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The Current Transcript for June 7, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

As your planting it you know that a bomb is going to explode and kill people. You are conscious of that when you're setting it.

You don't dwell on things like that.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: He has questioned the bomb makers and the people who hunt them. He sat with victims cross continents, covering acts of terror over decades. As a journalist with the BBC from the IRA to ISIS and many in-between, Peter Taylor has learned a lot about those who choose to kill civilians in the name of a cause and the aftermath of a string of attacks in Britain, yesterday's attack in France, today's in Tehran. We're asking for his insights. Hear him in half an hour. Also today it arrives with little warning and it can last for days at a time.

SOUNDCLIP

It felt like my skulk couldn't accommodate the balloon that someone was blowing up inside of my head.

AMT: Migraine headaches cause pain that can be so debilitating that people quit their jobs and drastically change their lives. Migraines afflict far more women than men. Three or four women get them for every man who does and the treatment can range from the story of a doctor telling a woman that marriage will cure her, to outright disbelief, to drugs that do not work. In an hour, the pain, the politics and the prescriptions for migraines. And a botched leak in a source that wasn't so secret.

SOUNDCLIP

This young lady is in trouble. They've got very solid evidence. Computer tracking went right to her. They're sending a clear message to leakers here.

AMT: Within an hour of a story quoting classified NSA documents hitting the Internet on the intercept. The FBI had honed in on reality winner. So what's the responsibility of whistleblowers and journalists in handling leaked information? We're starting with that discussion. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

Is media responsible for protecting identity of whistleblowers?

Guests: Melvin Goodman, Harvey Cashore

SOUNDCLIP

[Unintelligible] give to those leakers Mr. President.

We are going to find the Leakers. We're going to find the leakers. They're going to pay a big price for leaking.

AMT: Well that is the U.S. president Donald Trump back in February vowing to catch anyone who leaked information from his administration or government agencies. This week the FBI made an arrest. Monday the U.S. Justice Department charged 25 year old Reality Lee Winner with removing classified material and mailing it to a news outlet. She was working for a company contracted to the NSA, the U.S. National Security Agency. She allegedly printed classified documents linking the Russian military intelligence unit to GRU to cyber-attacks on US voting software. Her arrest is linked to a secret document published Monday by the online news site The Intercept. It is the first arrest linked to leaking since President Trump has taken office. As part of our ongoing series Eye on the Media, We are asking what responsibility news outlets have in safeguarding the identity of whistleblowers. Melvin Goodman is a former CIA analyst he's also the author of Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider's Account of the Politics of Intelligence. Melvin Goodman joins us from Washington D.C., and Harvey Cashore is a senior producer with CBC News Special Investigations Unit. He's with me in our Toronto studio. Hello gentlemen.

HARVEY CASHORE: Morning.

MELVIN GOODMAN: Hello, Anna Maria.

AMT: Mr. Goodman let's start with you. The United States is in the middle of a huge crisis involving Russian hacking of the 2016 election. How important have leaks been in getting parts of that story out.

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, I think leaks have played a major role in any investigative journalism. And when you think of the major stories that have been broken with regard to leaks that go back to the Pentagon Papers and the role that Daniel Ellsberg played I don't think you can have a truly free press and investigative journalism without leaks and without whistleblowers, and the story of the Russian hacking is really no exception.

AMT: So one leak that added to that body of information allegedly has come from Reality Winner. What were you thinking when you heard she'd been arrested?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well I was amazed by the amateur nature of both her role and particularly the role of Intercept the magazine that was founded by Glenn Greenwald who is someone who knows how to deal with leakers and whistleblowers, who was clearly selected by Edward Snowden as the conduit for his leaks on the National Security Agency. And for them to take documents such as the one that were provided and actually show that to the National Security Agency which gave them all of the clues they needed to arrest her within minutes within an hour, as you cite on your lead in. So for Greenwald's publication, which has handled a lot of serious pieces of information and intelligence and leaks to deal so casually with this material show, they put her at tremendous risk. And for her part I think she was naive about what she could do and just sending a document off to The Intercept without really understanding who was receiving this material and what they were likely to do with it. So this made it very easy for the FBI to move against her with this arrest.

AMT: Harvey Cashore, The Intercept has received a lot of flak for how it handled this leak including from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. What do you think of the criticism?

HARVEY CASHORE: You know it's hard for me to know all the details of what exactly happened and you know one can imagine that Greenwald and Intercept wanted to make sure they weren't publishing something against the national interest, it might harm you know somebody in intelligence world, so one can see they're doing their best to be fair and objective. You know in this what I can say is you know it's every investigative journalists worst nightmare that you know a source that you depend on or you don't even know perhaps that you might somehow inadvertently reveal who they are and so that's why we try so hard to be really, really careful with our sources that we want to protect.

AMT: And apparently so The Intercept if you want to leak to them has actually provides advice on its site on what to do. And it sounds as if she did not take that advice that she actually sent something in the mail anonymously.

HARVEY CASHORE: Right. That was a piece of paper that was folded so this is how can trace it back to she was, and so. So it's really.. it's I don't know how they're feeling this morning but they must be feeling like what did we.. why do we do what we did. They are going to be learning a lot of lessons here and still as they say every Journal's worst nightmare that they could inadvertently do something like this to..

AMT: Well they went to their own government source and showed them that, send a picture of that document which made it traceable. So Melvin, in a way that the person leaking it sounds like didn't actually take enough precautions and then the people who got the leak like handed the very documents that could be traceable back over.

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well it was the opposite of the Snowden affair. Snowden was extremely careful in selecting who he would give this material to and how he handled the tradecraft for meeting these individuals in Hong Kong, and placing certain ground rules on how this material was supposed to be used. She didn't do any of this. She's a young person. Her linguistic capability suggests she's a very bright, very intelligent individual. But I think she was naive about the political world she was entering particularly in an environment where the trumpet ministration has made it clear they're going to have a zealous campaign against people who leak. Already the Justice Department is saying they're going to use the Espionage Act which I think is ridiculous. I don't think there's any evidence whatsoever that she was trying to harm the interests of the United States. To me she's in many ways a classic whistleblower who sees that she's trying to fill in information that the American public needs. I'm not sure this risk was worth it, given the fact that there is a serious investigation being undertaken to find all of the aspects of the Russian hacking, which now even Vladimir Putin has admitted maybe wasn't as inspired by the Russian government, but what he calls patriotic Russians. So the investigation is underway. I don't know what this information really adds. It certainly doesn't determine whether or not the Russians were able to deal with vote actual voting or tabulating voting. But I think this is rather a classic case of a leak of material and not a case of espionage.

