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The Current Transcript for April 12, 2019

Host: Gillian Findlay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I have been sustained by your solidarity I pray for all the efforts of people all around the world supporting the work of WikiLeaks, supporting freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Essential elements in any democracy.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: That was Julian Assange speaking from the steps at the Ecuadorian embassy in London just six months until his stay there. Seven long years later he is finally free of the embassy but in British custody. As the next chapter of the WikiLeaks founder saga begins, we are asking how to evaluate Assange, whistleblower? Free speech fighter? Traitor? And then from New Brunswick students who will no longer be learning about China from the Chinese Confucius Institute.

SOUNDCLIP

We are talking about a nation that right now has hundreds of thousands of people in internment camps for having the wrong kind of Chinese culture and we are welcoming these in to teach our children about Chinese culture seems totally out of whack.

GF: It seems others agree with that New Brunswick dad but is the Confucius Institute really something to fear? We'll get to that in half an hour, to be followed by this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Protestors chanting]

GF: The protesters who finally toppled Sudan's long time strong man. We'll go to the streets of Khartoum and we'll hear from one young woman who tells us the work is not yet done. I'm Gillian Findlay this is the Friday edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Assange's legacy could be undermined by his own 'selfish attitude': former diplomat

Guests:

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I know nothing good about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing. I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange, seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a determination. I would imagine mostly by the attorney general who is doing an excellent job so he'll be making a determination. I know nothing really about. It's not my deal in life.

GF: That was U.S. president Donald Trump yesterday backing away from Wikileaks the organization he'd once said he quote "loved". That's when it was dripping Secrets stolen from the campaign of his presidential rival Hillary Clinton. President Trump was speaking just hours after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy by British police. Assange lived in the embassy for almost seven years fighting charges in Britain, Sweden and the United States and from his tiny apartment he continued to run the Internet group he founded. In recent years Assange has been accused of helping Russia to influence the election that brought Donald Trump to power. Jen Robinson, Julian Assange's lawyer has a different take. She says the man who was arrested yesterday was simply a journalist punished for revealing the truth.

SOUNDCLIP

This sets a dangerous precedent for all media organizations and journalists in Europe and elsewhere around the world. This precedent means that any journalist can be extradited for prosecution by the United States for having published truthful information about.

GF: To look now at the many sides of the complicated personality and the issue I'm joined by two guests. Dan Froomkin has been a columnist for The Washington Post online correspondent for The Huffington Post and an editor for The Intercept. Currently he is editor at the website White House Watch. He is in Washington D.C. Paul Hare is a former British diplomat who now teaches at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and he joins us from Marblehead, Massachusetts. Good morning to you both.

DAN FROOMKIN: Good morning.

PAUL HARE: Good morning.

GF: Dan let's start with you. You just heard Assange's lawyer. She frames his arrest as an issue of journalism free speech but that's not what he's charged with, is it?

DAN FROOMKIN: No it is technically tied with a very narrow crime that is under the Computer Fraud Act. But it's very much of a stand in I think for [unintelligible] assault on his journalism. Technically they're saying that he helped- that he offered to help Chelsea Manning hack a password that - mind you - would not have given her any new access to any documents. She'd already dumped hundreds of thousands of documents in a WikiLeaks Dropbox, but would have helped recovery tracks which is actually a sort of a traditional journalistic thing, would be to for a journalist to help source cover their tracks. So there's no evidence that he ever did it.

GF: So do you think this charge is simply a pretext?

DAN FROOMKIN: I think absolutely. I think there's no question that the U.S. government was very upset with Assange for any number of reasons and the U.S. press was focusing on the fact that somewhat mercifuly they didn't literally charge charged with publishing secret documents which would have opened up an enormous can of worms, as far as first amendment issues go. But I think this still does. I think this still absolutely addresses core journalistic practices. If you look at the actual indictment, the conspiracy that is alleged is basically doing four things that almost any investigative journalist would do as part of their business.

GF: Well we can get to some of that detail in a minute, but Paul I want to bring you in here. You don't think Assange is a journalist and certainly isn't deserving of the protection of journalists in the United States. Why is that?

PAUL HARE: Well I think his actions were more to disrupt diplomatic communications is the major one that he's in charge with in this context. The dumping of the hundreds of thousands of cables. His motivation was it journalism? I would doubt it. I mean I think he sees himself obviously as a whistleblower transparency activist and he wanted to prove, which everybody knows, that in diplomatic cables there is often some fairly unusual stuff said, and stuff that maybe doesn't always accord with what goes on in public. But that's the way diplomacy works.

GF: But in fairness he has also exposed things that we might otherwise never have known about U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, things that document civilian deaths in particular. Why does that not qualify him as a journalist and entitled to the kinds of First Amendment protections in the United States?

PAUL HARE: Well he is exposing things in a limited sense from one country. If he sees himself as a you know global activist on transparency exposing the dirty side of what governments do then he should be even handed in. Of course we know he worked for Russia media TV for a while. He has had connections with Russian outlets and he is being very selective in what he's released. The fact that you can dump hundreds of thousands of cables, obviously you find in diplomatic cables some controversial things you would for any country, and obviously if there's illegalities and crimes committed then that will be of interest. But journalism for me is more about you know writing a narrative, protecting your sources, being guarded with your statements and not endangering the lives of a lot of people which the WikiLeaks project did. In Afghanistan for instance the people who are working with the American military. I know for a fact some friends in Cuba got into trouble with the government. American diplomats. For all we know quite a few people have probably lost their lives. So is that journalism? In my book, it's probably not. I think you know for it to be fair to Assange, he's evolved. I think started off with different intentions then he got in contact with other entities. His sources of funding are obscure. And since then he's obviously played a part in elections and putting his finger on the needle in democratic elections. So he's evolved.

GF: All right well Dan Froomkin, you agree with that?

DAN FROOMKIN: Well I mean I'm sympathetic with Paul's concern that he uncovered a lot of cables that diplomats would like to keep secret. I can understand why he is personally upset. But I think that he said a lot of things about Assange that are not at all true. He is a journalist, he is not my journalist, he is not Paul's kind of journalist, he is not necessarily even a good journalist, he is certainly not a remotely likeable journalist. I mean one of the things that makes us so clever is that he's a distinctly unsympathetic figure. He has done some things I wouldn't defend. But I would say that these unfounded accusations about things like the release of the diplomatic cables, put people in danger and lost lives. There's not a shred of evidence of that. It's been 10 years and there's not a shred of evidence that any such thing has happened in fact the database of these cables hasn't become one of the most prodigiously valuable resources for a juror or as other we saw recent times. And I do think it's important- I think was right that to some extent Assange evolved. He became much more of a bizarre figure and a more conspiratorial figure. His most recent conduct, his least defensible conduct--.

