Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2022

The Current Transcript for March 3, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Russians speaking out against invasion of Ukraine, despite risk that entails

Guests: Sergey Utkin, Yana Pashaeva

SOUNDCLIP

It was clear because we are black. That's why they were acting that way. Come on.

MATT GALLOWAY: More than a million people have fled Ukraine in the last eight days. Not all of them have received a warm welcome at the border, though in 30 minutes. How the abuse faced by some black and brown people escaping the war has again shone a light on who gets to be considered European and who is a welcomed refugee in some countries. Also this morning, beluga whales. They're familiar travellers through the St. Lawrence River, and now those whale pods have a new companion, a narwhal.

SOUNDCLIP

The idea that this animal have made the St. Lawrence it's home now, has made this little population its own population. This is fascinating.

MG: In an hour how the narwhal was adopted by whales, and why some are hoping that this might eventually lead to a baby 'narluga'. We begin, though, with the view of the war from Russia. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: It is the eighth day of war in Ukraine. Thousands have been killed, thousands more wounded over one million people have fled the country and heavy fighting continues, particularly in strategic port cities. Meanwhile, in Russia, opposition to the bombardment also continues to grow. There are protests in the streets, and an independent monitoring group reports that more than 6800 people have been arrested for demonstrating against the war. Alexei Navalny, President Putin's jailed opponent, is urging Russians to continue marching, and many prominent cultural figures are now also speaking out, along with scientists, athletes and some business leaders. The Russian Orthodox Church has weighed in, with more than 150 clerics signing a letter to stop the war. Sergey Utkin is adding his voice to the critics. He is head of strategic assessment at the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We reached him in Moscow, Sergey. Hello.

SERGEY UTKIN: Hello.

MG: What's going through your mind as you watch this war unfold?

SERGEY UTKIN: This is horrible. I didn't believe that this was possible to see even through open large-scale conflict between Ukraine and Russia. But here we are.

MG: You tweeted last week, these are your words: "My country is committing a horrible crime in Ukraine that can have no justification. We all bear a part of responsibility. There is no good way out of that". Tell me more about that idea. What do you mean when you say we all bear part of the responsibility?

SERGEY UTKIN: Because in practise, it's very hard to distinguish between the leader of the country and the rest of the population who may try to do that. But frankly, most of the sanctions that are already being used against Russia, they do have an impact against the population. So it's not just the elite groups that are suffering. And then you do have these voters people who live in the country who probably did not reflect enough on things that have been done by the government who still take an attitude to what's now happening in Ukraine. Like we wait and see it, who are not ready to engage in this anti war movement that has been shaping now. And that brings me to this understanding that in this way, another in most countries, people deserve the government they have. And when government does a huge mistake that borders the definition of a crime and you are also responsible and you have to bear consequences. It's not just the small team around the political leader that is targeted by all sorts of measures taken by foreign countries.

MG: In the wake of that tweet, a lot of people said that you were courageous. Did you feel courageous in saying that?

SERGEY UTKIN: Not really. I'm a bit ashamed to hear that. I understand that, of course, the situation is changing and that, uh, it might become more difficult to speak your mind. But up to this point, I always felt quite some degree of academic freedom and I could say things I considered it necessary to say. And if this changes, this will be very deplorable. But we'll see. I mean, who is courageous is those people in Ukraine who are now suffering and who have to run with their families away from the war. And their situation is way more dramatic than what you can experience in Russia these days.

MG: As you say, a country's leader does not necessarily represent its people, and a country's people are not necessarily its leader. What does it feel like right now to be Russian?

SERGEY UTKIN: Well, of course, it depends on whom you are talking to. People have different attitudes to the political system. I think most of them still up until these days, they accepted the idea that good or bad. Vladimir Putin stabilise the country, stabilise it also economically and help people to earn more to have some environment where they could develop their family wealth. But now much of that is ruined by this Ukrainian adventure because the ruble is in freefall. You have less and less foreign companies working with Russia. You have a deficit of certain trade items. You have the possibility of international travel drastically reduced with all the airspace blockade, so for the upper middle class specifically for people who had money and who enjoyed this Russia being part of this global world where you could just take a plane and travel wherever for them, it's a very serious blow for the bigger and poorer part of the population is probably not that much of a change at the moment.

MG: How widespread do you think opposition to the war is across Russia? At this point, we've seen thousands of people arrested for taking part in demonstrations more broadly across society. How widespread is opposition to this?