HARVEY CASHORE: And on that point the material was leaked one could almost see the NSA having its own press release matching this very material. I mean it's information that looks.. that makes them look like they're doing their job.

AMT: So Melvin, why would someone with access to top secret information become a whistleblower and risk so much?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well that's a good question, and I don't think anyone goes into government service thinking I'm going to be a whistleblower or one of these days. When I think of a real hero for me when that was for Sally Yates, the acting attorney general who was who was fired by President Trump, when she gave her very interesting remarks to the graduating class of Harvard Law School. She said that it was a moment when the law sort of intersected with her conscience, and you saw wrongdoing out there and I know in my own experience as a whistleblower in the 1980s when I testified against Robert Gates as a director of Central Intelligence in 1991 it was to correct a wrongdoing, in this case the politicization of intelligence during the 1980s. And I think certainly the same thing was true for Daniel Ellsberg with the release of the Pentagon Papers. And remember Ellsberg first provided the Pentagon Papers to two members of the Senate who are opposed to the war and they returned the Pentagon Papers to him, because they didn't want to deal with anything this sensitive. So I think it's not a moment that allows for great introspection. It's not a moment that allows for you to trade off the pluses and minuses of what you're doing. I think it's a moment of conscience when you decide that this is wrong and needs to be corrected and I still think the highest duty of any public official is to correct wrongdoing. And now if this is what she thought she was doing and adding to the information based on Russian hacking Perhaps I can understand that. But I think she was very naive and she took great risk that in many cases were unnecessary and then I think she was sold out by the very publication that she was leaking to.

AMT: Melvin can you just remind us you were with the CIA in the 80s, Ronald Reagan was the president, William Casey was the director. What did you do?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well this was classic because I joined the CIA in 1966 but in 1981 Ronald Reagan appointed was a severe ideologue and neoconservative William Casey to be the director of Central Intelligence. Reagan wanted to increase the defense budget in unprecedented the ways in peacetime they needed a threat to justify that increase in the defense spending. And what Bill Casey provided along with his deputy Robert Gates was the picture of the Soviet threat an inflated picture of the Soviet Union itself is 10 feet tall. So therefore all intelligence on the Soviet Union was put to this politicized filter that was managed by Robert Gates who was a former intelligence analyst himself, so that William Casey could take intelligence to the president and then offer briefings to the Congress to justify this defense increase. And I fought this for most of the 1980s and then I left to go to the National War College. But in 1991 I did testify against Gates and then I started a very active activity on my own part of writing and publishing information, on how the central intelligence agency handles intelligence and particularly the politicization of intelligence. And we certainly there were a group of us who were not reporters in 2002 2003 in the run up to the Iraq war, that this was all based on false information and disinformation and that there wasn't one charge against Saddam Hussein that was made by the Bush administration. That could be verified.

AMT: So did you give information as a CIA officer that could have had you in trouble or were you looking at the analysis after you walked away?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well I think I left in 1990 and my major campaign of writing and speaking out really began after that.

AMT: Because I'm looking at Harvey cash and we're thinking maybe we should have known you in the late 80s [laughs].

MELVIN GOODMAN: I think it could have been very helpful, leading you at the right direction because reporters were making a lot of mistakes in covering the Soviet Union in fact. And you look today at the coverage of Russia. There's a certain amount of Russian hysteria built into this coverage. And once again we're in an environment where exaggerating the potential and the power of Russia and Vladimir Putin.

AMT: Harvey Cashore. Give me an idea of some of the types of secret documents you have received as an investigative journalist.

HARVEY CASHORE: Yes. And I want him to draw a point that Melvin was making about public service and why people go public with you know secret documents and I can tell you how many times.. and these are true public servants who are working in government or frankly.. They’re not public of their business, but people who are truly concerned about what's happening in their organizations. They take a chance and they take a risk and they give you information in the public interest. And it's our duty as journalists to do everything we can to protect them and make sure that they won't be revealed because..

AMT: How do you do that? How do you protect them?

HARVEY CASHORE: So we have a number of you know a number of things we can do. You know one is make sure there's no paper trail no electronic trail that there's nothing that links in or asked to that source. But as we see in the case of yesterday’s example even that can't necessarily always protect the source. I remember back in the in the old days when I went back in the 80s if we are going back to the 80s, we go to the 90s when I received these secret you know the Airbus documents and these were that eventually showed money from Airbus that ended up in the hands in cash of our former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. That's how sensitive both documents were. And I didn't want the police, the authorities getting their hands on those documents. It is not my job to investigate for the police. So I packed up the documents in bankers boxes and put them in my aunt's basement in Scarborough so nobody could ever find out where they were. Of course now it's okay.

AMT: Now you can talk about that. Yes. So, how important is it for whistleblowers to choose the right news agency? I guess you want to come to you.

HARVEY CASHORE: Come to me because I've got a system. I'll tell you what it is later not publicly. But you know we've got a system in place that really works. And you know the last story we did in the last year on how the you know.. my KPMG story which basically there was a secret document leaked to CBS News in a brown envelope, which I always say might be the biggest leak in Canada last year which revealed that the Canada Revenue Agency had offered this you know the secret sweetheart deal, the KPMG tax dodgers. But the condition of the secret offer was that the public not know about it. And I'm not going to tell you who leaked it to me. I'm not going to tell you where it could have been in business or in government or anywhere, but the person who leaked that to me had no legal right to do so because it was written in that contract. You couldn't. And so, you know whoever leaked that deserves a medal of course they can't get a medal because we can never know who they are.

AMT: I want to play a clip of that government's determination here. This is Attorney General Jeff sessions in April.

SOUNDCLIP

We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up efforts on all leaks. This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals at Venn It. the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious. So yes it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts. And whenever a case can be made we will seek to put some people in jail.

AMT: Melvin Goodman, what impact did those kinds of announcements by the Trump administration have on whistleblowers.