GF: Let's speak to that, let's speak to the charge that he essentially become a tool of Russian intelligence.

DAN FROOMKIN: But that's not what this indictment as about. This indictment is about what he did in 2010. And so you can judge Assange in the court of public opinion based on his more recent conduct. Well it's really important to remember that what he did want it ten was astonishing. The first WikiLeak I reported on was in 2011. It was a video of U.S. soldiers in Apache helicopters in Baghdad in 2007, literally cheering and laughing as they opened fire and massacre a Reuters photographer and his driver, as well as a family that pulled up in a van to try to rescue people. They laughed when an armored vehicle drove over a corpse. This was a huge news event as that huge news story. It was news the U.S. government did not want to come out and that is what is at the heart of this particular [unintelligible].

GF: All right so I want to come back to par here then because I want to talk about what the impact of this is. Dan, yesterday you were tweeting that is a chilling journalism. Glenn Greenwald himself suspect in many minds for the role he played in assisting another exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden. He called the arrest the beginning of the criminalization of journalism. We take your point. I take your point, Paul, but do you not think that we should be concerned about what's happening here?

PAUL HARE: Well you can be concerned if the Assange’s role was to work with these issues of illegality of war and attacks and so on which have been covered up across the world. But if his aim was simply to dump undigested, underacted material around. [cross talking] We're talking about where people investigate things right. They try and attach themselves to good causes. Look at Marie Colvin for instance as a journalist.

GF: I want to take you back. Is his motivation relevant here or is it what he actually [unintelligible]?

PAUL HARE: Absolutely his motivation is of course to you know promote WikiLeaks as an organization and maybe it is transparency. But equally if he despises diplomacy, he despises communications why did he avail himself of a diplomatic mission for nearly seven years. That's the same convention, the Vienna Convention, that protect confidential communications of diplomacy. And that's why I see it as far more important whether he's a journalist or not. The harm he's done to diplomacy and diplomacy has struck back because the Ecuadorians and the British negotiated a release, and the inviolability of the embassy in London was respected. And that's very important for diplomats throughout the world. Journalists yes they need to be protected and their conventions for doing that and there are provisions in the Constitution. But he has muddied the waters between a transparency activists the journalist and somebody who is interfering in elections. So he's a very complex figure far from the pure journalist.

GF: Sure. Dan Froomkin I mean he has divisive f even amongst journalists. Yesterday you saw the reaction amongst many in the media. What do you make of what you saw?

DAN FROOMKIN: Well I think Paul is right about a lot of a lot of this. The kind of journalism that Assad has done is actually very offensive even to some journalists. Certainly he's not a typical journalist. I mean for instance you mentioned Glenn Greenwald. You said he was a suspect in his role there. There was this aspect about what Greenwald did. He actually handled a dump of documents in a surely journalistic way which was to go through them, eventually with a lot of us at the [unintelligible] and pulled out the information that was of public interest and was not going to do any damage. So that was a very different approach than Assange dumping everything on the Internet. I think Paul's right, that's a very different approach and this one I frankly find-

GF: But some journalists yesterday were cheering this, were welcoming this arrest.

DAN FROOMKIN: Right. Well part of it is because so much of the attention recently on Assange has been on his conduct during the 2016 election when he appeared to behave as sort of a self-styled operative of Donald Trump, where he expressed naivety about the source of the documents, not that they were not worth publishing, but they part of a Russian agitprop. And he also indulged in some very bizarre conspiracy theories that were very offensive to a lot of people.

GF: So which do you think is going to be his legacy? I've just got a couple minutes here for me to view.

DAN FROOMKIN: That's a fine question. I think that it will be both. But I think that it shouldn't be spent in an American jail based on the fact that he acted as a journalist.

GF: Paul Hare.

PAUL HARE: Well he's highlighted an issue which is transparency and openness and the use of the Internet. But I think increasingly he used it for his own ends, in the way he took refuge in an embassy inconvenienced many people. He jumped to [unintelligible] who paid money to protect him. I think he's shown essentially quite a selfish attitude. Perhaps that will be how he would be remembered rather than the wider causes which he did espouse.

GF: I'm going to have to leave it there but thanks to both of you for joining us this morning.

DAN FROOMKIN: Thank you Gillian.

PAUL HARE: Thank you.

GF: Dan Froomkin is the editor at the website White House Watch and he was in Washington D.C. Paul here was a British diplomat for 30 years and now teaches at the party School of Global Studies at Boston University and he works in Marblehead. You are listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Im Gillian Findlay.

SOUNDCLIP

[Playground noise]

GF: Well in case you forgot that is what it sounds like when you fall backwards into a giant ball pit. Its one of the highlights at Hide Seek, a new pop up playground for a grown ups in Toronto. It's meant to conjure up nostalgia for your childhood and get adults playing like kids again.

SOUNDCLIP

[Playground noise, laughter]

GF: I was one of these examples are after I visit there on Tuesday show we got a lot of response from people who were excited and some who were concerned. Our producer Julie Chrysler is here to share some of what we've been hearing. Hi Julie.

JULIE CHRYSLER: Hey Gillian.

GF: Did you have fun?

JULIE CHRYSLER: It was fun, a bit like a little bit awkward. I had all this audio gear and it kept getting tangled and I was a bit worried I was going to drop it into the ball pit.

GF: No kidding. But you came back with some fabulous tape and you got a lot of response to the story that we've put to air. So what have you heard in response?

JULIE CHRYSLER: What I really loved is there are a lot of personal stories from people who were talking about playing themselves and the importance of that. So here's one example Ann Kern of Uxbridge, Ontario writes: "One of my best birthday presents ever was my fifty fifth. My husband made me a swing on a tree and every chance I get I swing on my swing. Pumping so high that my tippy toe can touch the branch that's only reachable if you swing as high as you can swing".

GF: Wow wouldn't that be fun. I'm kind of jealous. On Facebook Jaclyn Riggi Burnett wrote that "too many people get all fast because they're so concerned about appearances. I'm a grandmother and I still love to bargaining. I notice that when I start down the hills with the kids it doesn't take long before all their parents stop watching their kids and join in on the fun. Fun is ageless. If you can do it you should".

