heavy oil. It was on the shoreline of Mauritius. More than 15 kilometres of coastal shoreline has been impacted by this pollution.

PA: And can you give us a sense of what kind of damage this has already caused to the ecosystem?

SD: Where this ship wrecked, it's in the Mahebourg Lagoon, the largest lagoon that we have on the island. The lagoon used to be a sanctuary until 2001 when sand extraction was banned. And during sand extraction, all these lagoons and the corals were killed. It was literally dead everywhere. And now, after 15 years, we saw corals regenerating in this whole lagoon. So I fear now with this oil spill, we might be losing this lagoon again.

PA: Citizens have really answered the call when this emergency struck, they've been taking it upon themselves to do what they can to protect the coast, protect the wildlife. Paint a picture for us of what people there are doing.

SD: Well, first of all, it was a sense of revolt when this happened, because as you most probably know, that this ship was there on the reefs and 12 days, government didn't react to it, to anything about of this wreckage. I don't know what they were waiting for to act. So that was a sense of revolt when there was this leakage. But then their first reaction was let us mitigate the pollution. And by themself and by the changes spirit, they built up locally made booms out of sugarcane straws, using plastic bottles and all, and started going inside the lagoon and to lay down all these locally made booms to prevent further spreading of the oil that was already in the water. And that was very, very, very effective, I can say. So, yes, the civil society is very very much involved. It's their country. It's their island. It's their beach. So they love their places and they want to fight against this pollution.

PA: You talk about these locally made booms that people are making to try to control the oil that's in the water. I read somewhere that people are actually cutting off their own hair to help create these booms. What's going on there?

SD: Yeah. In fact, it's a known technique that grass, hair, and like, you know, straws and all, they have the ability and capacity to contain oil. I think one kilo of hair can contain 8 liters of oil. And if you see pictures of how these booms are really effective...my goodness. And it's like they've done something fantastic. Hats off.

PA: As you say, the ship was on the reef for like 10 or 12 days. What do we know at this point about how this happened?

SD: Well, how this happens is a very strange story, and we don't know much. In fact, it's now that an inquiry is being carried out because the staff and I think the captain, were taken in quarantine. But what I can tell you is like what we learnt is like, as soon as they entered our water, our National Coast Guard tried to reach out to the captain and for two hours continuously, the captain was not answering any phone calls. The only phone call the captain answered, according to our National Coast Guard, was when the ship was already on the reefs to send an S.O.S. -- oh, I'm grounded now, I'm on the reefs. But this inquiry that has started, we'll know more in the days to come.

PA: We've already seen, and you've described, this horrific damage that's taken place. But the concern now is that this ship that's already leaking will literally split into two and spit even more oil into the water. How devastating would that be?

SD: Let me tell you that since yesterday, there has been no leakage from the ship. The reason being that the tank that was damaged has been successfully emptied by the local authorities. But there are still two tanks on the ship. And where you still have two thousand five hundred tonnes of fuel and heavy oil, there. So if that is not being removed and by any accident in the days to come, this oil is still on the ship and the ship breaks into two, which is most probably going to happen. So if that happens and if we haven't cleared all the oil from this, the remaining oil from the tanks...I just can't imagine what's going to happen. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. When I try to visualize that scene, I'm afraid.

PA: How are people on the ground reacting to seeing what kind of devastation can be caused by a spill like this?

SD: There's a sense of revolt in the country. If you look at the social media, if you look at how people are reacting and claiming that the minister, the two ministers responsible, must resign and go. So there's a sense of revolt. But that sense of revolt was overtaken by this love for the country and trying to save it first. So people have turned down their anger into trying now to be more productive in trying to prevent further damage to our ecosystem, further damage to our shoreline. You know, it was like survival instinct. But that sense of anger is still there.

PA: All right. We'll have to keep an eye on it, but thank you so much for making the time to speak with us today.

SD: Thank you.