MELVIN GODDMAN: Oh they're chilling because they filter down to the system and I know in my own case people who I talked to former colleagues some of whom are still at work at the Department of State at the Central Intelligence Agency. They've been warned to be very careful in talking to people outside of the intelligence arena. And people who are willing to have lunch or no longer so willing to have lunch with.. Certainly not willing to share information. So this is incredibly chilling and I think what The Intercept is done in sharing that document with a National Security Agency is going to discourage people from thinking they can leak or be a whistleblower. You have to remember that the situation is stacked against the interest of a whistleblower. We usually act in isolation. They don't get a lot of support. They antagonize their friends and their associates and their colleagues. And once you're branded as a whistleblower people tend to be very careful in dealing with you. And there's always the case of journalists who don't protect whistleblowers and I know in my own case. Elaine Sciolino of the New York Times I was leaking information to her during the congressional hearings in 1991 and halfway through the hearings she stopped using information that I was giving her and I had lunch with her after the hearings and I asked her what had happened and she said Well frankly midway through the hearings I realized that Robert Gates was going to be confirmed as a CIA director. He was going to go on to the CIA and he would become a source for me. You would go back to teaching at the National War College and I would probably never call you again. Well just this kind of double standard in dealing with sources and dealing with information is just anathema to someone who might even think about leaking information or being a whistleblower, and to go back to a point that Harvey made you can form track records for journalists and know that someone like James Risen of The New York Times is an outstanding person with tremendous integrity who will do anything he can to protect whistleblowers. So you sort of have to know who these journalists are and develop some understanding of their willingness to protect the source because you're taking great chances when you do leak classified information particularly in this Trumpian age that we're in that.

AMT: Harvey, are Canadian sources safer from prosecution if they leak information than an American wistleblower would be?

HARVEY GOODMAN: Well maybe even less so and I think that's why the responsibility goes back to the journalists right now we have no adequate source of protection laws in Canada on a case by case basis there have been some good precedents lately. But there's no shield laws and so there's no legal you know absolute protection to protect your sources. And so I think what journalists have to do what we've done what I've done is make sure that even if the law isn't necessarily supporting us. We’ve had mechanisms in place where the law can't get to us, right? And so there can't be a trace and to go back to this point about whistleblowers as these are people with live that are affected by what they do and don't do it if they're exposed. And so we as journalists dependent on the information frankly to be high minded about it democracy depends on that information. And so a journalist have a responsibility to everything in their power to make sure those whistleblowers are never revealed unless they of course want to be revealed themselves.

AMT: And so, FBI director James Comey apparently said that Mr. Trump wanted reporters who publish leaked documents to be arrested. How chilling is that idea?

HARVEY GOODMAN: Well of course at one point President Trump said I love WikiLeaks who is well. So you've got these you know a different standards so you know I think that you know, and the other thing to point out of course too is that not all whistleblowers have the public's interests in mind like this is not necessarily people on the on the Airbus story. You've got people who are in fights with their business partners and they decide they're going to go public with you know with.. or leak information that's in the public interest but not because they want it in the public interest.

AMT: Right, and you can have situations I guess Melvin where you actually do put national security at risk. You have to be careful with what you get your hands on.

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, I think in the case of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning they probably leak far more information than materials that dealt with the basic issues that they were trying to raise. In the case of Edward Snowden he was talking about massive surveillance and the fact that the United States was engaged in unconstitutional behavior. But he released a lot of information that had nothing to do with massive surveillance that did compromise sources and methods for the National Security Agency. And Chelsea Manning went way beyond her basic issue which was the fact that war crimes were being committed in Iraq. So I think there is some responsibility on the part of the whistleblower to focus on the issue that he feels is compromising the public trust, or being aware of real wrongdoing or poor conduct or even crimes and transgressions in the government. And it limits your information to those areas.

AMT: We have to leave it there gentlemen. Thank you for this conversation.

HARVE CASHORE: Thank you.

MELVIN GOODMAN: Thank you Anna Maria.

AMT: Melvin Goodman former CIA analyst the author of Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider's Account of the Politics of Intelligence. He's in Washington D.C. Harvey Cashore senior producer with CBC News Special Investigations Unit. He's in Toronto. Stay with us. The news is next and then he has spent the last 50 years talking to terrorists.

SOUNDCLIP

Terrorists have huge egos. They can't wait to tell you how smart they are how evil they are. But at some point they give it up.

AMT: BBC investigative reporter Peter Taylor has met with members of the IRA, al Qaeda, ISIS He's also met with the people who hunt them down. We'll hear from him, when we return. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Veteran reporter on how terror has changed in 50 years

Guest: Peter Taylor

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

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come it's like putting your head in a vise and cranking the wheel until the pain is unbearable. Migraines affect one in 10 people but the majority of sufferers are women. Why that is and why it's so hard to get help, coming up. But first when the BBC's Peter Taylor set out for the Middle East it was 1967. Terrorism was not something he expected to concentrate on. He has spent five decades searching inside the heads of known terrorist shooters.

SOUNDCLIP

Are you a terrorist?

I am not.

I think people they see me as a terrorist, I am not a terrorist.

They see you as a terrorist because you learn how to make remote controls for bombs and you were planning to bomb, somewhere Strasburg. That's the work in the eyes of most people, of a terrorist. If you say you're not a terrorist what are you?

I am a Mujahid.

And that is veteran BBC investigative reporter Peter Taylor talking to a young Algerian man named Salim Bokhari a Mujahid as he puts it, a holy warrior in his eyes. They are talking in a German jail after Salim because he was convicted in 2001 of planning a bomb attack in Strasburg Germany. Peter Taylor has spent a career talking to terrorists. From 1967 onward he has reported on the IRA, Black September, Al Qaeda, now ISIS. He has seen the evolution of terrorism and has also seen its devastating cost. He has interviewed victims, perpetrators, security forces. He's made over 100 documentaries along the way. His most recent documentary is Reflections on Terror 50 years behind the Headlines. And on a day when ISIS has just claimed responsibility for twin attacks in Tehran in the aftermath of new attacks in the U.K. and France over the weekend and then yesterday, we are talking to Peter Taylor because we want to hear what he has learned from all the work he has done. He joins us from London. Hello.

PETER TAYLOR: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: That first clip Salim Bokhari disagrees that he is a terrorist who is a terrorist how do you define that?

PETER TAYLOR: I think it's really difficult. It's really in. the definition is in the eye of the beholders and the cliché holds good. You know one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. It's a word that I use with great, great care. And when I refer to it if I'm doing a broadcast I usually say terrorist in inverted commas, because it terrorist it is a matter of judgment. The IRA never regarded themselves as a terrorist organization or as terrorists. I remember talking to Gerry Adams the president of Sinn Féin although he denies he was ever a member of the IRA. Asking him about the 9/11 attack shortly after 9/11 and I said what do you think about that Mr. Adams and he said they're terrorists. So to the IRA al-Qaeda were terrorists. But to many people those who in particular who suffered at the hands of the IRA, the IRA were terrorists too. So it's a matter of a matter of definition, it's subjective. But in the end it's a matter of judgment is very difficult.

AMT: Well I want to ask about the IRA because you spent so many years covering The Troubles, as they are called and they were called in Northern Ireland. How would you compare the IRA and ISIS?

