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The AIH Transcript for December 18, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: Interior designs. The U.S. secretary of the interior could soon be an Indigenous woman. Her long time friend, poet laureate Joy Harjo, tells us that's good news for Native Americans and all Americans.

CH: Pyramid scheme. The Egyptian curator who managed to locate long lost fragments of the Great Pyramid of Giza in a Scottish museum tells us about making a major archaeological find in a cigar box.

CO: Net loss. A cybersecurity expert says the hack of U.S. government computers is on a scale never seen before, and we might never know how much was stolen.

CH: As gifts go, it's a must-Hab. We bring you another classic holiday reading, Roch Carrier's "The Hockey Sweater" -- about a boy whose Christmas present makes it hard for him to be a team player.

CO: The kids are all right. We revisit a 2020 favourite about that time a herd of goats took over a Welsh town while its human occupants were laying low due to the pandemic.

CH: And thoroughly modern Milli Vanilli. The German pop stars became pariahs when it was revealed they hadn't actually sung any of their hit songs. But 30 years later, some think it's time to give the duo a do over. As It Happens. The Friday Edition. Radio that knows loose lips sink ships.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Hacks against U.S. agencies could be 'most successful cyber-espionage campaign' ever, says expert

Deb Haaland friend

Guest: Joy Harjo

CH: When Deb Haaland responded to the news that Joe Biden had nominated her to his cabinet as U.S. secretary of the interior, she made one thing very clear she will not be doing business as usual. In a tweet yesterday, the New Mexico congresswoman said, "A voice like mine has never been a cabinet secretary." Ms. Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo People. And if confirmed, she'd be the first ever Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. Hers is one in a series of historic appointments by the U.S. president elect. It's also a very big deal for the country's poet laureate, Joy Harjo. Ms. Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and Deb Haaland's longtime friend. We reached her in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

CO: Joy, what does it mean to you to see your friend Deb Haaland nominated for cabinet?

JOY HARJO: Oh, man, it's a dream. I mean, I think the word went out across Indian country that she was being considered. And, you know, we were all waiting to see what was going to happen. And that announcement just sent a shockwave and a wave of celebration guarded because it hasn't been confirmed. You know, there's a process, but this is unprecedented. This is historic. And you know what better person than Deb Haaland to step into this position of trust.

CO: And we know that this is historic, it's extraordinary -- first time ever to have an indigenous person appointed to the cabinet level in any agency and very significant. But what does it mean that Deb Haaland is that person, you know her. What is she like? What will she bring to this office?

JH: I don't think most people know the Deb I know. The first time I met Deb, she came into my office when I was then teaching at the University of New Mexico. She came into my office with a motorcycle helmet because she used to get around on a motorcycle and knowing Deb, it was because it saves gas and it helps the environment. That's the thing -- she has always been really so concerned about the environment that even before it became fashionable for people to not use straws, she would always carry around her own, you know, utensils and things so that she was not wasting and was not hurting the environment. And I don't think people know that about her. And so she came in with her motorcycle helmet and asked to enrol in my poetry workshop. And I let her in. And she was a really wonderful poet and started getting published, actually.

CO: So many things that people don't know about her. Also that she was a single mom. She sometimes had to rely on food assistance. Did you know her during that time?

JH: Yes, actually. She was my assistant for a while. You know, it was around when her daughter was born and she was working for me. And I always respect her decision on this because it got to a point where little Somah was crawling around and pulling books off the shelves and we were working, and I was so worried about her hurting yourself and she did not want to get child care. She says, I want to care for her myself. And so she started doing other work, but we remained friends. She makes the best birthday cakes. She even started her own business making a chilli sauce. She's the one I'm making tamales with family members tomorrow, and she's the one who taught me how to make tamales.

CO: Is she the sort of person, though, that I mean, people have these kinds of experiences, but when they get into the Beltway, when they get into office, that stuff gets left behind, they get pushed back from different interests -- how do you think she'll respond to being in the White House?

JH: Well, the way she's responded about, you know, any place she goes, she has integrity. I get worried, and I was worried about her, you know, when she took up the position in Congress about her taking care of herself, like all of us. And obviously she's in it for the long haul. I've seen her. I'm, you know, thinking, of course, about her career. I mean, I don't know that I would have ever predicted this because you just wouldn't imagine anyone in that position and particularly, you know, a Native woman, because usually if you set up a hierarchy that usually Native women are at the bottom, you know, we're not usually considered. And for this to happen, I mean, it's something that if you were to put it in your dream list for the country, you probably wouldn't even consider it. You know, it would be almost impossible. But here we are.

CO: And this position of Secretary of the Interior, not just dealing with conservation and land management and National Park Service, and all that. But of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she will have a tremendous amount of, I guess, power and authority in that office. What do you think she will want to do there?

JH: Well, I think we're all about, you know, equity and justice. You know, certainly her actions would uphold the sovereignty of Indigenous Nations inside the U.S.. And, you know, just watching how she has operated as a representative and even in her own family, I know that she's someone who being fair is really important. And, you know, taking care of our home places. I mean, like the Earth is our collective home place. I mean, it's kind of a perfect position for her. It is built in at the level of her mother -- you know, she grew up with these values and has tended them.

CO: You were with Deb Haaland when she became one of the first two Native American women sworn into Congress last year and her mom was there too. There's a lovely photo of her mom. And so what was that like? Going back to that day, did you think this is the trajectory that she was on?

JH: I didn't even think past that. I mean, I was just in that moment and we came in to celebrate with her in the family to acknowledge this journey, which is a journey not just for her, because it's for her Native People and for this country, because Native stories, Native history is America. There is no America and there is no Canada without Indigenous selfhood. You know, that's how that's how it is. So we came in to celebrate and to see her office and to let her know that her community stands with her, you know, just as she's always stood by our communities.

CO: And of course, as you point out, this is a nomination that hasn't been finalised yet. She's not in the office yet. But if that all comes to pass, are you looking forward to celebrating with her again?

JH: Oh of course, of course. Now there's a joke, I probably shouldn't say it on here, but when she was going in, she's very frugal, and I told her, I'm going to buy you a new outfit when you go, because she said she kept putting me off and she's like "Oh I have things to wear." And we never did that. So I texted her yesterday and I said, well, now we're definitely going to go buy you a new outfit. [Chuckles]

CO: Joy thanks for telling us about your friend. Take care.

JH: Okay. You too.

CH: Joy Harjo is the U.S. poet laureate and Congresswoman Deb Haaland's longtime friend. We reached Ms. Harjo in Tulsa. Ms. Haaland was nominated as secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior yesterday.

