Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2016

The AIH Transcript for April 14, 2017

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden sitting in for Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: The dust has settled but this story is far from clear. Yesterday the U.S. military dropped a giant bomb in Afghanistan. The details about the effect of the explosion remain up in the air.

CH: Living in complicated harmony. Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch remembers his friend Louis Sarno the late American musicologist who loved the music of the Bayaka pygmies so much he moved to the Central African rainforest.

CO: A minute to catch your breath, Ottawa says it's cracking down on drugged and drunk drivers but a defense lawyer says they've gone too far with the plan to let police take tests from anyone they choose.

CH: The boat was designed for 10, but one Italian man and his friends took it out over and over again to save dozens of refugees from drowning. Tonight a BBC journalist talks to Carol about her new book, The Optician of Lampedusa.

CO: A first time butterfly effect, in an unprecedented ruling, a British man is sentenced for capturing and killing a rare protected butterfly called the Large Blue.

CH: And harm on the range. You can tell the high-priced, high-tech new AGA cooker to start or stop cooking by texting it instructions, which turns out to be a problem if someone else has got your number.
As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that hopes you're not doing a slow burn.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Part 1: Afghanistan: reporter, impaired driving overhaul, butterfly sentencing

Afghanistan: Reporter

Guest: Ali Latifi

CHRIS HOWDEN: It's been a full day since the United States dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat. But there are still few details as to what impact this bomb has actually had. U.S. and Afghan officials are saying that no civilians were killed. But as we go to air, no journalists have yet been allowed to the site where the bomb was dropped. Ali Latifi is a freelance journalist who spent the day in Achin district near where the so-called mother of all bombs went off. We reached Mr. Latifi in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

CAROL OFF: Ali, how close were you able to get to where this bomb was dropped?

ALI LATIFI: So we were about five six kilometres away on this hilltop. But the problem was that the actual site where the so-called "mother of all bombs" was dropped was through this valley and behind two hills. So we really could not see through to the actual site because I remember for instance, last night, my friends were saying to me "Go go go. Go and see if there's a giant hole in the ground." It's one of those instances where you're so close but so far away.

CO: And who is who is preventing, or what was preventing you from getting closer?

AL: On this hilltop, there was a crew of Afghan journalists, maybe about 15 of us. And then around us were police, Afghan police, Afghan commandos, Afghan special forces, and they were basically saying we can't take this responsibility for you because we don't know if it's safe yet ourselves.
And it's true because there were there were helicopters still in the air. My friend said they saw some B-52s. We could hear explosions, what sounded like explosions, we could see smoke rising from different areas. We even heard a little bit of gunfire. So the way that it was explained to us was that the area was not cleared and that the Daesh fighters had lined the area closest to the bombing site we had mined.

CO: In that area, in the zone that they're not allowing you in where this operation continues. Are there villages in there?

AL: There are. There there are some houses in there. And the thing is, is that the way it was explained to us and I actually saw a picture of one of the cars on one of the people's phones, is that basically, about a month ago the Afghan forces dropped these cards or these leaflets that explained to people that you know their operations were going to get more intense and that there would be an increasing danger, so that it's best for them to leave. Because there definitely were civilians in the area. I talked to some people who said they had family in the area who either had escaped or who were killed during the last 14 days or so of the operation. So there definitely were families in that area.
Now the way the government explains it is that they had all left. But we talked to some of those soldiers and they said that, you know Daesh was threatening people who were leaving saying, if you leave you leave and you leave your land to us, you know, don't come back expecting it back. So whether or not that had an impact on how many people actually stayed behind. We still don't know because we haven't physically seen the actual attack site.

CO: And you would know that people in an area like that, all they own is their land their property so they would be very concerned about deserting it then.

AL: Exactly.

CO: We've heard that there was an operation as you mentioned going on for a couple of weeks there has been a longer operation going on for some time to try and rout ISIS or Daesh from that region. And so do you have any idea how people feel about this bomb having been dropped on them the other night?

AL: In terms of the people in the area again because we don't have access to them yet, I can't speak for them. But I can tell you what people in the surrounding areas and in Jalalabad about Kabul are saying, and it's really one of those questions of why a bomb of this magnitude? Why this bomb now in this part of Afghanistan target Dalgleish whose numbers are actually very ambiguous and there... They have staged high profile attacks, but at the same time, however many Daeshes there are, there aren't nearly as many as there are Taliban. Obviously there are questions about whether there are civilian casualties, but there's also just questions about the fundamental aspect of it all, of why literally. Why this bomb now, here to target this group.

CO: We heard, we spoke with another journalist in the region last night. He was describing how he was in Achin, that district, making a film just recently. He said that there were people saying that there had been other kinds of bombs. There had been drone attacks, there had been wedding parties that had been wiped out. That there were a lot of civilian casualties as you've just said yourself. So do you think, are people, are they angry? Because they wanted to see Daesh gone and the Taliban gone. But how do they feel about these kinds of attacks on the part of the Americans?

AL: I mean obviously you will find some people who say, "Well, if it gets rid of Daesh, it gets rid of Daesh." And there are people who actually believe that this will get rid of Daesh and it's a good step. I mean, the district governor today when we spoke to him, he's like, "This should be a happy moment for the Afghan people. Tou should you should be happy because your countrymen in Achin will be freed very soon after years of suffering under them, and there were no civilian casualties and only killed the enemies of the country." So you have that aspect.
And then I think once the numbers come out, if we find out that there were any civilian casualties, I think that's when the anger will start. And then also we have got former President Hamid Karzai saying online you know "Afghanistan has now become a testing ground for new weapons."

CO: And he was, the former President Hamid Karzai condemned the United States for that attack didn't he?

AL: He condemned it, and he said you know this is not a war on terror. This is, I mean I can't remember his exact words, but it was like, this is them trying out their new toys, their new weapons. And there were people who had similar thoughts, saying similar things.

CO: We've heard before when there have been U.S. attacks and the civilians have been killed that it's ended up being a pretty good recruiting tool for the terrorists and for the insurgents. Is that possible? Are people, are they sympathetic? Do you find any sympathy toward ISIS in the region?

AL: The thing is, Daesh is a very separate group in Afghanistan. I don't think you will find many people who are sympathetic towards Daesh because, I mean first of all like, the religious views don't really line up with Afghan views. And then on top of that, the reputation that they've earned in the country... I mean I've been talking to people who have fled Daesh areas for the last two or three years and they all say the same thing. You know shortly after they heard that they were Daesh, they immediately ran. Just the name Daesh scared them. And then they said things like "Look if it's the Taliban, we know who they are. We can deal with them. But these guys we don't know who they are. We don't know what they want."