AH: Sunil Dowarkasing is an environmentalist and former member of the parliament. We reached him in Curepipe, Mauritius.

[Music]

Salome Bey Obit

Guest: Daryl Auwai

[MUSIC: Am I Blue by Salome Bey]

AH: That is Salome Bey singing "Am I Blue" from her 1992 album "I Like Your Company." Salome Bey had many talents as a performer. She was a singer, an actor, a writer, and a director. Her work in music and theater won her many awards, The Order of Canada, and also the reputation as Canada's First Lady of the Blues. Salome Bey died this weekend. She was 86 years old. Here she is speaking with Peter Gzowski on Morningside in 1981.

SALOME BEY: Blues is something that we all get. I'm not saying we can all sing it, but it's commenting on what is down feeling in our lives. I mean, there can be a happy approach to the blues also. You can talk about 'my man sure loves me and I love the way he loves me,' you know? And that's nice. And I think we can all have the blues.

PETER GZOWSKI: Is it partly that it's so close to real life that it's folk music and the real meaning of folk music that makes it so rich, and to sing, and to listen to?

SALOME BEY: I think that's it. I mean, you know, like if I go into a club and I hear Etta James, you know, or you know, whatever, one is considered as jazz, one is considered as blues, one's considered as rhythm and blues. And I get the same feeling. And to me, these are all categories they put us in, I guess it's for commercial reason, you know. This is a folk music, this is country and western. And I listen to Willie Nelson, in a way, sing blues, but it's called country and western. And I listen to somebody else sing blues and it's called rhythm and blues. And somebody else will sing blues, and it's called pop. So I don't know. I don't know. I myself get a little turned off with all these names.

AH: Salome Bey speaking with Peter Gzowksi the host of Morningside in February 1981. Ms. Bey died on Saturday. Daryl Auwai was her production director for many years. He was also her friend and we've reached him in Toronto.

PA: Daryl, I'm so sorry for your loss. How are you doing?

DARYL AUWAI: I'm doing well, thank you very much.

PA: I'm so glad our producer found that clip of Salome speaking with Peter Gzowski on Morningside. What was it like for you to hear your friend talking about the blues and what it meant to her?

DA: Well, it brought back great memories because she was so much of a champion of Black music in general, and trying to break down those barriers was also part of her 'joie de vivre.' She really enjoyed explaining those things because basically Salome understood that blues music was at the root of American popular music, that the Georgia Sea Island singers were as important as any pop group that America had produced.

PA: And that you could find it in, as she said, in Willie Nelson or in country music or R&B and folk. It was always there, sort of underneath everything.

DA: Oh, of course. And I mean, when we think of Little Richard or Buddy Guy, these are completely different styles of music in the sense of what they represent. But at the root of it is exactly the same music, the same chords and the same type of expression.

PA: Tell us about the first time you saw Salome Bey perform. What do you remember about that night?

DA: [Chuckles] I remember being pretty much thunderstruck when I saw because I had not met her before. I had not known anything about her, as a matter of fact. Her husband, who was a friend and an associate, had said to me, go and see my wife perform, her name is Salome Bey, she's at Global Village and introduce yourself afterwards backstage. And then here comes this stunning Black woman with African features and the most mellifluous contralto voice. I mean, she could go from deep, deep, deep down, all the way up and from a whisper to a scream with tremendous range and power. For me, it was mind-blowing -- would probably be the best expression.

PA: I mean, her talent of singing translated into musical theater as well. Tell us what you remember most about her contribution to theater?

DA: Well, I worked with her in a drama. At one stage, there really was no music whatsoever. And I remembered how nuanced her perform was, and how careful she was about going about doing that. And then, of course, I would do that with Indigo, which was the ground-breaking, earth shattering musical in Toronto, which transformed for many of us Black performers, Black artists, the industry, because the issue was she was writing this thing for a long time. And I remember us doing auditions as far back as 76 with just myself and her and a microphone and a light -- a follow spot. She pushed and pushed and decided that I want to do this with all those Black artists in town who don't get regular jobs in theater, because I know them, I know they're good, and we're going to do it this way. She refused to compromise.

