Beirut explosion could lead to 'real aftershock' of political change: Rami Khouri

Guests: George Eid, Georges Kettaneh, Rami Khouri

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I heard the first explosion. Something that shake the house and then a second huge explosion and I was worried about my kids and my wife. And then I started.

VOICE 2: Is everybody safe?

VOICE 1: Yeah. Everybody is safe, but it is a catastrophe. I've never seen something like that.

MK: And for a city racked by decades of turmoil and war, that's saying something. Shockwaves ripped through Beirut early yesterday evening after explosions in the city's port. Screams, smoke, then the sound of sirens filled the air. Lebanon's government confirmed the cause of the blast was improperly stored ammonium nitrate. Latest estimates, some 4000 people have been injured with at least 100 dead and scores more feared trapped in the rubble. George Eid is the senior correspondent at MTV Lebanon News and he is in Beirut today. George, when the sun came up in Beirut today, tell me what the city looked like.

GEORGE EID: Well, I have to admit that I cannot remember the sun coming up because it had been for me and for many other Lebanese. I was the first on the scene yesterday as a journalist and I could not get a moment of sleep. We had family members that were injured, friends. We are still as a country counting our deceased and it is hard to find out up till now, almost 12 hours after this explosion happened. So we are still estimating our deceased. We have more than 4000 injured and 100 deceased.

MK: George, you mentioned you were the first journalist on the scene yesterday. Where were you and what did you see and hear at the time of the explosion?

GEORGE EID: To be honest, I was at my office at the beginning and we felt a shake like an earthquake. So we had panic. Old people were panicking. So I asked them to use the stairs and go out to the parking lot so we can stay safely out of danger because we imagined first it's an earthquake. Then we said no. Someone said that there's fumes and there's smoke around Beirut. So we thought that it was a blast or perhaps certain aggressions because we have tension between Lebanon and Israel long time ago. So when I found out that it was something like a blast, I took the car and just went with the cameraman there. I could not describe it. It was like the war scene. People were bleeding. Cars were flipped over. The whole coast, I mean 15 kilometres. I went through 15 kilometres. The windows were shattered. People were on the ground floor of their buildings trying to really get out the building, bleeding and asking for help. Even the rescue teams that were available were not enough to help 10 percent of the people.

MK: And at the time, George, you must be trying to make sense of what had happened. Did you know? I mean, how quickly did this information come to you where you could actually make sense of the devastation here?

GEORGE EID: Well, I tried first to call my sources at the Port of Beirut. They first informed me that unlike what was published on social media, that it was not a political assassination for any deputy or prime minister or something like that, because at the beginning, this was the first news that went out. Then they said a fireworks, fireworks were stored at the port and this is a huge amounts of fireworks were stored there. And this was the reason. So he told me, no, it's not the reason. I then got the information that on pier number 9, there was nitrate ammonia and this was the reason for the explosion. What we do not know till now is why and how. Because nitrate is not inflammable on its own. It's something that you have to mix with something else to get this effect. And this huge blast that we received, it was something shocking really.

MK: George, I know there's so much devastation, which makes me wonder about the homelessness and where were people all night and where are they going to go with so much damage to the homes and the buildings there.

GEORGE EID: I have to tell you that I went through the residential areas. These are poor residentiial areas around the port. Like in every country, you know, you have people who are less favoured and they live around these areas. So these peoples homes and own health has been jeopardised. They were sitting without electricity on candlelight, without even their clothes on, because walls were torn apart, windows flew over, balconies fell down, and there was just rubble and blocked. Even cars, people who were moving in their cars, the intensity of the blast, shattered the windows and the glass landed in their faces. So I saw bloody faces, unrecognizable faces. Even people on their walkers who cannot even hold themselves together were just trying to move in any direction to try and reach any hospital. And I have to mention here, we lost five of the main hospitals of the capital, Beirut, were hit badly. They were without electricity. Women were delivering at the time. People were going through an operation. People were in intensive care. And a lot of people perished just because the hospitals were hit by this blast. And this, I believe, is one of the saddest things that happened during this blast.

MK: George, I also heard that one of your news crews had been detained reporting on the events. Tell us what you know.

GEORGE EID: Well, usually in Lebanon, the military has its own way of dealing with things. And we were taking drone shots of the area. So they weren't okay with it. So they just took over the team. Through negotiations now we've got our team out and it was just a team of journalists trying to investigate and trying to find out the truth. We have 4000 people who are wounded until now. 70 or 80 people lost, that we lost contact with and 100 that were pronounced officially dead. This is something that someone should be accountable for.

MK: George, stay strong and stay safe.

GEORGE EID: Thank you.

MK: Thank you for your time. George Eid is the senior correspondent at MTV Lebanon News. We reached him in Beirut today. Georgeg Kettaneh is the Secretary-General of the Red Cross in Lebanon and we've reached him there today. George, thank you for talking to us. Where were you when the explosion ripped through Beirut yesterday?

GEORGES KETTANEH: I was leaving the office and I suddenly we hear two explosions. And this is why we send a lot of amublance to evacuate and to treat the casualties and the injured.

MK: When did you realise the magnitude, just how bad the devastation was?

GEORGES KETTANEH: It was about 6 o'clock. And suddenly we found that there's a big explosions in the port and we start to send our ambulance. To achieve to have 75 ambulance in the field in Beirut and 50 on standby. We offered the blood banks to help also and we start evacuating the wounded to the hospital and when Beirut is start to face a problem, we start to evacuate these wounded to other hospitals out of Beirut.

MK: We were just hearing as we were speaking to a journalist there, who said that several hospitals were damaged. We also heard that there were medical supplies that were stored at the port that were destroyed. So how were you able to cope with all this? How are the hospitals managing?