JULIE CHRYSLER: Aw, that's really sweet. Kevin Mclean from Aurora, Ontario writes: "I was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's which include symptoms such as reduced balance and flexibility. While attending a birthday party for a seven year old in an indoor playground. I couldn't help but think how therapeutic a place would be for those like me; a safe environment providing a variety of challenges was perfect particularly in colder weather. Maybe their business model could be expanded".

GF: But you know not everybody was on board with the idea of playgrounds for adults. Ray Markel wrote us on Facebook: "This is proof positive that our youth have been dumbed down. If they had a clue they would be protesting the cost of living and not some [unintelligible] promoted by Taylor Swift. And then from Nova Scotia Kate Hannah writes: "Interesting that teachers must bear the brunt of kids who are so neglected by their elders, parents or other relatives who have responsibility for them that they dont have good emotion or social skills. Now instead of playing with their kids, busy parents are given permission to play even more. Need to focus on something to take your mind off yourself? Do volunteerism. Go wash dishes. Scrub the floor. Hand wash your laundry. Make yourself grateful that you even have hot and cold running water to fill the sink. So many useless people everywhere now. Everyone is living in their own excuses".

JULIE CHRYSLER: Auch. Some interesting points. Here's another take from Mike Archibald: "It's worth pointing out that this is just a different kind of 'play'. What else is the endless home decoration fad, gardening, lawn care. This is all stuff people mostly do for fun. Pickle ball and carpet bowling are two of the most attended senior's events but senior's homes are always looking for fun; puzzles, knitting, baking. This playground does something different though. It is literally enticing people to quote 'act like kids', and I'd argue that the one thing missing from all the activities above is that aspect.

GF: Act like a kid. All right Julie. Thanks so much.

JULIE CHRYSLER: Thank you.

GF: Julie Chrysler is a producer at The Current. If you missed a story about playgrounds for adults find it on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent or on the CBC Radio app. You can share your thoughts about Facebook on Twitter and @TheCurrentCBC or email from our website. So stay with us now. CBC News is next. And then, a lesson in Chinese language and culture or a weapon of soft power? Why more Canadian schools are cutting ties with the Confucius Institute. I'm Gillian Findlay and you listening to the Friday edition of the Current.

Back To Top »

Beijing-funded classes on China for Canadian kids is a lesson in propaganda: expert

Guests: Rachelle Peterson, Wenran Jiang

GF: Hello I'm Gillian Findlay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

GF: Still to come: Protestors have been on the streets of Khartoum since December. And this week it appeared they've finally achieved their goal: the ouster of long time rule of Omar al-Bashir, the celebrations have been short lived. In half an hour with a woman named Fadia who has been on the street in Khartoum who says the struggle is not over yet. But first what's the real lesson plan behind the Confucius Institute.

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BRONWYN BONNEY: The reasons why these partnerships exist is because China wants to enhance its soft power globally. So that means teaching students a one sided story about their country.

GF: That was Bronwyn Bonney a mother of two in Fredericton. Last fall, she and her husband decided to pull their eight year old daughter out of a China-centric portion of her grade two class. The program was being taught by a guest teacher from China provided and paid for by something called the Confucius Institute, an organization funded by Beijing to promote Chinese culture and heritage abroad. For 30 minutes a week the class is taught Chinese language Chinese art and Chinese music. What they're not taught is anything remotely controversial, things like things like China's record of human rights violations for instance. Students aren't even allowed to ask. That was a problem for Ms. Bonney and her husband Parker Coates. So their daughter now spends that half hour a week in another class.

SOUNDCLIP

PARKER COATES: It's not reasonable to have a foreign power basically buying its way into the school whether that's directly giving money to the [unintelligible] of education or through these larger economic deals buying curriculums, or whatever, to get access and then present a positive impression of itself. We are talking about a nation that right now has hundreds of thousands of people in internment camps for having the wrong kind of Chinese culture, and welcoming these in to teach our children about Chinese culture, and that just seems totally out of whack. No other topic in our school is taught by people with a highly vested interest in it. We don't let Kraft Foods teach our health and nutrition curriculum. It's just ethically inappropriate.

GF: The issue reached the upper echelons of New Brunswick provincial government last month. Education Minister Dominic Cardy says he wants the Confucius Institute out of New Brunswick schools by the end of the school year.

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DOMINIC CARDY: I will never apologize for speaking up, very bluntly for human rights. It think it's core to who we are as a province, who we are as a country. Because we're lucky to be in a country where we can criticize out government. Unlike the over a billion Chinese citizens who have no such freedoms. So my concerns with Confucius Institutes remain exactly as they were, and I'm looking forward to making sure they're no longer in our schools come June.

GF: But complicating that pledge is the fact that New Brunswick has renewed its contract with the Confucius Institute for two years. It now runs to 2022 and new language was added prohibiting the province from ending the deal early without incurring heavy penalties. Premier Blaine Higgs said changes are coming but maybe not as quickly as his minister has pledged.

SOUNDCLIP

BLAINE HIGGS: We are looking to move the program outside of the classroom. In doing so we want to folllow the contract obligations that we have, because I think it's important no matter how we change or remove or whatever that we honour the relationship we have with people. It's difficult to have a relationship if you have one side of it that okay we don't quite agree that it affects everything else.

GF: The everything else Mr. Higgs refers to is the hundreds of millions of dollars of seafood that New Brunswick exports to China each year. Political and business leaders are wary of angering China for fear it could put those exports at risk. Just as Canada's canola oil producers. When China stopped importing Canadian canola over the last month many producers felt they were paying the price for Canada's decision to arrest Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. She's now awaiting possible extradition to the United States. For a closer look at the politics of China's soft power and the role of Confucius Institutes, I'm joined by Rachelle Petersen. She is the policy director at the National Association of Scholars, an American non-profit group with a particular interest in education. And we reached Rachelle Petersen in New York. Hello.

RACHELLE PETERSON: Hi.

GF: You heard what the parents in New Brunswick were saying about their concerns about the Confucius Institute. Are these familiar to you?

RACHELLE PETERSON: Yes these are concerned that parents around the world have been raising about Confucius Institutes and that students have been raising. It's quite a curious fact that when the Chinese government funds educational centers, provides teachers, provides textbooks, provides scripts for what can be said and what can't be said, that some now human rights violations Tiananmen Square and other empoisoned episodes in Chinese history gets conveniently left out.