[Music]

U.S. hack

Guest: Alex Stamos

CH: For months, the U.S. government has been under attack by a foreign power and no one knows how much damage has been done. It was revealed this week that hackers wormed their way into the networks of some of the most sensitive departments in the U.S. government, including those overseeing the power grid and maintaining the country's nuclear stockpile. The hack may also have targeted many large corporations. Alex Stamos is the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and the former chief security officer at Facebook. We reached him in Stanford, California.

CO: Alex, in terms of previous attempts at cyber espionage against the United States, how does this one compare?

ALEX STAMOS: So we don't have all the facts yet because this situation is still unfolding. We don't even know all of the victims. And there are probably some companies that the Russian intelligence agency is still inside of. But from what we've seen so far, this very possibly could be the most successful cyber espionage campaign in history.

CO: How did these hackers get so deeply into the networks, not only of government, but also of business and corporations?

AS: So what they did was something very smart, which is they broke into one company, Solarwinds, that makes products that are used by tens of thousands of companies and government agencies around the world. And they implanted a back door in that one product. And by its nature, what that product does is it manages the devices on your network. So it has lots and lots of capabilities on the networks it's installed in. And so it's a great foothold, a first place to be inside of a network. They were starting effectively at the top by having this backdoor implanted. And it was a very kind of subtle implant. So it's difficult for organisations to detect.

CO: How was this possible? I mean, is the issue that they came in through the backdoor when all of the surveillance was watching the front door to make sure they didn't come in?

AS: So we put up a lot of protections around the networks we build to prevent people from breaking in. In this case, the backdoor was intentionally downloaded by administrators and installed. So the fact that that was done intentionally by people who are allowed to do it. And then that the first step out into the network that they could take was onto a machine that by its nature already had the passwords and the connectivity to a large number of devices on the network meant that there was very little work they had to do to get right to the most sensitive systems.

CO: Okay so it got in that way and then it was sort of carried along through the system. Was it directed? Does it seem like the hackers were looking to go into a specific room, specific places, or were they just infecting whatever they could infect with this?

AS: No, they were very careful. So, you know, the initial stage was to implant the backdoor and to get it into tens of thousands of machines. And then once they had the list of all of the organisations they could break into, they were very careful to pick the organisations they cared about. And then the next steps they took were very very subtle. So it was pretty clear that the agency involved here, the SVR, they are known as the most capable of the Russian intelligence agencies from a cybersecurity perspective. And this is one of the differences between them and the GRU, which is the organisation that people often talk about. And that the SVR doesn't want to get caught. The GRU is a little bit like a sledgehammer and the SVR is like a scalpel. And that's what we saw here, was that they were very carefully creeping from machine to machine once they were inside any of these networks, because their goal was to not reveal to the world that they had this initial access. And that was successful in that they had that level of access from March all the way up to December.

CO: The Energy Department says the hackers were not able to access mission essential national security functions. Is that reassuring to you?

AS: Well, so, I mean, it is true that classified networks in the United States are generally air-gapped -- they are physically disconnected from the Internet. And while there are ways to jump an air-gap, this specific attack has not demonstrated any of those mechanisms quite yet. So it is possible that they did not be able to use this to get into any classified networks. That being said, a lot of really important stuff happens on unclassified networks, right. And there's a long history here, especially Chinese espionage, where the Chinese government has demonstrated a real knack of stealing unclassified data from the U.S. government and private companies that, when you put it all together, allows you to do really powerful things.

CO: Okay, you've said that you believe that it has all the fingerprints of a Russian agency on this. Why are you so convinced that Russia is behind it?

AS: There are a number of agencies that are providing that attribution, including private companies that have a very good track-record in this area, so I trust those people who have done the hands-on attribution. It is also consistent with what I have personally seen out of this specific Russian agency.

CO: The United States is in a very vulnerable position, isn't it? You're in the middle of a very very bizarre presidential transitions and very strange things have happened. You have a devastating public health crisis and now you have possibly one of the worst hacks in your history. So what do you fear might come of this?

AS: Well, I think one way you can think of this is effectively the Biden administration is inheriting a cyber recession. If you were part of the Treasury Department or the economic advisors and you were handed an economy that had a dropping stock market and huge unemployment, you would see your job as digging out of that problem for the next couple of years. And I think that's effectively where we are at cyber because of this. This specific hack will be the centrepiece of one of the, as you mentioned, many emergencies that the administration is going to have to deal with. And it is going to be incredibly challenging for them to deal with the COVID crisis, which is only worsening in the United States, economic issues that are caused by COVID, the political dysfunction in Washington, D.C. and now the activities of Russian intelligence agencies all the same.

CO: Okay, so in your view, what's the worst that could happen? How could the stolen information be used in the worst case scenario?

AS: I think most of the worst uses are things that we might never hear about. You know, something that's happened because of Chinese breaches in the past is that there have been people who either work for the United States or our allies who spy on our behalf in China have been rounded up and bad things have happened to them. I think that's the possibility here, is that you could see Russia being much more effective in their counterintelligence because they're able to get hints from unclassified data as to who are the people who are working with the West from inside of Russia. I think you might see the theft of really important defence systems and the software that runs those defence systems from some of the contractors involved. It's really hard to know right now what the biggest effect will be because there's such a large number of agencies that were affected.

CO: Okay we'll leave it there. Alex thank you.

AS: Thank you very much.

CH: Alex Stamos is the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and the former chief security officer at Facebook. We reached him in Stanford, California. And for more on this story, go to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Encore: Welsh town goats

CH: The Welsh town of Llandudno is like the rest of Wales and the UK, preparing for a fresh lockdown over the Christmas holidays. And the town's residents know that means they might be getting some cloven hooved visitors. I do not mean reindeer or demons, but rather goats. Last March, when the town was under strict lockdown, a herd of Kashmiri goats took over the quiet, empty streets. That's when resident Andrew Stuart started filming. Here's an encore presentation of Carol's interview with Mr. Stuart, which first aired in March.

CO: Andrew, when did you first notice the growing presence of these goats in your town?

ANDREW STUART: Well, the first time that I saw them was when they ran past the pub window at about midnight overnight. And yeah, they were just galloping down the street -- about 10-15 of them altogether. And then they went to square, which is about 50 yards or so away from us.

CO: I don't know what kind of pub you were in, but there are many stories of people being in pubs and seeing strange things. Was this something that you perhaps imagined?