GEORGES KETTANEH: As you know, the hospitals, they cannot continue managing, but they have their contingency stock in the hospitals to respond. And this is why, in fact, they are trying to do their best to see how they can help support and maintain the operation. So it was not easy. We tried to manage to do the best, but I don't that we can do everything because really it was very difficult to respond. The roads are blocked. No building, destroyed a lot of buildings destroyed, especially around the port.

MK: What do you need most right now? What is the message for the international community? Because there's so many people around the world who are just wondering how can we help.

GEORGES KETTANEH: The message is clear. For the hospitals they need a lot of equipment and materials. The people, they need a lot of support due to the economic crisis in the country and COVID-19. And the third one, the Red Cross tried to continue maintaining their programs and their response to be ready with the support of the movement of Red Cross. In fact, you know, in Lebanon, the situation is not stable economically. There's a lot of problems, there's a lot of social problems and thisexplosion yesterday was a mess to see how we can manage to contain supporting and helping the community.

MK: How long? I mean, you look at the challenge in front of you, knowing all the problems, knowing the economic problems, knowing about COVID, then seeing this destruction. How long will it take you to be able to deal with all the injured and the dead?

GEORGES KETTANEH: Till I'm supported as Red Cross with my partners, sisters and brothers from the Red Cross. Of course, the public hospitals and private hospitals they need the support and we cannot do alone all this work. We are working in prehospitals, in blood in primary health and as Red Cross and others and psychosocial support. And now with the problem now start with the restoring family links. How we can found this people who the family are not founding them. The big challenge for us, it was so emotional to find someone is sitting in his house, then he's dead because of this explosion. It was a mess, really. You would be surprised. You don't know what's going on at the beginning. You will go to the building, it's a block because there's' a lot of destruction of the flats. And you cannot move to help the people who are stuck in this building. We start to do the assessment of all these buildings. We are opening two posts now, big posts around the downtown to continue helping and supporting the people and to give some hope to the people that we are here and we are supporting them.

MK: Well, I know the international community wants to help Georges, and I hope that help gets to you very quickly. Thank you for talking to us and taking time out. We appreciate this.

GEORGES KETTANEH: Thank you very much.

MK: Good luck. Georges Kettaneh is the Secretary-General of the Red Cross in Lebanon. Well, there's no good time for a tragedy, but this devastating explosion could not have come at a worse time for a country crippled by a financial collapse, COVID and corruption. Rami Khouri is a professor of journalism and director of global engagement at the American University of Beirut. This morning, we've reached him in Boston. Good morning to you.

RAMI KHOURI: Good morning.

MK: Rami, your work has taken you to Boston, by good fortune and there's certainly not a lot of good fortune for Lebanese these days. What have you lost back at your, in your home in Beirut?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, I'm going back to Beirut in a few days, but I'm here now. And we heard about this on the radio as we were eating lunch. And I immediately started calling friends and family and colleagues at the American University. And the main thing that we didn't have any direct friends or relatives who got injured. But the damage that was done there, you'll be including to my office at the institute. It was mostly material damage, which was not that difficult to overcome. But the real damage is political and psychological. The blow that has been inflicted on the psyche of the Lebanese people, on their dignity and their humanity is the biggest blow that they've received after seven or eight other real big body blows that they've suffered in the last 15, 20 years. All of them, they all of these body blows, whether it's no garbage collection, no electricity, salty water, no jobs for education, closed banks, inflation, no money. Poverty rising. All of these have been happening in succession and simultaneously in the last year. But they are all the Lebanese blame all of these things, including the explosion on the incompetence, uncaring government that they've several governments that they've had in succession, which in turn are a reflection of their oligarchic sectarian system of rule in which 15 or 20 men essentially rule the country. And under the facade of a democratic, participatory parliamentary system. But it's become clear now to most Lebanese, and that's why they're out in the streets demonstrating since last October. It's become clear that the real threat to Lebanon is its governance system. And that's why the people are calling for the removal of the entire system, not just change the prime minister or anything like that. So that's the real damage that's been done. And now you're going to see an aftershock much bigger than the explosion at the political level as pressure builds to finally make the changes in the political system. Those people don't know how to actually get it done because of entrenched politicians or the client list networks and patronage systems and political economy and networks who do entrench themselves for 20 or 30 years are not easy to remove, as other Arab countries have found.

MK: I was reading this morning that Lebanon is now the third most indebted nation on Earth. Its currency has lost 80 percent of its value this year. Hyperinflation pushed the inflation rate to an insane 90 percent in June. Half of the country living in poverty. This was before this tragedy. How will this affect that change that the country so desperately needs?

RAMI KHOURI: This will accelerate both the underlying pain that people have been suffering in terms of hunger, employment, availability of medicine, the material side of life will will get worse in the short run. And then there'll be some adjustments with humanitarian aid and the, um, the tremendous power of the Lebanese people and their creativity, their hard work, their commitment to their country, they will find a way to overcome this material problems in the short run, even though you have like 300,000 people now who apparently don't have homes anymore, they were destroyed. So these problems in the short run will be exacerbated. But I think in the long run or in the medium term, in the coming months, you're going to see a real ratcheting up of political pressure both from within Lebanon and externally to finally get rid of this ruling oligarchic, sectarian, corrupt, uncaring, inefficient political elite, which is what the Lebanese people, most of them have been calling for. That's just going to be the real drama to watch that. And that's the real aftershock of this explosion. How it happens, when it happens, what will be the turning point? It's really hard to tell. We've already had calls today from respected professors and public figures on civil society saying that people in the government have to resign. They have to be held accountable. People need to be put on trial immediately. So this is really the impact that I'm looking for now.