PA: What was it? Was it just that sort of genuine nature of it? What was it about the production of Indigo that made it so successful?

DA: I think one of the things was the energy. None of the songs in Indigo were new in that sense. To many people they were unknown, but to us they were not new. But because of what Salome had envisioned. We had a collective energy that decided that we are going to make this great. And we found ways to inject that energy into the show at every level of the show. And that was it. Audiences came and roared their appreciation every night. We were sold out for 13 months nonstop. It was marvelous.

PA: This tells us so much about the artist, about the performer. Tell us a bit about what Salome Bey was like off the stage as your friend.

DA: [Chuckles] She was so marvelous. It's amazing. She was complex. Offstage she was quiet, almost shy and reticent to speak unless she actually knew you. She was guarded. But she was devoted to family and friends. She was tender. She was also very political. For example, with Indigo, she said, we have to make this a statement about Black artists in Toronto -- we have to show them that we deserve a spot in the bright light like everybody else. And that's how I got my break. And that's how many other people got their breaks because Salome had paved that road and insisted that we were good enough, let's show them who we are. She was busy with organics, she was busy about the environment, about civil rights, about mankind, about humanity. She was that complex. And at the same time she was a hurricane force.

PA: When we look back at Salome's legacy, what do you think it will be in Canadian blues and Canadian music?

DA: I am overjoyed to already see what she has left. I'm sure people like her contemporaries, perhaps younger, like Taborah, or Tabby Johnson, always had a good career. Jackie Richardson, Shawne Jackson, the Almeta Speaks, Dianne Brooks. They all came up through that 70s era and they all got more noticed after Indigo. We all did. And today, when I hear Jully Black, or some other young Black singer, I go, "Thank God Salome was able to make that breakthrough." Because before that, don't forget, doors were largely closed. We did pieces of Indigo in the Eaton Centre at the lunchtime to make people aware of what we were doing. [Chuckles]

PA: [Chuckles] Is that true?

DA: Yes.

PA: My goodness.

DA: We did all sorts of stuff like that, you know. But we needed to break down the doors and let people know that we really exist. And we could actually do as well as anybody else in performing arts.

PA: Well, it's an amazing story and it's an amazing life. And Daryl, I'm just so grateful you're able to come on and share some of these stories with us today.

DA: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity. And I still continue to live in the inspiration that was left by Salome and live with a commitment to delivering the best that we can all of the time. She was that way.

PA: No doubt. All right. Well, thanks so much.

DA: You're welcome. Thank you very much. Good night.

AH: Daryl Auwai is both a friend and a former colleague of Salome Bey's. Ms. Bey died on Saturday. She was 86.

[Music]

Part 2: Fans not required for home-field advantage, study shows

Home Field Advantage

Guest: James Reade

AH: When professional soccer players returned to the pitch this summer, they were greeted with silence, no cheers, no claps, and certainly no Ole Ole's. Soccer during a pandemic means once packed, stadiums sit empty and the rowdy chants from home supporters are replaced with the sounds of a ball being kicked around a field. But researchers at the University of Reading saw an opportunity in the strange spectacle of COVID era soccer. They compared more than 6400 matches played before and during the pandemic, with the goal of finding out what effect live crowds have on the home team's chances. Economics professor James Reade was part of the study. We reached him in Didcot, England.

PA: Professor Reade what happens to a team's home advantage when there aren't any fans in the stands.

JAMES READE: It seems to be a little bit less. It's not a huge amount less. You might expect it to be a lot less, especially given there are no fans there shouting and cheering and especially when in Germany all of a sudden home teams couldn't win. But we're looking at 17 countries and 6,000 matches and we find actually the effect is not very big, actually.