AS: [Laughs] Well at first I thought it might have been that. But no, it definitely wasn't imagined because I went out and I checked what was going on outside. I got my camera out -- filmed a little bit of it and put it on social media. So it definitely happened. I hadn't had that much to drink. Definitely. [Laughs]

CO: And when did it seem that these goats actually started to really make themselves at home in your town?

AS: They did live on headland, which is just right by the town and they live on the hillside. And when it gets really windy, it's really hard for them to stay up there and stay upright and all that stuff. So they come down for a bit of shelter. They do cause a little bit havoc from time to time. There have been schools which don't really like them as well. They've had a bit of mayhem caused to sort of gardens around there. But they stay there and then go back. And now because there's nobody around, because obviously the UK is on lockdown because of COVID, there's no cars, there's no people, there's no noise, there's nothing to stop them. So they are going for it. They are adventurous and they love the fact that they can just keep going. And nothing is stopping them.

CO: Just quickly describe these creatures. Because I've seen the pictures. And so I know you're not hallucinating and they really are quite magnificent beasts.

AS: Absolutely. They are about sort of a white or off white colour. Really lovely fur on them. Really gorgeous fur. Nice, big, I guess they're called horns or antlers or something on them. Some of them have got absolutely fantastic. I got a picture of one eating the bush. It looked straight at the camera and it was amazing. [Laughs] And yet they're about four or five feet tall really. They're fantastic.

CO: So they're snacking on the hedges and they're sleeping in the churchyard I understand, at this point.

AS: Yeah, they are. They're snacking on hedges. They are climbing on walls. Climbing on houses as well. I've seen pictures of them doing that. And yeah, they go into the churchyard. And once they've had, you know, had their lunch, had their snack on the hedge and played about it, that they're sitting down in the churchyard in the sun, just, you know, chilling out for a bit and having a nice relax before they go back up to their home.

CO: How are people in town reacting to the goats taking over?

AS: They absolutely love it. They're all goats. We love them. And, you know, they absolutely love this. It's brilliant because they are causing a bit of a havoc and stuff. But, you know, when they're not going around causing utter rampage like yobs or anything, [laughter] like you know, it's something you can deal with. And it's magnificent to see them. And even the police, they said to me earlier today, there's not much they can do. They can just sort of try and get them back. And if there was lots of cars in the way, I'm sure there'll be another way of getting them away from danger. But at the moment, it's perfectly safe for them to do this because there's very very few cars about and very few people.

CO: And you did call the police on them. You do have rules in the UK about social gathering at this point, do you not?

AS: Oh, we definitely do have rules about social gathering -- unless you live in the same household, you not allowed to be in groups of more than two. You're not allowed to be any more than two metres -- you know, any less than two metres apart. You're only allowed out for exercise or for some very limited reasons. And that's like once a day or as little as possible. So if you have to go to the shop or work if you absolutely need to and stuff. And they're really not abiding by any of that [laughter].

CO: It doesn't seem that they care too much about your rules. Well they do have a herd mentality.

AS: They definitely do. Maybe they're going for herd immunity. We don't know.

CO: Andrew, it's great to talk to you. Thanks so much.

AS: Yeah, no problem. Thank you very much.

CH: Andrew Stuart, a resident of the Welsh town of Llandudno speaking with Carol in March. And if you'd like to see what it looks like when goats invade a quiet Welsh town, the videos are right there on our website: cbc.ca/aih. And listen for more of our most memorable interviews from 2020 in the days to come.

[Music]

Milli Vanilli

[MUSIC: Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True"]

CH: In the spring of 1989, the German duo Milli Vanilli were blowing up. The world was their oyster. But sometimes oysters give you food poisoning and cause you to actually blow up. [SOUNDCLIP: Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True" gets stuck & repeats] At a concert in July 1989 that happened. The hard drive playing the song jammed, revealing that Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan were lip synching. Afterwards, people started asking who was really singing their songs. And the people who really sang the song started coming forward. And then, like a bad oyster, the world turned on them. In February of 1990, they won the Grammy for Best New Artist, but in November of that year they returned it, admitting they hadn't sung the songs on their album. They insisted they really could sing, but their producer hadn't let them. While that did it. Milli Vanilli's betrayal had revealed that "Vanilli" is an anagram for "villain." They had perpetrated the most cruel, grotesque hoax in human history and in the otherwise pure, deeply authentic world of pop music. But now, 30 years later, there's a reappraisal going on. There's a Milli Vanilli biopic on the way, there's a petition to reinstate that Grammy, and especially since the death of Rob Pilatus of an accidental overdose, people have reflected on whether that explosion of scorn was really justified. Everyone lip syncs now. The songs were solid and the people who actually sang them were great. And even if Rob and Fab didn't sing, they sure could perform. Give it a bit more time and those pop culture villains will become un-sung heroes.

[Music]

Part 2: Old Egyptian wood

Old Egyptian wood

Guest: Abeer Eladany

CH: An Egyptian assistant curator has solved an ancient mystery at the University of Aberdeen's museum. The museum knew it had some ancient wood fragments from the pyramids of Giza and its collection. They just hadn't seen them for a while. Actually they hadn't seen them for decades, despite at least one extensive search. Then one day Abeer Eladany was doing an inventory of the Asia collection and she came across an unusual cigar box. We reached Ms. Eladany in Aberdeen, Scotland.

CO: Abeer, first of all, just describe what the cigar box looks like.

ABEER ELADANY: So the cigar box is a small box, about 10 centimetres by 5 centimetres, and the height is about three. And it has a decoration on the top. And the decoration consists of christened and some stars. I think there's one big star in particular. And the box had an old number, but this old number did not fit in any of the entries from the Asiacollection. And because of the decoration on the top of the box, I thought maybe it belongs to the Egyptian collection.

CO: Okay, so then you opened it and what did you find inside?

AE: There were just fragments of wood, basically.

CO: What did you learn as to what these fragments were, where they were really supposed to be, and where were they from?

AE: I only knew where they are from by looking at the catalogue, and this is when things started to be interesting because from just previous knowledge, I knew that there was an object that curators have been looking for many years. And I had this in the back of my mind. So it's just things matched up.

CO: They had, in fact, been looking for this wood for about 70 years, right?

AE: At least for 20 years, because as far as I know, Neil Carter, head of museums and special collections when he was a curator, at some point, I think, in 2001, he started looking for it due to two researchers asking for it. He was trying to find it for many years, but he couldn't. And I think there was no indication that it is in a box like that. So everybody, I think, when they were looking, they were looking for something different. And it is a surprise that fragments, just bits of fragments, in a small box.