GF: Well take us back and describe for me how these institutes work. They're an extension of the Chinese Ministry of Education I understand. But what kinds of agreements are they reaching with education ministries and schools in North America?

RACHELLE PETERSON: So the Chinese government sets up these contracts in which it provides start-up funds. It provides teachers whose salaries it pays. It provides tax books that it chooses and pays for it and ships all these things over, so that Confucius Institutes are basically class in a box kits. Everything you need is there. And it becomes the Chinese government maintains such close control over all of these aspects. It's basically a classroom that has been outsourced to the Chinese government giving China the power to edit it out whenever it doesn't want to for Americans to hear about its history and its culture and its authoritarian government.

GF: So why do schools and school boards want them then?

RACHELLE PETERSON: Because they bring a lot of money. The Confucius Institutes pay for themselves. The Chinese government funds them but then it also brings valuable financial arrangements and incentives like trips to China for teachers and students, but also viable relationships in China, economic ties that are important to the community. And so the Chinese government uses these financial levers to gain access to a vulnerable population student's whose minds are not yet aware of what's happening in China.

GF: Ms. Bonney's and Mr. Coates' daughter is in grade two. She's learning about Chinese art and food, she was. It hardly sounds like heavy propaganda. Where's the concern here?

RACHELLE PETERSON: The concern is that this is that soft power operation. It's an agenda that presents only the good side of China. Everything controversial or bad or questionable gets worked out. So students are hearing a one sided version that gives them a false impression of what the Chinese government is like. That will bear fruit later on in years to come from the Chinese government as populations in other countries have been raised to have a reflexive like towards China and I gather it's a bit unusual for the Institute to have a presence in an elementary school. Most are in high schools or universities. And students there don't operate in a vacuum. I mean if perhaps they're not getting a full picture of China in these classes. They certainly have other opportunities to inform themselves about other aspects of China elsewhere, don't they?

RACHELLE PETERSON: In an elementary school, certainly I expect that the Confucius Institute is going to be their only real interaction with Chinese history and culture. This is a very concentrated thing for them. But regardless of whether students have the opportunity to find information elsewhere, it's simply unacceptable for a free country to be presenting their students an intentionally one sided picture on the assumption that the students have the responsibility to go out and educate themselves properly. No. The schools should be providing a solid balanced education in the first place. That is their responsibility.

GF: You wrote a report recently on these institutes. What were your findings?

RACHELLE PETERSON: I found that Confucius Institutes jeopardize academic freedom. That the teachers are not free to teach openly about what's happening in China. They are scripted. They are constrained and that this lack of freedom spreads beyond the teachers and the Confucius Institute to other teachers and to other officers of the schools and universities that basically become afraid to challenge China, afraid to criticize China for fear of what will happen to their to their relationships. I also raise a lot of concerns about transparency. There are things about Confucius Institutes that only just now in the last year or so we're starting to find out what's really in these contracts because China has been very secretive about the way that they set this up.

GF: What are you finding there is in the contracts?

RACHELLE PETERSON: China has set this up in a way is very favorable to itself where it has close control over what gets taught and who does the teaching. It is also serve these contracts in a way that is really hard to get out of them. As we are seeing in this story here there are heavy fines to cancel the Confucius Institute contract. China has set it up in a way that really the terms are favorable to itself and not favorable to anyone who starts to have second thoughts.

RACHELLE PETERSON: Is it just soft power though? There are people out there who believe that these institutes are also centers of surveillance possibly espionage. What kind of evidence is there of that?

RACHELLE PETERSON: Well we've seen intelligence officers in Canada and the United Stevens, in Australia and other places around the world raising concerns about this. In the United States the FBI has said that it is taking investigative steps at Confucius Institutes that it has seen evidence of espionage there. This is something that we should take seriously and be aware out.

GF: All right Rachelle, hang on for a second there. I want to bring someone else into the discussion now. Wenran Jiang is an adjunct professor at the school of public policy and global affairs at the University of British Columbia and he is also a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Today, he joins us from Ottawa. Hello.

WENRAN JIANG: Hello.

GF: You've been listening to our discussion so far. What are you thinking about the concerns that are being expressed?

WENRAN JIANG: First of all I would like to set some of the facts straight before we go to opinion side of things. Number one we don't have a lot of complaints around the world about the Confucius Institutes, contrary to what's being said. China promote Confucius Institutes around the world in more than 100 countries. Very few of them primarily western democracies are coming up. Even among these countries, it's a very small number. That's number one. Number two, I have no illusion here. Let's be clear that the Chinese government wanted to promote the country's image soft power. But the Confucius Institute on the curriculum itself is a very neutral base language culturally in terms of food, clothing. It's not designed to teach human rights or Chinese politics or international relations. Unlike hundreds of American the foundations that going around to promote, with hundreds of millions dollars, promote democracy export which has disastrous consequences. The Chinese government export none of its ideologies around the world.

GF: I think the complaint or the concern though is that because you don't promote political issues for instance that what you do promote leaves impressionable students with a very one sided view and there are a lot of issues, I think that you would acknowledge that related to China, that probably people do need to understand and do need to discuss. And this program does not allow for it that.

WENRAN JIANG: So let's address that. These programs primarily teaching language. They're not designed or imposed on anybody. Most of these Confucius Institutes are voluntarily negotiated, accepted. I wouldn't question hundreds of schools, thousands of them, having a professional judgment call. I won't question their call to say this is the subject to some kind of surveillance or imposing on them. To the contrary we have many multiple form to question try and this gun rights record. In political science classes in universities we teach them freely. Nothing is imposed on that. Let's go back to the case of New Brunswick. We have more than 5450 students. There were merely five complain so far to the minister which is one tenth of one percent.

GF: Yet they're talking about shutting it down. They're talking about shutting it down so they're taking those complaints very seriously.

WENRAN JIANG: But if Minister Cardy is democratic as he claims to those values he should listen to the 99.9 percent of the people who did not complain. This is a program in fact he should promote because based on five complains he arbitrarily trying to shut it down is highly undemocratic.

GF: Why do I think he's taken that position then?

WENRAN JIANG: The question is this, people speculated that he used to work for a US based democracy promoting organization. Does he have personal bias in this? He is an elected politician. He should listen to his voters. Let's do this not based on 0.1 percent of the complaint. Make a survey if most of the people saying shut it down, he should. But now he's taking a position that's highly unanswerable to the voters. And my question to Mr. Cardy is what he's doing himself as a politician not to listen to voters views. That's actually where the core is. He's beating his chest saying oh I'm standing up for our values. He needs to answer to his voters. That's my question. That's the base at the moment.