PA: And yet the one area that did seem to get affected was the behaviour of referees showing, what do we see, fewer yellow cards to away teams?

JR: Yeah, that's right. There's a net effect that the away team seem to be less harshly punished, if you like. They get fewer yellow cards in these matches. And that effect is really quite strong and the quite significant -- suggesting that it is the referees rather than anything else, because we're looking at these are the aspects of the game, the goals scored, the outcomes, even the red cards, and we're not seeing anything like the same kind of effect. So it seems that referees are being influenced -- they are being influenced by the crowd when it's there, and therefore not when the crowd is not there.

PA: What do you think explains that? Is that just the crowd getting on the ref to try to goat him into into calling the yellow card?

JR: There's a lot of evidence or quite a bit of evidence out there about social pressure on referees. So when there's a crowd present, it does have some kind of influence. So other studies have had the referees watch fouls on games with the sound turned off on a video and then with it turned on and they call more fouls when the sound is turned on for example. Or the researchers look to injury time at the end of games, and if the home team is losing with a bigger crowd, the home team gets a bit more energy to turn things around.

PA: So, I mean, people are going to pore over this data to try to figure out where they can get an advantage. What does this tell us about what factors might give a team any kind of home advantage in a game?

JR: Well, I think the main thing to say is that it appears to be, therefore, your influence. So we've tried to look at the idea of familiarity as well. So one of the explanations for why a team will win more often playing in its home stadium, is it's more familiar with the surroundings. And so one of the arguments, especially when in Germany we started, was it the players weren't familiar with playing without fans. And lo and behold, once they became more familiar, they began to win more home games. Now, that was certainly true for Germany, but it's not true over the 17 countries that we're looking at. And so the only real thing we're left with is this referee effect. And I guess teams want to be ethical. They don't want to influence the referee in any kind of unethical way. So I'm not really totally sure what the policy implications of this are. The implication is for the organizers, the sports leagues, of course, because it says that referees are susceptible to social pressure and time pressure as well. So maybe we need to think about ways in which we reduce that pressure on the referees. And so maybe that's the real takeaway for this is for the sports league organizers rather than the teams themselves.

PA: This article about your research was bouncing around a WhatsApp chat, the group that I'm in, and it was all these fans, huge supporters of various clubs that are, as you probably know, convinced that they have a material impact on the outcome of every game, you know? How many times have I heard these guys say, "You know I can't come out tonight, the team needs me." Do fans actually matter when you look at the data?

JR: Well, I mean, I'm a fan myself. So I like to think that when I've been there, I've played a role as well. This is an ongoing research. And I think that we want to tease out a little bit more. It is different kinds of matches. So the way I look at it is that fans can surely be a positive influence when they're really cheering behind their team and specially if their team is the underdog as well. But equally, we've all been to those kinds of games where the stadium's half empty and your team's not doing as well as it should against perhaps some easy opposition. And so the fans can be a little bit unhelpful towards the team's outcome. So I think we want to look a little bit more at the real nuance and the intricacies in the relationship between fans and outcomes. You know, we have to matter to some extent. [Chuckles] It's just kind of understanding a bit more about the detail of that relationship.

PA: Now, a lot of the matches, a lot of football matches, and indeed the NHL, the National Hockey League are playing matches in sort of neutral venues. In the NHL, we've had two hub cities, one in Toronto, one in Edmonton. Both of the host cities were actually ousted from the play-in round and the playoffs will play without them. Is there a sense of playing in neutral venues that might actually benefit the underdog in some of those cases?