CO: What are they actually? What are they from?

AE: They were found in the pyramid. So inside the Great Pyramid, they were found. And one of them, we call them ventilation shaft, but not entirely sure if this is 100 percent accurate. So it is in the queen's chamber, one of those shafts which is actually blocked from outside. They had found three objects. So they found the stone wall, they found the hook, and they found the rule or they called it a rule -- it's a piece of wood. Dixon and Grant were doing the survey and we actually had the plan that they produced as part of our collection as well, which is also fantastic because it just puts you immediately with them when they were planning and excavating and cleaning and doing these things, which is amazing.

CO: And they discovered this in 1872, right?

AE: That's correct, yes. In 1872, they've done this survey to figure out, I think, to produce a good plan of the pyramid.

CO: And what did your supervisor say when you told him that after searching for this for years, that you were the one who had stumbled upon them by accident?

AE: I think so excited and so happy to find it, he might be slightly annoyed that it wasn't him who found it. But in general, I think there was delight because it's always good to locate objects that you've been looking for many many years within the collection. So, no, it has been amazing. I'm sure he was very happy.

CO: What does it mean for you as an Egyptian to have made this discovery in Scotland?

AE: Oh, I think it's fantastic. It is something to do with my culture. Also in my background, I studied Egyptology for many years. And it is amazing that, you know, it waited all these years until I came to work and by luck just found it.

CO: And what has your supervisor said to you since about your detective work?

AE: [Laughs] I think both my line manager and my manager, they are both happy, I think, with the discovery. Also it allows the object to be studied more and allow access for researchers, because now it's part of the collection that at least we know where it is now. And if we receive any more research requests, we can reply to these. So it's part of my job as a curatorial assistant regarding a collection access.

CO: Well, good work of Abeer.

AE: Oh, thank you. [Chuckles]

CO: Take care. Bye bye.

AE: Thanks. Bye bye.

CH: Abeer Eladany is an assistant curator at the University of Aberdeen Museums. We reached her in Aberdeen, Scotland.

[Music]

The Amazing Kreskin Promo

CH: Coming up this weekend on The Doc Project is an unlikely Christmas story. It involves our own Carol Off, former As It Happens producer Kent Hoffman, and most of all, The Amazing Kreskin. We'll get to the Christmas part soon. But first, let's take you back to an interview from May 19th, 2009, the day The Amazing Kreskin made good on a promise to read Carol's thoughts on the air. The demonstration involved Kreskin's watch and Carol's mind.

KRESKIN: Start counting in your mind now and interrupt me when in your mind the hours...

CO: Okay.

KRESKIN: How many hours? How many hours?

CO: Seven.

KRESKIN: Carol, I wish somebody were here. Can you lean over and tell what time I set to?

CO: Your watch says seven o'clock.

KRESKIN: Seven o'clock. And I almost said it to six and I changed my mind. Is that fascinating?

CO: That's amazing.

CH: The Amazing Kreskin, if you don't know, is a world renowned mentalist. But the amazing part is what happened after that interview, a story that continues to this day. And spoiler alert, it involves a lot of Christmas cards. Here's an excerpt from Kent Hoffman's Doc Project documentary: Merry Christmas, Mr. Kreskin.

KENT HOFFMAN: I still have no idea how he knew Carol was thinking seven o'clock. Besides reading Carol's thoughts, it's hard to describe what Kreskin does. Here's how he described his work to Carol that day.

KRESKIN: You know, I use the term mentalist because what I do deals with the mind. It deals with how people think. It isn't a magic act. The essence of what I do is capturing the mind.

KENT HOFFMAN: But this story's not really about what makes Kreskin amazing. This is more of a Christmas miracle. [Christmas music plays] The As It Happens, the interview aired in the spring of 2009, and it's a great memory. I still have Kreskin's business card somewhere that says "Even now I know what you were thinking." But it was one interview for one day's program. And by the next day, I moved on to other stories. Seven months later, just a few weeks before Christmas, I got some mail at work from Kreskin Inc in West Caldwell, New Jersey. I quickly opened it. It was a Christmas card from The Amazing Kreskin.

CH: "Merry Christmas Mr. Kreskin" will be broadcast this Sunday on The Doc Project at 11:00 a.m..

[Music]

Reading: The Hockey Sweater

CH: This year, more than ever, people are doing their holiday shopping online. We are all squinting at tiny photos on our phones, hoping that this is the exact Nicolas Cage pillowcase that mom wanted. But there are so many options, it's easy to get it wrong. Now, there was a time when instead of a phone, you could squint at a well thumbed catalogue from the comfort of your home. And even then you might still get it wrong, like in Roch Carrier's classic Canadian story based on his own childhood in Sainte-Justine, Quebec. Here's Roch Carrier reading "The Hockey Sweater."

ROCH CARRIER: The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places – the school, the church, and the skating-rink, but our real life was on the skating-rink. Real battles were won on the skating-rink. Real strength appeared on the skating-rink. The real leaders showed themselves on the skating-rink. School was a sort of punishment. Parents always want to punish children and school is their most natural way of punishing us. However, school was also a quiet place where we could prepare for the next hockey game, lay out our next strategies. As for church, we found there the tranquillity of God: there we forgot school and dreamed about the next hockey game. Through our daydreams it might happen that we would recite a prayer: we would ask God to help us play as well as Maurice Richard.

We all wore the same uniform as he, the red, white, and blue uniform of the Montreal Canadiens, the best hockey team in the world; we all combed our hair in the same style as Maurice Richard, and to keep it in place we used a sort of glue – a great deal of glue. We laced our skates like Maurice Richard, we taped our sticks like Maurice Richard. We cut all his pictures out of the papers. Truly, we knew everything about him.

On the ice, when the referee blew his whistle the two teams would rush at the puck; we were five Maurice Richards taking it away from five other Maurice Richards; we were ten players, all of us wearing with the same blazing enthusiasm the uniform of the Montreal Canadiens. On our backs, we all wore the famous number 9.

One day, my Montreal Canadiens sweater had become too small; then it got torn and had holes in it.

My mother said: "If you wear that old sweater people are going to think we're poor!"