PETER TAYLOR: There is no comparison. I mean both groups are driven by a particular cause and I've always tried to understand the motivation behind so-called terrorism. Why are young men and young women prepared to carry out acts that the vast majority of us would never ever contemplate? There has to be a reason for it. In the case of Northern Ireland the IRA's ultimate goal was a United Ireland and remains a United Ireland. But in the process of waging their campaign they felt that they were also the minority of people in Northern Ireland who were being subjugated by the Protestant. So the IRA's campaign [unintelligible] it was to drive the British out of Northern Ireland, were also fueled by the discrimination, by the way in which many Catholics were treated by the loyalist fellow citizens and also by the British security forces.

AMT: We have a clip from your documentary Reflections on Terror 50 Years behind the Headlines. This is a clip of you talking to Patrick Magee former IRA member who killed five people in a bomb blast in Brighton England in 1984.

SOUNDCLIP

As you're planting it you'll know that that bomb is going to explode and kill people. Are you conscious of that when you're setting it?

You don't dwell on things like that. You're putting a bomb in, designed to kill people. But I don't think you dwell on it. I mean years afterwards you dwell on that, but when you're doing it? No.

You know what joining the IRA entailed.

OH. Yes. I have to be prepared to get mounted, you have to be prepared to follow orders and give orders.

And kill people.

All of that.

AMT: Quite an extraordinary conversation we're just hearing a bit of in the. How candid he is. How willing he is to talk. How long does it take to get to somebody like that to talk and get them to talk to you?

PETER TAYLOR: A long time. Patrick Magee had done time in prison and therefore he had served his sentence for what he had done. Finding him is the first problem. Meeting him is the second problem and the biggest problem of all is persuading him to do the interview. Now why should he want to talk about what he did? The answer to that is that he has.. He's not apologetic about what he did. He did what he did because he believed that he was quote a soldier carrying out an operation directed by his superiors. He also believed that he was striking a military or quote legitimate target because the target was the Conservative Party and the British prime minister of the time, Margaret Thatcher. Of course the vast majority of people it was a terrorist attack. But to the IRA the Conservative Party meeting in conference and the British prime minister was a legitimate target. In particular after the way that Mrs. Thatcher had remained so adamant in refusing to give into the hunger strikers, so Magee's attack was imparts retaliation for the hunger strike. I didn't quite answer your previous question Anna Marie about the difference between the IRA and ISIS. ISIS would have had no compunction about blowing up any hotel or any place where the public were gathered. It would not give warnings. Unlike the IRA who by and large did give warnings. The goal of the strategy of so-called Islamic State is to murder, massacre as many innocent civilians as possible. That is their mentality. That is their strategy. That's the main difference between so-called Islamic State and the IRA.

AMT: Did you ever find yourself liking people who had committed acts of murderous violence?

PETER TAYLOR: That's a difficult question to answer because it comes down to the sort of person that I am and I react to people whom I interview. To persuade somebody like Patrick Magee to do an interview or even more so Salim Bokhari means that you have to build a relationship with him you don't just go in and sit down with a camera and do the interview. You spend a lot of time with them before getting them to trust you that you weren't you know spin or miss-edit or deliberately miss-edit what they say. You have to build up that trust in the process of building up that trust, you get to know the person. What always surprised me although it no longer surprises me is that when you meet somebody like Salim Bokhari, who looked just like a university student studious, intelligent, articulate, very ordinary that the stereotypical terrorist with horns on his head or her head is not always a reflection of reality. Most of the so-called terrorists that I've met and I've talked to are remarkably ordinary people. Answering your question, Anna Maria, do you actually get to like them? In some cases, yes. But I always have to keep that separate from what my job is, which is to interrogate them about what they have done get them to justify what they have done and to cross-examine that so-called justification and the fact that you may like the individual you're talking to. You simply have to put to one side.

AMT: And maybe like isn't even the question it's .. you start to see that there are layers to these people. We see them in very black and white in terms of the acts they commit. And you sit and you see other things going on in their heads.

PETER TAYLOR: What I've always tried to do is to get inside the heads and to get inside the nature of the personality of the person that I'm interviewing, because what I am fascinated by and really want to know is why they do this. Many of them are from good backgrounds some are middle class some university students. Why is it that they are prepared to do these horrendous things? And it's by exploring almost the psychology and the justification, their justification for their acts that you begin to understand why they have chosen to do what they do. And there are usually other reasons, often other reasons above and beyond their dedication to a particular cause. They may feel alienated. In particular that's true with al-Qaeda and also with those who adhere to the so-called Islamic State. Many young Muslims in this country and I'm sure it's the case in Canada; feel alienated dislocated not part of the society. They are vulnerable. Many of them are out of work. And then IS come along or al Qaeda comes along with a powerful ideology that gives them meaning to be somebody within a greater organization the Ummah which is the world community of Muslims. So what I've what I try to do is to explore the reasons behind what they do beyond their dedication to a particular cause. Again in the case of IS what makes young Muslims angry at the moment is it is too simplistic to say British or American foreign policy. But when they see their fellow Muslims in Raqqa and Mosul being killed not deliberately killed but use the awful word collateral damage, as a result of drone strikes by American and British drone aircraft, they are understandably angry. And they regard, many of them regard what they do here, like the you know the three dreadful attacks that we've had in the past three months here in the UK as retaliation. It's what the Israelis would call an eye for an eye. And to the vast majority of your listeners and my audience that is abhorrent, the fact that it's simply regarded as a justification for striking back. But you have to understand, we have to understand why they do it and. Because until understand the motivation of the so-called terrorist we can't even begin to defeating them.

AMT: And what about the people who recruit them? What about the people who.. you know you have the suicide bombers, you have the people who go into the crowds to attack. You also had the planners you have the people who recruit them who don't actually get their hands dirty, physically.

PETER TAYLOR: They are not so much the recruiters who come along say: become a member. Sign up here on the dotted line. These are the incentivisers. I'm not talking now about Islamist groupings like Al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State. What they do is they motivate. They frankly they brainwash those who become associated with the organization. And that brainwashing gives the people who will become involved in these attacks, the justification for doing it, the obligation that they feel to carry out these actions. I think one thing which is an underestimated at its peril is that for example suicide bombers or the attackers in the U.K. in the three recent attacks I'm assuming, knew what they were doing, knew why they were doing it and also knew what their fate would be. And what drives them in the end, which is you know strange bizarre to people like you and me is that they actually want to die they want to become martyrs, because they believe that if they do in the cause in the name of Allah they will go to paradise. And you know we mustn't dismiss this. I remember interviewing a would be suicide bomber on route to Iraq, and he was joyous at the prospect of killing dozens of other people in Iraq but also killing himself, because he believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that as a result of his action he would go to paradise.

