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The AIH Transcript for October 14, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and James Murray

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JAMES MURRAY: Good evening, I'm James Murray. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

JM: Tonight:

CO: Bar-none. Catalan separatists swamp the streets in what our guest calls an unprecedented display of outrage over a Spanish court's decision to jail the leaders of a referendum on separation.

JM: When the enemy of your enemy was once your friend. A former US ambassador says that, after being abandoned by Donald Trump, Syria's Kurds have little choice but to team up with the dictator Bashar al-Assad.

CO: First past the post. When we first reached our guest, he was a refugee fleeing persecution in Syria. Tonight, he's celebrating his right, as a newly-minted Canadian, to vote in next week's federal election.

JM: At last report. An Iowa newspaper struggles to continue doing investigative work after its accurate reporting about the life of a local police officer leaves them swamped in legal costs.

CO: There's gotta be a yarn behind this. We call up a woman in the outer Hebrides, who made an 800 km trip to recover a lamb that's she'd raised for sale only to regret having sold him up.

JM: And...stemming the tide. Police in London come face to face with a colourful bunch of climate-change protesters, and end up arresting one walking, talking, stalk of broccoli.

JM: As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio that's waiting for them to produce their evidence.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Catalan leaders jailed, Danny Ramadan, Norman the Lamb

Catalan leaders jailed

Guest: Laura Borras

JM: They gathered in Barcelona by the thousands, many chanting in protest. Some held up signs, others waved Catalonia's flag. Protesters at the airport clashed with police. That was the scene today, after Spain's Supreme Court sentenced nine Catalan separatist leaders to jail for sedition. The sentences range from nine to thirteen years — for their role in the 2017 push for independence. Laura Borras is a member of the Spanish parliament with the "Together for Catalonia" party. We reached her in Barcelona, earlier today.

CO: Ms. Borras, I understand you are just returning from the demonstration in Barcelona. It just ended minutes ago. What was the mood in that place?

LAURA BORRAS: We are very, very astonished, and very disappointed. Because receive this fail from the Supreme Court and the verdict as a total injustice. And so people is half sad, half irritated, and is trying to demonstrate for their rights.

CO: But why does it come as a surprise given that the Constitutional Court of Spain — your courts — have been saying that the referendum that was held in Catalonia was illegal and that these people broke the law. So why does it come as a surprise that they’ve concluded this?

LB: Because that vote is not illegal. And the referendum is not a penalty on the Spanish constitution. So what our politicians did — and that always acted in a strictly Democratic and absolutely peaceful manner — was to act actually did what people ask them to do. So what they have now received is a sentence basically because they allowed people to vote and to have the right to decide their own future in a specific and democratic way.

CO: Spain's Supreme Court has sentenced nine of the leaders to jail sentences from nine to 13 years. They said that those leaders — many of them politicians and members of government — that they carried out a perfectly planned strategy to break the constitutional order and obtain the independence of Catalonia illegally. What do you say to that?

LB: Well, we reject those verdicts. We consider them unjust, and we consider them anti-democratic because they are the result of a political trial. And we are suffering a wide-ranging campaign of legal action against Catalonia's right to self-determination and against the independence movement. So this sentence is like the final point. They would like to be the final point. But now, we more than ever we stand by their families, we stand by their side, and more than ever today, we feel that we have to keep moving forward in order to obtain what we're fighting for. But because we are fighting in a democratic way — and if the law is unfair — we have to express that specifically and democratically with votes. And that's what we want to do. And instead of that, the Spanish state uses justice. Uses revenge; in fact, they want us to stop feeling this being pro-independent. And so we have to keep moving forward.

CO: You have these nine people facing these jail terms. The former labours minister 12 years, the former external relations minister 12 years, the former speaker of the Catalan parliament eleven-and-a-half years. I know you have been to visit some of these people in detention, what is their state of mind at this point?

LB: Yes, I visit them every week now that they are in Catalonia, and before when they were in Madrid. And today I had the chance to go out with Josep Rull, one of those ministries, and they were absolutely convinced that what they did never has to be considered an action that has to be punished with a century of jail for all our government. So this is absolutely unfair. And they failed that they did the right thing. And they ask us to still keep with people and being in the streets with people demonstrating for our rights.

CO: But you mentioned this one man who is the former territorial minister of Catalan, they are facing a long time in prison at this point for the role they played in bringing this referendum into Catalonia. So is there any recourse? Can they appeal?

LB: No, no, they cannot appeal in the Supreme Court. And they now can only appeal to a European justice. That is what happened with our president — with President Puigdemont — that had to be German justice who decided that he is not guilty of what now his colleagues have been declared guilty. And so they are absolutely convinced because you see all Catalan society knows what happened on October the first. And we remember with a deep emotion how with dignity and with solidarity, we were able to repeal an unjustified and unbelievable attack by a Spanish police and security forces. So when we receive violence, and now they are accused of a penalty that is not even in many countries like the penalty of sedition, they know that they are not seditious. They know that they were fair to what people wanted and why they voted them for. So they feel they are still convinced that they did the right thing. And they ask us to go forward.

CO: Ms. Borras, we will leave it there. And I appreciate speaking with you tonight. Thank you.

LB: No, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. You're welcome.

JM: That was Spanish politican Laura Borras. We reached her in Barcelona earlier today.

[Music: Ambient]

Danny Ramadan

Guest: Danny Ramadan

JM: With a week to go before polls close, federal leaders are busy fighting to get out the votes. But for some new Canadians, just having the opportunity to vote has been a fight — new Canadians like Danny Ramadan. Mr. Ramadan came to Canada from Syria as a refugee in 2014. And on Friday — in the advanced polls — he voted for the first time. He is an author and LGBTQ refugee activist and we reached him in Vancouver.

CO: Danny, what was it like to walk into that booth and cast your ballot for the first time as a Canadian?

DANNY RAMADA: Well, honestly, Carol, it was an overwhelming feeling, to be honest. I stood behind that barrier, and I looked at the needs on the ballot, and honestly, they were blurry a bit. I was so excited. It is the first time in my life that I participate in a democratic process, which is something that I really value, and I have been hoping to be able to do since I knew what politics are really. It is really important to me because it comes from a place of appreciation both my new home in Canada, where it allows me to be part of this democratic process — as well as back my birthplace of Syria, where people, my people, my community were fighting for this right for nine years now.

CO: And dying for that right as well.

DR: And dying, yes.

CO: And fleeing the country. Now, you were there for the British Columbia election in 2017. You had a close encounter at that time. What was that like? [CO and DR give a hearty laugh]

DR: Yes, my fiancée went for his voting, so I decided to join him. And he was like why? I will just go and put my name in a list, and that would be about it. I'm like no, I actually would like to go and see how that how that happens. It is important to me because I felt envious. Since the day that I arrived here in Canada, I have been quite engaged in understanding the politics of the world around me. It was important as well to me to have my voice heard in those politics. And I saw firsthand what it means to be in a place where my voice is not heard. I saw firsthand how fleeting democracy is. And how it can disappear any second and be taken away.