GF: Speaking of voters. Just this week a group called the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians issued its first ever annual report and among its conclusions is that China does indeed represent a clear threat to Canada's national security. In that report it cites official Chinese government organizations trying to influence communities and politicians as part of that threat. So these aren't isolated concerns.

WENRAN JIANG: These are not isolated concerns I think I take all the intelligence reports highly in their assessment but at the same time we should not promote the kind of xenophobia as Mr. Cardy is doing clearly in this case.

GF: What about the charge that the institutes are also used to spy on Chinese students in Canada?

WENRAN JIANG: There is absolutely no evidence. I know that CSIS made the report of that. They're sending low level teachers with the consent of the local communities to tune the language. What kind of spying they could do. This is the level of xenophobia I've been talking about I'm afraid of, because the people are basically saying the Chinese government control everything; controls Chinese communities in Canada, around the world. None of that is actually accurate. But these kind of things spread us over there are the truths.

GF: What about the concerns of some of the political and business leaders in New Brunswick who worry about retaliation by China, cutting trade with the province if it if New Brunswick goes ahead and actually cut ties with the Confucius Institutes there? Are they right to be worried about that?

WENRAN JIANG: I think they should be concerned about those and if China does retaliate is unfortunate. But the question now is not about whether China will retaliate or not in our bilateral promotional or federal level relations as we now going through a crisis. The question is on the dissolution of Mr. Cardy to shut down those schools and those programs is he doing a Democratic thing himself, or he's making the judgment call of his own based on 0.1 percent of the complaints.

GF: You say that there haven't been a lot of complaints and indeed these institutes operate around the world. But there has been some. There has been pushback in North America. Some universities have indeed severed ties. Rachelle's Organization is calling on universities to do exactly that. Do you feel that there is a backlash brewing here?

WENRAN JIANG: There is. As someone who is actually involved in interacting with the Confucius Institute. From early on, in 2005 I was the founding director of the China Institute of the university of Alberta. We informed of the head of the Confucius Institute, called [unintelligible] University of Alberta will not but institute a Confucius Institute because we have our own funding. We have our own curriculum. We dont need it. But it also warned and told them that if they want to have their Confucius Institute around to be accepted, they need to have total transparency and they adopted many of the recommendations I gave. In fact we have a Confucius Institute in Edmonton city, not at the University of Alberta. They're functioning just fine, just like hundreds of thousands of schools. That being said I totally support, including Rachelle's report, if any institutions around the world finding themselves uncomfortable and the majority of people seeing were not in favor of that anymore, at the school board level, at the students’ parents level; shut them down because the Chinese cannot impose on us. What we have is a mutual agreement including New Brunswick. If we are having a majority of parents saying shut down we can have premier Higgs go to China and say we shut down. I don’t think the Chinese would afford to say no. So the question is how we handle it in the objective manner rather than being high jacking as individuals like Mr. Cardy, as a minister, listening to 0.1 percent of the complaint.

GF: Mr. Wenran Jiang, thanks so much for joining us today. Wenran Jiang is an adjunct professor at the school of public policy and global affairs at the University of British Columbia and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He was in Ottawa. Rachelle Petersen is still standing by. She is the policy director at the National Association of Scholars, a U.S. non-profit that focuses on educational issues. Rachelle you've heard the defense from Wenran Jiang saying these concerns have been raised about Confucius Institutes are overblown. What convinces you that this is not as benign as he says?

RACHELLE PETERSON: The way that the Chinese government has spoken about this. We have statements from the head of the [unintelligible] in China saying Confucius Institutes are important part of Chang is soft power. We have the former head of propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party saying when we set up Confucius Institutes everything looks logical and normal, we're just teaching language and culture, but this is actually our best tool of propaganda. We have statement upon Streetman of Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party officials speaking in China about their intentions with Confucius Institutes. And in China they are more open about what they're aiming to do. They present Confucius Institutes as a tool of soft power, a tool of propaganda, a way to build relationships and then use those relationships for poetical purposes.

GF: Your report in which you actually do recommend that institutes be shut down in North America. It is a warning shot I think for four schools and for universities. But he says there is a very few complaints.

RACHELLE PETERSON: That is simply not true. We have 17 American universities now that have made the decision to close their Confucius Institutes. Canada actually has one of the first universities that chose to close its Confucius Institute, McMaster University, which closed after a Confucius Institute teacher came forward and showed blatantly discriminatory language in her contract, and testified to the kinds of constraints she faced from the Chinese government when she agreed to work at a Confucius Institute. We have sufficient evidence to show that the Chinese government does not respect academic freedom when it sets up these institutes and that it doesn't have in mind presenting a fair and balanced education to students. It is using these as tools of its power.

GF: Is there are any kind of role that are truly cultural organization could play in public education in Western countries like Canada and the United States?

RACHELLE PETERSON: Foreign governments should not be funding school systems. Foreign governments should not be funding classrooms and should not be choosing the textbooks and sending over hiring the teachers. That is an inappropriate role for a foreign government to play. Each national government and local government needs to maintain control over its own education, to ensure that what is being taught is appropriate and is accountable to the people who live there. And that is not the case when you have a foreign government, especially an authoritarian government like China, doing this.

GF: Is there any model that you could point to that would allow them to credibly claim then that they are simply trying to share Chinese culture with the rest of the world?

RACHELLE PETERSON: Well what China could do is could copy what other western and free nations do. Germany France and Britain have their own cultural centers that operate as standalone entities. We have the British Council, we have the Alliance Francaise, we have the Goethe Institute for Germany. These are standalone centers that present their language and culture but they're not free riding on the reputation of the local school or the university. And they're not preying on vulnerable students who don't realise that this is actually sponsored by foreign governments, not just a regular part of their local school. That is a much better and forthright model for China to follow.