AMT: And of course with all of these attacks there are victims and you have spent time with the victims of terror. And I have a clip of Joan Wilson who lost her daughter Marie in the Enniskillen IRA bombing 1987 Let's listen to her.

SOUNDCLIP

I took her hand and it was cold. And I think I stammered, her hand is cold. And sisters said very quietly we kept the machine, but her heart is beating, but only just. As we stood there watching her life heading away. She passed over to her heavenly father in our presence.

AMT: How to relatives of victims respond to you when you want them to ask them to recall such events, Peter Taylor?

PETER TAYLOR: I just want to start by saying that I always have the victims at the back of my mind when I'm doing these kind of interviews. One must never forget the suffering that these attacks cause and the acute sense of loss. I mean I've lost count of the number of funerals that I've been to. But when I ask victims of these atrocities to talk honestly and openly about what they feel about what happened, most of them are happy to do so, because they want people to know what they have been through as a result of these attacks which you know most people are simply shots on the news headlines. Joan Wilson is a remarkable woman. She's still alive. Now I think 87, 88,is one of the most moving interviews I've done. But what is remarkable about that and she lost her daughter Marie in the Enniskillen bombing of 1987 in which 10 civilians one police officer died. She said at the end of the interview and at the time of the interview, Martin McGuinness who was a senior commander in the IRA and at the time of the Enniskillen bombing was believed by British intelligence to be in charge of an acting charge of Northern Command that would have authorized and known about the bombing. This was the time when Martin McGuinness became deputy first minister sharing power with his arch old enemy the Reverend Ian Paisley. And when I asked Joan Wilson at the end of the interview what she thought about Martin McGuinness and I pointed out that he was believed to be on the northern IRA's Northern Command who would have authorized the attack. To my surprise and admiration, and I really felt humbled by what she said. She said I regard Martin McGuinness as a good politician. I'm sure he's had to learn a lot. We all learn from experience, but it was a big step for him and I wish him well. Now to get the victim of that kind of that horrific attack in which a daughter a loved daughter has been, lost buried alive in the rubble, to say that about the man who was believed by the intelligence services to be one of the key commanders behind the attack was quite remarkable. And when you know when I hear that and hear the clip played again I really feel quite humbled.

AMT: It's interesting because in the end the attack in London on the weekend a Canadian woman Christine Archibald was killed and the first message from her family was to please do something in your community to honor her because she worked with homeless people. That was their first thought. Their first thought was not to express anger. It was to say something do wonderful for someone else in her name.

PETER TAYLOR: And the response that we've seen to the latest attacks in London is a coming together of London and of Manchester. We will not be defeated. We will stand together. We will not give in to terrorism. Now that is again that brings tears to my hardened eyes. And it's you know it's very moving in and necessary as a society as a response to these assaults on its democracy. But the point of these demonstrations is not lost on those responsible and the organizations behind it what it seems so-called Islamic State. It means nothing to them at all. They would regard those shows of solidarity as a victory for them in their warped sense of analysis. But I think it's important that people do stand together and what you know what we are all trying to defend, and you're trying to defend in Canada, and you've known a good many terrorist attacks on your soil. It’s the democracy. And again it's a cliché, but what the so-called terrorists want to do is to is to undermine that democracy because they certainly as far as the Islamists are concerned they don't believe in democracy.

AMT: Well I have another clip in that vein to play. And you've identified this as rather prophetic. Colonel Bill Cowan A U.S. Marine. You interviewed him in the ruins of the Marine headquarters in Lebanon in 1983. For our listeners who might not remember that, that was a suicide bomber killed 241 people plowing a truck into the U.S. Marine headquarters in Lebanon. Listen to what Colonel Bill Cowan said to Peter Taylor.

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Unless we find a way of working with Islamic fundamentalism and finding whatever goals and objectives they and we have, and trying to share common threads of resolving those, the chances are that we're going to face much much greater threats over the next decade from Islamic fundamentalism.

AMT: Peter can ISIS be negotiated with?

PETER TAYLOR: Those words from Bill Cowan were prophetic. He said what he did to me in the beginning of the 1990s I never mentioned, and al-Qaeda hadn't been heard of at that time let alone the so-called Islamic State.

AMT: And these were the days of Black September and Hezbollah in the 80s. Yeah.

PETER TAYLOR: You know a different kind of an insurgency. Can we negotiate Can we talk to the so-called Islamic State or al Qaeda? My own view is that it's really difficult, not impossible, because what do you talk about? Talking to the IRA was the way in which we managed to bring in the end peace to Northern Ireland, and there was something to talk about because they had a distinct aim which was a United Ireland. Negotiations compromises could be and were made around that goal. And so the semblance of peace was established. But what do you talk to the so-called Islamic State about? They want basically a global caliphate with Sharia law. I just can't see what the agenda is now. There are those who believe and very important people whom I respect very experienced people I respect, like Eliza Manningham-Buller who was the former head the rector of our intelligence service my five. I interviewed her and I said you know we talked to the IRA. Should we be talking to al Qaeda? This was just before IS came into being, and she said if we're not talking to al Qaeda now then we jolly well should be. Now whether she would say the same about talking to the so-called Islamic State, I don't know. I suspect she might say something similar because her view is if you if you can't defeat your enemy you either carry on endlessly killing each other, or you talk to them and try and reach some sort of compromise.

AMT: But here's the other thing. You know in terms of we if we look at the attacks of just the last several days that ISIS has taken responsibility for, who's supposed to talk to them? They've gone from Tehran to London. Again that speaks to what you're talking about in terms of their.. what they see as their reason for being versus an organization like the IRA, which was geographically contained essentially.

PETER TAYLOR: It was. And also talking to the IRA although it took a long time in the process of finally talking to the IRA in secret which I did a lot of work on, was the result of a process that went on over 20 years. So, if you are trying or if the Americans or the British or MI6 or whoever tries to engage with the so-called Islamic State it's not easy. That's an oversimplification. You can't just go along and say hello I'm so-and-so don't take me to your leaders. It just doesn't work like that you probably end up by being beheaded. So, but you know getting close to the leadership of these organizations is part of the job of the intelligence services to identify who they are where they are and if there is a political will there to try and engage them. I think it's unrealistic at the moment.

AMT: We're almost out of time. Before I let you go just very briefly the other thing you learned was that a lot of people actually cannot live with the acts they commit.

PETER TAYLOR: There are a good many who can't live with what they have done, who are sorry for what they did. But I suspect they are a minority because most of those that I have met have no regrets, like Patrick Magee. We heard Magee’s clip earlier in your program. They believe that what they did at the time was justified. But there are others and I've interviewed, several of them who, for example an IRA bomber who spent 17 years, sentence for 17 years for bombs in London and Northern Ireland. He deeply regrets what he did and actually wrote letters to his victims as he was sending letter bombs, wrote letters to his victims saying that he was sorry. But I'm sad to say that he would be, he is called Shane Paul O'Doherty. He would be the exception rather than the rule.