CO: All right we'll leave it there. And we should mention there, the death toll we're now hearing is 36 fighters were killed. That's what the United States is reporting.

AL: Well that's the thing. That's what the United States is reporting. And then when we talk to soldiers on the ground, they were saying it could be as high as 80 to 87. So even that number is changing.

CO: We will leave it there. Ali, I appreciate speaking with you.

AL: Thank you.

CO: Alright, good night.

CH: Ali Latifi is a freelance journalist. We reached him in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

[Music]

Impaired driving overhaul

Guest:

CH: Study the liberals rolled out their plan to decriminalize the use of pot. But they also announced a crackdown on intoxicated driving some of the measures focus on the problem of people driving while stoned. But there are also drunk driving provisions that expand the power of police to take body samples from pretty much anyone on the road that has civil liberties advocates seeing court cases ahead. Joseph Neuberger is a criminal defense lawyer in Toronto and that's where we reached him.

CO: Mr. Neuberger, how is Ottawa changing the rules for when drivers have to submit to a breath test?

JOSEPH NEUBERGER: Well with respect to impaired related offenses, the new rules will mandate that any driver who's operating a motor vehicle and stopped by the police for a sobriety check will have to comply with a demand to provide a roadside sample. The officer does not need or require to have reasonable suspicion. There will be no basis for an officer other than just simply the demand.

CO: OK, just make it clear what happens now. Does it, first of all, does an officer need to have a reason to stop somebody? Do they need to look like they might be driving under the influence?

JN: Well under the Highway Traffic Act in Ontario, officers are able to pull over vehicles generally at random to check sobriety. And that typically happens when they're watching a vehicle pull out of a parking lot where there's a drinking establishment. We know ride spot checks are set up everywhere on various nights and arbitrary stops are allowed. But under the current system, even at a ride spot check or a random check, the officer still need to form a reasonable suspicion in order to ask for roadside demand.

CO: Right. This is when they ask you "Have you been drinking?" and "When did you have the last drink?" or "Where have you come from?" All those things in there. And they can smell alcohol perhaps, all of that becomes part of their reasoning.

JN: That's correct. A reasonable suspicion is a very low threshold. So the officer simply would have to have some basis, so if they detect an odor of alcohol emanating from the person's breath, if the person admits recent consumption of alcohol. Those are two examples of a very low threshold that gives the officer the basis to make the demand.

CO: But if this law passes they won't need anything.

JN: Well I think what it means is if you're driving you will have no choice but to provide a body sample to officers at their own discretion. And in my opinion, I think this is going to be challenged constitutionally because it is something which is invasive, and there should be a reasonable basis for an officer to make a demand for a bodily sample.

CO: But at the same time people are very concerned with the number of people driving under the influence. So this is something the police, powers that police would have would would be beneficial to other drivers. Would it not?

JN: Yes but we also have search and seizure laws with respect to stopping individuals and checking, and we've eliminated carding and Toronto with respect to stopping individuals where there could be a racial bias. And shootings and death by guns and gang related activities is a significant concern as well. So we still protect constitutional rights in that regard. So regardless of the dangers that are apparent as a result of a particular activity, be it drunk driving, gang related activity, we still respect certain constitutional minimums and we don't seem to be seeing that in this legislation.

CO: But if you're not drunk and you're not under the influence and you're not impaired then then what do you got to fear?

JN: Well that's the same argument that why just not let police search your house if they want to search your house to ensure that there's nothing of any illegal substance or guns in your house? If you've got nothing to hide, then why should you just allow officers to search without a warrant? It's the same old argument which really in my opinion doesn't hold any water because there has to be constitutional minimums for invasion of privacy.

CO: Why do you think Ottawa is doing this?

JN: I think it's politics. I think the introduction of the marijuana legislation is significant. I think the public is divided and concerned about impaired related driving when it comes to drugs and marijuana. And they want to appear tough on everything so that will take away from the critics that might have concerns about the impaired by drug. And you know, there is legitimacy to the fact that impaired driving deaths occur and they are very serious and it's preventable if we're able to detect impaired drivers. But I don't think this is the right way to go about it in my opinion. This seems to me to be just an unwarranted invasion which is just simply signaling to the public, we are getting tougher on this area of concern. And that will appease the public and maybe other politicians who have concerns about the legalization of marijuana.
I think if you really want to deal with impaired driving and try and improve safety, instead of criminalizing and trying to always charge people, what you do is if they are over the legal limit, you seize their cars, they forfeit their cars and that will really hamper their ability to drive.

CO: There's also a plan to eliminate a certain defense that drivers have used to avoid conviction. Can you explain that?

JN: Yes. And if not necessarily to avoid conviction. What it is now, is if you're impaired or over the legal limit at the time of driving. That's the test. That's what set out in the criminal code. So if somebody is at a bar and they consume three or four drinks, get in their car and they have a 10 minute drive to their residence, if they're stopped by police they may not be over the legal limit at the time of driving. But because the tests are actually done in the breath-testing room some time later and the results show over 80 they're still charged. So one of the defenses is, at the time of driving given a pattern of alcohol consumption with an expert testifying, and if the person is believed they can establish a defense. What they want to change now is that it's not just at the time of driving it's within two hours of driving. I'm intrigued by this. I want to see exactly how feasible that really is. And in fact that's going to be very overreaching and I think that will also have to come under constitutional scrutiny.

CO: We will see what happens as this legislation proceeds through the legislature. It's good to talk to you Mr. Neuberger. Thank you.

JN: My pleasure, thank you.

CH: Joseph Neuberger is a Toronto criminal defense lawyer. We reached him in Toronto.

[Music]

Butterfly sentencing

Guest: Neil Hulme

CH: He has been sentenced for a crime committed against the butterflies. Phillip Cullen has been handed a suspended prison sentence for catching and killing the "large blue", one of the rarest butterflies in Britain.
Neil Hulme is a butterfly enthusiast who saw Mr. Cohen acting suspiciously at a nature reserve. He was also a witness in the case. We reached Mr. Hulme at his home in Worthing, England.

CO: Mr. Hume can you take us back to the day when you saw this man, Phillip Cullen.

NEIL HULME: Yeah, it was back in June 2015. I was on a nature reserve in Gloucestershire. I'd gone down there to actually enjoy the large blue butterfly. And after being on the reserve for about two hours, I saw Mr. Cullen and a friend of his climb over a lot to the lower end of there reserve carrying a small net which immediately aroused my suspicion.