MK: I heard that as well from from the political elite saying somebody has to be held accountable. But at the end of the day, what difference will that make for a country that has been plunged into despair if somebody is tossed into jail for leaving this ammonium nitrate there for years?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, so the culpable party is not just an individual, it's a whole system. It's a system of governance that has bankrupted the country, dehumanised the people, shattered the economy, killed the hopes of young people. It's a whole system of governance that is responsible. And that's why the protesters in London and then in other countries, by the way, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, were some of the protest going off for the last year? They're all this is really noteworthy. They've all been saying change the whole system, get rid of this entire government, government class, this ruling class, that the whole system is corrupt, inefficient, dehumanising. And this is what the Lebanese people are talking about now. And the problem is the Saudis are to do that, but they're going to look at new ways. And I think a critical element, there's going to be international pressure and there are already people already saying for international donors, don't give aid money to the Lebanese government, they'll steal it as they've stolen everything else, give aid money to the red, the Lebanese Red Cross. We're just in to interview. There are terrific people who give it money to NGOs, food banks, as many people who are worthy of assistance and will use the money well. But people are saying don't give money to the government, which is quite extraordinary.

MK: The secretary generally, as you mentioned, Red Cross, he was saying, we're trying to provide hope. Do you see any hope on the horizon for Lebanon right now?

RAMI KHOURI: Yes, I hope I see is the humanity of the Lebanese people. The Lebanese have been through incredible, painful episodes, whether it's attacks by Israel, civil war, internally, regional wars, and then, of course, the economic collapse, which were self-inflicted then the corona on top of that. The Lebanese have been through enormous, painful experiences and have always fought back and found ways to to fix things. There's one thing that makes Lebanon different from all the Arab countries, which is it's the only country, despite all of its faults, it's the only country where the individual is allowed to use his or her entire brain and their mind and their emotions and their cultural creativity. You can sing and dance and read and do whatever you want, because there is this personal freedom that has always been the hallmark of the country. It's not a democratic system, but it is a system that recognizes personal freedom. Therefore, people have developed their full capacities and expertise in whatever the field it may be and that's their strength of Lebanon. That's why I'm hopeful. That's why I'm going back to it now. We have a home there. I continue to teach and do work at the American University of Beirut. There is a dynamism, a humanity, a creativity, a splendour, a joy to the Lebanese human spirit that is distinct from from all the Arab countries. And it's simply because they have had the freedom to develop their total humanity. And that's the key. And the people of Lebanon are already planning how to change the government power to come up with better laws, better systems, accountability, participation, transparency. They know how to do this. They are just very talented people and they now need to seise that opportunity. And that's really the hope that exists. It comes from within them and they know that. Therefore, they're just finding now that this explosion is going to push them now to find the way to translate that massive sense of criminal hope and solidarity to translate it into an actual functional political transition.

MK: Hold on to that hope and thank you for talking to us today.

RAMI KHOURI: Thank you.

MK: Rami Khouri is a professor of journalism and director of global engagement at the American University of Beirut. The CBC News is next. Then we'll examine how COVID is threatening many queer centric spaces and why they need to be protected. That's in a moment. I'm Mark Kelley and this is The Current.

[Music]

Why the pandemic might change queer spaces

Guests: Allysin Chaynes, Deonie Hudson, Noah Powers

MK: Hi, I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: theme]

MK: Still to come, we continue our presentation of the CBC podcast. Unlocking Bryson's Brain. But first, saving safe spaces.

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from The Beaver bar in Toronto]

MK: That's from a typical night at The Beaver, a queer bar in Toronto. It was known for alternative drag and performance art. I say was because COVID has silenced it for good. Other queer venues have closed, too, since the pandemic started in London and Halifax. The city's only dedicated spaces for the LGBTQ community are now gone for good, and the spaces across the country that remain are struggling under COVID restrictions. Allysin Chaynes is a drag performer in Toronto who was a regular at The Beaver. And Deonie Hudson is the resident designer with Theatre Outre and Didi's Playhaus in Lethbridge, Alberta. Hello to you both.

DEONIE HUDSON: Hello.

ALLYSIN CHAYNES: Hi there.

MK: Allysin, let me start with you. What was lost here when COVID killed The Beaver?

ALLYSIN CHAYNES: Well, I will say this, that the only thing I could correct you on is that when you say The Beaver is killed or The Beaver is gone for good, The Beaver is not. The building is. The Beaver is an amazing sense of community and collective queer art and energy that goes far beyond the bounds of the building. But what got this space done is just that. It's a small, independent, queer venue that even with social distancing practices over the next, however long we may have to do it, it just wasn't going to be financially feasible to be able to support the bar, being able to only fit 10 people in it at a time. And it's been a sad thing for the community. It's been a definitely something for us to be gathering and thinking about right now and there's an absolute sense of grief and mourning because it's a very important space to many. I mean, I got my start personally there seven years ago. I threw my first party there. I learned the business of night life at that bar. I met countless friends there. You know, it's a tough thing because it wasn't just a gathering place for queer people, it was also employment for many queer people. And it was also a place to be able to exhibit queer art at the same time as being employed, which is not always easiest thing to do in a big city. But I think right now The Beaver community and the Westend community as a whole is just trying to focus on all the good things that The Beaver was able to accomplish in that short amount of time that it was around.

MK: You wrote on social media, "an army of lovers will never die." What did you mean by that?

ALLYSIN CHAYNES: Well, that's a quote originally spoken by Will Munroe, who was a queer artist who founded The Beaver in 2008 with Lynn McNeill, who is the current owner. The quote from Will Munroe is An army of lovers will never be defeated. And what it means is that with the intentions that we have with what we did in that space can't be taken away by the removal of the space itself.

MK: Well, let's go to Lethbridge. Deonie, what place to Didi's Playhaus and Theatre Outre have in the community there?

DEONIE HUDSON: Well, we are the only physical location in Lethbridge. Like the only actual physical space for the queer community in Lethridge. And so it's yeah, it's a little harsh to know that we don't have a place where people can gather and where artists can perform and where audiences can see us and interact with each other. And there's definitely a sense of isolation that happens because of that. It definitely makes it a struggle.

MK: Well, how has COVID affected your space?