SERGEY UTKIN: It's hard to say exactly. We just had one opinion poll by an agency which is working closely with the state. They say it's like 70 percent of Russians are supportive. But you know, as with all the wars that happened in recent past to think of Iraq, Afghanistan, when it starts, a lot of people tend to think probably the government knows what they are doing. Probably this necessary but done when it lasts and it brings more and more destruction suffering and has no definite end than the people's attitude changes. And one of the biggest struggles with this campaign is that, frankly, I don't see any possible positive outcome for Russia. Whatever you think of like control of Ukraine for a longer time, I think this is not sustainable and very costly and will cause lasting nationalisation. If you think of other options, like to just withdraw troops. Well, what was it all for then? Why the Russian leader decided to get all those negative consequences for Russia in the first place to just withdraw troops in the second step? It's very hard to find a good way out of that for Russia.

MG: What are Russians being told about this war through the media?

SERGEY UTKIN: That this war is a peacekeeping operation? So you have the very word 'war' banned in the Russian media, and there is a censorship agency that looks after that, that people don't use the word 'war' and it's a special peacekeeping operation is supposed to be against nationalists. So it is all the time repeated that those who fight against the Russian army, those who perished in these fights, these are nationalists, and you don't have sort of reasons to spare nationalists. It's now just that people who have to be destroyed. And this is not a fight against Ukraine, not a fight against Ukrainian people. But I think for anyone who follows a news sources other than the state media, it's quite clear that this propaganda narrative doesn't reflect the realities.

MG: Do you think that the fact that people like yourself and others, other prominent Russians, journalists, cultural figures, expats, some scientists and others that they're speaking out against this war? Do you think that will have any impact?

SERGEY UTKIN: Frankly, it's hard to expect direct impact at least immediately. Again, I think much will depend on the dynamics of this military campaign if it becomes a long, bloody, inconclusive. People will probably have to reflect on that. I mean, people like across the country in broad terms. But for now, it's at least, very, very widespread amongst amongst intellectuals to speak up against the war. And they saw it as something because it's not an every issue that same number and the same groups of people, they are ready to counter something that the government is doing.

MG: You talked just finally just about the isolation that the country is in right now in terms of airspace being cut off, the sanctions that have been put on Russia. What do you think the future of the country looks like?

SERGEY UTKIN: The future outlook definitely changed due to these events. These. Well, what's happening is massive. Just think about the impact that the military use that the Soviet Union allowed itself back in the day in Hungary in Czechoslovakia, that this was remembered decades after and up until now, it's still somewhat of a burden on our relations with those countries. And this campaign is much more massive and much more consequential. So unless you have a growing understanding in Russia that this is a very, very wrong path that would lead to profound change in the country, I'm afraid we can see more of what one can call urbanisation of Russia, spending decades international isolation with reduced access to technologies and to the world, which is pretty deep in perspective. I still hope there is some way out, but I frankly cannot say that there are already any lights in the end of the tunnel.

MG: Sergey, I'm glad to talk to you. Thank you very much and take care.

SERGEY UTKIN: Thank you. Bye.

MG: Sergey Oetken is the head of strategic assessment at the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was in Moscow. Yana Pashaeva has participated in those anti-war protests. She's also tracking how the war is unfolding from Moscow, where she works as a producer with Reuters. Yana, hello to you.

YANA PASHAEVA: Hello.

MG: When you are out on the streets in Moscow, what sort of discussions are you hearing from people about this war?

YANA PASHAEVA: Well, you don't usually see panic in the streets or on Subway. People just continue their life playing games on phones. But from time to time, you can hear some sense about Ukraine. That was not the case before, like people would discuss sanctions. Yesterday, I had a girl discussing BMW in Russia, and as a day I was in the elevator and there were two teenagers discussing that Disney [unintelliglbe] show. It's [unintelliglbe] movies anymore in Russia because of sanctions. Yesterday I was walking my dog and I heard the conversation between mom and to boy, and he was telling her that he had a fight in school with his classmate, because classmate was for Ukraine. And she told him that, 'Oh, come on, it's nonsense. You should not be fighting over this.' So, yeah, you hear these things.

MG: And these are newer conversations that you're hearing. You were you weren't hearing these earlier on in the war?

YANA PASHAEVA: Actually, people were not interested in interested in Ukraine talk before the war started, because over the last several years, our news war pact with Ukraine on state television, you would hear about Ukraine and people got so tired that they would just switch channels if they watched TV whenever they heard about Ukraine. So everybody thought that there would be no war, that it's just like threats. When it just like started. Nobody believed it. It's like their relatives in Ukraine.