Then she did what she did whenever we needed new clothes. She started to leaf through the catalogue the Eaton company sent us in the mail every year. My mother was proud. She didn't want to buy our clothes at the general store; the only things that were good enough for us were the latest styles from Eaton's catalogue. My mother didn't like the order forms included with the catalogue; they were written in English and she didn't understand a word of it. To order my hockey sweater, she did as she usually did; she took out her writing paper and wrote in her gentle schoolteacher's hand:

"Cher Monsieur Eaton, Would you be kind enough to send me a Canadiens sweater for my son who is ten years old and a little too tall for his age and Docteur Robitaille thinks he's a little too thin? I'm sending you three dollars and please send me what's left if there's anything left. I hope your wrapping will be better than last time."

Monsieur Eaton was quick to answer my mother's letter. Two weeks later we received the sweater. That day I had one of the greatest disappointments of my life! I would even say that on that day I experienced a very great sorrow. Instead of the red, white, and blue Montreal Canadiens sweater, Monsieur Eaton had sent us a blue and white sweater with a maple leaf on the front - the sweater of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'd always worn the red, white, and blue Montreal Canadiens sweater; all my friends wore the red, white, and blue sweater; never had anyone in my village ever worn the Toronto sweater, never had we even seen a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater. Besides, the Toronto team was regularly trounced by the triumphant Canadiens. With tears in my eyes, I found the strength to say:

"I'll never wear that uniform."

"My boy, first you're going to try it on! If you make up your mind about things before you try, my boy, you won't go very far in this life."

My mother had pulled the blue and white Toronto Maple Leafs sweater over my shoulders and already my arms were inside the sleeves. She pulled the sweater down and carefully smoothed all the creases in the abominable maple leaf on which, right in the middle of my chest, were written the words "Toronto Maple Leafs". I wept.

"I'll never wear it."

"Why not? This sweater fits you ... like a glove."

"Maurice Richard would never put it on his back."

"You aren't Maurice Richard. Anyway, it isn't what's on your back that counts, it's what you've got inside your head."

“You'll never put it in my head to wear a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater."

My mother sighed in despair and explained to me: "if you don't keep this sweater which fits you perfectly I'll have to write Monsieur Eaton and explain that you don't want to wear the Toronto sweater. Monsieur Eaton's an Anglais; he'll be insulted because he likes the Maple Leafs. And if he's insulted do you think he'll be in a hurry to answer us? Spring will be here and you won't have played a single game, just because you didn't want to wear that perfectly nice blue sweater."

So I was obliged to wear the Maple Leafs sweater. When I arrived on the rink, all the Maurice Richards in red, white, and blue came up, one by one, to take a look. When the referee blew his whistle I went to take my usual position. The coach came and warned me I'd be better to stay on the forward line. A few minutes later the second line was called; I jumped onto the ice. The Maple Leafs sweater weighed on my shoulders like a mountain. The coach came and told me to wait; he'd need me later, on defence. By the third period I still hadn't played; one of the defence-men was hit in the nose with a stick and it was bleeding. I jumped on the ice: my moment had come! The referee blew his whistle; he gave me a penalty. He claimed I'd jumped on the ice when there were already five players. That was too much! It was unfair! It was persecution! It was because of my blue sweater! I struck my stick against the ice so hard it broke. Relieved, I bent down to pick up the debris. As I straightened up I saw the young vicar, on skates, before me.

"My child," he said, "just because you're wearing a new Toronto Maple Leafs sweater unlike the others, it doesn't mean you're going to make the laws around here. A proper young man doesn't lose his temper. Now take off your skates and go to the church and ask God to forgive you.

Wearing my Maple Leafs sweater I went to the church, where I prayed to God; I asked him to send, as quickly as possible, moths that would eat up my Toronto Maple Leafs sweater.

CH: That was The Hockey Sweater written and read by Roch Carrier. It's published by Tundra Books. And you can find more on our webpage: cbc.ca./aih.

[Music]

Part 3: Encore: Shaena Lambert

Encore: Shaena Lambert

CH: Petra Kelly's moment was in many ways a lot like this one, and maybe when you think about it a lot, like most moments. The German Green Party co-founder was famous for her commitment to politics that acknowledged the interconnectedness of things: capitalism and climate change -- though they didn't really call it that then -- Tibetan independence and German unification, nuclear disarmament and feminism. Ms. Kelly was born just after the Second World War. She transformed German politics, and decades after her death, she transformed the life of Canadian writer Shaena Lambert. Earlier this year, Ms. Lambert published the novel "Petra" inspired by Ms. Kelly's tireless activism, turbulent love life and untimely death. And this evening, we're replaying Shaena Lambert's October conversation with Carol about that book.

CO: Shaena Lambert, welcome to “As It Happens”.

SHAENA LAMBERT: Thank you, Carol. I'm thrilled to be here.

CO: This story, “Petra”, very simply titled “Petra”, is, of course, about Petra Kelly. And who is a, well, was a very inspiring figure. You actually met the real Petra Kelly before her death. What was she like?

SL: Well, we brought her out to Vancouver for a large peace demonstration and to speak at the Orpheum in 1986. And she kind of knocked my socks off. She was a brilliant speaker. She was famous for her charisma. And I didn't really know what to expect. And when she took to the stage on the Orpheum, it was one of those times where the whole audience kind of was holding their breath. And then she just wove together this vision that connected so many disparate parts of an agenda for a better world. And then afterwards, I spent time with her in and around Vancouver. And she was always with her general, her general for peace, who was her lover and who had left the German army in order to be her consort and had come over to the Greens. And so they were a very, very strange couple.

CO: Strange in what way?

SL: Well, he was kind of known to be to be her... they called him her baggage carrier. And it was strange because he had taken this big step to leave NATO because of the deployment of nuclear missiles on German soil. And yet, he kind of put himself in Petra’s sway very quickly, and he would sort of bring her bags with her or open doors for her or, you know, she'd gesture for something and he'd bring over the paper. So when I was with her in the lobby of the Orpheum, he looked around and it was raining very lightly and he went and got an umbrella. And then, you know, she gave him her bags and so forth. And then they crossed the road together. And that seemed to me as a, you know, very incipient novelist at this point, I don't think I knew I wasn't going to be a novelist, but it fell into me as a bit of a seed for something like why was this iconic, proud, outspoken feminist sort of letting this man do everything for her.

CO: [laughing] So that germinated over many decades inside you then, that seed.

SL: It germinated for a really, really long time. And in fact, it was about fifteen years later that I was at Checkpoint Charlie, and I saw her picture. And it was the same picture, sort of leaning against a tree, looking gorgeous and very different than the other pictures that people had sent to us for that peace festival. They'd all sent, you know, square little headshots. And there she was looking so wild, really, so alive.