DEONIE HUDSON: Well, we have had our doors closed for quite some time. We had a we were a week away from opening our newest show. And when we had to close due to the pandemic and we've not been able to reopen, we even left Albert at being in phase two, which technically allows performing spaces to open. And the restrictions that are there mean that we could physically fit an audience of six to 10 members inside. And that's just not feasible to keep things going. So we have done our best to move to online and streaming performances to try and just keep a connection with our community.

MK: Are you worried, Deonie, that you know, with without that space though, mean, you're trying to keep that connection there, but without the space you're going to lose that connection?

DEONIE HUDSON: Absolutely. I worry every day for a lot of the people that are regular attendees to the space because they don't a lot of them don't have other connections. A lot of them don't really have much left for family after coming out or are new to the city and don't know a lot of other people. And I really worry that there isn't a chance to connect with them and I worry about their mental health.

MK: Allysin, are you worried that that more queer spaces are vulnerable now in this current environment?

ALLYSIN CHAYNES: I do. I absolutely do. I mean, we've had we've also had a loss of club called Club 120 that was transowned and operated in Toronto that has also closed. I work all over Toronto and the nightlife scene, in the queer nightlife scene especially, and it's been surreal to see places like Church Street, our Gay Village be boarded up and shuttered for so long. But things are coming back. Bars are finding ways to be resourceful and create safe gathering spaces for the queer community. Because I have to echo what was just said about the situation in Lethbridge, that is absolutely a rescue of queer people feeling disconnected from each other because those connections are so important. But I remain hopeful. I remain very hopeful that the ingenuity of our queer spaces and the support for our queer spaces can help them stay going with these times. But it's going to be difficult. It's going to be difficult and it's going to be very different.

MK: But does it, Allysin, does it give you a sort of a sense of resilience though when you realise that you're up against these challenges, to keep the community together, to keep people connected in these times?

ALLYSIN CHAYNES: Absolutely. 100 percent. And I think resilience is a huge part of the queer experience. I think being generally resilient in life and having, you know, a sense of purpose and a sense of drive, especially when it comes to protecting and maintaining one's own community. I think that is just ingrained into the queer experience by default. So I think this kind of effort and community community rallying and an effort to remain resilient and strong is something that queer people are being talked about already.

MK: Well, Deonie, I'm wondering, as you're listening to Alison, I mean, here, you know, here we are in the big city of Toronto and hard to keep the business afloat. You're out in Lethbridge. Are you are you feeling a little vulnerable out there now?

DEONIE HUDSON: Yeah, definitely feeling vulnerable. It's been a struggle, too. I mean, we are we're a non-profit society. So everybody that works there, everybody that performs there, it's all volunteer base to begin with. So we've never had a large money reserve. We're blessed in that we do have a very supportive community and an amazingly supportive landlord of the space that we rent who has worked very hard to help us try to keep our physical location going as long as we can. But there is a risk that if we can't find some way to generate some income and get our audiences back in, that we may not exist either.

MK: Do you think you're going to have to find a way to change then to be there for the long haul?

DEONIE HUDSON: Absolutely. And we're working on a lot of different options right now our first show of the season, which will be coming up in October, and we're doing a devised theatre piece that will be for audiences of one to four members so that we can, no matter what happens, hopefully remain within COVID restrictions, keeping our performers and our audiences safe. We've also moved to a lot of online and streaming performances and just written recently, we've been in talks with the city here, has left fresh and they're working on different ways that various performance groups in Lethbridge can potentially get together and organize like an actual streaming platform with more professional cameras and the ability to just up our game so that we can all stay afloat.

MK: Well, I can hear the resilience in both of you. So hang in there and hang on.

ALLYSIN CHAYNES: Thank you very much.

DEONIE HUDSON: We will.

MK: Allysin Chaynes is a drag performer in Toronto. Deonie Hudson is the resident designer with Theatre Outre and Didi's Playhaus in Lethbridge, Alberta. The threat COVID poses to the future of queer spaces is nothing new. Noah Powers has studied the decline of queer spaces in Montreal and London, England and why they need to be protected. Hi Noah.

NOAH POWERS: Hi. How are you?

MK: I'm doing well. I know you were listening into that conversation with Allysin and Deonie. What do you think of the loss of some of these bases in Canada now?

NOAH POWERS: Yeah, I mean, I was particularly taken by the story of Lethbridge and how you have, you know, only one clear space for an entire town. The queer community has always kind of been isolated, and especially when you're going into these smaller towns, it's just having that beacon of hope from people from all over the region to be able to see, oh, a queer community exist and there's a physical place for us. It's something that is really powerful. And the loss of that is something to be mourned for sure.

MK: Yeah. Put that into perspective for us, because, I mean, what is the importance of having a dedicated physical space for the queer community.

NOAH POWERS: Yeah. Historically, if you're looking back at, say, the beginning of the kind of like the origin story of pride, the Stonewall Inn riots, I mean, that was all centred around a physical queer space and a physical gathering of queer people. And, you know, we in Canada had our own kind of stonewall movement in Montreal that was also centred around the queer space. And basically police came and broke this massive. Hardy up, but the police brutality that followed from that, it actually sparked a huge resistance from the queer community and the straight community in Montreal. And it led to back to becoming the second jurisdiction in the world to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation. So the fact that these queer spaces can have such a big draw for people, it's not just for community, but it's also just for the larger social rights movement as well. It's empowering to be with like minded people.

MK: Because of COVID, the physical spaces have largely moved on line? So how does that change how the LGBTQ community finds connection?

NOAH POWERS: Yeah, and this is part of my research that I did over last summer was looking at the impact of digital technology and specifically dating apps on the queer community and queer spaces specifically. And basically what I found is that, you know, the reliance on technology for queer people to meet. I read a statistic that 70 percent of gay relationships now start online, which is a vast majority. And when you're looking at something like that, the digital spaces are obviously very, very important to foster connexions and especially now that we're in such a restricted time. It's amazing to be able to still have some access to queer performances and to interact with other queer people. But I guess my fear with it is, is that it will never replace that physical space and will never replace having one hundred people in a room, for instance. So, I mean, it's obviously awesome that the art still say for drag performances online still exists. But I think that having that lack of actual physical in-person connections is something that will definitely be missed.