CO: Then what did he do with his net?

NH: Well initially because I was suspicious, I pretended not to pay much attention. So I sort of came back later and spent the next couple of hours tracking him following him around the reserve, sort of hiding behind trees and bushes and taking photographs from long range and making notes and basically building a case because I was pretty sure from the offset that he was up to no good.

CO: Did you actually see him or even photograph him capturing one of these butterflies?

NH: What I did is I actually photographed him chasing the butterflies with a net but it was never close enough to actually see him drop a net over a butterfly because of course butterflies are pretty small and I was observing him through binoculars or through it to the zoom lens to a camera. But nevertheless, it was quite evident to me that he was certainly attempting to catch the butterfly so that in itself is illegal.

CO: And just for those who don't know what this butterfly, the large blue looks like, could you describe it for us?

NH: It varies in size between about three and a quarter and three and three quarter centimetres from one tip of its wing to another. And it's a beautiful deep slaty blue colour and it has a marking on each fore-wing, rather like a paw print, an animal's paw print. So it's a very beautiful butterfly.

CO: And so why is it important enough to Britain that they would actually press charges against someone for trying to take them? Or for killing them?

NH: Well this is the first case of its kind. Our birds in this country are well protected by the Royal Society of Protection of Birds and butterflies, it's been difficult to actually build cases against illegal collectors. Because it is still legal to collect some species and our butterflies are given variable levels of protection, and actually only 6 out of 59 are fully protected. So it's been difficult in the past to bring cases. You really need to catch somebody red-handed or trading in these things.

CO: How long has this butterfly been extinct in are nearly extinct in Britain?

NH: Well it went extinct, it went completely extinct in 1979, and then since 1983 there's been a huge and ongoing project involving hundreds of volunteers and conservationists and scientists and it's been a well-funded project to resurrect this species. And that was done by taking an almost identical butterfly from Sweden and then reintroducing it to carefully prepared sites. So it's really an iconic symbol of conservation efforts in Britain.

CO: How did Philip Cullen come to be arrested for stealing the butterflies?

NH: Well I made a report. And had been working, or was working for quite a while with the national wildlife crime unit. I immediately contacted for instance the wildlife trust, the local Wildlife Trust that actually manages the reserves. My seniors at the charity Butterfly Conservation, and we've worked with the national wildlife crime unit for quite a period building a case. And they paid him a visit in February 2016 and found a lot of cases of butterflies, many of which it is illegal to actually possess. About 30 cases of butterflies and a bit of an Aladdin's cave. All sorts of rare and highly protected species were found on the premises.

CO: What did he say in his defense? What did he argue?

NH: Well two of the large blues, there were over 20 large blues found pinned in cases. And this is a species which has given protection not only on a UK level but also on a European level. And two of the specimens were actually labelled DB which we say stands for Daneway Banks, which is the nature reserve where I actually observed him. And the other specimen of interest was labeled CH, Collard Hill, and that the other was where he was seen the following day of his photographs had been circulated. And his defense was that these initials actually stood for his own personal colour coding. So he claimed that DB stood for dark blue, and CH stood for cobalt hue, which is a little far fetched.

CO: How did the judge determine that he was guilty?

NH: Well I gave the evidence myself as did two other volunteers. And we also had an expert witness from the Natural History Museum. And in my opinion I think that the evidence against him was overwhelming and the magistrates of course saw the situation in a similar manner. So he received a six month suspended sentence and a criminal behaviour order which actually bans him from the sites where these butterflies fly for five years. And he was also ordered to do 250 hours community service which is unpaid work.

CO: And what do you think of that sentence?

NH: He was also fined three hundred pounds. I personally think that this is something which is entirely in the decision of the magistrate. I think it's a suitable, a suitable punishment. I'm personally not speaking for Butterfly Conservation, but as an individual. I personally don't think there's any point in putting people in overcrowded prisons for collecting butterflies. But I think the key issue here is that it sends a message loud and clear. It is completely unacceptable to collect these butterflies, and wildlife crime is unacceptable.

CO: Mr. Hulme, thank you for speaking with us.

NH: It's a pleasure. Thank you very much.

CO: Good night.

CH: Neil Hulme works with the U.K. charity Butterfly Conservation. We reached him in Worthing, England. You can find more on that story on the As It Happens website, cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Deep voice commercial

CH: Here is a clip from an American commercial for beef.

SOUNDCLIP

[Speaking in high-pitched computerized voice]

Beef stroganoff, beef bourguignon, Irish beef stew, beef brisket, chateaubriand, sauerbraten, roast beef, cannelloni and beef ragu, Mongolian beef, chicken fried steak, steak Diane, grilled steak...

CH: Now picture a piece of beef. Is it a mammoth rib eye that dwarfs your plate, or a shrunken overcooked burger that looks like a novelty hockey puck? Now we will play you the same American commercial for beef at the original pitch.

SOUNDCLIP

[In a low voice]

Beef stroganoff, beef bourguignon, Irish beef stew, beef brisket, chateaubriand, sauerbraten, roast beef, cannelloni and beef ragu, Mongolian beef, chicken fried steak, steak Diane, grilled steak...

CH: Now picture a piece of beef. Is it the shrunken puck or an entire side of beef roasting over a roaring bonfire under the endless Montana Sky? I'll wager it's closer to that second thing and that's not just because of the commercial pitch it's because of the spokesperson's pitch. Of course it's true that Sam Elliot could make melted crayon soup with marshmallows sound majestic and appetizing, but according to a new study in the Journal of marketing research, the depth of his voice and any spokesperson's voice also affects our perception of the breadth of whatever he's selling. Or to quote from the study, "Through six studies, the authors find that when associated with a product, lower pitch in voice or music leads consumers to infer a larger product size."
Now I'm not sure how big the study is. I guess it depends on who tells me and how low their voices are, but the conclusions are disturbing. Because any given product is really the same size no matter who's describing it to you. And yet for some reason we base our perception on the amount of bass. So we should keep this study in mind when some guy with a rich baritone is bragging about the size of pretty much anything. Seems like a deep voice can leave us out of our depth.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Louis Sarno obit: Jim Jarmusch

Louis Sarno obituary

Guest: Jim Jarmusch

CHRIS HOWDEN: Louis Sarno loved the music of the Bayacka pygmies of the Central African rainforest. In fact he loved it so much, he became one of them. Mr. Sarno, a renowned American musicologist, died last week in New Jersey at the age of 62. He first heard Bayacka in music in passing, on the radio in Amsterdam in the early 1980s. And that started him on a hunt for the roots of the music and the people who made it. And when he found them, he stayed with them for 30 years. Mr. Sarno published a memoir about that time called Song from the Forest and in 2015, a German documentary film by the same name was released, telling his story and the story of the Bayacka. Here's an excerpt in which Louis Sarno returns to New York City.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Interspersed singing and traffic sounds]

LOUIS SARNO: It is a strange world. When you're away from it and then you come back, you realize how strange and artificial it all is. Everybody doing these tasks that really have no intrinsic importance to their lives. It's just like it's not quite real or something.