GF: Okay we're going to have to leave it there then. Thanks to Rachelle. Rachelle Petersen that is the policy director at the National Association of Scholars, a US non-profit that focuses on education issues and she was in New York. We did reach out to the Confucius Institute in New Brunswick and to Hanban, the Chinese government agency responsible for the institutes. Neither returned a request for comment. However we did hear from the Confucius Institute in the United States. Their statement reads in part: The purpose of the purpose of Confucius Institute Chinese language courses is to teach Chinese language, not to teach history, politics or current affairs. While we recognize that discussions about Chinese government and political issues are important, those discussions should and can take place in the host institutions, politics, history or Asian Studies departments and nothing about the Confucius Institute programs prevent that from happening. So coming up in our next half hour to Sudan. I'll speak with one of the protesters who's been out in the streets in Khartoum for months now and with Sudanese Canadians on what's going to happen next after Omar al-Bashir is finally gone. I'm Gillian Findlay and you are listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Joy in Sudan becomes anger over 'recycled regime', says protester who vows to keep fighting

Guests: Fadia, Rania El Mugammar, Elamin Abdelmamoud, Iman Abbaro

GF: I'm Gillian Findlay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Protestors chanting]

I announce that the head, the former head of the regime has been moved and is in safe place. I answer the formation of a transitional military council...

[Protestors chanting]

GF: The sounds and voices of the people of Sudan. For a month they have been rising in protest. And then yesterday it happened. Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, 30 years in brutal power, finally gone. But the situation in the African nation is far from settled. The Sudanese military which seized control this week is not prepared to let it go. Not for now anyway. After suspending the country's constitution the minister of defense told Sudan citizens they could expect military control for another two years. And so protesters having ousted one dictator are vowing to stay put. My next guest is one of them. We're calling her by her first name only to protect her security. Fadia is with us on the line now from the streets of Khartoum. Hello.

FADIA: Hello. Good afternoon.

GF: I know it is afternoon there now, and it has been an exhausting couple of days, but tell me what the mood is like today in Khartoum.

GF: Well in the morning, people were excited to carry on protesting but the military had another announcement and I think it got them more angry.

GF: What was the announcement?

FADIA: They had a conference talking about that they are here to help the city and that what they are doing is for their own good, and that's a lie. And that they are ready settled with us on the ground and see what we need and want.

GF: But you don’t believe them.

FADIA: No of course no, nobody. Actually people started to laugh and make fun out of them because it doesn't make sense to people, the protestors.

GF: Take me back to yesterday when you heard the news that Omar al-Bashir had been ousted. What went through your mind?

FADIA: I was like, no, that cannot be true. It cannot just happen like that. There is something about it. I couldn't believe it at firs.

GF: And then you found it was true. How did you feel?

FADIA: Well I was very angry. I felt anger and disappointment. I carried on to protest.

GF: Why angry? Explain that to people in Canada because I think they look at what's happening in Sudan and they see celebration. So why were you angry?

FADIA: People at first celebrated when they heard the news that Al Bashir has resigned. But in matter of fact, yes, he resigned, but who came after him. Ibn Auf, the defence minister and he's a criminal as well. He's wanted by the ICC and he killed citizens in Darfur. I mean if not repeat the same faces again, the same members of the same regime. So they are actually recycling the regime. That's why I wasn't happy. People you don't know that but when they know it they got carried on protesting in the military quarters.

GF: And the military has put on a curfew now where are you out in the streets after curfew last night?

FADIA: Yes. I broke the curfew and I'm proud of this and protestors left over in the military headquarters just like the past week.

GF: So what is going to happen then, if people are not satisfied and people are still angry and still protesting? What are you calling for now?

FADIA: People say one thing. They say in Arabic 'Alsharea bas'. It means the street. Go to the street. Keep protesting and don't go back.

GF: And are there more people coming to the street? Is this growing?

FADIA: Yes growing. Huge. Everyone is going out there after they found out play that these people did, they are very excited to keep going.

GF: What are the demands now, Fadia? What is it that would satisfy you and convince you that it was okay to go back home.

FADIA: A civilian government. No military again, no Islamic regime again. Only a civilian government is what we want. We want freedom, justice and peace. I know it might seem a little bit impossible now in Africa, but we are planning to do this, do whatever it takes to make it happen.

GF: Is it safe on the streets, because the military has said that they intend to maintain power for two years? Is it safe on the streets now?

FADIA: Well, yes. Since the military is our side protecting us, it's safe. But we never guarantee because there is the other militias of Omar al Bashir regime is still exist. So there is no guarantee you know. But the army will protect us. That's what they've been doing, for the past week in the protests. They were protecting us from the [unintelligible] militias.

GF: And you still trust the military at this point.

FADIA: Well in protecting us, yes. I mean they won't shoot us like the [unintelligible] militias used to.

GF: Yes but if you're challenging them, their authority to stay in control, at some point is that relationship going to break down?

FADIA: Well, yes but not to the extent that they use fire or gun.

GF: What brought you to the streets in the first place, Fadia?

FADIA: There are so many reasons. Well it's hard to tell them all, but let's say I fed up and I feel for other people who can't do anything about what's going out. And I feel very supressed. I feel I'm not living like a human and other women like me too. So I do it in the name of all the women are not capable to do this, or to reach out the street and protest. For all the women will have been killed by the regime, who have been haunted by the regime for years.

GF: Yes. And that this struggle has very much been led by women, hasn't it? I mean the iconic symbol that we have seen, of that woman, Alaa Salah, who has emerged standing in her white dress or on top of the car, leading the demonstration. Why have women played such a big role?

FADIA: Because they left that's enough. We have to move. We have to make a stand for us They have been supressed for years by the regime. They have been haunted for years by the regime and killed and raped. Women in Darfur are killed and raped on daily basis. Here we are supressed on daily basis.

GF: But you are a strong and outspoken woman. What has been your experience?

FADIA: Thank you. Every day I struggle to live peacefully with my right and my freedom. We get arrested for wearing trousers or not covering our head. We get arrest by the militias in the street if they if they did not like the way we walk. We get arrested if we work to sell tea and coffee in the streets, which is legal. We get to arrest everybody may we may get them with flogging or lashing or being put in jail or paying bills. So I think it is so many, so many things.

GF: Fadia, you defied the curfew last night to be on the streets. Are you going to be back out there tonight?

FADIA: Yes for sure. I have to be back.

FADIA: All right well stay safe. Thank you so much for talking to us today.

GF: You are welcome.

GF: Fadia is a social worker and activist in Sudan and we reached her in Khartoum. We've withheld her full name due to security concerns for protesters there. The streets of Khartoum may be a long way away from Canada but events there are being felt here and around the world in the Sudanese diaspora, which include my next guest. Elamin Abdelmamoud is a social media editor at BuzzFeed. Rania El Mugammar is an artist and an equity consultant and Iman Abbaro is also an artist and a student at Ryerson University. They are all with me today in our Toronto studio. Hello and welcome to you all.

GUESTS: Hello, good morning.