MK: Well, we were talking about resilience earlier, and I'm wondering how you think these spaces should be reimagined post-COVID?

NOAH POWERS: If you're looking at kind of like a government perspective or a policy perspective here in the U.K., in London, the mayor actually offered a grant specifically targeted for LGBTQ venues in order for them to be able to pay their rent and stay alive. That kind of offers some short term reassurance. But in the long term, I mean, what these spaces look like is going to be dramatically different. And I mean, we don't necessarily know how long this period of social distancing is going to last, but we might see it just only the bigger venues being able to survive and even better and still struggling. And in terms of what they look like, it's going to be, you say, a lot of outdoor performances in Canada in the winter. It's going to be very, very difficult for them to stay open throughout the year. And I think that the reliance on these digital technologies for a revenue stream is something that will become increasingly common. And, you know, whether it is a one to four person drag performance or theatre performance, I think that we're definitely gonna be seeing more of that.

MK: Well, Cyrus Marcus, whereas a Black trans artist and organizer in Toronto, and he, for one, wants to see some radical change.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When you look at the ways that particular communities have been marginalised within LGBTQ spaces and I'm thinking here of racialized communities, of deaf and disabled and Madde communities, I'm thinking of migrant communities, folks who have been looking for a sense of home within queer spaces, but haven't always found it because of white supremacy or ableism or transphobia even. There's been a real recognition that, you know, those spaces aren't going to be welcoming for all of us and safe for all of us then they need to be radically changed and radically reimagined.

MK: What do you think of that, Noah? Can this be a time for queer spaces to become more inclusive to everyone in the community?

NOAH POWERS: Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree. The queer community has always had quite a lot of ingroup discrimination. And I mean, it's quite harrowing because a lot of the places that you go to, a lot of these big. It is kind of the same crowd of, you know, the way to relatively young gay men. And there isn't a lot of diversity. And I was lucky enough to when I was in Montreal to be able to experience kind of this more of a diverse and expansive queer community that was inclusive of everyone. And the problem with that is that these spaces are quite small. They're not relatively mainstream, and they are a little bit niche. I mean, the one that I frequented, for instance, probably couldn't fit more than 60 or maybe 65 people, if you're lucky, in the room. And so I hope that there is a radical transformation of these spaces and that we realise that the queer community isn't just strength in numbers, but it's the strength of all of us. And I don't think that's something that's been highlighted in these spaces before. But I think that definitely that does need to be brought more into the mainstream of how these spaces can persevere for the future.

MK: Noah, it's good to talk to you. I appreciate your time.

NOAH POWERS: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

MK: Noah Powers has studied the decline of queer spaces. He's a graduate student in city design and social science at the London School of Economics. Well, after The Beaver closed in mid July, its most loyal patrons put together a tribute playlist on Spotify, called Beaver Forever. From that playlist, this is "Heaven Knows" by Donna Summer and Brooklyn Dreams.

[Song: "Heaven Knows" by Donna Summer & Brooklyn Dreams]

CBC Podcast: Unlocking Bryson’s Brain – Episode 3

MK: I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to, maybe even dancing to, the Current. This summer The Current has been bringing you some of the best from CBC Podcasts. This week, it's Unlocking Bryson's Brain. In today's episode, Bryson's dad and podcast host Keith McArthur explores a new technology with the potential to cure dozens of diseases once thought incurable.

SOUNDCLIP

MCARTHUR VO

There's this recurring dream I have. Maybe once a month. Sometimes more.

In this dream, I'm having a full-on conversation with my son Bryson, who is largely non-verbal.

*SFX: “Dream conversation”

Sometimes, the dream takes place the moment he starts speaking in sentences and I'm shocked at this incredible new development. Other times, we're chatting back and forth as if it's always been this way and it's the most normal thing in the world.

In some versions of the dream, Bryson's diction and grammar are perfect; in others he speaks like a toddler struggling for the right phrases and pronunciations.

Either way, it's wonderful.

And I so want this dream to be real.

Instead, I wake up to a bittersweet feeling. Savoring this imagined conservation with my youngest son... Wishing desperately that someday this dream will become a reality.

My wife Laura? She gets them too.

*[Laura cure 00:25] Laura: "Oh, I don't think I've ever had full sentences before but I've definitely had dreams where he's talking communicating in one or two words. But then I wake up and I'm so sad, because I was so happy in that dream."

MCARTHUR VO

In the past, there was little hope for kids like our son, who has a severe and life-limiting disorder.

But Bryson's geneticist, Dr. Ronni Cohn, has told us about CRISPR -- an amazing new technology that could allow doctors to correct errors in the human genome, to fix mutations like the one in Bryson's GRIN1 gene that keeps his brain locked at the level of a 12 month old, and prevents him from being able to walk or speak more than a handful of words.

[Laura cure 01:03] Keith: "Do you think that what Ronni is telling us about CRISPR could mean that some day, that might not a dream?"

Laura: "I hope so. Even now with a few of the medications he's been on and as he progresses we hear one word come out so, yesterday when he was saying mom - mom - mom - mom - mom. It's a huge gift to hear that and then when he gives you a hug and says that it's an even bigger gift. Before I had kids, or was thinking about having kids, I couldn't imagine that that would be something that would make your heart soar when your child is 10 and not a baby. But I guess I hope so."

Keith: Are you ever worried about getting your hopes up too much?

Laura: No because I'm realistic too. I think all we have is our hope. If we give up our hope what do we have left? And it's not about -- because Bryson's perfect right? His essence is perfect. But his life is really hard. He has pain and he suffers and it breaks my heart. Every day he has pain that he can't tell us about. Or he gets frustrated because he can't go where he wants to go, or do what he wants to do. If we could even help him a little bit on one of those things, that would feel like a success. So I have to keep my hopes up that there's a possibility."