CO: We spoke with you — the first time I ever spoke with you — back in 2014, and you were in Lebanon then. And you had just learned that you would be coming to Canada, and you were dancing in the street if I recall.

DR: [deep laugh] Yes, I remember that. In 2014, when I when I spoke with you, I was just getting out of the Canadian embassy in Beirut, where they informed me that my application has been approved to come here to Canada. So I was quite excited, yes.

CO: I mean, look at that arc from that moment when we spoke to you, and you're going into vote. What do those years represent? What has been the development for Danny Ramadan?

DR: I believe that I matured quite a lot in the past five-six years coming here to Canada and becoming the person that I am today. Of course, it was informed by a lot of those experiences being back in Syria, being a refugee in Lebanon, and then becoming a Canadian here in January 2019. That was a journey — a beautiful journey — but also a privilege to me. I've seen my life and how it could go in such a horrible way back in 2014, but then it changed to the better. And I found myself right here. And I am now a Syrian-Canadian. I am a successful author. I am a participating member of my community. I honestly feel that I have been given the opportunity to gain so much privilege. And I am so thankful for it. And so thankful for the responsibilities that I am taking upon myself just like voting.

CO: You also know that a lot of your fellow Canadians don't vote at all. They can't be bothered, or it's boring, or they forget, or whatever. So what would you say to them — those very large percentage, maybe 30 per cent of eligible voters, who didn't bother to cast a ballot in the last federal election? What would you tell them if you could?

DR: I would say that I know that elections can be intense and scary. And that the options that we have might not always align with what we hope for. But the only way that we can be accounted for in those elections is to vote. And it bothers me. It honestly is a bit offensive to me when people say no, I'm not going to vote because you have a privilege that a lot of your grandparents fought for you to have. You have a privilege that people around the world right now are dying for. Like back in Syria, 500,000 people died just because, in 2011, we went out asking for democracy. So I would say that take advantage of that privilege. It's ten minutes of your time, 15 minutes of your time. You are participating in something so unique.

CO: But there is also in this election campaign the politics of identity has played a large part — mostly because Jagmett Singh is a candidate who has been confronting that head on, isn’t he? And issues of racism have reared its ugly head during this election campaign. Does that affect you and others who are here that this election campaign has had such a tinge of racism to it?

DR: I personally voted for Breen Oulette, who is the local candidate for the NDP in Vancouver-Centre. It is important to me that the left-leaning politics continue to be the power driving Canada. Because what we see on the right has been quite challenging, quite homophobic, quite racist, and those are not values that when I aspire to be Canadian, I aspire to have. I aspire to be part of a social structure that is welcoming and inclusive. And I don't think the right has been embodying that lately — specifically with Andrew Scheer and a lot of his political stance. Be it about women's rights, gay rights, and his stance regarding immigration.

CO: And on that subject of rights, I understand that not only did you get to vote as a Canadian for the first time this week [DR laughs], but you getting married to the man in your life next week, right?

DR: Yes, indeed. I'm getting married to Matthew on Friday the 25^th [chuckle].

CO: Well, big congratulations to you, Danny.

DR: Thank you very much. I really appreciate I, Carol.

CO: Thanks for speaking with us, bye-bye.

DR: Of course, bye-bye.

JM: Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian who voted for the first time this election. He was in Vancouver

[Music: Ambient]

Fort Worth Mayor

SOUNDCLIP

OPPERATOR: Fort Worth Police operator 8873, what’s the address?

CALLER: I'm calling about my neighbour. Her front doors have been open since 10:00, and I haven't seen anybody moving around. It's not normal for them to have the doors open this time of night.

00:16:45 - SPEAKER: M7

JM: That's part of the non-emergency call Fort Worth resident James Smith made to police in the early hours of Saturday morning. Mr. Smith says his intention was simply for police to make sure his neighbour was safe. Instead, Atatiana Jefferson — who is black — was shot and killed by one of the officers who responded to that call. According to a lawyer for Ms. Jefferson's family, she had been playing videogames with her eight-year-old nephew when she was shot through a bedroom window. The white officer who fired the shot is under investigation. He resigned today, as the police force were forced to fire him. Speaking to reporters today, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price says her heart goes out to Ms. Jefferson's family — and to James Smith, the neighbour who phoned the police.

SOUNDCLIP

BETSY PRICE: I know you're hurting today as well. You called police, as we ask good neighbours to do. You were being that wonderful neighbour — the one that we all want next door to us — the type of person who does what's right in Fort Worth. Atatiana’s death has left you totally shaken, and your sense of security and trust in law enforcement jeopardized. And I'm sorry. To Atatiana's nephew — who witness the unspeakable loss — sorry doesn't cut it. The entire city needs to surround this young man with prayers, support, and anything that his family needs.

JM: Betsy Price is the mayor of Fort Worth, Texas — where 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed by police over the weekend. According to Ms. Jefferson's family, she was babysitting her nephew Zion when police arrived at her home. Speaking at a press conference today, Zion's mother, Amber Carr, said her son is the one who told her that her sister had been killed.

SOUNDCLIP

AMBER CARR: The first time at school that to see him and pick him up from a facility for children, the first thing he told me was he was sad. And I asked him why was he sad? And he told me because the police had shot his aunt. And at that time, I knew nothing about that. So he was the one who actually told me what happened. But at this time, he's my motivation. He's my biggest encouragement. In the middle of the night, when I'm crying, he wakes up and tells me to breathe in my nose and out my mouth. He holds me. He hugs me. And these are the things I should be doing for him, but he's not reacting in that manner. He's helping me to be strong. And I believe that's because my sister had a big part in that.

JM: Amber Carr is the sister of Atatiana Jefferson, who was shot and killed by a police officer in Fort Worth, Texas over the weekend.

[Music: Horns]

Norman the Lamb

Guest: Melanie MacLean

JM: Melanie MacLean is used to raising and selling her lambs. But in September, the crofter had a tough time parting with one wooly guy in particular, who she called Norman. After Ms. MacLean sold him at a local market, she had a change of heart. We reached her in Benbecula, Scotland.

CO: Melanie, what made you so attached to him? I mean you raised a lot of lambs, so what was it about Norman?

MELANIE MACLEAN: I can't put my finger on it, to be honest. But he was a very affectionate lamb. Normally as they get older, they become a bit more independent. You know you can distance yourselves from them. But I don't know what it was Norman? He just he actually enjoyed a cuddle. It just wasn't about food for him. He enjoyed affection. And you know I gave that to him in abundance, which he enjoyed.

CO: And you had a special bond with him because you kept him alive, didn't you when he was born?

MM: Yeah, he wasn't very well at all when he was born. I wasn't sure whether he was gonna make it. But I was with him for 48 hours really round the clock, just to make sure that he had everything he needed. I had him under a heat lamp for a while. And I had to feed him by a stomach tube. I was delighted obviously when he made it through.

CO: And why didn't his mother feed him?

MM: Well, he was one of a set of triplets. And when he was born, he was very weak. He couldn't stand, couldn't support his own head, and she was paying attention to the other two. Sheep only have enough teats actually to feed two lambs. So I just made this decision to remove him from the mother because he wouldn't have made it otherwise.