JR: I think the home advantage would help because of course the home team is the underdog then the home team gets an extra edge which is a home advantage. So I guess if you remove that home advantage, it obviously helps the team it would a bit away in the first place. So I'm familiar with Edmonton and the Oilers, so I guess they were playing Chicago, and Chicago benefitted. You know, there's an element of playing a game behind closed doors, it used to be in football, a punishment for fans behaving badly. So if it's a punishment, there's a belief that it must affect home advantage. Of course, belief often end up being self-fulfilling and players behave differently and play differently in these kinds of circumstances. So I think it has to have an effect. The great thing about it, I hate to call COVID-19 a great thing, but it's giving us a lot of data, a lot of natural experiments to look at about the way in which players playing in and out of their natural surroundings, playing in different circumstances. In football, we have more substitutes, drinks breaks and so on. All sorts of different changes that allow us to analyze and think about the ways in which these different influences on behaviour and actions have some kind of impact.

PA: Is there a way we could better insulate referees from the kind of influence that fans advance do hold once they actually get back into the stands at some point the future?

JR: My sense is the real way to do that is technology. And of course, doing technology properly as well. So certainly in England it hasn't been particularly popular. There've been lots of controversies. You know, you have these hairsbreadth [inaudible] and players being offside by their armpits and things like this. But the point is that VAR and technology takes that pressure away from the officials. It has to be done properly, as I say, because in football, you've had this situation where the fans in the stadium don't know what's going on. That's not really aiding things. And that's, if anything, actually leaving the referees more the whims of the anger of the crowd. So I think technology is the way to do it. But hopefully you do it in the right way. In a transparent kind of way, but one that nonetheless reduces that split second that the referee has to make a call.

PA: Well, listen, you've inspired some global debates around this stuff, and we're sure grateful to get you on the show to talk about it. Thanks for doing this today.

JR: Thanks very much.

AH: James Reade is a professor of economics at the University of Reading. We reached him in Didcot, England.

[Music]

Manitoba Tornado

AH: Manitoba remains in mourning today. On Friday, a tornado touched down near Virden, killing two teenagers. Carter Tilbury and Shayna Barnesky were both 18 years old. They died after their tornado threw them from their vehicle. Both were from the town of Melita in southwestern Manitoba. Aaron Jayjack is an amateur storm chaser. He was taking photographs of the storm on Friday night. He spoke to CBC Manitoba's Bryce Hoy.

AARON JAYJACK: Yes, so at that moment, the tornado had just crossed the road and had just hit the farm, that's just across the field here from us right now. And so I had run across the road and into the field because I wanted to get on the other side of the power lines and get a view of the monster out in the field, because it was remarkable. And at the point, I wanted to get that shot that's going to really resonate with people and give them a warning.

BRYCE HOY: And it obviously did. It had touched down in that video. But what was it like for you just bodily to be so close to something like that -- that, as we know today, was fatal, it killed two people?

AARON JAYJACK: Yeah. You know, a lot of times around tornadoes, you get violent winds and whatnot, that can expand quite a ways out. And this tornado, the winds were more compacted in and closer to the tornado. It's kind of an eerie calm there. But what was sticking with me the most, was I just witnessed the tornado hit the farmhouse there. Once it's clear of the house, I want to get back to that farmhouse and make sure no one is injured. I didn't expect, when I got to the house, actually, to find cars had been thrown off the road. And fortunately, no one was home at the house and the house was okay. It did do some damage to like grain silos and whatnot. And so when I walked up to the car, I yelled out to see if anyone was in there. And sure enough, I heard from the older gentleman that was in the red Grand Cherokee that was upside down in the ditch. He yelled out, "I need help." So I sat there and was talking to him, and kind of comforting him while Misheyla, my fiancée who is also a storm chaser, she called 911. And we waited, you know, for 50 minutes while that was all happening and comforting him. And some other people showed up. Finally the EMT came. And it was terrible. At that point, we didn't know if there were other people injured, possibly deceased at that point out in the field. And the firemen showed up. They came across some people, a young couple, very tragic news. They were from Melita, had just graduated from school, and they found them out in the field there. And, you know, those tornadoes are remarkable and they're so dangerous. And so, like, people have to take them seriously. And I think people can sometimes get mesmerized by just how surreal it is. And, they don't realize that they're in the path of it.