CH: Louis Sarno counted the American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch among his close longtime friends. We reached Jim Jarmusch in the Catskills.

CO: Mr. Jarmusch, first of all I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

JIM JARMUSCH: Well thank you it was really a remarkable person and one of my closest and longest friends in my life.

JJ: Yes, I saw him several weeks ago. We sat and spoke for several hours together.

CO: And how did you find him?

JJ: It was quite shocking this time. Each year, he would return from Africa to the States for various reasons. The last years, often, some of them medical. And he was very, very fragile, and very kind of weakened. So it was concerning.

CO: His story, I'm wondering what you can tell us about it. There's a quote from him that's so striking. He said: "I was drawn to the heart of Africa by a song. I boarded a plane that would take me into the equatorial heart of a continent where I did not know a soul on a quest for a music that might have been nothing more than a state of my imagination." What kind of a person does that? I'm just so curious about this man.

JJ: Well he's very difficult to describe. He had a remarkable mind and imagination. He was really really moved by music, classical music and music from other cultures. So these things always were very strong. A kind of draw for him. He also loved literature and was an incredible writer. He was one of the most gentle people that I've ever met. We were in our late teens, our early 20s when we first became friends. And he's one of the first people who I knew that was so careful of any living thing. For example removing an insect to take it outside always or caring for a plant that needed help or of course a person. He was very selfless had an incredible imagination and he also had the most incredible sense of humour. I don't know if you have one person in your life who is like your laughing friend, is the person you laugh the most with. And for me this was Louis. We used to laugh together so hard that our we would get these incredible pains in the back of our heads. And so he had an incredible sense of humour as well.

CO: There are others who have become fascinated with the culture of music or art of of of a society. But they go as anthropologists or they go and study it, once removed. But what's so fascinating about Louis Sarno is that when he went to find out about the Bayacka pygmies in his music he heard on a radio show, but he lived with them. He became part of their society. He wanted, he had to penetrate and be on the other side of the glass. And that does that that come as a surprise to you that he needed to do that?

JJ: No not really I don't know why. Because it is surprising from Lebanese Italian guy from you know South Orange, New Jersey or born in Newark I guess. But no, it seemed in keeping with his soul. He really liked the purity of their culture even though he saw it becoming gradually devastated. And there was something very magical about there is, about this music and now thanks to Louis, you know the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford has all his archives of his recordings of this music.

CO: This decision to live in Central Africa and with these people and I guess one of the things that because it's a very poor place and there are a lot of illnesses, very very short lifespan for the Bayacka pygmy. And that he actually in the course of his short life, because he died at 62 last week, he actually saw generations of his friends not survive. And he, he actually adopted children in order to I guess get closer to them. Can you tell us about his relationships?

JJ: Well the Bayacka have a very different approach as kind of hunter gatherer culture as far as ownership of things. For example they share everything. Which at first I remember being a bit problematic for Louis because he had a backup tape recorder and the Bayacka would say, "Ah but you have two and we have none. Can't we have one?" And as far as caring for children and each other, in you know in these kinds of cultures, everyone takes care of the children." And Louis was kind of, he was their teacher, their doctor, he represented them if they had disputes with the other tribes that live on the edge of the forest. Again as I said, because he was such a gentle giving person, and he lived his his life and in pretty abject poverty because any money he could raise he would use to bring them medicine, or to try to plant some agricultural things near their villages et cetera. They obviously really loved him, and I heard that this last time when he left the village they all followed him for quite a while. And that was the first time they ever did that. And I think they were very concerned that they might not see him again.

CO: Because you describe the beginning of the interview, when you saw him he was not well.

JJ: No he was not, because he was always quite a strong, a physically strong person. And the last time I saw him he was very frail and very fragile.

CO: Do you think it was the lifestyle that that did it, that living as he was?

JJ: Yes for sure because he had many problems. He had malaria. He had a very rare disease called loa loa. These things came from this life that he chose. And the the average lifespan of a Bayacka is about 40. So he outlived generations of his, his I will call them his family.

CO: Did he ever regret the path that he chose?

JJ: No never. And even when I last was with him and talking with him, you know he just wanted to get. He said "I just want to get healthy enough to get back there." And I know that he one thing about about Louis is he definitely lived his life as he chose. And I I'm sure he regrets nothing.

CO: Is there any particular memory, any moment that you will cherish?

JJ: There are so many, but it was quite moving when he came back to New York with somebody, Samedi, his son or adopted son, we're not quite sure, because it was always quite complicated how many children were always so important to him. But when he came to New York with Samedi, that was quite amazing to bring someone who had never been out of the rainforest to New York City.

CO: Mr. Jarmusch, I really appreciate you sharing your memories of Louis Sarno with us.

JJ: Thank you for shining a little light on this truly remarkable person.

CO: Bye-bye.

CH: American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch was a close longtime friend of the American musicologist Louis Sarno. We reached Mr. Jarmusch in the Catskills. Louis Sarno died earlier this month at the age of 62.

[Music]

From Our Archives: Suicide netting

CH: In the San Francisco Examiner yesterday, there was a picture of a man named Kevin Hines. He's shown standing on the city's Golden Gate Bridge with his hands on the railing looking into the water. Well 17 years ago Mr. Hines attempted suicide by jumping off that bridge. He later became part of the push for the construction of a stainless steel suicide prevention net at the bridge. Yesterday officials launched the construction of that net. The project is said to cost around $200 million U.S. and is expected to be finished in 2021.
In 2014, As It Happens spoke with Mr. Hines after the bridge district's board of directors voted to build the netting. At the time the estimated cost was around $76 million dollars U.S. Guest host Susan Bonner asked Mr. Hines about the day he went to the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000.

SOUNDCLIP

KEVIN HINES: I have a very severe mental illness and I battle every single day, that I'm in recovery every single day. And on that day, on top that bridge, I was hearing voices in my head, not that of my conscience that were saying that I had to die, that I was a horrible human body, and that I was worthless.