MG: The relatives in Ukraine. I mean, how big of an issue is that that people have family and friends who live across the border?

YANA PASHAEVA: Oh, we used to be one country like as a Soviet Union, as so many people have relatives there. And I would, for example, be in my office and I would hear my colleague having a call with somebody from Ukraine and asking, How are they because those are his friends and people on social media share everyday stories about their relatives and friends in Ukraine, how they visited them, and that they worry about them and they are constantly in touch with each other.

MG: If people have friends and family that are there, how does that come into conflict with what they see on television, what they hear on the radio?

YANA PASHAEVA: If people already supports the war, they would find any excuse for this. Even if there are some relatives there, they would think that, well, we had to do this. There was no choice. Of course, there are like regular people that are who suffer. But we needed to do this operation to liberate those people from the Nazis or something like that. So unfortunately, in many cases, it doesn't change in a sense. Many people are brainwashed.

MG: You've been at some of these anti-war demonstrations. What have they been like? Describe what it's like in that crowd.

YANA PASHAEVA: Well, they're not like very massive because people are frightened because there are reports of people who got beaten and you can see these brutal videos. So people don't go express themselves in streets. Most of them, like there would be a lot of comments on social media, but most of people don't go to streets of protest because they are afraid. And you can get arrested, you can spent a lot of hours in the police office before they release you. Then you can be fined. The fine is around to $300 or the worst case scenario is 15 days of arrest. I participated in three protests already, but the biggest one was on Sunday, and there were at least 1000 was arrested. So there were thousands and 1000 was arrested.

MG: Were you frightened about being arrested?

YANA PASHAEVA: Yes, I am worried and my family, my friends, are worried every time I go to protest and they ask to share my location. But I am more afraid of the war and that it would continue and that our country is just turning into North Korea while we do not say anything and do not go to streets.

MG: That's what you think is happening, that people are afraid to speak out and that there's an echo of North Korea in that?

YANA PASHAEVA: Yes, because there is like this intense censorship. People have a lot of worries, but they can't deliver their message to the president, and I'm not sure that he's even willing to listen to this and they're afraid of getting arrested. They are afraid of what policemen can do to them. They know that we don't have independent courts here. Also, they don't believe that if they go to streets, it will change anything. Yeah. So they feel that they would not be hurt, that Putin already decided to arrest himself.

MG: What about the sanctions? You mentioned them a couple of times. How are they starting to bite into daily life?

YANA PASHAEVA: Well, we have never seen anything like this. Every day.,For example, if I don't check my news for one hour, I would get out that many brands left in that hour. The day before. Yesterday, Apple announced that it would leave the country. Yesterday, its stores didn't open here. Right now, I checked that IKEA announced that it would stop its sales. Nike stopped its sales. So it is just like well-known brands, H&M. Also, the airspace in Europe is closed for our airlines, and people can't go to Europe now. It is getting only worse. People are afraid that they would not be able to leave it one moment. We have less and less opportunities. People stand in huge lines like lines of hundreds of people in front of ATMs to withdraw their currency, and many of them try to do it several days in a row. And they are not successful because ATM machines run out of currency really fast. Because people do not trust banks anymore, they don't know what would happen to them under sanctions.

MG: How does it feel to be a Russian right now?

YANA PASHAEVA: Well, it's like, I don't know if you just saw that movie Don't Look Up. And I think that many liberal Russians are compare themselves with the character of Jennifer Lawrence there, who knows that there is this meteor coming on the planet and nobody listens. And I think that's how we feel. We try to deliver our message, but we feel helpless and it's kind of the end of the world. It also feels that even before the war, there was some kind of bad treatment to Russians. So you would see in movies, I mean, abroad. And right now, I think that the hatred will increase, and I'm really afraid that people outside the mix just regular Russians with Putin and they think that Russians wanted this war. And also it's just regular people who get punished with all these sanctions.

MG: Yeah, it's really great to talk to you about what you are seeing and what you're going through. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

YANA PASHAEVA: Thank you.

MG: Yana Pashaeva is a producer with Reuters. She was also in Moscow. CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

I was begging, the official literally looked to my eye and said in his language, "Only Ukrainians. That's all. And if you're black, you should walk.".

MG: For eight days now. People have been fleeing Ukraine for those who aren't white. This act of desperation is even more difficult. That story coming your way in six minutes. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

Refugees of colour report racial discrimination fleeing Ukraine

Guests: Jesse Gogoe, Juliana Wahlgren

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to the current.