AH: Aaron Jayjack is an amateur storm chaser. He spoke with CBC Manitoba's Bryce Hoy.

[Music]

India Temple Site

Guest: Rana Ayyub

AH: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a trip out of the capital last weeka that was decades in the making. Almost 30 years ago, in the northern town of Ayodhya, Hindu nationalists destroyed a mosque that they believe stood on the birth site of one of Hinduism's central gods, Ram. At the time, Narendra Modi was a worker in the Hindu Nationalist Party and he promised to return to Ayodhya when a temple for Ram would be built. On Wednesday, Modi laid down the cornerstone for that temple. And while it may be a moment of healing and closure for Hindu nationalists, it's a very different feeling for Indian Muslims. The destruction of the mosque in 1992 led to riots across India in which thousands died. Rana Ayyub was just nine years old at the time. She's now a journalist well-known for investigating Modi and his political party. We reached Ms. Ayyub in Mumbai.

PA: Ms. Ayyub, how does it feel for you personally to see the construction begin on the run temple?

RANA AYYUB: Oh, you know, when I was about nine, when the Babri Masjid which was a symbol of faith for about 250 million Muslims in the country, was demolished. And the entire demolition was like a spectacle of fascism in the country. I have memories which I wanted to erase. I wanted a closure because that demolition led to the carnage of about a thousand Muslims all over India, and me and my family being displaced from our locality. And over the years, we have seen instances of fascism and communal carnage in India. That in the midst of a raging pandemic, you know, the prime minister of the country who since he has returned to power in 2014, has only kind of given leads to his fascist agenda. Three days ago, he kind of lays the foundation to a temple over a mosque that was demolished in a criminal act. And the Supreme Court of India calls it a criminal act. You feel othered in your own country. You feel that, you know, you have no respectability as an equal citizen of this country and you feel like a second class citizen in your own country where a symbol of your freedom is not just demolished by Hindu nationalist led by the prime minister, construct a temple over it, and it's like a spectacle because the images of it are splashed on Times Square.

PA: And images not just of the temple being built, but of the prime minister himself laying the cornerstone. How did his visit, his involvement, in the construction of this temple go over with Indian Muslims last week?

RA: Indian Muslims are used to the prime minister of India [inaudible] not just a leader of 1.3-billion Indians, but as a Hindu nationalist first, as a Hindu man and a Hindu leader first. So Indian Muslims have had a taste of it for the last six years. We must also remember that Mr. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat in 2002 when a thousand Muslims were massacred over a period of three days, and the Supreme Court of India called him a Modern Day Nero who looked the other way when innocent Muslims and women and children were butchered. So Muslims were used to the idea, but to see him being the prime minister of the country actually attack the symbol of faith from Muslims in the country and lay the foundation stone over a piece of land that was criminally demolished by Hindu nationalist, I think it set the agenda for the next few years for Muslims in the country -- Muslims happy living in fear and apprehension. It just validated all their apprehensions.

PA: I mean, from a political standpoint at this time, in this moment, what do you think the president is trying to say by presiding over the laying of the cornerstone and being so instrumental in the beginning of this construction?

RA: Since the prime minister, Narendra Modi, came to power, the first thing he did was to revoke the special status of Kashmir, which is the only Muslim majority state in India and which has seen decades of insurgency and many of its youth disappeared. The special status was a healing factor for many Kashmiris. And the first thing that you do after you return to the second term in power in 2019, followed by adopting the Citizenship Amendment Act, where everybody except Muslims from the neighbouring states of India will be given citizenship in India. And then following up, you know, with something like this. He is catering to the 82 percent Hindu majority because he knows that's his vote bank. He is not working towards an inclusive and secular India. He is working towards laying the foundation of a Hindu India because he knows politically that's the only thing that will have him and the BJP survive in power because the government has not delivered in terms of development. Unemployment is at an all-time high. India's economy is at an all-time mess. India ranks number three in the highest number of cases of COVID-19. So in the absence of any development, in the absence of any work, the prime minister is talking majoritarianism to stay in power. And I think he's succeeding in doing that.