AMT: Peter we are out of time. We are going to link to your documentary on our site. It's really worth listening to. There's so much that you have accumulated in knowledge and in helping us understand. Thank you for your work and thank you for this discussion.

PETER TAYLOR: Thank you Anna Marie. I enjoyed talking to you.

AMT: Peter Taylor long time BBC investigative journalist covering terrorism for the last 50 years. He's in London we will link to his latest documentary Reflections on Terror 50 years Behind the Headlines. It'll be on our site cbc.ca/the current. It's quite incredible who he has spoken to over this time and what they have told him, including the mother of Martin McGuinness of the IRA, and how a mother reacts to the fact that her son has taken on a role like that. Stay with us in our next half hour we are talking about migraines they are crippling, they are misunderstood and they affect women more than men. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Not just a headache: Female migraine sufferers cope with pain and stigma

Guests: Joanna Kempner, Elizabeth Leroux, Anna Eidt

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to the current You're about to hear something that will be familiar to anyone who's felt the nausea and pain of a migraine.

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It's not just a day off work or a shopping day. It's real and debilitating #notjustaheadache.

Fantasizing about relieving the pressure in my skull by taking a scalpel to my forehead #notjustaheadache.

Migraine has dominated the day. Time for a hot water tablet and bed #notjustaheadache.

Entering day seven of latest attack. Wish I could be pain free so I can sleep. Feeling low. Want to cry #notjustaheadache.

AMT: Well, hands rubbing the temples, severe throbbing aches accompanied by sensitivity to light, a loss of balance, vomiting. Those are some of the symptoms of migraine headaches that are debilitating and as you heard they can last for days. More than one in 10 people gets migraines at some point in their life and yet migraines and those who get them are often misunderstood. And as you just heard some take to Twitter to change the conversation.

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When someone who suffers from migraines tells you that they have one. The absolute worst response is me to #notjustaheadache.

Even after 30 plus years with migraines it's hard for friends and family to understand that it's #notjustaheadache.

AMT: Studies consistently find that women are more affected by migraines than men. According to Statistics Canada women in this country are more than twice as likely to report a migraine. For those thoughts on why that is and the obstacles to better treatment. I am joined by three experts and we're calling them experts in part because of their firsthand experiences with migraines. Anna Eidt'is a migraine advocate artist and freelance writer in Peterborough Ontario. Dr. Elizabeth Leroux is a neurologist and leader of the headache program at the University of Calgary. She's also the author of Migraines: More than a Headache. She lives in Calgary. Today we are reaching her in Boston. Joanna Kempner is

an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University and the author of Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health. She is joining us from Philadelphia. Hello everyone.

GUESTS: Hi. Hi. Good morning.

AMT: I want to start just by going around our virtual table here briefly and asking each of you about your own experience with migraine headaches. Joanna Kempner?

JOANNA KEMPNER: Hi. Well, my migraines started when I was a little girl when I was about five. And one of the first things I remember is going to a pediatrician and that Doctor telling my parents that I had a Type A personality. And that treatment from physicians continued on for decades. I still have migraines I have chronic migraine.

AMT: Right now as you talk to me?

JOANNA KEMPNER: Oh. No. No. I don't know I don't have a migraine.

AMT: What does what does it feel like when you get a migraine, Joanna?

JOANNA KEMPNER: Well mine happen on like most migraines on one side of my head and they start in my neck and they creep up the side of my head and their throbbing pain... I would say that the worst symptoms for me are not really the pain, although they are quite painful. It's really the exhaustion, it's confusion. There are these other neurological symptoms that come along with migraine that make them extraordinarily disabling.

AMT: Anna Eidt, When did you start getting migraines?

ANNA EIDT: I started having them in my late 20s and as a result of a bike accident. So I had some concussion symptoms after hitting my head. and over some months I started getting episodic migraines. So I was only getting on every now and then, and then they were weekly, and then I went to see my primary care practitioner and he did try to help me manage with acute treatment. And I really believe that an intervention specialist at that time would have made a huge difference for me and when it prevented a lot of pain and disability that was not the case. So then I was dealing with medication overuse pain and I was using teeth [unintelligible] which may have contributed to the migraine turning chronic. And I left my job as a full time music educator to pursue other more flexible things where I had more control over my environment. So it's really transformed my life completely.

AMT: It's forced transformation, is what you are telling me. Yeah.

ANNA EIDT: Yes.

AMT: Elizabeth Leroux, do you get migraines?

ELIZABETH LEROUX: I actually do, and I remember the first one because I was with my colleagues as a neurology resident at the time, and I remember people like you telling me you look pale. And then I started being nauseated and I actually had to leave to supper without knowing exactly what was going on, took a cab, felt very dizzy, and then I arrived home. I threw up. I was like okay, that must be a migraine. I kind of self-diagnosed I guess. And from then I have migraines. But like I tell everyone, just enough to understand better. But luckily and I'm very happy about that, I don't get chronic migraines I have them occasionally. And of course I can you know kind of self-trained. But I think it really helps me understand my patients a bit better. And also explain to them a few things when we address how to manage migraine because I understand certain parts of it

AMT: And how much did you learn about migraines and treating migraine in medical school, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH LEROUX: In medical school I would say a big zero. During my neurology residency, I actually made it to fourth year without even knowing that migraine really existed, because there was no migraine clinic during my training. My first exposure was with a doctor a family practitioner who was seeing migraine patients in collaboration with our department but no resident would go there, because people would say oh you know he's just a GP seeing some headache patients. That's stigma started right there. I decided to go because I was curious. And then I heard a story the story of people telling me nobody believed me. Nobody tried to help me, and until I met the guy. So to my young enthusiastic ears that sounded like there was something to do for those people. And after that I discovered all the rest you know like the prevalence, the disability, the science behind it. And I decided I wanted to dedicate my career to people suffering from migraines and also other types of headaches. So you could say the education for doctors is definitely a big problem and there's not enough of it. If you consider how many migraine patients they will meet during their careers.

AMT: Anna Eidt, when you were just talking about your migraines you actually just said that some of the help you got or some of the things you were doing probably made it worse?