MCARTHUR VO:

I’m Keith McArthur and this is Unlocking Bryson's Brain, a podcast about my son Bryson, his rare disease and our family's search for a medical miracle.

It becomes clear that if we're going to help Bryson, we need to understand GRIN1 better than his doctors do.

I try to read some scientific journals, but so much goes over my head.

Here's the summary line from one report...

"In conclusion, we found four novel GRIN1 mutations in patients showing encephalopathy with infantile-onset epilepsy, and hyperkinetic and stereotyped movement disorders."

Why do researchers write like this? It feels like a completely different language.

Laura does better understanding the science. She works in health care and took some science classes at university so she's able to grasp more of it.

It takes me years before I really start to understand.

Here’s what I've come to learn about Bryson's brain.

Even if you don't know much about DNA, you're probably familiar with the iconic double-helix that looks like a pair of curled ribbons on a Christmas present. When I picture it, I can't help but think of the animated Mr. DNA character from the original Jurassic Park movie. He's a talking double helix with hands, eyes and a mouth.

{Sound from Jurasic Park clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUaFYzFFbBU}

John Hammond: “Mr. DNA, where did you come from?”

Mr. DNA: “From your blood. Just one drop of your blood contains billions of strands of DNA, the building blocks of life. A DNA strand like me is a blueprint for building a living thing." (Fade)

MCARTHUR VO:

This blueprint -- these instructions -- are coded using tiny particles of four different chemical compounds which scientists refer to using the letters G, C, A and T.

Each person’s DNA contains about 6.4 billion of these letters, which are also known as nucleotides or bases.

If you put all those letters in a book, it would be about ten thousand times longer than War and Peace.

And in Bryson's DNA, a single letter -- one out of 6.4-billion letters -- is wrong. This spelling mistake probably happened at conception. And as Bryson's cells began to split, it likely made its way into every cell in his body.

We all have spelling mistakes in our DNA -- dozens of them by some estimates -- but most of them have little or no impact in how we come together.

But Bryson's mutation? It falls within the GRIN1 gene, which contains the code to build a protein called GLUN1.

This protein plays a critical role in how the brain learns, grows and develops.

It's like if there were DNA instructions to build a car. If there were an error that made a slight change in the color of the fabric on the seats, you probably wouldn't notice. But a tiny change to the ignition? The car might not start.

And that's kind of what happened to Bryson brain.

There's one tiny error in his DNA -- but it's in one of the worst possible places -- the GRIN1 gene.

In Bryson's case, it's the one-thousand-eight-hundred and fifty-eighth letter of that gene's code that's wrong. Where there should be a "G," there's an "A" instead.

So the GLUN1 protein gets built with an incorrect ingredient. While nine hundred and thirty eight of the amino acids that assemble to create the protein are perfect, the six-hundred-and-twentieth one is wrong. Instead of a Glycine -- a small amino acid with a no electric charge, it become an Argenine, a large amino acid that is positively charged.

It's almost like mistaking baking powder with baking soda when you're making a cake.

One wrong letter. One misspelled amino acid. One broken protein.

And Bryson's existence is completely changed.

ACT 2: THE CRISPR REVOLUTION

MCARTHUR VO

It's a cool April night and Laura and I get dressed up for a rare weekend date. We're heading to Toronto's Hotdocs film festival to catch the documentary Human Nature. It's all about CRISPR -- its potential. And its threat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6pD96RRIUQ

[00:09] emcee: “Vladimir, Vladimirovich Putin:

[applause]

MCARTHUR VO:

There's a clip in the film where Russian President Vladimir Putin is speaking to a group of students about how scientists could use CRISPR to create super beings.

[Putin speaking in Russian runs behind VO]

MCARTHUR VO

People could create a brilliant mathematician or a brilliant musician, Putin says. Or maybe, a super soldier whose genes are edited so he feels no fear or pain or regret. This, Putin says, might be worse than a nuclear bomb.

So, that's scary.

But on the other hand, the film makes the case that CRISPR has the potential to cure -- or even wipe out -- so many genetic diseases.

There's a Q and A after the film with Dr. Jennifer Doudna -- one of the scientists who discovered CRISPR's potential -- and former CBS News anchor Dan Rather. He’s the executive producer of the film. Rather covered Watergate and was actually on the scene at the Kennedy assassination. But he says CRISPR is the biggest story he's ever covered.

Adam Bolt, the film's director -- he's on the panel too.

[Adam Bolt 0:04:40] Keith: Right now your film is screening right for the third time here?

Adam: "Yeah."

Keith: "Does it -- How does it feel to know that it's just down the hall and people are watching it?"

Adam: It's kind of hard to not be in there and see how people are receiving it.

MCARTHUR VO

I catch up with Adam a couple days later. I figure he probably knows more about CRISPR than any non-scientist on the planet.

[Adam Bolt 2 00:00] Keith: Can you help put in perspective just how big this is?

Adam: It's really big. It's really big. A lot of people compare it to something like the transistor or you know the beginnings of the Internet in terms of being a technology that is you know is going to have ripple effects for decades to come in ways that we can't even begin to foresee. ...

Keith: "Would you say it's bigger than the discovery of vaccines? Bigger than the discovery of nuclear energy? Bigger than the internet?"

Adam: "I don't know about bigger but those are all enormous enormous developments and I think it's on that scale. I think it's absolutely on that scale, yeah."

MCARTHUR VO:

So, why all the hype? We'll get there. But first, what are we talking about when we talk about CRISPR?

Anchor: “CRISPR.”

John Oliver: “Something called CRISPR.”

Anchor: “You’ve probably heard of CRISPR technologies.”

Anchor: “Its name kind of sounds like an ad for fresh vegetables.”

Anchor: “CRISPR CAS9.”