SUSAN BONNER: Can I ask you what you were thinking, what went through your mind when you hung over the railing at the bridge?

KH: The only thoughts in my mind were of instant regret. What have I just done? I don't want to die. God please save me.
When I resurfaced after hitting the water at 75 miles per hour, all I could do is pray and that's what I did. I'm very very very blessed to be alive and to be talking to you right now. I should have died 14 years ago. For whatever reason I did not. I say you know, but for the grace of God is how it all happened. You know, my doctor will tell me that I was in good physical shape. I have a scientist friend who will tell me it's just a statistic anomaly. You know, there's all kinds of reasons people can feel for themselves and everyone is different. But I definitely feel as part of a miracle.

SB: Can you describe for us this this netting and how it works?

KH: It's my understanding that it will be placed 20 feet below the walkway to the bridge onto a piece that's already existing in the bridge, and it will, if someone goes over into the net, they will be captured by some kind of contraption folding over them locking them in place, and it's my understanding that some kind of trolley, mechanical car will come and pick them up. At least that's the last design piece I heard about.

SB: It sounds so dramatic.

KH: You know it is dramatic if someone were to try it. But all around the world these nets have been put in place and the suicide rates drop. And even in some places... in some places the suicide rates for where there are barriers and nets put up, dropped to zero or near-zero and then they drop the metropolitan counties around that area. And the other question a lot of people had was why spend all this money on saving just a few lives, as opposed to putting the money toward mental health programs. Well you know people can quibble about that all they want, but there is now plenty of money and props to the funds. That money is being spread far and wide into mental health. And you know what I say to that is that this is mental health too. These are people whose brains are on fire like mine was. They do know what they're doing. They're not cognizant of the reality of their actions and they need our help.

CH: From our archives, that was As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner speaking with Kevin Hines in July of 2014. In 2000, Mr. Hines jumped off San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and survived. Later he joined those advocating for netting along the bridge to prevent suicides. And yesterday in San Francisco, officials and relatives of those who died by jumping off the bridge gathered for a commemoration ceremony where the construction of the net was officially launched.

[Music]

Bulls**t budget

CH: Some politicians might pooh pooh the idea of props, dismissing them as cheap gimmicks that undermine the sincerity of one's message. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice is no such politician. He clearly relishes the opportunity to elaborate over elaborate props.
Such a propertunity presented itself yesterday, after state legislators passed a new budget bill.
In delivering his response to it, Governor justice had three cloth-covered tables wheeled out, each containing a silver covered tray. And to illustrate exactly what he made of the bill, the governor did a slow reveal. Several minutes into his speech, he began lifting each of the lids in turn. Here's what he said before lifting the first one.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM JUSTICE: Now let me tell you, I can't be anymore blunt than to just tell you this the way I see it. This is how I see it. We don't have. A nothing burger today.

CH: And voila. A bun, halved and smeared with ketchup and nothing else. And the governor continued.

JIM JUSTICE: And we don't have a mayonnaise sandwich today.

CH: You guessed it. That's some bread spread with mayonnaise. And then came the piece de resistance.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM JUSTICE: We all should take ownership for this. But what we have is nothing more than a bunch of political. You know bull you-know-what.

[Sound: Applause]

CH: That's what he had alright. And he couldn't bring himself to say the full word, but Governor justice did not hesitate to display the actual matter, to make it clear he considers the state budget bill a dumb deal. But not a done one, as he announced immediately after that he will veto it.

[Music]

AGA commercial

SOUNDCLIP

The AGA Total Control is an electric cast iron range cooker with great flexibility for modern busy lives.

Thanks AGA Total Control cooker spokesperson. But I have a couple of quibbles about your claim that this luxury cooking device has great flexibility for modern busy lives. First, it's cast iron which I've found to be frustratingly inflexible. And second, there's really no give in the price of the thing which starts at 12,000 pounds that's over $19,000 bucks Canadian. What the spokesperson was referring to though is the AGA Total Control cooker's mind boggling array of features. The three oven version has a simmering plate, and a boiling plate and beneath that, a roasting oven, a simmering oven, and a baking oven. Plus you can program this steampunk monstrosity to do various things at various times using various methods. So yes in that sense it has great flexibility. Too much as it turns out. First a helpful explanation from AGA Total Control's spokesperson.

SOUNDCLIP

There's also an optional additional feature. AGA I-Total Control which enables an owner to remotely control that ovens using their smart phone or laptop.

CH: Impressively high-tech but this feature also has some owners steaming in a way they had not prepared for. The people who discover these sorts of things have discovered something odd about this smartphone functionality. You tell your AGA Total control cooker what to do by texting it. So if you can find out the phone number associated with the cooker's SIM card you can send out a text and tell it to start or stop cooking or baking or roasting whether it's your cooker or not. Also, I guess you could text it and tell it three ovens is too many, and is too expensive... which might really hurt its morale. It seems that a determined person could turn your pricey AGA Total Control to AGA Total chaos. So it's flexible all right, and if you're a gourmet cook you'll really be in your element. Problem is, you may not be the only one.

Back To Top »

Part 3: The Optician of Lampedusa

The Optician of Lampedusa

Guest: Emma Jane Kirby

CHRIS HOWDEN: For years, millions of refugees have been fleeing the war torn regions of the Middle East and North Africa to make their way to Europe. And thousands have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. If you've been listening to As It Happens, you'll know we've been covering these stories. In October 2015 we spoke with Tracey Meyers a volunteer with the charity Refugees Start. Ms. Meyers helped rescue survivors after a refugee boat went down off the coast of the Greek island Lesbos. Here's a clip from that interview:

SOUNDCLIP

TRACEY MEYERS: On the morning, we went to the harbour where sometimes we support rescues and that was boat after boat of people who had been sunken in the sea, who were freezing, who were cold. They were sick, and people. And there were children who… one child, had died. One child was really ill. Some of the team did CPR on one of the children for 25 minutes, and we lost that child. And that was the start of the day of the constant stream of people who got into trouble trying to make this journey.

CH: That's hard to listen to. But sometimes a single voice can convey the immensity of an otherwise incomprehensible tragedy. Emma Jane Kirby is a radio journalist with the BBC. Ms. Kirby has been covering the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. And part of that coverage has involved profiling everyday Europeans who've become involved in the lives of European migrants.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Optician conducts an eye test with a patient, speaking Italian]

EMMA JANE KIRBY: It's just another day in the office for 59 year old Carmine Menna, Lampedusa’s optician.