CO: [chuckling] She was extraordinary, wasn't she? I mean, just her presence, as you point out. She electrified audiences. She could run circles around anybody in a debate. She pulled together all kinds of disparate political ideas. She was just the face, the voice of reason in the midst of all the madness of the mutually assured destruction of that era. And, yet so few people know about Petra Kelly. Why is that?

SL: I'm not sure. Like, I was surprised actually, as I started to dig into the novel and I would talk to people and I would say I'm writing a novel about Petra Kelly, and most people would say, who's that? And then some people would say, you know, boing! You're writing about Petra Kelly, how dare you? So some people, I think, felt like they knew her so intimately, they almost felt like she was a part of their spirit. And then other people would be completely not know who she was. And, you know, I've come to think that that's just what happens to women, right? I mean, it's coming out more now that, you know, women in science, women and arts, great renaissance painters are, you know, really famous in their time. It's not as though they sort of played second fiddle in their time. They were the huge names in Florence and Milan and Madrid and then were erased just a lifetime later. And also, with scientists and, you know, discoverers and so on and on it goes. So I think that she might be part of that sort of trend to erase women.

CO: But the effect she had of the Green Party, the creation of that. But not just that, it's just that she was of her time, wasn't she? I mean we're talking about the 1980s in Germany, where we were seeing the weapons of mass destruction being deployed, the ability in midst of the Cold War to have the world, everyone in it destroyed many times over. I mean, the weaponry that was being stockpiled, the daily threat that it posed. And, at the same time, there's growing awareness of the environmental movement of what was happening with acid rain and with the destruction of the environment. She pulled all that together. I mean, what was it about that time that made the perfect environment for someone like Petra Kelly to come along?

SL: Well, she, I mean, it's sort of interesting what you're describing, because, yes, there was this movement against the missiles that was very focused. And it was a worldwide movement. And she was part-German, part-American, and she quickly became the kind of face for that fight all over the world, actually, because, you know, I mean, this is when the encampments are happening and Greenham Common and then enormous demonstrations all over Canada. I mean, out here in Vancouver, we'd have 100, 125 thousand people on the streets. But the nexus point was Germany because the Russians had the SS20s on one side of the wall or the Iron Curtain and NATO wanted to deploy Pershing and cruise missiles on the other side. And so Germany was going to be the battlefield. And these young people who hadn't been part of the Nazi generation came together. And so it's a new generation, and they just absolutely said no. And the power of that sent out shudders all across the globe. And I remember being, you know, in a fish and chip shop in Penticton where I was working, and looking down and seeing that the German Green Party and the many organizations fighting against the nuclear missiles had formed a human chain 200 miles long, you know, from one German army base to another. And I just was electrified. So I think that was part of it. And then this other piece, which was the sort of birth of a web of politics, which was so colourful, intense, intelligent and really prescient, really so much ahead of its time. And so those two things were happening together. And she was amazingly the leader of both of them.

CO: And it was no exaggeration. They call it the Cold War. It was hot, wasn't it? I mean, it was an extremely scary time for so many people, which is why it was there to be gathered. But it took someone like her to do that, didn't it?

SL: Yes, I think so. I mean, of course, she was part of a movement, but she was a star. She was in many ways, the star in Germany at that time. She was so charismatic. And I think the fact that she was part-German, part-American, so she was, of course, fluent in both languages. And she was quick and razor-sharp and beautiful and sexy and volatile. And, you know, she had a lot of lovers and she was a fascinating woman. And so she kind of drew attention. But, you know, talking, Carol, about the time, it's interesting to think about how terrified we were then and how terrified we are now, you know? And we kind of tend to forget our past terrors. Like, I wake up in the morning and I think about, like many people do, I think about climate change and the worries, the terrors of the world. But when I was 21 years old, coming of age, I worried about the nuclear threat. And so I think that's another thing that we have that we have a bit of a problem. We have a bit of a societal amnesia about the stages that we go through as human beings. We quickly forget and then move on to the next problem, without learning from the past. And there's so much to be learned from that age.

CO: You're listening there “As It Happens”. And I'm speaking with Shaena Lambert, who is the author of “Petra”, a novel inspired by the real-life of German Green Party founder Petra Kelly. And Shaena, of course, you're trying to create fiction at the same time as document this woman. It must have been to try and crawl into her skin and to understand all of the things that were going on, because I mean, yes, she could she could galvanize a generation. But at the same time, the Green Party was full of different views. And so you try to tie this together as a character who is the narrator, Manfred Schwartz, who is trying to draft some party literature and trying to pull all this together? I just want you to read, if you would, a bit of what Manfred is saying about how formidable the task is.

SL: Yes, yeah, I'd be delighted to. Yes, so Manfred is sitting at his kitchen table with a couple of beers. And he is trying to meld a document that will bring together the very disparate views of the Greens.

SL: [reading] So I took a swig of beer. Let's go. It was like a potion. You had to get the mix of ingredients, right, or the thing would explode. First, a dose of feminism to satisfy Freya Fertig and her powerful group, because women — and I could almost hear her saying this — women must be the heart, Manfred. But wait. The nonviolent pacifists, a cranky bunch, if you ever saw one, wanted civil disobedience to be at the heart. Gandhi. Many of the influential citizens initiatives wanted the fight against nuclear power to be the focus for minds, for opinions, or 4,000 minds, 4,000 opinions. I added a small dose of anarchism for the sponties, spontaneous leftist politicos, the basement lovers, ex-squatters of Frankfurt and Berlin, like me, but not too much, or the mix could combust, causing infighting and narcissistic posturing. And I had to keep the Hamburg red greens happy, militant anticapitalists. They joined the Green Party because they saw it as the path to power. They could smell power the way worms smell rain. They often met in cadres, establishing their line and then voting as a group. Their politics were dogmatically left-wing Marxist stuff, many supported the Eastern Bloc, though they were too savvy to make it public. Then there were the farmers, the visionaries, the conservative ecologists. Jesus, this is difficult, I thought. I'd have to start again.

CO: And that's Manfred Schwartz. And, you know, you could change a few details, a few names, and you could be talking about the year 2020, couldn't you? In the left?

SL: Well, you really could be. That's right. I mean, I think it's always a challenge and a fascination to bring together disparate groups and try to forge a consensus. And I think one of the things about the Greens that was so special, though, is they wanted to keep each part alive. They wanted to create a colourful web, not a sort of gray web of consensual politics, dumbed down to the, you know, basic common unity. So, yeah, it makes for a really fascinating novel. And other political fights and what happens to them become one layer of the novel. But so does the personal, so I'm trying to keep both things going as the book progresses.