It’s an acronym stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. Quite a mouthful. Basically, CRISPR is just a repeating set of short letter sequences found in the DNA of bacteria such as eColi.

At first, scientists couldn't figure out why they were there. Eventually, they discovered these CRISPR patterns are actually an ingenious self-defence mechanism designed to protect bacteria from viruses.

Here's how it works. When bacteria discovers a new virus, it stores a bit of that virus' DNA in one of these letter sequences.

Basically, the memory of the virus gets stored in bacterial DNA. It then gets passed along as the bacteria replicates. It's almost like a stored "most wanted poster" that gets passed along from generation to generation.

This wanted poster is a warning, with a bullet. When the same virus is detected again, the program sends an enzyme, known as CAS9, to chop up the virus so it can’t replicate.

It was food scientists in the dairy industry who first realized the potential of CRISPR-CAS9. By harnessing this self-defense mechanism they could dramatically reduce the amount of spoiled yogurt or cheese. All they had to do was order batches of bacteria that were already programmed to attack harmful viruses.

Then in 2011, scientists discovered CRISPR's true potential. What if they could implant a sort of false memory into the bacteria's search-and-destroy function? What if they could replace the virus DNA in that "most wanted" poster with another completely different piece of DNA.

In theory, this would allow them to easily edit the DNA of any living creature, which would have profound impacts on everything from agriculture to medicine.

They tried it. And it worked.

[Adam Bolt 2:21] Adam Bolt: "CRISPR is you know it's it's this fundamental technology for modifying DNA and it can be used in humans as well as any other organism on the planet that it's been tried in and so far. And so you know the implications for human health for the biosphere for the environment for all kinds of things are are enormous. And you know people are -- it's it's about 6 years old more or less. So we're just at the beginning of seeing what scientists and researchers and technologists want to do with it and can do with it."

MCARTHUR VO:

*CRISPR wasn't the first technology researchers discovered to edit DNA. Other tools had been around since the eighties. But CRISPR was dramatically better in every respect. Cheaper. Faster. And far more precise.

It's already being used to genetically engineer better fruits and vegetables. Experiments are underway to edit the DNA of pigs so their organs could be harvested for human transplant. And in 2019, researchers began human clinical trials to use CRISPR to cure Sickle Cell Anemia, a hereditary disease where misshapen blood cells block arteries, damaging organs and causing intense pain for people with the disease.

[Adam Bolt 00:01:48] Keith: "So as a father of a son with a rare genetic condition I sort of see just the upside right? I see CRISPR as a potential miracle for my kid but a lot of people see it as something potentially dangerous. Why?"

[Adam Bolt 00:02:06] Adam: "Well, I mean some of it is you know just the fact that any technology can be used for good and evil and certainly if someone wants to to do evil with CRISPR you know creating some kind of bio weapon or something like that that's that's a possibility."

MCARTHUR VO:

Beyond the weaponization of CRISPR, there are ethical questions around how it's used to cure diseases. It's one thing to cure a disease in a single patient. But CRISPR has the potential to do much more -- to completely eradicate a hereditary disorder.

[xxx] Adam Bolt: “Where people go immediately isn’t so much the, you know, deliberate evil as much as what the unexpected consequences of changing our own biology might be. There's a big distinction that we that we lay out in the film between what's called somatic editing gene editing -- somatic gene editing is editing the DNA of a person who's already here and you know modifying a particular tissue cell type or part of their body a particular organ like the brain or the blood or the liver to cure a disease. Then there's something called germline editing which is editing future generations editing embryos editing sperm or egg cells and those changes would get passed down to future generations forever. And that's where the implications become much bigger than just saving one life for treating one person. You know it opens the possibility of really in the long term changing the direction of human evolution."

MCARTHUR VO

If CRISPR could be used to help Bryson, that would only change his own DNA, so no downstream effects on the germline.

But in late 2018 –

HE Jian-Kwi: “Two beautiful little Chinese girls named Lulu and Nana came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies a few weeks ago.” (fade under...)

MCARTHUR VO

Chinese Researcher HE Jian-Kwi revealed that he had used CRISPR on healthy embryos to create babies born with resistance to HIV.

MCARTHUR VO

Which sounds good.

But scientists around the world condemned the research.

Reporter: “It crosses a new frontier in medicine and ethics.”

Reporter: “Leaders in the field of gene editing have collectively agreed it’s too early to implant edited embryos in humans because of the risks.”

MCARTHUR VO

Not only did it violate standard ethical principles around informed consent and unreasonable risk-benefit assessment –

Reporter: “The scientific world reacted with shock and disdain”

MCARTHUR VO

– It crossed the line into germline editing.

Reporter: “and according to practically every expert on medical ethics, should never have been done in the first place.”

MCARTHUR VO

Which means that if the experiment has unintended consequences, those would be passed along for generations.

And given the history of gene therapy trials, unintended consequences wouldn't come as a surprise.

ACT 3: JESSE GELSINGER

[CSPAN hearing https://www.c-span.org/video/?155137-1/safety-gene-therapy]

[00:44] Sen. Bill Frist clears throat. Gavels in meeting.]

[CSPAN 0:51 Fades in and out during VO] Sen. Bill Frist: "Good morning and welcome to today's hearing on what are truly critical issues regarding the subject of patient safety in gene therapy clinical trials. The events of the past few months involving gene therapy research have given all of us -- our government and our society reason to pause and and prompted the subcommittee today to undertake and initiate a thorough review...]

MCARTHUR VO:

It's the year two-thousand. February the second. In the Capitol Building. Paul Gelsinger has flown from his home in Arizona to Washington to talk to the Senate Health Committee about his son Jesse.

[Cohn 22:20] Cohn: "That incident paralyzed the field for almost 20 years. So now it's all kind of coming back and there have been a number of different gene therapy as some are about to get FDA approval a couple already have FDA approval. So I think the field of gene therapy Is just coming alive again."

[Cohn 27:23] Keith: "Can you kind of put it in perspective like how big do you think that CRISPR is as a development in medicine?"