CH: Emma Jane Kirby produced this piece, an interview with Carmine Menna, about an Italian optician who helped rescue dozens of shipwrecked migrants off the coast of Lampedusa on October 3rd, 2013/
Ms. Kirby has now written a book based on Carmine Menna's experience. It's called The Optician of Lampedusa. And it won the Bayeux-Calvados Prize for War Reporting. Emma Jane Kirby joined us from the BBC studios in London.

CO: Emma Jane, first of all, can you just tell us what happened that day off the coast of Lampedusa. This is October the 3rd 2013.

EMMA JANE KIRBY: The day before on October the 2nd 2013, we know that a boat full of migrants, more than 400 came, left Misrata in Libya and made its way towards Europe, drifted towards Lampedusa. And we know that in the small hours of the 3rd of October they were so close to Lampedusa that they could see car headlights on the island, the survivors have told us they could see the car headlights on the island driving around. And they decided to signal that they needed help. So they cut the engine. Unfortunately that meant the billage pump wasn't working so the boats began to flood with water. So they lit a towel and some flares to try and attract attention. Unfortunately they caught the boat caught fire, there was petrol on the deck, everybody ran to avoid the flames and it caused the boat to tip over.

CO: How many people were on the boat?

EJK: There were more than 400 people on that boat. We know that 368 of them didn't make it.

CO: And so they all, did they all end up in the water. Everybody ended up in the water. Of course women and children on those boats are always asked to stay below deck. And we know from the migrants who survived, that the women and children had been up on the deck because they wanted to see the excitement of the lights of Europe, The New Promised Land and they had gone back down below deck to dress themselves up, to tidy themselves up so that they would look good and clean and fresh for their new arrival and the start of their new lives. And of course, when the boat tipped over they were trapped and they didn't have a chance.

CO: The man, this optician. How does he enter the picture?

EJK: So Carmine Menna decided at the beginning of October that he was very tired and frankly he hadn't had much of a summer holiday. He needed a bit of a break. He decided to have a little weekend away with his wife sailing and six friends. One of his friends had an old boat. And off they went on the boat had a great night the night before and the optician wasn't sleeping very well. He woke up and heard the seagulls screaming as he thought over a lucky catch and he couldn't get back to sleep. It was annoying him the noise. So he came up on deck and then he started to hear those seagulls getting very loud and he was very perturbed by the seagulls. Other people on the boat woke up as well, came up to see him and said “What is that noise? He said, “I'm sure it's just seagulls. It's just seagulls isn’t it?” And they said “We don't think it is seagulls.” So they upped anchor and they moved towards that terrible noise. And as they got closer they saw black shapes in the water. The optician at first thought it was fish. I thought the black shapes were fish, but then he saw that these fish had arms and legs and faces and he realized that the sea was boiling with drowning people. And Carol, he was on a boat I should say, it was a small boat. It had a maximum capacity of 10. There were already eight of them on that boat. And there were hundreds of drowning people in the water.

CO: How did they respond to that when they saw those people. What did they do? They knew immediately that they would help. The optician's first thought, he remembers, and it stuck with me when I spoke to him in that interview a couple of years ago when I first met him. He didn't say “I wondered what do I do? How do I save them?” He said “How do I save them all?” Because he realized right from the start that he was never going to be able to save them all. They couldn't, there were just too many of them. So what they did they made a deal with each other that they had to move towards the groups of people that they could see rather than individuals and pull as many people up as they could at once. But remember these people had been in the water a very long time. By that time they'd been in the water several hours. They were exhausted. They had drunk seawater, they’d drunk gasoline. They were covered in petrol and gasoline which made them incredibly slippy to try and pull up. And the optician remembers the pull of that first young man that he pulled from the water. He still remembers the feel of that man's hand in his, grasping it and feeling the bones of that man the young man's hand cracking against his. And suddenly for him, as he touched that young man, he realized that the migrants the migration crisis was real and it was something which now absolutely concerned him.

CO: What you're describing, that moment when he pulled that man, held his hand and pulled him in, is something that is so striking. And we’ve made note of it here just so I could read it to you, I can read it to our listeners.
This is the passage as you describe it of the optician. “He'd never held anyone's hand so tightly before. The intimacy of the gesture with a naked total stranger, it made him wince. Yet when the force of the pull had flung the man up against his bare chest, he'd felt something strangely primeval stirred in him something almost like love.” Why do you think it was such an intimate experience for him?

EJK: Because this was life and death. He realized that, all of a sudden, you know, he was the only person that these migrants had to help them.

CO: He and his friends went into quite an operation it was almost like a triage. And the wives of the men who were on the boat were taking care of those who came up on the surface after the optician and the other men were able to get them in.
They, there's one passage in which that one of the wives gives one of the refugees a shirt to wear that she wears almost like a diaper. So many of these people they're pulling out of the water had lost their clothing and they're naked and they’re, even though they've almost died, they feel shame. So they're trying to help them cover up and. And so they become all involved in something just so extraordinarily intimate as well. And this brings us to the most important theme in the book is that they enter the lives of these people, they become instantly intimate with them. What is it that does that? Why do you think they were so drawn to them?

EJK: I think it's curious, because as I say, the optician just, though he had felt pity for them, he just hadn't seen them as his problem before now, these migrants. Because you know, what could he do to help them. He was just an optician and suddenly he was their only chance of life. He saw people for the first time in desperate need, the most desperate need of all. Desperate to stay alive. And I've met some of the people, a couple of the migrants that he managed to save, and they felt something very very strong too. Because they remember that when they were pulled from the water, it wasn't just that they were helping them and that they were saving their lives, it was the crew, the optician and his friends was sobbing and they were crying. They absolutely felt the pain and the suffering of the migrant people who were in the water.

CO: What happened to that young man.

EJK: The young man with the T-shirt that wore it as a diaper? He went to Sweden. He is waiting for his asylum papers to come through in Sweden. Most of those who survived, the optician managed to save 47 people on that boat made for 10. And every year, they meet up with a few of the survivors, and the first year that they met up with them, they were, they came back to Lampedusa, some of the survivors. That young man was among them and the first thing he did was pull out of his bag that pink T-shirt. So it had meant so much to him as well.

CO: And there was only one woman that they were able to pull into the boat. What was her story?