CO: It's routine for you then to sell them off to those who are going to make them dinner, right?

MM: Yeah. I run a small crofter — myself and my husband — it’s a bit of a hobby for us. We're not a massive farm. So we just we just have 20 sheep, and I know them all individually. And every year, it's the same thing for me. I normally sell about 25 lambs. And I've just got used to doing that. You know, that's just what we do.

CO: When you sold Norman, what went through your mind? What effect did that have on you? Was it the same as all the other lambs?

MM: No, I mean it bothers me selling my other lambs, but I do tend to manage to get over it. With Norman, I had the dilemma before I even went to the auction mart with him whether to take him or not? Because he was on his own, and he hadn't really mixed with the rest of the flock, I wasn't sure really how he would be with other lambs when he goes away? And I was just so attached to him. It wasn't like the rest of my lambs at all. He was more like a dog. That's the only way I can describe it really.

CO: At what point did you realize that you had made a mistake, and that you had to go and find Norman?

MM: I mean, I wasn't very happy on the day, but your head sometimes overrules your heart in these situations. Immediately, I wasn't happy about it. And I was talking to my husband afterwards, and we thought you know after about a week I should be okay. Time went on, and eventually, I just said I'm just not getting over this. I was talking about it every day to him. And eventually, he said, would you just please phone them and find out where he is?

CO: How did you find him?

MM: Well, I normally know who my lambs are sold to through the auction mart. And I managed to get a phone number for the farmer. And I phone phoned him and got his wife on the phone. And I was a little bit embarrassed, if I'm honest because I had willingly sold him. And it just seemed a bit strange phoning them back and saying, can I have my lamb back? [slight chuckle]

CO: [laugh] What did they say to you?

MM: Well, I mean she was so understanding. I was really surprised actually. You know, she said I fully understand exactly what you're saying. I’ve had lambs myself in the past, and it is a struggle. Don't worry about it. The only thing is he's in a field of 700 lambs on a 75-acre field, which is a bit like a needle in a haystack. But she says you're very welcome to come and find him.

CO: And how far away was he?

MM: Well, it's probably about 550 miles, 540 miles, which to me is a seven hours’ journey to get there. So it's a two-hour boat ride, then another five hours’ driving. When I got there, they welcomed me with open arms, to be honest. I was very grateful, and they showed me where the field was. It was an awful day, raining. I stood looking at this field, and my heart just sank because I thought I'm gonna be here for hours, you know? I'll be lucky if I find him. So we drove into the field, and there was all these little lambs lying around, and none of them looked like my Norman. But I noticed there was a little Suffolk lamb lying by itself with a little tag — one that I tend to use. I thought, oh, I'll just try this one. So I asked the farmer to stop, and he was about 20 metres away lying down. And I just sort of stepped out the passenger side of the car. And he just leapt to his feet. I have a pink hat on that I wear on the croft every day when I was feeding him and keeping him company, so he probably would have recognized the hat. So he came running to me like a bullet. And I just couldn't believe it. And I just crouched down and I gave him a big hug. And oh, I was crying, and I was totally overwhelmed and very surprised that we managed to get him so quickly.

CO: How did how did the other family react when he saw this reunion?

MM: He used the word himself he was astonished. He actually said to me that's astonishing, lass. If you ever write your memoirs, you'll have to put that in because that is simply astonishing. I can't believe he's come to you. Yeah, I was absolutely delighted, and very, very overwhelmed by the whole thing, very emotional.

CO: What is it do you think that made Norman so special? What was the bond that you had? Because you've obviously raised a lot of animals that turned into food, and so what is it about this one, do you think?

MM: He was just very affectionate. He wasn't simply food-motivated. He actually generally loved my company, and I loved his company. You know, I sometimes used to sit in his field, and he'd come and just lay down beside me. And I'd just be stroking his head. And some lambs just don’t like that. They do distance themselves eventually from you, and they become more independent. But he just didn't. We’d come out of the house, and he was in a little field near the house. And if he heard the door opening, you'd just see his little head up near this gate, just waiting for us to go over and say hello. Even when we finish bottle feeding him, he was doing that all the time. So he loved us, and I think we certainly loved him.

CO: And so how's Norman been since he got home?

MM: Oh, he's been great. He's been getting a lot of attention, as you can imagine. And so yeah, no, he's settled back in straightaway. He's behaving like a little spoilt lamb as he normally does [CO laughs]. It's all good. You know, you learn lessons in life. And I just wouldn't let my head rule my heart from now on. I think the selling of the lambs, and my calves, has always been a struggle for me. And I don't want that to change, you know? Because I would never get complacent about them. You know on this occasion, it was the right thing for me, and probably would have travelled to the ends of the earth to go and get him. Once you make that decision, you just have to go with it. So yeah, a happy ending for Norman, and a happy ending for me.

CO: What a great story. Melanie, thank you so much.

MM: You're very welcome. Thanks for the interest [laughs].

CO: Goodnight.

MM: Thanks now. Bye-bye.

JM: Melanie MacLean raises lambs in Benbecula, Scotland. She travelled more than 500 miles — by ferry and car — to retrieve her pet lamb Norman. We reached her in Benbecula.

[Music: World music]

Part two: Syria: Galbraith, Iowa newspaper lawsuit

Syria: Galbraith

Guest: Peter Galbraith

JM: Today, as Turkey continues its invasion of northeastern Syria, Kurdish forces are fighting alongside a new ally. Not the Americans, who have been their partners against ISIS for the past four years — and who yesterday, announced a "deliberate" withdrawal over the coming days and weeks. Instead, seeking protection, they have aligned themselves with the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have now entered the Kurdish-held territory for the first time in years. Peter Galbraith is a former U.S. Ambassador and Democratic state senator, who has worked as an adviser to the Kurds in both Syria and Iraq. He was in Townshend, Vermont.

CO: Mr. Galbraith, what do you make of the news that Kurdish forces have struck a deal, and are now working with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad?

PETER GALBRAITH: They had no choice when Donald Trump gave Turkish president Erdogan a green-light to invade northeast Syria. The Kurds had no ally. And so on the one hand, they had a Turkish military that was attacking their main population centres. And on the other side, they had the Syrian government, which they had never fought. And so they entered into a deal with the Syrian government for Syrian forces to come to the border and to some of the main towns. But at least for a period of time, the local Kurdish administration will remain intact.

CO: We spoke with a Kurdish leader last week, asking this question if they would strike any kind of deal with Bashar al-Assad. And he acknowledged that it's been a brutal regime. It's killed hundreds of thousands of people. He said that they would do that — enter into some agreement — if they thought that their democratic rights would be respected. Is there any chance that is what Bashir al-Asad is recognizing?

PG: It is part of the agreement. And the agreement will include discussions on autonomy for the Kurdish area, and on Kurdish rights. Also, one has to bear in mind that Assad's forces are stretched pretty thin. So although the Syrian Democratic Forces — that number about 70,000 — will become part of the Syrian army, they will have their own command structure, and they'll still be the people in charge. And finally, this was a deal that was brokered by Russia. So the Russians have some interest in ensuring that the Assad government will implement it. Now, one of my Kurdish friends said to me he said well, I worry that we can't trust the Russians. But, of course, they know they can't trust the Americans under Donald Trump.