Cohn: "So I would say. Now. Being a geneticist and pediatrician as I'm somewhat biased but after the sequence of the human genome I think it's the biggest discovery within the last 20 years."

[Cohn 22:50] Keith: How do we know if Bryson's disorder would be a candidate for either gene therapy or Gene editing and in particular?

[Cohn 00:23:07] - Cohn: So I think. When it comes to genome editing ~~what we -~~ there are a number of things that we still have to figure out for example number one: How are we going to deliver this construct in a safe and very efficient way to the target we want it to deliver? So, in the case of Bryson, the question will be -- which cells of the brain would we have to target? Is it OK to target all cells of the brain? Do we need a very specific subtype?"

MCARTHUR VO:

It makes sense that the first human trials involving CRISPR are designed to cure sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder. Blood makes for an easier target since the cardiovascular system is literally designed to rapidly churn blood throughout the body, spreading the corrected genes through veins and arteries.

But the brain is a much tougher target. Even if scientists could use CRISPR to correct one part of Bryson's brain -- say the hippocampus -- these edited cells might not spread to other areas.

And editing cells in the brain just feels riskier. One of the risks? What if the CRISPR CAS9 enzyme cuts in the wrong place?

[Cohn 24:38] Cohn: "To be honest these -- These risks are very low. But what we don't know is that if these scissors sit around in the genome for a very long time would this change the likelihood of cutting somewhere else rather than the intended place? And that's a really really tricky difficult question. And I'm not sure that there will be a set of unequivocal scientific experiments that will tell us now, now you have the green light and go ahead and do it. But conceptually, theoretically speaking, most mutations would probably be amenable to it once we figure out how to deliver it and do it in a safe way."

MCARTHUR VO:

Jesse's death serves as a stark reminder for Laura and me. Yes, we want a cure for Bryson, but not at any cost. If and when researchers initiate clinical trials for a potential cure, we would want to be absolutely sure the treatment is safe. Bryson won't be a guinea pig.

There’s another teenager on my mind when I think of CRISPR’s potential -- David Sanchez, a teenager living with Sickle Cell Anemia who was featured in the Human Nature documentary.

In one poignant exchange, the film's director asks David to imagine a world where CRISPR could have been used to cure his disease before he was born.

[Adam Bolt 14:xx] Adam: "And you know I asked David what he thought and with no idea what he was going to say and it was really interesting to me that someone who's living with this terrible disease says yeah maybe I you know maybe I want the cure now but I don't know that I would go back in time and eliminate it. You know it, it taught me things that formed my character."

MCARTHUR VO:

We don't know how Bryson would answer this question, but it’s an important reminder to me that the idea of cure isn’t always straightforward. That sometimes? It’s controversial. And we’ll get into that in future episodes.

But despite all that, Laura and I desperately want this CRISPR cure.

We need to believe in it.

Bryson's 16-year-old brother Connor? He's skeptical.

[Connor 1 00:06:32] Connor: "Well if I'm being honest there's so much dedicated towards the cure research for GRIN1 and so much trying to figure out how the genome could be edited or some sort of medication that could reduce the effects to near zero. And if I'm being completely honest I don't think that's possible within the span of my lifetime. I think that the effects could be nullified quite a bit but I don't think that Bryson could ever live a normal life at this point in time. And I see people around me thinking that and I guess -- I guess there is a small chance that the science would be able to get there but I don't believe it's possible because of regulations and testing.

Keith: "When you say people around you, you mean -- "

Connor: "Well the GRIN1 research group and you of course."

Keith: "You mean me and mum mostly right?"

Connor: "Of course. Yes."

Keith: "That's who you're worried about?"

Connor: "Yeah."

Keith: "So you're worried that that we're setting us up setting ourselves up for disappointment?"

[Cohn 26:06] Cohn: "When is it too late? How much of a disease is reversible? What kind of outcome are we actually looking for? These are questions that are fascinating and important and I hope I will live long enough and maybe even practice long enough to be part of these efforts and questions.

MCARTHUR VO:

In the meantime, we keep trying to learn as much as we can about GRIN1. We come to understand that almost every kid in our patient community has a distinct mutation. With two thousand, eight hundred and fourteen letters in the gene, there are thousands of opportunities for spelling errors. But somehow, miraculously, out of this tiny group of patients in the Giggling GRIN1 Facebook group, there's another patient whose DNA instructions result in an Argenine where there should be a Glycene at precisely the same spot as Bryson’s. Bryson has a GRIN1 twin, and it's Olivia, the woman in her 20s who can walk a little and talk a little! There's a video of Olivia that her parents have posted on Facebook where she's got a pile of empty pizza boxes and she’s tossing them onto the floor, hamming it up for the camera. So much personality! And if she can do all this and she has the exact same mutation as Bryson, then couldn't he? We learn that Olivia and her parents are traveling to Colorado for the first-ever meetup of GRIN1 patient families. And we can't pass up the opportunity to meet Olivia and all these other GRIN patients. We book flights to travel to Castle Rock, a small city half an hour's drive south of Denver.We need to meet our GRIN family. And Bryson needs to meet his GRIN twin.

MK: We've been listening to the CBC Podcast, Unlocking Bryson's Brain. Tune in tomorrow for the continuation of this story. Well, that's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q Today guest host, Talia Schlanger, speaks with blues artist Anita White, who has been performing as Lady A for more than 20 years, but now she's fighting for the rights to her own name against the country powerhouse group formerly known as Lady Antebellum. Hear why she's turned down requests to share her moniker. And don't forget, CBC Listen is the free app that lets you discover the very best in Canadian audio from CBC Radio, CBC Podcasts and CBC Music. Listen to The Current live from anywhere on your phone or tablet and catch up on show highlights on demand anytime. I'm Mark Kelley. It's been a wild ride today. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Music: theme]

The Current Transcript for August 5, 2020

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