EJK: We don't know her story. We can imagine it because we know that many of the women who make the passage from Libya to Europe have no money and they are beaten and raped as part of the fee if you like, to get their passage. It's thought that she too is now in Sweden and is safe. Other women were saved by other boats who eventually came on scene, a fisherman's boat. It's a wonderful story that I found out only last October, that one woman was found drowned in the water and a fisherman was heaping bodies onto his boat, dead bodies. And when they came into port, a doctor came and was zipping up the body bags and as he zipped up her body bag, he thought he felt something, some sign of life and he gave her the kiss of life and she was indeed alive. And I saw her this October and she's pregnant.

CO: Good heavens. What a story. And it's these boats these fishing boats and the optician and his friends, how many were they able to pull out of the water?

EJK: They managed to save 47. 47 people on a boat made just 10. And if you can imagine how low that boat would sunk into the water, I've seen a photograph of it actually taken by the Coast Guard when they finally arrived to help. And they’re low in the water that the vendors are skimming the surface. The boat was out of control. They knew that the boat was out of control and that at any moment they too could have flipped over. But they had to save lives. They had to keep doing it because how do you turn your back when there are still hands waving? How do you choose which hand to take? If he took your hand Carol he wouldn't have time to take mine. They were in the most impossible situation and I think the thing that haunts them all the most is that when the Coast Guard arrived, they gave them the order that they have to turn and go back to port. And of course there were other boats by then in the water with the search and rescue operation but they could still see hands, they were still looking for people and they were forced to turn their backs and turn around. And I know that the optician is haunted by that, by the fact he wants everybody to know that he wanted to go back. They all wanted to turn back and help again.

CO: If you're just joining us now I'm speaking with Emma Jane Kirby. She's a reporter with BBC Radio and she has reported extensively on the migration crisis in Europe She's recently written a book we're talking about here about one of the worst shipwrecks of that crisis. The book is called The Optician of Lampedusa.
Emma Jane, in this book, you also describe as you've mentioned earlier that there were other people you profiled, including a grave digger who gives small wooden crosses to the immigrants in a holding center where the people are taken, the survivors are taken once they're found. And this is also a real person you profiled. Can you tell us about him?

EJK: Yes. There were two. There was the grave digger who has the dreadful task of burying those who don't make it. Not very many he can bury now because Lampedusa is a very small place. And of course the mausoleums are getting packed. But he told me, you know, how he was just used to corpses, that was his life, you know, he did it all every day and he was used to death. And then as I talked to him I realized that actually, he wasn't, he wasn't used to it at all. He was almost in tears and he was so angry that this was happening, that he was burying unnamed people all the time. That nothing had been done to stop people coming and drowning in these dreadful boats. And the other person you mentioned is the carpenter of Lampedusa who is a real man Francesco Tuccio, a lovely wonderful man with an incredible faith. And he had the idea of making a cross. It was Good Friday. He made a cross from the washed up shipwrecked boats that float up in Lampedusa and he made a cross from those, from that shipwrecked boat one of those boats, with the nails still in it, very crude and hung it above the altar. And it made such an impact on his parish that many other parishes then asked if they could have a cross. I think almost every parish now in Sicily has one. He also gave for free, he made little crosses for the migrants to have themselves as a sort of symbol of their redemption and hope and new life. And one of our listeners back in London heard that story and was so charmed and taken by it, she was a curator in the British Museum and she secretly commissioned one of those crosses for the British Museum without telling her boss, something she's not allowed to do. And when it arrived from Francesco Tuccio, she dumped it on her director's boss, her boss’s desk. And she said “This is living history. This is what the British Museum should be collecting” and the outgoing director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor made it his last acquisition for the museum. It now stands very proudly in the British Museum.

CO: You know most of these migrants who were pulled out of the water, the ones who didn't make it, are buried in unmarked graves or without knowing who they are, who is in those graves and I know that this has become something that Europeans are very conscious of.
We’re going to play a short clip of an interview we did in April of 2015 with George Vella. He's the Maltese Foreign Minister. And we're just talking with him here about a memorial service that was held on Malta for hundreds of migrants who drowned off that coast. And here is George Vella:

SOUNDCLIP

GEORGE VELLA: It was very sad but it was, there was a service officiate, there was a service that was officiated by an imam, and also by a Catholic bishop. The most impressing thing was that they were actually attending a funeral service of people who didn't know. There was nothing on the coffin but the number. We speak of the Unknown Soldier. But I think we can have an equally equally significant notion of the unknown migrant. When the people are down at the bottom of the sea, we will never know whether they were males or females, we don't know whether what they looked like, how old they were. I mean it's just one big enigma.

CO: That’s George Vella, and Emma Jane, he's speaking as you said, he’s the foreign minister of Malta. He's referring to the Mediterranean as the grave of the unknown immigrant. And there were efforts, European efforts Italian efforts to try and mitigate the situation, try and help people, try and step up the efforts. What actually has been done on the Mediterranean to deal with the people coming across in these boats?

GV: Let me just say first of all that that extract you just played from the Maltese Foreign Minister is very very poignant to me because, as soon as I finished writing this book, I'd taken some time away from my day job as a BBC journalist.
The first report I did afterwards happened to be in Milan in a place called Lebanof. It’s a pathology lab where they are still trying to identify the 368 victims of the optician's disaster. And I will never ever ever forget being handed a book of photographs, the kind of photographs albums that you and I have at home you know, of our family snapshots, and in it were the faces of all the drowned, all the people I'd been writing about, all the people that the optician hadn't managed to save.
I think it's incredibly difficult to stop people coming. There are so many wars people are fleeing. They’re fleeing hunger, they're fleeing poverty, they're fleeing war, they're fleeing, in Eritrea, a military dictatorship. And it's very very difficult to stop people coming.
Of course after the optician's tragedy, the horror that this had happened so close to the shores of Europe, less than a kilometer. The Italians launched their Mare Nostrum program, which is a search and rescue program using the Italian navy. But there was huge criticism from European partners that this was encouraging more people to come and the Italians couldn't afford the cost of it themselves and had to abandon the program.
There are many other programs, Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontières, have marvelous search and rescue missions themselves. But the Mediterranean is an enormous, enormous ocean. Who can patrol all of it? And while there is still unhappiness and war in the world, of course more people are going to come and risk their lives.

CO: But how effective have those efforts been. And we're talking about the Italian governments the initiation of the Mare Nostrum, which was one search and rescue operation and Operation Triton I think was the one that replaced it. But the criticism of it has been that it's been more preoccupied with trying to protect borders to prevent people from making these crossings than in rescuing those who were in the water as you say. They're not going to stop as long as they're fleeing from desperate situations.