GF: Rania, I’m going to start with you. We were just listening to Fadia. I'm wondering what was going through your mind and I'm guessing that part of what was going your mind is you wish you were there.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Yes definitely I think the overarching feeling in this whole resistance for me, over the last 100 plus days, has been I wish I was home. The Diaspora blues have been overwhelming but also the feeling of everyone we've lost. I wish they were there to see these moments.

GF: You lost people, you know people.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Absolutely yes and I wish my grandfather was here and he died long time ago but he would have loved to see this moment. So even listening to her now I feel incredibly proud. My heart is really full but I'm also terrified because you know the next little while is going to be volatile and its going to be a historic period that's going to determine how Sudan moves forward, not only from Al Bashir's rule but how Sudan reconciles the many tensions in its histories and how Sudan and it's many different peoples are going to move forward together into the future.

GF: Well lets talk about that in a minute but Elamin I want to ask you when you saw what happened when you saw bushier heard that Al Bashir was gone. What was your reaction?

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: I mean there was a very short burst of excitement. There's this incredible euphoria of you know here is the man who is his role as personally responsible for the reason why I am in Canada. You know I remember when I was five years old and the security forces came to our house in Sudan and they knocked on the door and they said to my dad 'you're going to give up your truck and you're going to give up your business'. My dad ran a publishing company so they shut that down. That became the impetus behind the reason my father had left the country in the first place. So there's this euphoria about this dictator who has been in power for 30 years finally gone. And then you get to the end of the statement that his vice president is going to lead a military rule for the next two years. So there's nothing change. It's like these people forgot that Sudanese people could be so easily tricked, I guess, by taking one figurehead and replacing with another and then kind of carrying on as the other regime is exactly the same. So there is a complex feeling. You know there's excitement, there's euphoria mixed with this you know sort of dread that we still have to go through this again. But you know there's an overwhelming momentum that is with the protesters. That's why nobody left, even though there was a curfew imposed last night. So there is still hopeful kind of excitement of watching as the events continue to unfold.

GF: You Iman you were born in Canada I understand.

IMAN ABBARO: Not in Canada, in Egypt.

GF: But not in Sudan.

IMAN ABBARO: Not in Sudan.

GF: So what's it been like for you watching this?

IMAN ABBARO: It's been, you know I am recently developing a relationship with Sudan especially with this revolution. Even though I grew up in a very Sudanese household I was living a double life where at home we were exposed to Sudanese music, food, culture you name it. And then to step outside into the outside world then it's a whole other scene. So kind of just watching this from afar as Rania said, diaspora blooms have really been kicking in.

GF: Do you feel more connected now as you watch?

IMAN ABBARO: A 100 percent just watching the resilience of my people watching how this has been carried out how organized it's been the optimism, the joy, the hope, the resilience. It's empowering.

GF: But Rania, you say you're worried what concerns you? How does this go wrong?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I mean my concern is that we're going to see you know we're not really going to see the kind of meaningful change that we have now. My concern is that we're going to see you know intervention from foreign countries that's not really in the best interests of the Sudanese people. My concern is that we're going to see Sudan's tremendous resources being controlled in ways that continue to disadvantage the average Sudanese person. When you're looking at a country where the average Sudanese person is living in abject poverty and the estimated net worth of the now former Omar Al Bashir president - it still shocks me that I now say former - is estimated to be between one and nine billion US dollars. The tremendous theft that we've seen of our resources. My fear is that that will continue to happen. And also my fear is that we, in retrospect, this conflict will be framed through the gates of the West as another you know ethnic tension between Arabs and Africans and others sensationalized Muslim versus Christian conflict and it won't give us the space we need to to heal and to to account for many of the things that have happened. Sudan is a country that has survived so many wars, so many tensions. There are people who are even absent from this conversation right now who are ethnic minorities; the people in South Kordofan, in Darfur, in Blue Nile and even South Sudanese people for whom Omar Al Bashir is responsible for so much of the violence they are experiencing in their lives. My fear is that those people will not get a platform in this piece in the conversation.

GF: Well let's talk about that and let's talk about that former president. Elamin I'm going to come to you. Today, the Sudanese army said that it will not extradite the deposed president to the International Criminal Court where he has been charged with crimes against humanity for a number of the things that Rania has just been talking about. Is that right decision?

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: Well listen there is a lot of different countries that have had a tense relationship with the International Criminal Court. So I don't want to exclude Sudan from you know having those objections. He should be tried. He should be tried definitely inside of our country. There are other things he has to answer for inside of Sudan. I don't know what the actual criminal court because I am not very familiar with the inner workings but I do know that there are other people calling for him to be tried for his crimes inside Sudan.

GF: Do you think the military will try him?

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: No. No. There's no belief in inside Sudan or outside of it that there are people who have currently come to power will be especially hard on him. Their initial statement was that he's being kept in a safe space after he has been arrested. And you know the chatter on the WhatsApp networks is that he's probably still in his palace, because there's no there's no good reason to believe that these people would be hard on him. And so a civilian government that takes over has to try Omar Al Bashir for his crimes.

GF: How do you go at this point from a military government, that says it intends to stay there for at least two years, to a civilian government?

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: I mean look this protest was started by the Sudanese professional associations. The civil society is alive and well and so it's not like a country that has completely decimated civil society. Like there can be elections in six months or a year or even shorter than that. And I think they will be considered fair and free elections because that civil society has been ready to go. They've been preparing for this moment for decades and decades. So they're not completely dormant. They've been preparing for this.

GF: Iman, we talked a little bit with Fadia about the role of women but it has been striking I think to many people who watch from a distance. How many of the protesters are women, the voice that women are having. Does that surprise you?

IMAN ABBARO: It doesn't. I think if anything it challenges the Western narrative of Muslim women how we are seen as oppressed victims, when in reality even though it is women that suffer the most of al Bashir former regime - I'm still in shock saying that to be honest - it's the women that are the most resilient. It's women that run society. Sudan is a matriarchy and not a patriarchy, contrary to popular belief. Them being at the forefront is not shocking.

GF: How do you think life might change for women there?

IMAN ABBARO: If a civilian government comes into power which is what we're hoping, I think one thing that will definitely be gone is an Islamist government which really hinders the rights of women. I think women will be seen through their potential rather than being policed and constantly under surveillance.

GF: That's your hope.

IMAN ABBARO: That's my hope.