CO: What role are the Russians playing? Because they're being cautious in their language, aren't they? Because they certainly I would imagine do not want to enter into conflict with Turkey. So what role is Russia actually playing?

PG: Well, Russia did play the role in brokering this agreement, which does bring Syrian troops to the border. So there is, of course, the possibility of clashes between the Syrian army and the Turkish army. And this could draw in the Russians in support of their Syrian ally.

CO: We can't forget that Turkey is a NATO ally. So at what point does any of this — especially if Russia is in some way a standing off against Turkey — at what point does it actually evolve or pull in other members of the alliance?

PG: Well, the US secretary of defense said that Turkey wasn't much of an ally. Trump has been readying sanctions on Turkey. And there is bipartisan legislation in the US Congress and the Senate by Senators Chris Van Hollen and Lindsey Graham to impose severe sanctions on Turkey. So actually, there's in my mind a question about whether in fact, Turkey will remain a member of NATO, and indeed perhaps about the future of NATO. Ironically, there are two US allies in this conflict: the Kurds, who fought along the US against the Islamic State, and Turkey, which has been a member of NATO and an American ally since 1948. And Trump's decision may cost the United States both allies. Of course, there's always the suspicion that Trump's goal has been to get rid of NATO. I mean, he said as much at various times. And whether intentional or not, that may be one result of what he's doing.

CO: There are still US forces in the region. They've pulled back, but they are still there. And in the line of fire, more-or-less, so is there any role that those forces are still engaged in?

PG: My understanding of what is going on is that there is a chaotic withdrawal of US forces. The Americans tried to pull out with them some of the most hardcore ISIS fighters, and the Kurds refused. Some of the American forces are cut off from the exit point to Iraqi Kurdistan. In a certain way, this reminds me of another chaotic exit that is in April of 1975 from South Vietnam, when the US failed to support its ally, the South Vietnamese, and the country was turned over to the enemy. Here too, the United States betrayed its ally. And the end result of this is that one-third of Syria is now going to the hands of the American adversary, the Syrian government, backed by Iran and Russia.

CO: The motivation for what has triggered all of this is President Trump's decision to withdraw American forces from that region. And he said that he was committed to ending endless wars by pulling those troops out. Do you appreciate that position at all?

PG: Well, I appreciate the concern about endless wars. But this wasn't one of the endless wars. There is an endless war in Afghanistan. There is something of an endless war in Iraq. But in the case of Syria, all the fighting was done by the Kurds, the Syrian Democratic Forces. They took eleven thousand casualties fighting the Islamic State. And if the Islamic State comes back as it now looks like it will, it would’ve been the Kurds who would’ve been doing the fighting against it. So it was not America's endless war, aside from the presence of a thousand troops who were in really quite safe circumstances. Now, of course, when the Islamic State comes back, the United States is not going to have an ally to join in fighting it in Syria. And if the US chooses to do it itself, it's going to put at risk the lives of thousands of American servicemen or women. Or what I think is more likely is that the Trump administration will simply allow ISIS to come back.

CO: We will have to leave it there. We will obviously we are following this very closely. Mr. Galbraith, thank you.

PG: Well, very good talking to you.

CO: Bye-bye.

PG: Goodbye.

JM: Peter Galbraith is a former US Ambassador and Democratic state senator, who has worked as an adviser to the Kurds. He was in Townshend, Vermont. This afternoon, US President Donald Trump announced plans to impose sanctions on Turkish government officials, increase steel tariffs, and said he would immediately stop negotiations on a trade deal with Turkey.

[Music: Sombre]

Winnipeg evacuees

JM: Evacuees from First Nations communities across Manitoba are preparing to spend the night at emergency shelters in Winnipeg after severe snowstorms forced them from their homes. Tens of thousands are without power in the province and both the city and province have both declared states of emergency. This afternoon, a group from Lake Manitoba Reserve found themselves at the same Winnipeg hotel as Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer — who is in town campaigning today. Community leader Margaret Missyabit was asked if she felt it was appropriate for Mr. Scheer to be campaigning during the emergency. Here's some of what she had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

MARGARET MISSYABIT: No, I don't think so. He should be helping out. If he wants to campaign, he should help the people.

PERSON IN BACKGROUND: No food, no water.

MM: No food, no water. We can't even use our own washrooms. There are people that need to buy milk for their babies. People that smoke cigarettes. I know it's not a big issue. But still, it's awful when children have to stand around and watch other people eating chips and drinks right in front of these children, and they're not getting any kind of assistance yet. What are they doing with that? If Andrew Scheer wants to help, he should come and help us. That's what I have to say about him. Give us our funding, and quit shuffling us around. We're not animals to be shuffled around like this. It's frustrating. I myself have a son that's on disability. He's a sick child. He's 19. I have to take care of my son by myself. And what kind of assistance have I gotten yet? Nothing. Nothing. Ask any one of these people standing here, no one's got nothing. Raise your hands if you had any kind of funding yet! There, you got it? See it? Nobody raised their hands. We're all waiting. Apparently, they're going to send a bus here to pick us up. They're taking us from out of here, and I don't even know where they're taking us.

JM: That's Margaret Missyabit of Lake Manitoba Reserve, speaking to reporters in Winnipeg. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has Tweeted, quote, "My thoughts are with all of the families who are affected by the snowstorms in Manitoba. Canada's Conservatives are committed to ensuring Indigenous communities have the energy infrastructure needed to maintain essential services." End quote. Mr. Scheer also told reporters in Winnipeg that he has made a personal donation to the Red Cross to support those affected.

[Music: World music]

Iowa newspaper lawsuit

Guest: Doug Burns

JM: There are two usual outcomes when a newspaper is hit with a libel lawsuit: the paper wins, or it loses. But a small town newspaper in Iowa somehow both won and lost. In 2017, the Carroll Times Herald published a story about a local police officer. It alleged that he was having a legal but inappropriate relationships with teenage girls — one of whom he met while on duty. That officer resigned from the police force. Then he filed a lawsuit for libel. The court ruled in favour of the newspaper. But the newspaper is still in trouble, because it pursued the story. Doug Burns is the co-owner and vice-president of news for the Carroll Times Herald. We reached Mr. Burns at the newspaper's office.

CO: Doug, what challenges is your newspaper now facing after going through this libel lawsuit?

DOUG BURNS: Well, Carol, you know we initially vetted this story very thoroughly, and we're confident with our reporting in it. And then after we published it, the former police officer filed a lawsuit. We were engaged in it for the better part of a year. So there were you know expenses associated with that. We did have libel insurance, which covered a good part of it. But there were other legal expenses. And then you know in this era of fake news and all of the other anti-media tropes that President Trump has developed, we started to get pushback on you know subscriptions. We've had some advertising lost that’s tied back to kind of some of the hostility that was generated toward us for publishing what I thought was — and what we thought — was just good public interest accountability journalism.

CO: You won the suit. You’re not suffering all these things because you lost.