CO: It's interesting, I just interviewed recently Annamie Paul, who is the new leader of the Canadian Green Party. She'd call herself a moderate. But at the same time, I asked her how she will be able to include everyone, I said, including those on the fringe. And she paused for a moment, she said, but there is no fringe in the Green Party or something to that effect. Is that what Petra Kelly was faced with, is the idea that all ideas are included in this tent?

SL: I love that. I love that she said that. I think that's where we're going politically. I mean, I'm sort of fascinated by the fact that what seemed outlandish in the 80s is now almost pragmatic, you know? This idea that you cannot, for instance, talk about the environment without talking about Indigenous rights. People weren't saying that except for the Greens. And this idea that we have to kind of think in small boxes, I think is kind of killing us. You know, that we are at a point now where we need big, complex, disparate webs that actually mirror how the world works. I mean, an example in Canada is, you know, why do we have a Department of the Environment that is trying to meet its climate objectives and a Department of Energy that is building a pipeline? You know, we've got to get smart. And I think that allowing for all of the different kind of filaments that make up an intelligent approach have to be followed. You know, they have to be followed. But then I'm a fiction writer. That's what I do, right? I think that's what fiction writers do. That's what artists do is we try to understand those connections. And I think politically, that's what we need to do.

CO: You also, of course, show what happens when a party that has a conscience, a party that is pursuing these causes actually gets power. Because that's what happened in the 1980s, isn't it? Or at least enough influence with two dozen seats in German's election of 1983. And Petra Kelly is there now trying to make the transition from activism to politics, to electoral politics. And that's I think every party on the left has found that a difficult shift, haven't they?

SL: Yes. And I think that for the Greens particularly, I mean, there, through proportional representation, they were able to win three-and-a-half million votes and take 28 seats in the legislature, in the Bundestag, which was just absolutely shocking for everybody, including the Greens and all of their adversaries on both of the other parties. And in they went. And they were like a rainbow of colour because apparently they sat in the Bundestag, they sat for some reason, like a stripe of colour through the Bundestag. And there they were in their, you know, Birkenstocks and their sweaters. And it was really it was thrilling, but it was also shocking. And as they kind of went from talking about politics to attempting to do politics in Bonn, in these very cold buildings that one of the founders of the green, when I went and talked to him, said they they used to call them the refrigerators of the Rhine. And here were these Greens, these boisterous, fascinating, diverse group of people suddenly plugged into this cold, cold environment and trying to do politics. And so they broke very quickly into two very different factions. Quite famously, the Fundies and the Realos. And the Realos wanted to make compromises with the Social Democrats. And they wanted to gain power and they wanted to be effective within the political framework. But at the same time, the Fundies wanted to remain pure and they wanted to you know, as I said, they call themselves the anti-party party. They didn't even want to do politics as usual. And then on top of everything else, the Greens decided that they were going to throw their what is usually a very private caucus meeting open to the public. And so their fights were all recorded by the media. [both chuckling] So 4it was a wild time and people were all shouting at Petra. Petra, sit down. Petra, sit down. Petra, shut up. You know, they were terrible to her, just terrible. And so that quickly became an aspect of the novel as well is this sort of political trajectory, what happens to the Greens as they gain power? And the different factions that get involved. And how they treat Petra Kelly, who was the star that they, you know, they harness themselves to this amazing woman to get elected. And then as often happens, they turned on her.

CO: And then it all blew up for them later in the 80s, when they lost every seat?

SL: They did. Interestingly enough, when they lost every seat was just after the wall had fallen. The wall fell in ‘89. They ran a campaign with the Greens of East Germany. And they decided as a group that they were going to make their main campaign, actually not the unification of Germany. And all of the questions that were being posed then, which, you know, of course, most people were doing, they wanted to make it about global warming. And I find that so fascinating because it was indeed so prescient. And yet, they were so incredibly laughed at. And then they did, they lost every seat. And yet, we look at this now and we think, imagine if their agenda had been adopted in ‘92, you know?

CO: I'm speaking with Shaena Lambert, and you're listening to “As It Happens”. Shaena is the author of “Petra”, a novel based on the life of German Green Party founder Petra Kelly. And Shena, of course, again, it is a novel. You're trying to create a story. And you change the name of the general, but you kept Petra's name. But at the heart of it is a love affair, isn’t it? There’s a love story here between these two very different people, this general and this peace activist. How difficult was it for you to try and figure that out? Figure out the electricity between those two?

SL: Well, that was the constant fascination, I think. I mean, I took a course way back with... I was lucky enough to get into a workshop with Margaret Atwood. And she said during the course of that workshop that a novel should become more and more interesting as you work on it, not less and less interesting, which I suppose makes sense. But I think a lot of times, you end up kind of doggedly pursuing something that you've lost all faith in. But in this case, I think I kept... I mean, I did work on it and then I put it away and then I'd work on it. And one of the things, I think, that kept me going was my incredible sort of mounting love/frustration for Petra Kelly, and the complication of this relationship with the general, the fact that these two real opposites did get involved. I mean, he was a man of principle, and he did indeed leave NATO and leave the German army, resigning because of the deployment of nuclear missiles in Germany. And then he got involved with Petra Kelly and the Green Party. But people would say he was gray and she was green. He had one sort of political point, which was he was against the missiles, whereas Petra had a dance of a thousand political points that she was bringing together through her personality. And, you know, she could she would talk about Anna Akhmatova. She would talk about, you know, whatever sort of things she needed to weave in to make her argument. And here he was, well, very general, like, actually.

CO: But they also represent, in your novel and in life, a very important schism in Germany at that time, which is that Petra Kelley belonged to that first generation of Germans who were born after the war. And the general was a soldier in the war. He was part of the Nazis. He was... And you bring that story out, and his very, very dark secrets about what role he played in the war and what happened in the Ukraine and what his unit did. And so, again, you have that that that's that difficult split. Because you tried to show how they might have reconciled those differences. Is that possible at that time in Germany?