ANNA EIDT: Yeah, absolutely. And when I finally did access migraine specialist it was really helpful, because I was able to start doing some of those things that might have been hurting more than they were helping, and gain access to some really basic tools you know,that I wish my primary care physician had known about it and I was surprised that he didn't because he is a very thoughtful, knowledgeable and compassionate doctor in every way as far as I can tell. So you know that really does indicate a lack of education. And I did see a neurologist early on as well who had nothing to offer me, absolutely nothing shrugged off my questions, you know was seemed to just wrong at his office, so. You know that contributes to a sense of hopelessness, a sense of being stuck and being devalued. So the issue of better education for physicians is really important.

AMT: And so Joanna you have written about this intersection of politics and gender and the suffering of above migraines. But I want to go back to your own experiences then, so you're a type A personality who just needs to get your head in the right place and that was that was the first message to you?

JOANNA KEMPNER: Sure. When I was just a little girl and I as a parent of small children I struggle to see how you can diagnose a 5 year old as having a Type A personality. But that's the message that I had gotten through my childhood and adolescence and even through my young 20s. So, I was told for example when I was about 17 or 18 that my migraines were caused because I was stressed that I didn't have a boyfriend although I had never mentioned a desire to have a boyfriend. I was told that I just needed to breathe more deeply and things like that. I felt very dismissive. And I really internalized much of those messages until I went to graduate school to study to become a sociologist. And that's where I learned that illnesses and illness experiences are really social experiences, and that what I have been experiencing all my life with stigma. And that nobody had written a history of migraine or a let written about the social experiences that people with migraine had had. So that's how my book emerged.

AMT: And so tell us a little bit more about the stigma what has that meant over the years?

JOANNA KEMPNER: Well, first of all I I've done some research and the stigma that people with migraine feel is as high as.. it's comparable to a stigma that people with epilepsy feel which is really remarkable, because we know a lot about epilepsy and the history behind epilepsy has been very stigmatizing. What we know about migraine is that migraine for centuries was understood to be a disease of the elite. It was a disease of people who were intellectual, who had something of a sensitive nervous system. And that sensitive nervous system was in some ways considered a positive because it would enable people to be witty, to be artistic, to be creative but it also conferred several weaknesses and migraine was one of them. A very very good, the best example I have of somebody with a sensitive nervous system in this historical sense is Marianne Dashwood from sense and sensibility, and if you remember Jane Austen's book she is the character who nearly dies after walking in a rain storm. But she's also very artistic and creative. And that's the kind of archetype for somebody who has this kind of nervous system, this kind of personality. And that becomes really associated with migraine through the 19th century. And then in the 20th century that idea transforms a bit and people with migraine start to be talked about. A psychosomatic medicine becomes popular, people with migraine to be.. There's this idea that people who might have a migraine personality, and migraine personalities a lot like a Type A personality. Now men with migraine in the 1950s were thought to be organizational men, type-A men, really good businessmen. But this is where you really start to get this idea of women with migraine. Because when you're a woman with migraine like the type A personality in the 1950s, you're just a hysterical neurotic housewife.

AMT: Okay. And that's the one that held.

JOANNA KEMPNER: Yeah and that idea about the hysterical woman, the neurotic woman is also in the nervous temperament in the 19th century as well. I mean that's sensitive. It's all about this idea that people with migraine are women who are hysterical and neurotic and who cannot handle the stresses of everyday life.

AMT: So how does that stigma connect to funding for research, as you like as you move forward and you look at today?

JOANNA KEMPNER: Right. That's a great question. So research for migraine is extremely low. It is completely out of proportion to any other disorder. In the United States there's hardly any federal funding for migraine in comparison to other disorders. And one thing that sociologists have found is that the more stigmatized the population the less funding a disorder gets, because policymakers tend to not fund diseases they tend to have in mind patients, patient populations. There are a couple of exceptions to this. HIV is a exception. HIV is funded very well despite being a population that is stigmatized. But for the most part disorders with stigmatized populations are underfunded.

AMT: Elizabeth Leroux, we know what the statistics say for every three or four women get migraines for every man who gets migraines far more women get them, am I correct?

ELIZABETH LEROUX: Yes, you're completely correct. So migraine is definitely a disorder that affects women more than men.

AMT: Why is that?

ELIZABETH LEROUX: So, one of the hypotheses of course has to do with hormones saying that from puberty, actually the difference in little kids because kids do get migraines and I think it's important to remember that because a lot of them are actually also dismissed as being stressed to go to school and things like that, in little kids girls and boys are equally affected. And when menstrual cycle kicks in then women actually see a rise in their migraine provenance. So, the migraine brain is actually sensitive to many different changes and triggers. And one of the triggers that we hear a lot from women is of course the menstrual cycle. But there's more than just that. There's also the female brain functions differently, estrogen receptors are all over the place and they perform many functions. So there are other reasons than just a menstrual cycle. But through a woman's life if you take pregnancy, some women actually two thirds of them will be improved during pregnancy. And two thirds of women going through menopause after a difficult time of menopause will actually be improved as well. But not all of them. So that is one reason I think the stigma though, and Mrs. Kempner can probably comment on this, the stigma is also linked with the female status because it's so easy to discard women as being neurotic, weak, you know like you're trying to avoid their daily chores by hiding in a bed and resting. You know I want to say something that my passion for those people and my interest to help them is that I heard so many comments of them being whiny and complaining. That's what I got from even my neurology colleagues. But then when I made it to the clinic and I hear those stories I don't hear whining and complaining. I hear a lot of courage, a lot of resilience and women having careers taking care of children or their family going to work in a terrible state. I mean I heard stories of residents and medicine going to the operation room and saying I was operating as a resident and trying my best until I had to leave the place throw up and actually go back to try to help the team. You know I heard a lawyer saying she had to leave the place once again throw up. Come back. You know who in his right mind would do that. But people know that their employers don't believe them that their family doubts them and then they learn quite quick that there are complains or their requests for help are not heard, and they won't get much support. So if you have other disorders like multiple sclerosis or even epilepsy those days nobody will question you. Nobody will blame you and they will say oh you have a disorder let's work, can we help, do we have support groups here, the association blah blah. If you have migraine you have to hide in your bedroom and cry alone. And that was really struck a chord. I find that completely unfair to be. And until that unfairness is corrected I guess there's work to do.

AMT: Anna as you listen to this how much are you relating to what Elizabeth is just saying?

ANNA EIDT: Everything. Yeah and I have also experienced I would say in the workplace I mean just a misunderstanding. You know when I ask to turn off the lights or unplug the P.A. system or for the office staff to warn me when there's going to be a fire drill, things like that. Mostly people were pretty good but a lot of people did get it. And the biggest one was trying to get both my students and my colleagues not to wear synthetic fragrances not to wear cologne. That’s an uphill battle for sure. But I you know I wonder if they knew more about how migraine affects people's lives and you know, how incredibly disabling it they would be more willing to like, yeas, okay, I won’ put that perfume on in the morning because it might mean that Anna has three more hours of productivity. You know it might mean that she gets to watch half an hour television later, or she'll actually get to exercise without triggering a migraine. So I you know I'm really passionate about spreading awareness about the pain and disability that is very real and the way that it affects every facet of our lives, and how we manage our energy your day, establishing routines, what we eat and when. I mean it's a very, developing effective treatment plan is a very complex and consuming thing.