DB: N o, we didn't have the facts wrong. But before we ran the story, the police chief here tried to suggest to me that we shouldn't be running the story. You know, that we shouldn't be engaging in you know kind of a moral judgment on this police officer. You know, had we not pursued it doggedly, it's likely that the officer would still be employed because it was our reporting that revealed the information on his behaviour. And because we live in a rural area that at times can be tribal and that you know would probably prefer that some information not be published, there definitely is a… We have still a strong circulation and a lot of supporters, don't get me wrong, and a lot of good advertisers. But there was some pushback, and it did play into an us-versus-them kind of scenario that has continued to dog us. But this story that you told — the story you investigated — was you'd found out that there was a local police officer who appeared to be having relationships with teenage women and girls, is that right?

DB: A relationship with a teenage girl in our community. And then as we researched it, there was some online interaction with another female in eastern Iowa. And we were able to obtain the records from council meetings in that community — Sumner, Iowa — that definitely established a pattern of interest.

CO: We should point out that there's nothing illegal in this, right?

DB: No, and our story was you know it's very clear. We pointed that out that the age of consent is 16. You know, we were very clear he didn't do anything illegal.

CO: So why did you think it was in the public interest?

DB: Well, just in talking to the fathers and mothers of people of that age in the community, you know having an officer who goes out on a police call and then begins to interact with a teenage girl, we just thought that behaviour, that kind of activity was worth reporting. And he, in fact, resigned his position. So I think the fact that he parted ways with the police department vindicated our decision that this is definitely in the in the public interest. Most people in the public would want to know that a police officer who sworn to protect them is engaging in sexual activity with a teenage girl — something that he admitted in a deposition that I sat through.

CO: He did admit to this relationship, right?

DB: Correct.

CO: Had the facts been established through him, and through your reporting that he had had this relationship?

DB: Yes, the facts were established. And we reported the story, and it was accurate. And in a judge's motion on summary judgment, the judge deemed our story to be accurate.

CO: What has this meant? Given you have all these costs now associated with this suit, what does that mean for a small town newspaper like yourself?

DB: So what I want to be clear about is I think we'd still be able if no money had come in from GoFindMe, we would still be able to operate a paper. But I would have really had to look at adjusting the mission. And to tackle these kind of court stories, it really requires having we have a really talented reporter, Jared Strong. And if you don't have a reporter with the kind of skill set and experience to tackle these kind of stories, then it's really perilous for a newspaper to do it. So a lot of papers, you know they can't afford to have investigative enterprise reporter like we have in Jared.

CO: And he was the one who broke this story?

DB: Yeah, he was the one who broke the story. And so you know we want to be clear that this GoFundMe, the money I'm seeking allows us to continue the sort of aggressive accountability public interest government watchdog journalism at the level I think all communities should expect, and at the level we've provided it through three generations of our family's ownership of the paper.

CO: So will continue to do investigative journalism, or will you change your mission?

DB: No, absolutely, absolutely. And we have the bandwidth to do it. The concern was going to be because of the lost revenue associated with this case, as well as the general headwinds that everybody in traditional media is facing, not just newspapers, but small town radio stations, and so forth that you know we would have to go back to more of a I don’t want to say at church bulletin kind of publication, but more community newsletter approach where you're just covering you know covering the games, covering the school board meetings, covering council meetings, and focusing on those type of stories. Doing some features. But you're going to have to really make an investment both in talent and time to even consider — as you know very well — to even consider going after an investigative story like this. And we plan to continue to dedicate resources to do just these type of stories, you know? This isn't the last of our efforts to hold public officials accountable in a variety ways.

CO: All right. We'll leave it there. Doug, thank you.

DB: All right. Thank you.

CO: Bye.

DB: Bye-bye.

JM: Doug Burns is the co-owner and vice-president of news for the Carroll Times Herald. We reached him at the newspaper's office in Carroll, Iowa.

[Music: Ambient]

Broccoli protestor

JM: Whether you're with them or against the them, broccoli protesters are nothing new around dinner tables across North America. But across the pond yesterday evening, it was a different scene altogether. On Oxford Street in London England, as the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion staged a demonstration against climate inaction, one member stood out among all others: a lone giant stalk of broccoli, carrying a homemade sign reading "I am locally-sourced and environmentally friendly". A rare instance of broccoli protesting against people. The broccoli was subsequently apprehended by a number of policemen — and his arrest was captured on video. It's not clear exactly what the broccoli was charged with — police say they cannot comment on individual cases. No doubt the speculation among anti-broccoli extremists will be that he was stalking — but there's no evidence for it. Nor is there any basis for one online observer's wry tweet — that he attempted to escape by hailing a cab and telling the driver to "floret". On the contrary, he was reluctant to make like a broccoli, and leave. As officers surround and handcuff him, he can be heard to proclaim "Give peas a chance!" as he lifts a smaller broccoli into the air.

[Music: 60’s British pop]

Part three: Feature: Susan Sontag biography

Feature: Susan Sontag biography

Guest: Benjamin Moser

JM: "To a divided world, she brought a divided self." That's how the biographer Benjamin Moser describes Susan Sontag. But the phrase only begins to scratch the surface of who the American thinker and writer was. Ms. Sontag was in Hanoi as bombs fell. She witnessed the fall of the Berlin wall. And she joined Sarajevans during the deadly siege. But Susan Sontag didn't just witness history -- she changed the way we understand the present. She wrote about the need to bear witness to human suffering. She bridged the gap between high and low-brow art. She changed the way we talk about diseases like cancer and AIDS. But she was also a woman of striking contradictions. Benjamin Moser new biography is titled "Sontag: Her Life and Work." Mr. Moser joined Carol recently in studio for a feature chat.

CO: Benjamin Moser, welcome to the As It Happens studio.

BENJAMIN MOSER: Thank you.

CO: Eight hundred pages long, this is a massive amount of work, seven years you spent writing. You interviewed 600 people?

BM: Yeah, it's 573 [CO laughs]. Somebody who is not me counted that.

CO: You look very young, but I’m wondering if you feel you could now retire?

BM: Yes, I do actually. I'm retiring from biography. [CO laughs] I think this is the second biography I've done, and I feel like I'm really excited about publishing this and seeing what's next.

CO: You were approached by Susan Sontag’s estate to write this, but why were you personally interested in it?

BM: Well, I was fascinated having written a biography of Clarice Lispector — the great Brazilian novelist — by this world of the great intellectual woman of the 20th century. I thought there was so much to be excited about there. I felt that there was a whole lot that was not being said about those women and that time. And I was also impressed that there was a lot to be quite shocked by. And so the more I dug into this, the more you learn about them, and the more interesting they become.

CO: Had you ever met her before?

BM: Never, never. I graduated from university in 1998, and then I moved to New York. And I worked in publishing and journalism. And everybody who worked in publishing and journalism always saw Susan Sontag because she was out and about for years and years. And she was this famous figure. It’s so strange. I always think about why I never met her.

CO: But one feels that she was ubiquitous. I mean, and that image it's an icon, isn't it? This stunning woman with her black hair and the white streak in it. And you write about it that she deliberately created that icon.