SL: Well, I think that that one of the things that in my fictional story, because let's don't forget, it's not a biography. I believe that the general came to the Green Party hoping in a way, to get away from his past. You know, he was in a marriage with a woman where they had both been through the war with a whole, you know, cartload of trauma that they were carrying with them. And I think that the general got involved partly with this new generation because he was hoping for a kind of renewal of his character. You know, the Greens, they were like a meadow he could run through. They were like a possibility of finally laying down this burden. And I think that on Petra’s side, she was attracted to him because he was older, because he was this general. And also, I kind of set up at the beginning of the book this idea that, you know, if she believes that there's a way to stop violence, stop war, change society. Can you change a General? Manford kind of taunts her and says, what are you going to do? Gentle this general and turn him into a man of peace in the most profound way? And she kind of... you kind of get the sense that, yeah, that's what she's going to try to do. So on a very personal level, they're kind of in a dance where they're trying. They each have their agenda before the other one. And they're also at the same time, really in love. But they're acting out these forces. And so at a certain point, like in the first part of the book, she doesn't even, I think, want to ask him what he did in the war. And I think she's in a pattern of avoidance. But it comes up. Manford brings it up. The press brings it up. People do bring this up with older people. You know, at a certain point in Germany, judges, politicians, and in this case, the general, they ask him, you know, what was your war? And he avoids it at first. And then eventually he has to say. And then, I think, they're into a place of coming to terms with the past, right? That it can't be a shallow coming to terms. It can't be a rote atonement. It can't be just going through the motions. You can't just come over to the Greens and say, I'm leaving the past behind. You can't shake it off. There has to be something physical and emotional that happens that people pass through. And, you know, and I so I think that's part of what the book is about, is can he do that?

CO: There's actually a German word that I wouldn't even try to pronounce it actually, it actually sums it up. Can you tell us that?

SL: I know that German word Vergangenheitsbewältigung, yes.

CO: One word.

SL: Coming to terms with the past, yes.

CO: Wow, we all need that!

SL: A beautiful, amazing German mouthful of a word that is, you know, is the sort of nexus point for endless study. And this idea that I think in the postwar milieu that so many people were saying, I've come to terms with the past. I've, you know, I've apologized, but that's not enough.

CO: We don't want to spoil the end. Of course, it's history. So we know, and so I’ll say a bit about this in that Petra Kelly and her lover, the general, both the fictitious one you have and the real one, Gert Bastian. They die violently, very young. Petra is only 44 when she dies. And if Petra Kelly were alive today, if she were involved with politics, what do you think she would be doing?

SL: I think she would be wearing a mask. [ both laughing]

CO: Good!

SL: But that's a wonderful, wonderful question. She would be at every demonstration. But I also believe I mean, she started to become one of her dear friends told me when I was in Berlin that she became more and more attracted to Buddhism. So I think she would be both very active, but also more subtle than she is in this particular book. I think she would be a figure of great guidance, but also of great passion. And I think that she would be continuing to fight because she never stopped. It's not so much fighting. I was thinking about this recently. It's also there was a belief in her that other great leaders have that what they do personally actually will change the world. And I think she would try to instill other people with that idea. Act, it will make a difference.

CO: And you don't think she'd be discouraged by the fact that all the things that she was championing in the 80s, whether it was the environment or the peace movement or feminism, social justice, Tibet, we have the Uyghurs as well now. I mean, all these things are still there. And in fact, even in many cases, much worse. And so do you think she would have been despairing?

SL: Well, if she woke from her death and came back, [laughing] I think she'd be shocked. Who wouldn't be? I mean, I'm shocked. I'm shocked going to sleep and then waking up in the morning and remembering where we are. But I think she would celebrate what's happening with Indigenous sovereignty. She would celebrate reconciliation. These are steps forward. She would celebrate Black Lives Matter. She would celebrate. #MeToo. These are massive global movements. She would be out there with the million people marching, you know, in the climate marches last year. So I think she'd be appalled by the politics, but she would celebrate the resilience of people.

CO: Shaena Lambert, thank you for this novel.

SL: Oh, thank you.

CO: And thank you for speaking with us.

SL: Oh, it's been such a pleasure, Carol. Thank you.

CO: Bye.

SL: Bye.

CH: Shaena Lambert is the author of "Petra" a novel inspired by the life and death of German Green Party co-founder Petra Kelly. Ms. Lambert spoke with Carol from Vancouver this October. Nearly 30 years earlier, Petra Kelly herself was a guest on this program -- just after that fateful election when she and her colleagues lost every single one of their hard won seats in the Bundestag. Here she is speaking with then As It Happens host Michael Enright in 1991 while packing up her parliamentary office.

PETRA KELLY: I'm the last one to move out, but it's a very disastrous move because I've been here the longest and I have acquired about 3000 files. So the situation is chaotic as I don't want to move. So it's very sad. Very sad.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: Yes, it must be after eight years. What goes through your mind? What kinds of things do you think about?

PETRA KELLY: Well, the first thing, of course, that goes through my mind is that this office was, I think, a very rare office. It was an office where many people, including Aborigines and Indians and Tibetans and Chinese students and many people from Eastern Europe, found a place, had a lobby, and it was an action office, which I'll never have unless I get back into parliament like this again. I kind of worked myself, I think, to the bone. But the Greens, I think, have now realized by losing this centre of attention in the national parliament and losing 200 people staff and losing all the offices, all the infrastructure, we're losing our hearts, so to speak, our soul. And I think that we have a very big difficulty to try to repair and heal that. But I felt that the voter couldn't take the fighting and the bickering anymore and the terrible internal feuding. So we lost on human terms, not in political terms. We lost in human terms. It was a chaotic situation. It was emotional.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: I'm wondering if part of the chaos was fed by things that were external to the Greens, things that were happening outside the party -- for example, unification.

PETRA KELLY: Well, on the one hand, you know, I think that it was, of course, difficult to make a campaign that is critical of the unification. We were critical and we still are and I believe it was correct to have that position. We had, of course, very much in-fighting on that as well. But I think that was not the reason that we lost this election. On the one hand, we were expressing concern to the citizen action movement and expressing all over eastern Germany. We did get in with eight people, a very small group, but we were unable to get across with it. We had a consensus, the majority of the group in a critical way, saying Germany has to grow together slower. And I think the population understood that. What they didn't understand was our constant fighting about it, because we did try to say that we don't want to have Germany becoming a world power, we want to have a Germany that shows self-restraint, that it can really demilitarise. And I think that most of the population believes that. I think what is tragic you said this is the decade of the 90s, this is the decade of the most important years of environmental degradation. It's one of the things we have to transform really so much on this planet and of all times to be out of parliament, we have finally, on top of all of this, gotten ourselves through to our own mistakes right out of parliament.

CH: That's former Green Party leader Petra Kelly in conversation with Michael Enright on As It Happens in 1991, the year before she was killed. Earlier this year, Penguin Random House published "Petra" a fictionalised account of her life, written by Canadian author Shaena Lambert.

December 18, 2020 Episode Transcript

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