PA: And you can hear some of that in his speech that he gave in front of the site. He said, you know, this temple is an instrument to unite the country, that the god Ram is the basis of all Indian culture. What do you say then to Hindu nationalists who want to pay tribute to what they see as a sacred site for them?

RA: We are not building an inclusive India by building a Ram temple. We must not forget that in 1992, when the Babri Masjid was demolished, it was considered a criminal act. This was not the priority for us, especially for a country which is so enmeshed in fundamentalism. Just two days after the construction of the Ram temple, a Muslim man was beaten with iron rods and sticks and he bled on the streets. He was made to chant "Jay Shree Ram" which means "Glory to Lord Ram." The number of lynchings between 2014 to 2019 go up to about a hundred in which Muslims have been lynched on this [inaudible] being pulled off and they have been called as those who eat beef and they've been attacked for their religious identity. So I think what has happened is the construction of the Ram temple has led to the embolden-ment of the Hindu nationalist who think that it is now their right to humiliate Muslims on a routine basis.

PA: The whole world has been watching this story unfold. I wonder what you'd like to see from the international community and what they hear when they hear the word Ayodhya and see this temple.

RA: You know, the world has been complicit in its silence because for the last six years, Mr. Modi has been furthering his fascist and majoritarian agenda. And despite this, most world leaders have not sent a statement of condemnation, especially when Donald Trump was in Delhi this February when he was taking part in a dinner hosted for him and just barely miles away Muslims were being killed in an anti-Muslim carnage in New Delhi. And the next day, Donald Trump gives a statement that Mr. Modi is doing the right thing. And it's not just Donald Trump. World leaders who have an important say have looked the other way as Indian democracy, the world's largest democracy, goes down under. And that is applicable also to the Muslim leaders across the world who have given Modi the highest civilian honour for their business interests and have not spoken a word about Modi's complicity in the enabling of hate in India. I would urge them to protest. I would urge the international regimes to make sure the world's largest democracy remains a secular and inclusive country in that well-meaning Hindus across the world should make their voices loud and clear in their condemnation of this making of a Hindu state, as opposed to what India used to be, a secular democracy. That the dreams of Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, who we all quote and who will we all revere, this country remains the land of Gandhi. So it's time the world speaks up and it is time Indians and well-meaning Indians all over the globe speak up about this everyday decline of India into fascism.

PA: Rana Ayyub thanks for speaking with us today.

RA: Thank you so much.

AH: Rana Ayyub is a journalist in Mumbai and that is where we reached her.

[Music]

MI5 Cat Retires

AH: As you've no doubt been hearing on the news, a sudden departure of a high level bureau-cat has left the public in the British reeling. The resignation of Palmerston 'Chief mouser' at the UK's Foreign Office came out of nowhere, giving many paws. In his official resignation letter posted on Twitter, Palmerston writes of the newfound joys of working from home. He says it was the slower pace of coronavirus constrained life that led him to realize it was time to step away from office life. The black and white rescue cat has held the 'Chief mouser' position since 2016, and his tenure has not been without controversy. He made headlines more than once for his aggressive political style and occasional violent clashes, in particular with Larry, his esteemed counterpart at Number 10 Downing Street. Nevertheless, Palmerston has by and large been a model diplo-cat, often photographed with visiting dignitaries and executing his duties with dedication that was nothing short of ferocious. A colleague reminisced on Twitter about the time he left, "a slightly chewed dead mouse next to my desk." In his resignation letter, Palmerston noted that his new official living quarters in the countryside afford him more ample time to engage the local rodent population. A replacement has not yet been appointed, but no doubt will soon, since you know, cats...people love them.

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August 10, 2020 Episode Transcript

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