EJK: There is of course a lot of criticism that European countries are not doing enough to protect migrants and are more concerned with protecting their borders. The Operation Triton that you speak about is the Frontex’s operation. Frontext is the European’s border agency force.
What you should know about from Texas and it doesn't have enormous amounts of funding and it doesn't actually have any operational equipment of its own. It doesn't have any of its own ships. It doesn't have any of its own helicopters or planes. It relies on the generosity of other member states to lend them that equipment for a couple of months. I have been on a search and rescue mission with Triton and I can say that they are extremely serious about trying to rescue people. I went with an Icelandic crew who were operating Operation Triton at the time, and we were out at sea for 36 hours in huge seas, four to five metre waves. I've never been so sick in my life. So you can imagine what the migrants go through on those tiny little boats. But of course, you know the pressure is coming with this wave of populism that we're seeing across Europe as well, that people should be stopped from coming to Europe rather than they should arrive and then we deal with the problem.
There is of course enormous pressures on countries which are the rival countries like Greece and Italy, Sicily, to deal with these people once they arrive. Where do you put them?

CO: I’m speaking with Emma Jane Kirby, a reporter with BBC Radio, who has written a very striking book dealing with the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. The book is called The Optician of Lampedusa. Emma Jane, I want to return to the idea of empathy which is an important theme in your book. And you just touched on it here with where do you put them? Where do you where do these people go? There are, this optician suddenly finds himself intimate with these people and that's what brings him into their world and realizes their plight. What is required? What is it that, how do people come across into that area of saying these are us. These are brothers and sisters, these are these are citizens of the world. We need to help them. And where is the line that they cross in order to become that? And who doesn't cross that line?

EJK: You'll notice, Carol, that in the book I never name Carmine Menna, the optician of Lampedusa. He's always called the optician. And I deliberately chose not to name him because I wanted him to be a sort of every man figure. I wanted us as readers to imagine ourselves in that boat. To put ourselves in the position that Carmine Menna found himself in. What would we feel, what would we do if we found ourselves in that situation? Because we know that other boats were on the water at the time and they chose to go past. They didn't stop. The optician's boats stopped and did all they could. They didn't save them all, they couldn't save them all, but they did what they could.
And I think as soon as he had saved those people, and had seen their suffering, and had seen how ill they were, and how close to the end they were, and realized how precious their lives were. He needed to follow them, as did his friends, he needed to find out who they were, where they'd come from, whether they were going to be alright. He was terrified that actually, what he'd done is save them, yes, but save them into what kind of life? What kind of future? Because it wasn't going to be plain sailing. He knew that. They were going to be put in reception centers. It was going to take an enormous long time for them to be given asylum if they were given asylum and to start a new life. And he was, suddenly realized that you know, this was only the beginning of the journey for them.

CO: And just days after this shipwreck, there was another one with Syrians in it. And this was at a time as you describe in the book, many people in the region are like the optician. He is the every man. As they as they become and come in contact with these people, their sympathy, their empathy grows. But now this has been almost four years since that shipwreck. So how have things changed? Are Italians feeling that strong bond with them still?

EJK: It's very very interesting in Lampedusa. Because Lampedusa used to be a place which was full of tourists, particularly Italian tourists. And since the migration crisis began, since the Arab Spring we have seen, they have seen a huge drop off in the number of tourists who come. People don't want to come on holiday and you know that I've even been actually interviewing somebody when his phone rang, a hotel owner, his phone rang and a guest canceled on him because he said he was frightened of swimming in the sea and touching a dead body. So of course the island has lost huge amounts of tourism. And economically, that's very painful for many people. But I've very rarely met anybody in Lampedusa who says, you know they should all just get lost. I don't care about them. I think when you are in proximity to people, and you see their suffering, it's very difficult to not see them as they are, as human beings and to realize that they also have hopes and dreams and feel pain and are cold or hungry. Need laughter, need love. And almost everybody I've met on Lampedusa has had kind things to say, has have been empathetic.

CO: What effect has this had on you in covering this story?

EJK: I won't deny that I cry a lot covering these stories, but I think that's I think that's right. Nobody obviously wants their reporters to be crying and sobbing on air, but I get very emotional behind the scenes and I think that's right. Because these are real people and this is real suffering. And I think it's our job as reporters to tell the truth. And what I see is an awful lot of suffering. So I will always tell the truth.
I think you know the book has sometimes been described as an incredibly political book. That's true in so many ways, but in other words, in other ways it's very apolitical. You know we never know how the optician, for example, votes. There's no moral to this sort of modern day parable either. There's no Hollywood ending where the optician suddenly finds Jesus or renounces his old life to join a migrant NGO. He just returns to work, albeit with his eyes very much wide open. And I think that is why Carmine Menna agreed for me to write this book, because he's an incredibly private man. He doesn't like media attention. But you know what is an optician's job? An optician's professional job is to help us see clearly. And I think that's exactly what he wants to do with this book, to pass on the message. Open your eyes. You can be you know, pro-immigration. You can be anti-immigration. You can vote right. You can vote left. That doesn't matter. But who can really accept, who can close their eyes to the fact that so many thousands of people are drowning on Europe's doorstep?

CO: Emma Jane, thank you for opening our eyes as you have done through all of your reporting on the BBC, and thank you for speaking with us.

EJK: Thank you so much for having me.

CH: Emma Jane Kirby is a reporter with the BBC. She was in London. Her book The Optician of Lampedusa is published by all OR books.

[Music]

Goodbyes

[Music]

CO: Well we are now out of time for this edition of As It Happens for Friday April 14^th.

CH: The show was produced this week by Jeanne Armstrong, Imogen Birchard, Katie Geleff, Sheena Goodyear, Chris Harbord, Samantha Lui, John McGill.

CO: Kevin Robertson, Pedro Sanchez, Earvin Solitario, Kate Swoger and Julian Uzielli. Our technician is Reynold Gonsalves. The show director is Kevin Ball. Chris Howden, right next to me here, is our writer.

CH: John Perry is the Senior Producer. And the Executive Producer of As It Happens is Robin Smythe.

CO: We'd also like to thank some other people who helped put the show together this week: Mary-Catherine MacIntosh in Halifax, Susan McKenzie in Montreal, Kristin Nelson in Ottawa, Keith Hart, Gary Francis and Penny Cadrain in Toronto, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Michael O'Halloran in Calgary and Anne Penman in Vancouver.

CH: As It Happens will be back again on Monday. I'm Chris Howden, good night.

CO: And I’m Carol Off. Have a great weekend.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

April 14th, 2017 episode transcript

More Stories Like This