BM: She deliberately created it. And one of my triumphs as a biographer was that I found the hairdresser in Honolulu, who actually gave her the white streak in her hair. What happened is she had had cancer, which she was quite young; she was 42 when she got stage four breast cancer, and she survived, but her hair went white. She kept her hair. Sometimes you lose your hair during chemotherapy, but she didn't. But she went to her mother, who was this very correct Jewish woman, who was always trying to get her daughter to dress nice and put on mascara and stuff, which was totally not interesting to Susan. And she sent her to her hairdresser to kind of clean her up. And the hairdresser put this white streak in her hair. And what's funny is that the white streak kind of overtakes her writing in a certain way. And she even joked about it. She said once when someone asked her what she was most famous for, she said the white streak in my black hair.

CO: [laughs] But at the same time, I mean, you didn't just get the hairdresser to tell you this. There's a lot of those kinds of stories of personal aspects of Susan Sontag’s life. But the family — her family — gave you tremendous access to her diaries. I can't imagine what it would be like for you, for my mother, or anybody's mother to have their kids give a stranger all that material, but they did. Why did they trust you much?

BM: Well, I think that I had written this previous biography about someone who she does present certain similarities to Susan Sontag — Clarice Lespector does. What I was told is that there was a kind of similarity between two female intellectuals who had worked internationally, you know? Who weren't just identified with their own countries. And along with that, it was quite scary actually because I also was granted access to her computer, which is a weird thing to do.

CO: Her emails.

BM: Her emails were in this laptop at UCLA in California. And I was allowed to rifle through her emails. And the thing is it's very scary, and it's very creepy. There's also software that you can use to analyze people's moods based on their emails. So you can say like she was angry, 12.7 per cent of the time, or whatever. And it's really weird. And you do feel a responsibility to be respectful, and to be tactful, and to always be thinking about would I like this if this was my mother? But I think that Sontag it's important to say, she sold that stuff to the archive herself. So it's not an invasion. It's not like going through somebody's stuff who didn't consent to having it read. She knew that she would be written about. But it is a responsibility to be respectful, and you're always aware of it. But having done a previous biography, I think that I knew that you can't judge what people are going to think is weird. The things that set people off or are often very, very tiny little things that you never would have thought of. You think, oh, I got to be really careful about the divorce, or the money, or the breakup with the girlfriend, or something like that. And then they say like my mother never wrote in red ink, she always wrote in blue ink, and you get a letter from the lawyer, you know? It's funny.

CO: But you're not careful about anything. I mean, this is the farthest thing from hagiography you can have.

BM: Really?

CO: And it’s not that you’re horrible to her, but it's warts and all. She is who she is. And stories that… Well, explosive findings that you have — including your belief, your conviction, from what you've seen that her husband, whom she married when she was a teenager. Her husband, who wrote this groundbreaking book “Sigmund Freud: The Mind of the Moralist” was actually written by Susan Sontag. What did you find out?

BM: Well, I found out something that she had always claimed privately. I mean, she had never flagged in her private claim that she had written this book when she was quite a young woman, and she married her professor. She got engaged after knowing him for a week. This relationship was in a certain way her way to become an intellectual in a time that women were just not encouraged or even allowed to write, and to publish, and to teach in the way that now we think of we kind of take for granted — especially people of my generation. And I think that she started writing this book based on his notes and trying to help him with it. And then she starts taking it over and writing the whole thing. The marriage fails, and she has a small child. And she's in a relationship with a woman. I mean that's not the reason the marriage breaks up, but the marriage had broken up, and she hadn't met a woman, and she was with a woman to the high one in the United States — and I'm sure in Canada too — homosexuality was grounds for taking away people's children. It happened all the time. In the United States, it happened until the 1990s. People completely forget that. And her husband was a man who made all sorts of threats. He was much older and more powerful, and better connected. And the story was that she had given up her rights to this book in order to keep her child. And it's easy for me to imagine, you know you’ve gone through this horrible divorce, you're ready to go on move, move on with your life. You think okay, fine, take the book, you know? But then you regret it, and she regretted it bitterly until the end of her life.

CO: As you point out, it's hard to imagine now, but not at the time. Not in the time of the 60s and 70s. And this man was somebody that you saw letters where her friend said how can you do this? I mean why are you doing this? And he says I am without consolation. You cannot give your intellectual contribution to another person. Why do you think she agreed even to keep her name off the book?

BM: I think she was ready to be rid of him. And I think that it was a very painful divorce, where a lot of threats were being made. She was absolutely terrified that she would have her child taken away from her. And she sort of thought this was a path of least resistance. But I've worked on this book — “Sontag: Her Life and Work” — for seven years. And she worked on that book for almost the same amount of time. And I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to give your book away. I mean it's a very painful thing to contemplate. And, luckily, she went on to write all these other books. But I would love for the book to be reissued under her name, and finally to be given this credit.

CO: What effect do you think that had on her? How might it have shaped Susan Sontag as a writer, as an intellectual, even as a person?

BM: Well, I mean “Against Interpretation” — which is her very famous essay of the early 60s — it could read against “Freud”. Because she grows up in an intellectual culture in which the glamour of two great figures who are Freud and Marx, who offer these complete explanations for society, and for economics, and for personality, and for family life and everything are still at the very height of their prestige. They seem to give you a key to culture. And she was fascinated by moving away from that idea and actually just experiencing something as beautiful, enjoying some music, seeing a painting directly in your body. And that was very seductive to her. And so I think that after she writes the “Freud” book, she responds to it in this other way. And I think that she's always debating with herself. And when you look at this image that you mentioned, this very formidable image, this very glamorous, beautiful woman who was always pronouncing things in this very severe accent and these very thunderous tones, that was not who she really was in her writing. And not to speak of in her personal life, she was not as certain as she seemed. And I think what's fun about reading her and reading about her is that you see that she's always thinking yeah, but what about this? And she says the nature of thinking is but. She's always thinking through the same things this writing about previously.

CO: I have in the As It Happens studio with me Benjamin Moser, author of a new biography titled “Sontag: Her Life and Work”. And it really truly is her life as well as her work. And as you find out about her inside private existence, she was unsure of herself. I mean how can this woman who pronounced on things, who saw things, who saw through everything, whose mind we all held on to the next great insight. And yet, she was wracked with her own insecurities. What did you learn about that from her diaries?

BM: Well, I think that's fascinating. I mean from the very beginning, and in “Notes on Camp,” she says there's a difference in a woman and a woman in quotes. And there's a difference in Susan Sontag, the actual human, and Susan Sontag in quotes — this figure that she creates. And she becomes a great diva. She grows up in Hollywood, which people don't remember. Her mother and grandmother are both obsessed with the film industry that was starting right at the time that they moved to Los Angeles in the 1910s. And because she doesn't really have a mother — her mother is an alcoholic who checks out of family life; her father's dead — she models herself on the great larger-than-life woman, starting with Madea, and going through Joan of Arc, and Sarah Barnhart, and Maria Callas, and Greta Garbo. She loves these women — including erotically. She writes about her attraction to Greta Garbo, which is really fascinating. And she becomes — at least for Americans — the next figure in this lineage. And she does it deliberately. And I think she does it because she's so unsure of herself inside. I really appreciate her insecurity. I appreciate that she wasn't always as certain as she seemed. And I think that knowing that gives you some space as a reader to understand yourself a little better because you can think oh, it's not as if this person was always right, and never screwed anything up. She did, and she learned from it, and she moved on. And she had this outer shell, I guess that offered her the protection that the insecure self-inside needed.