GF: Rania I want to come back to this because I was a little taken aback by the years belief that the military still in power is going to protect them on the streets. Are you concerned at all but at some point interest may clash and that may not continue to be the case?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I mean there's been precedent where that has happened elsewhere in the world. I don't know the situation on the ground I have to trust people's instinct to who are on the ground at this point. The reality is, what the last week in this uprising has done, tt is has turned so many eyes on Sudan. People have been desperate to have people bear witness to their struggle and now that we are actively bearing witness I think the military is in a position not to be able to get away with the things they've been able to get away with thus far. So I think from that please there is definitely an opportunity that the people will be able to resist without getting you know shot at, and without having the immediate danger to their life that they've had over the last three and a half months. I don't know that that's going to continue to be the case. I don't know that the military's going to stand on the side of the people but I do know that people have sacrificed so very much that they are not about to let this go so easily.

GF: You're nodding Elamin.

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: Yesterday I saw tweets around the time that the curfew was to be imposed. There are tweets on that came out of like military soldiers playing the saxophone with the protestors. So there is this belief that the higher level military people are still on the side of Bashir. For the most part the military wants to protect the people and don't want to attack their own people. And so that is an interesting power struggle that I think will end up shaping how this revolution ends up playing out. But for the most part what people see on the street is the military's not asking them to go home at 10 p.m. even though its leadership says you must enforce the curfew.

GF: Iman, you mentioned social media and Im guessing you are watching a lot of this on social media. What role is that playing?

IMAN ABBARO: So I’ve been watching and also been very active on social media. I think because there is a social media shut down in Sudan right now, it has been a tool for the Diaspora to be in form, to get non Sudanese people in form, to gain momentum. I think part of the reason why we're here today is because of social media and the role it has played in the revolution especially with organizing the solidarity protest across the diaspora. It's getting people involved. It's kind of shifting our eyes on Sudan like we've never seen before.

GF: So what are you looking for in the days to come?

IMAN ABBARO: I was on the phone with my dad this morning and he said that there was a press conference that was held.

Your father is in?

IMAN ABBARO: My father is not in Sudan he is in Qatar but he has sources in Sudan. He has been paying very close attention to the events unfolding and he said that the military does not want to form a government. They want to hand power down to civilians, allegedly, supposedly, who knows if that will actually happen. I hope that that is true. I hope that the military will keep their word and kind of just step back and civilians take over, have fair elections. Will that actually happen? No we don't know. As Rania said we have seen military rule has done in other regions, in other countries such as Egypt but also at the same time we're looking at Sudan's history, we've had two successful revolutions. We've overthrown military dictatorships in 1964 in 1985. So if it comes to the point where the military does not hold their word I doubt people will be afraid to take the streets again.

GF: Elamin, what are the signals? What will you be looking for that will tell you that this is indeed heading in the right direction?

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: Keeping an eye on that civil society as a response to this revolution. I think everyone's been following very closely the Sudanese Professionals Association and their Twitter account, because they're the one that called for this protest way back in December and they'd been leading it since. And so they've been giving the signals about whether people actually have power in this or whether they don't. And their response to the military announcement was that this can npt stand and will not stand, and people seem to be following the lead. So I am watching for those strong civil society signals but have continued to exist in Sudan for a long time and are now taking charge very very [unintelligible].

GF: And Ranis, I mean I can tell by looking at your face you are still pinching yourself I think.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Yes definitely I mean I've been really you know watching the art that's come out of this movement. It's been remarkable.

GF: What kinds of things have you seen?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I've seen you know so many graphics, illustrations, poetry. I have seen memes.

[Laughter]

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: The poetry has been amazing.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: The poetry has been amazing, Sudan has a long history of oral storytelling and a poetic tradition that's really driven this protest and has also connected the dots across the diaspora, because the chants that are on the ground are surely up on social media and then we are echoing the same words that our people are saying on the ground. That's been remarkable. The very live archival practice of documenting revolution has been astounding profound and life changing to watch. For me watching Sudanese women who have long since been at the forefront of every revolution we have ever had. Sudan has been a matriarchy and one of the oldest civilizations in the world. So as we begin to understand that and unpack that. I can't wait to see what the women in my community will continue to do. I can't wait to see how this will continue to free us. As is with every oppressive regime those experiences are largely gendered and racialized. So those of us who are darker, those of us where women have been suffering the most. I can't wait to see us unfold our full potential. It's utterly surreal but I am also guarded in my optimism.

GF: Just quickly for me to view, do you think this is going to change the way the rest of the world sees Sudan?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Absolutely. I think it has been a moment in self-definition. So yes.

GF: Elamin.

ELAMIN ABDELMAMOUD: Exactly what Rania said.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: 100 percent it will challenge the misconceptions of what it means to be African. What it means to be a woman, what it means to be Muslim. It all addressed the different ethnic groups in Sudan that Sudan is not just an Arab country. It goes beyond that. There are many different ethnic groups. It'll adjust the tensions between the Arab communities and the non Arab ethnic tribes, the indigenous Sudanese tribes. And I think that is crucial and I think we need to do that in a non Western sense.

GF: Wonderful. Well I thank you all for coming in here today and talking to us about it. Elamin Abdelmamoud is a social media editor at BuzzFeed. Rania El Mugammar is an artist and an equity consultant and Iman Abbaro is a multidisciplinary artist and a student at Ryerson University and they are with me here in our Toronto studio.

[Music]

INES COLABRESE: Hi, I'm Ines Colabrese, one of the producers here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Alison Masemann, Howard Goldenthal, John Chipman, Karin Marley, Julie Crysler, Samira Moyyehdin, Danielle Carr, Jessica Linzey, Sarah-Joyce Battersby, and Julianne Hazlewood. Our intern is Cinar Kiper. Special thanks to the CBC's Jennifer Yoon in Montreal. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producers are Padraig Moran, Jonathan Ore, and Emilie Quesnel. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Shamhan Bhuiyan. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber, and our presentation producer is Liz Hoath. Our senior producers are Pacinthe Mattar in Toronto, and Cathy Simon and Geoff Turner in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Willow Smith. And of course, the host of the Current - Anna Maria Tremonti.

GF: And I am not Anna Maria Tremonti. This is Gillian Findlay but that is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for a Q. Actor and comedian Zach Galifinakis will be on the show to talk about playing big foot in the new animated children's film Missing Lake. But to end things off today we're going to have some music, appropriate music given the week's events from a Sudanese American musician. His name is Sinkane. The song is called Everybody. I am Gillian Findlay and thanks for listening today to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Everybody]

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