AMT: It You were a music teacher before you had to step away completely from that?

ANNA EIDT: Yeah I did yeah.

AMT: Just that that whole process then you were going through all of this pain, and you had to think about how you could make a living because suddenly what you were doing couldn't work for you.

ANNA EIDT: Yes. Absolutely. So there's a huge grieving process that is, you know, still continuing years later. I was very very lucky that I had a financial safety net. You know through my work and also through my family. And I had benefits for things like integrated medicine which were really helpful and things that a lot of people don't have access to, like massage and acupuncture and seeing a naturopath., especially during those times when I didn't have access to a specialist and I didn't have anybody to give me any answers. Those people those , those [unintelligible] were very helpful. I had coverage for very expensive treatments like medical Botox which a lot of people do not have access to. And I had an excellent emotional support system. And even with all of those supports you know, it has been very difficult. So you know if I imagine people who don't have one or two or three of those supports like me it's amazing how resilient and how strongly are to carry on doing what they do.

AMT: So Elizabeth Leroux, for those who are listening and really relate to what the three of you have said about not being understood about people not knowing and not having a way to actually deal with the pain. What advice do you have for migraine sufferers?

ELIZABETH LEROUX: So first of all I just wanted you to remind that Anna’s a situation is the one of chronic migraine, deteriorated or even caused in this case by a head trauma. So not all migraineurs have daily headaches or very frequent headaches. Actually the majority of migraineurs have occasional headaches. They will have you know a few days per month. Chronic migraine is the severe end of the spectrum where people have more than 15 days of headache per month. I just want to underline that because Migraine is a very varied disorder and that's also makes them a bit.. people puzzled that we know one migraineur or can have two attacks per month and they take a bit of aspirin and it's gone and other patients are severely affected. So if you have migraine attacks which is headache plus sensory hypersensitivity so lights, sound, smells and nausea or even vomiting, then you may turn actually online. Now there are more and more websites to try to support patients and educate them. You can actually go to Facebook to go to the Migraine Canada Facebook page. The American Migraine Foundation is leading a campaign at present time it's called Move for Migraine. You will get lots of information on their website. Migraine.com is an excellent patient support group that has many very useful tips for migraneurs. And so of course I say that because doctors do their best. But some of them are not indicated, enough. So I would say read, don't be ashamed. I mean you have a neurological disorder whatever form you have, whatever severity of your attacks or frequency. Don't be ashamed. Be proactive find creative ways to work around this, manage your lifestyle read about your triggers. Start a headache diary. Look at the situation like a doctor would. And then get informed about the medications you can use to break your attack or to prevent the attacks. So I would say be proactive learn and don't be ashamed. Don't be afraid to bring some stuff to your doctor maybe the doctor who will actually appreciate that. Use the pharmacist the pharmacist can help use a nurse. I mean spread the word. Don't hide there. Be proactive. Don't be ashamed and things will change. And if you have a few bucks then you can probably donate for research as well. That will help things move forward.

AMT: Okay, we're almost out of time but Joanna Kempner very briefly, 30 seconds, what will it take to change the stereotypes and the stigma then?

JOANNA KEMPNER: Well we know that advocates can change stigma but what we need is for people with migraine to start speaking out and to start becoming active members of these advocacy groups. And there are some really wonderful advocacy groups out there. There's Miles for Migraine I think that's one to connect to. So I would encourage people to just start talking about their migraines and I really like what Dr. Laura said about resilience. Although people with migraine are often understood to be weak that people with migraine that I know and met hundreds and hundreds by now are really resilient and brave and we need to show that face of migraine to the world.

AM: Thank you all of you for speaking out today and sharing your experiences to helping us understand. Thank you.

Guests: Thanks. Thank you.

AMT: That is Anna Eidt. She's a migraine advocate, artist and freelance writer in Peterborough Ontario. Elizabeth Leroux is a neurologist. She's the leader of the headache program at the University of Calgary and she's the author of Migraines More than a Headache. And Joanna Kempner is an associate professor at Rutgers University. She's the author of Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health. Over to you do you get migraines? And if you do how do you cope? Have you ever felt stigmatized? Tweet us at the current CBC find us on Facebook. E-mail us from our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the Contact link and let us know what you're thinking and what your thoughts are and whatever ideas you have to contribute to this conversation. That's our program for today stay with Radio One for

Q. Actors Chris Cooper and Laurie Metcalf are with Tom power today to talk about the Broadway sequel a Doll's House - Part two that picks up 15 years on from where the classic production leaves off. So Tom Power is waiting in the wings with Q with both of those guests. We're going to leave you today with a little bit of thinking. Former U.S. President Barack Obama, he was talking terrorism yesterday. He marked his first trip to Canada as a private citizen with a speech in front of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce and he described this as a moment of tremendous global upheaval and reminded us what can happen when we fail to adapt. We will leave you with Barack Obama speaking in Montreal. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti thank you for listening to The Current.

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Terrorism will not be defeated overnight and the pace of change, the disruptions that are happening globally are only going to accelerate. And what's more in an age of instant information where TV and Twitter can feed us a steady stream of bad news and sometimes fake news. It can seem like the international order that we've created is being constantly tested and that the center may not hold. And in some cases that leads people to search for certainty and control and they can call for isolationism or nationalism, where they can suggest rolling back the rights of others. Or simply, they can try to retreat and suggest that, we have no obligations beyond our borders or beyond our communities, beyond our tribe. That what's good for me and my immediate people, is all that matters, everybody else is on their own. Those instincts of retrenchment are understandable. They're tempting during changing times. In periods like this people looking for control and certainly it's inevitable and it's inevitable that our social arrangements and our politics will be disrupted. But it is important to remember that the world has gone through similar moments in the shift from for example agriculture to industry. And then too there was a temptation to respond to great uncertainty and economic upheaval, by falling into the comforts of tribe and extreme nationalism and xenophobia and the politics of us versus them. And the first and second world war showed us all too terribly what happens when we fail to adapt to these changes. But our history also shows that there's a better way. Canada shows, The United States, Europe, Japan shows that it is possible for us to overcome our fears and to reach across our divides and to think anew and act anew and emerge stronger than before.

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June 7, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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