CO: Did you have difficulty as you were writing this of showing all these details? I mean talking about Susan Sontag as a woman who wasn't sure she was bathing often enough. And personal details about how she thought about her body and her breasts and were there moments for you that you thought I don't know if I can do this?

BM: Oh, a lot. She presents a real challenge to a biographer because she's both incredibly sympathetic, and she's incredibly human and understandable. And at the same time, she's quite weird in some ways. She can be very cruel to people. And that's something that I love her. You know, I've said I love her, but I don't always like her. And I think that's when you're in a biographical relation. It's almost like being in a relation with your own mother, your own spouse.

CO: For many of us, her extraordinary book “Illness as Metaphor” was the discovery of Susan Sontag and her great mind. And late 1970s, she learns she has stage four breast cancer. And then she writes this book. What was so groundbreaking about “Illness as Metaphor” at the time?

BM: Well, “Illness as Metaphor” is like many classic works. It's something that has only become more interesting since she wrote it. In 1975, she gets breast cancer and she almost dies. And then in 1978, she publishes this book — in which she never mentions that she herself had breast cancer. And this was partially generational. She says that my mother said you talk about yourself too much. Stop talking about yourself. Ask other people about themselves. You know, be polite — which is something I can perfectly picture my grandmother saying. It's very typical I think — especially of Jewish women of that generation — that you just didn't do that. But the book is against the metaphors of illness. She thinks that the lies and the mystifications that surround cancer particularly — and also tuberculosis — kill people. So if you think that cancer is a result of sexual repression, which I was astonished to learn.

CO: Which was actually I thought at that time, yes.

BM: I had never heard that. I was born in 1976, so I'm not that much younger than this. But I never heard that. And at the same time, she's writing to fight these metaphors. Because if you think that your cancer is your own fault, you think that you gave yourself this illness because you've lived badly, people will not then get treatment. They won't talk about it. They won't actually save themselves when they could save themselves. Not always, but sometimes. And one of the astonishing things in the archive are the letters from people that wrote to Sontag and thanked her for this, and say how they were encouraged to get treatment. They were incurred to change doctors. They were encouraged to reach out to their friends. And they wouldn't have dared without this because they were ashamed. And in 1981, the first few cases of gay men with this mysterious disease appear in the United States — mainly in New York and San Francisco.

CO: The AIDS epidemic.

BM: And this is HIV and then AIDS. And this is a disease of sexual shame. It's specifically of gay sexual shame at a time when gay sex was something that was absolutely unspeakable. I mean, even here she writes about breast cancer. In the 1960s, in the New York Times, a woman's organization tried to place an ad about breast cancer, and they got a response that I quote in the book that says neither the word breast nor the word cancer may appear in the pages of The New York Times. So imagine not that many years later — only really 20 years later — something comes along that's killing gay men — specifically when the language, and the moralism, and the metaphors get in the way of actually saying what's going on — people die. And you couldn't think of a better illustration of the theses of “Illness as Metaphor”. I mean, unfortunately, that was the case. But that's one of the reasons why I think this book has grown in stature and relevance, even though she couldn't have predicted that.

CO: She wrote “Illness as Metaphor” about cancer in the 1970s. Ten years later, she writes a kind of sequel to that “Illnesses as Metaphor” addressing the very thing you're talking about: the HIV and the AIDS epidemic. But the way you describe it that she pulls back from that. What is it that prevents her from really exploring that?

BM: The feminist critique of writing about women and writing by women in the 1970s said that you can't talk about the body in this kind of abstract Greek sculpture kind of way. You have to say my body, and this is my breast, which has cancer. At the same time, the gay critique is evolving in the same direction. If you want gay equality and you want gay people to not have to lose their children, you want gay people to be able to not lose their homes and their jobs, which was very common and, unfortunately, still is in a lot of parts of the world, you have to show your face. Because if you don't know who is dying and who is fighting, you are complicit in the kind of silence that then continues this oppression. And so when AIDS comes along, millions of people are taken out of the closet by force. Because a lot of people who got AIDS were married to women, or they hadn't told their families that they were gay, or they had children, or their employees thought they were dirty and fired them. You know your lives were on the line. And in the Reagan years, when we in the United States had an explicitly and violently homophobic government, the obligation for prominent people, particularly to say who they were became completely different. And so her mother had said stop talking about yourself too much. Stop saying I. But then by that point, it was imperative to say I so that you could put a face to this and stop the media portrayals.

She was very reluctant to come out as a gay woman. Was that a factor? Did that create the reluctance in her to really address the issue of AIDS?

BM: She always had a distance. She always had a self-preserving distance I think. I think a lot of the reason she needed this diva figure on the outside is that she was deeply ashamed in a certain way of her sexuality. Even when she was a little girl, and she first is discovering it, and she's writing about it in her journals, she's terrified by it. Because, of course, it is terrifying if you live in a homophobic society where all these things can happen to you, so I don't want to judge that. I just want to point out the historical circumstance. I think is very important for women, I think is very important for gay people how much we owe to these pioneers. I think it's pretty quickly forgotten. I mean it is quickly forgotten that female graduate students were considered totally inappropriate in the lifetimes of my mother.

CO: But she had all these relationships with women, and it was not a secret. What did she say in her private writings and her letters? How did she address her physical attraction to women?

BM: Well, she, and a lot of women of her generation, and men too thought that that was their private business. And it was, of course. But the gay analysis that comes up — especially around AIDS — says that sexuality is no more private than being Canadian, or being Catholic, or being black. It's a public thing. And if you act like it's not, you're preparing the same.

CO: Do you think she felt ashamed of her sexuality.

BM: Yeah, that's pretty clear. She was deeply ashamed of it. On the other hand, because she had this metaphorical persona that was this famous image, it's really hard to overstate how important she was for lesbians. And how even though she was privately conflicted about it, just as lesbians like her had known that Greta Garbo was gay, it was really inspiring and really important for a lot of lesbians — not only intellectuals and writers and professors, and the sort of people you would think, but really a whole lot of lesbians. It's very hard to imagine how invisible gay people were. I quote in the book someone who says all these old ladies were absolutely shocked to learn that Liberace was gay. You know there was nobody you could look up to. And this formidable, glamorous, beautiful, intellectual who knew everybody, and understood everything, had read every book and seen every movie. It really was an inspiring thing to people, so I don't want to judge it. I think it's a very personal decision. I think that she helped a whole lot of gay people because they recognized her.

CO: I am speaking with Benjamin Moser in the As It Happens studio. We're talking about his extraordinary biography of Susan Sontag — “Sontag Her Life and Work”. You know, for all these sort of ambivalence people have, and we can go on about so many people you interviewed, who loved her, who hated, who loved the hate her, who hated to love her. But where she was absolutely universally adored — and I know this firsthand — was in the city of Sarajevo, in Bosnia. Where, first of all, her son David Rieff wrote a very, very powerful book about it, and then brought his mother into the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s. What drew her to that city?

BM: When she was a little girl living in California, she had this friend whom I met named Merrill Roden, who was this very nice friend of hers, who was intellectually equal, which was always her dream because she was very isolated. She always felt isolated in the suburbs. And they had this game where they would decide how many years they would give Igor Stravinsky in exchange for their own lives. And they decided I think it was four years. If they could let Stravinsky live four more years, they're ready to drop dead there on the spot. And it's kind of cute and kind of funny. But it's actually serious because Sondheim her whole life felt that culture and an artwork thing worth dying for. And in 1992… Well, I guess in 1991, when Yugoslavia starts to break up in this violent way, the city of Sarajevo is sealed off from the outside world. And it becomes the longest siege in modern history. I mean, it was something like three times as long as the Siege of Leningrad. It was an absolute horrible thing. There were no birds in the city because they had all fled. People walked around with feces in plastic bags because they didn't have any water. I mean it was an absolutely horrible place. It was the worst place in the whole world. And the thing about Sarajevo is that when we look at a city like Toronto, or like New York, or like Los Angeles now we see these big, diverse cities, and we're proud of the diversity and the multiculturalism. Sarajevo stood for that for her because it was a city that had Muslims, it had Jews, it had Catholics, it had Orthodox people. It was a melting pot. And it was being destroyed, and people were being taken away to concentration camps in full view of the world's media. And it's an hour from Venice. And she went there. And she stayed there almost for three years. I mean, she went 11 times; she came back, and back, and back, and back. One of the most touching things for me is she's associated with elite culture. But I was once in a little marketplace in Sarajevo, and I was with a translator, and I said I saw this very normal-looking woman selling meat in the marketplace. And I said to my translator I said ask that lady if she knows who Susan Sontag was. In Sarajevo, this woman was absolutely offended. She was just livid that I would think that she didn't know who Susan Sontag was. And she started talking about how nobody believed us. We were sitting here, we're normal people, we are people that are part of Europe, and we were being murdered, and nobody was doing a damn thing about it. And she came, and she held our hands, and she lived with us, and she lived like us.

CO: There's a square in Sarajevo named after Susan Sontag, and she is so celebrated because lots of people showed up — journalists, and writers — but they would bring some cigarettes. They'd bring some money. They'd bring some food. She brought them art. You'd think that well, that's just so high-minded. What she did is she put on a production with local actors of “Waiting for Godot” — Samuel Beckett's play. Where did that inspiration come from, do you know?

BM: Well, so I met a director, and I asked him that question. And she was trying to think what she could do because I think that all of us, if we're sitting here in Toronto, and we're looking at Syria now, and you think God, that's horrible. But what can you really do about it? And I think that as a citizen of a democratic country, you think you do have an obligation to do something for people. But is very hard to know what that is. She didn't know what to do. And she thought maybe I'll put on a play because at least that'll give some jobs to a few people, and it'll give a little bit of entertainment and culture to the city. And she was thinking about Beckett. And she was thinking about “Happy Days”. And she said to this director. And he said but Susan, here in Sarajevo, we're waiting. And what she meant you know was we're waiting for Godot, who's God. You know, it's the salvation of figure that we kind of know it's not going to be showing up. But at the same time, they were waiting for NATO. The United States Navy estimated it would take 48 hours to end the siege of Sarajevo. It would have been very easy — as it ultimately was — as soon as a few politicians made up their mind it was fine. And actually her production not only was great for the people there, but it got coverage all over the world. And it made the Bosnians seem sympathetic. And it helped create the context a tiny part of it, but still, the context in which Western nations thought enough was enough.

CO: I saw the set for. I didn't ever see the production. I've known many people who were there for that. The only backdrop they had was these plastic tarps from the United Nations. And there was no electricity. There was no running water. There was no nothing. And so they put on this production in the middle of ruins, where everyone who came had to dodge sniper fire in order to get there. It mattered so much that she did that for them, didn’t it?

BM: People were killed on the way to the theatre. I mean it wasn't the cultural event that we think of as like oh, there's a new show at the museum or there's a new play on. This was a matter of life and death, and they will never forget her. And it's really I loved being in Sarajevo and feeling that energy. And somehow she was more at home there than she was in Paris or New York.

CO: Why do you think that's the case?

BM: Because I think that culture really meant something to her. In an age where culture had been commodified, from the time of interpretation when there are all these new art forms, it's very exciting to read about the early sixties in New York, when people are creating these anti-commercial art forms. As it's hard to remember how bad of a place New York was 50 years ago. It was very poor and dangerous. And you could get these huge Lofts in the middle of Manhattan for nothing, and put on your weird play, or your new fashion show, or your weird music production. It was really, really exciting. She said it seemed to be normal that there was a new masterpiece every week. But then art becomes this kind of bourgeois commodified thing. And she always felt that art was resistance. She always felt that it was a way of asserting the dignity of humanity. And that's where she found the themes that when she was a little girl thinking about should she die for Stravinsky? She was able to express that, and they never forgot it.

CO: What do you think Susan Sontag would think of your book?

BM: That's something that I think any biographer is always, always thinking about. I hope that she would appreciate that it's honest. And that I have always tried to be sympathetic to her, even when I think she herself would admit that she was a difficult person. She was a very conflicted person in a lot of ways. She was often very unhappy, which I find sad. I think as her biographer, and someone who's wanting to be on her side, you want to tell her it's okay. Like you've done a good job, you’re Susan Sontag. You might not be Dostoyevsky. You know, she was always trying to be more than she was and feeling a real sense of failure. And I don't think she was a failure. I think that she was somebody whose legacy has gone on and on. And I think that she I hope would understand that I'm trying to present her to a new generation.

CO: And I'm sure you've heard her voice in your head many times, talking to you, scolding, you correcting you, directing you. What do you hear her saying to you now about your book?

BM: Wow! Right now, I don't know. I hope that she would appreciate how much coverage it's gotten. How many people have written about it. How many people have loved it, and hated it. And loved her, and hated her. That's exactly how she always lived in her life. And I think that a book about her that wasn't controversial wouldn't be a book about Susan Sontag [CO chuckles]. I think it would be a failure if it wasn't something that people had a lot of opinions about. And I hope that she would appreciate that she even 15 years after her death, she's still such a central figure, and that so many people are rediscovering her. And you know in Holland where this book came out, they're also re translating all of her work into Dutch. Some of these books are almost 60 years old, you know? And so for a writer, I think a biography can help keep the work alive even when the person is no longer with us.

CO: Benjamin Moser, I really appreciate speaking with you. And I thank you for your book. It's really important and very good. Thank you.

BM: Thank you so much.

JM: Benjamin Moser is the author of a new biography titled "Sontag: Her Life And Work." He joined Carol recently in the As It Happens studio.

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October 14, 2019 episode transcript

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