[Music: Theme]

Still to come, a welcomed visitor in a beluga pod in the St. Lawrence River. But first double standards in the escape from Ukraine.

[Music: Theme]

The United Nations estimates that more than one million people have fled Ukraine since last week. Getting out hasn't been easy, though, especially for international students and workers. Last Friday, Alexander Santora was one of thousands of people trying to board trains at Kiev station. He's a 25 year old Nigerian student, and he was desperate to flee.

SOUNDCLIP

When we got in the station and they told us women and children first, so we said, OK, that's not a problem. But we found out that's what they meant by the women and children was only white people. So we started getting angry and we decided we are going to protest. We started shouting, You said women and children but you're not allowing african women. The next train came in. I said, OK, where are the African women? We pushed all of them to the front so that they can be able to get to any train. That was the only way they could get. If we didn't protest, it wouldn't be possible for them to get into the train.

MG: Later in the day, Alexander and his friends tried again to get on a train. Officials stopped them at the doors.

SOUNDCLIP

They said Ukrainians only. That was the train to Poland. I had another two Africans. We jump in and they called police on us. The police came and drag us out of the train and said, this is only for Ukrainians. And then I was looking expecting them to check passports. As they were boarding people, no passport was been checked. So that made us knew that this is actually not to us Africans.

MG: Alexander was determined and eventually tried to board yet another train.

SOUNDCLIP

That was a train that was coming. It was another track. We jumped on the train. The train was already leaving, so we were holding the door handle. The train officer of the train carrying crude told us we should get down. Then we told them that they either open this door or we are down the road, so they had no other option than to open the door and allow us in. And we found out that we were the only Africans on the trail and the train was not filled. So if the train was no full, why are they doing that? Why can't we at least put some of the African even if it is in one cabin?

MG: There have been many reports of racial discrimination as African and South Asian nationals tried to flee Ukraine and cross borders into neighbouring countries. Jesse Michael Gogoe is a 24 year old medical student from Ghana who was studying in western Ukraine. He's now in Warsaw, Poland. Jesse, hello.

JESSE GOGOE: Hi, Matt.

MG: How are you doing?

JESSE GOGOE: I'm doing all right. I'm just traumatised based on like experience and stuff like that.

MG: I want to talk about that experience. Tell me about leaving Ukraine. Why did you feel that you needed to leave the country?

JESSE GOGOE: I had friends in like different cities where we realised gradually the fight and the bomb was really approaching us. I was in a different city, so apparently like my city's military base got bombed. So once we heard the news, I think the next day my friend and I decided we need to start moving immediately. That was when we started. We started with and that was on a Friday. If I remember very well, I was on a Friday, so we had to get a cab and then the cab driver drove us to like a nearby village where we started walking. We walked for 12 hours to get to the border.

MG: For 12 hours?

JESSE GOGOE: Yes, 12 good hours.

MG: What was that like walking for 12 hours to get to the border?

JESSE GOGOE: Honestly, my feet still hurt after like four or five days. It was... It was really bad. No water, no food and nothing. Just walking with my friends.

MG: Describe what that was like, I mean, were there other people who were out there, did you see other groups of people who were walking to the border?

JESSE GOGOE: There were a lot of people walking to the border. A lot number, huge number. I mean, it was, it was, it was really, it was really bad. People had to, like, leave their stuff. You could see people drop their suitcase. You could see people like remove stuff from your suitcase for it to be less heavy. So it was, it was really bad.

MG: What what did you take with you?

JESSE GOGOE: I just took a backpack and like a little suitcase with me.

MG: How did you decide what you would put in that in that backpack and suitcase? You're fleeing. You don't know if or when you're going to be coming back.

JESSE GOGOE: Yeah. You know, I'm a final year medical student, so I have to get like my documents, my laptop, like some few clothes.

MG: And so you walk for 12 hours to get to the border. What happened when you got to the border?

JESSE GOGOE: I saw like almost 10,000 people trying to enter a small gate, a small gate and when I got to the border, I had to wait in the queue for like hours. I got to the first gate and were told international students are supposed to use this gates. So we're supposed to use another gate. So I had to go back and join another queue for another gate. When I went there, we're being [unintelligilbe] by people. We're being- the police, the military men were- I actually fought with like two different military men because of the attitude. It was very bad and appalling to us, students.

MG: Let me ask you about two things. One is you said that you went to the gate and the international students were not allowed to go through that gate, who was going through that gate?

JESSE GOGOE: Just the Europeans. And I think pregnant women and yeah, females.

MG: And then you go to the other gate, you wait for how long?

JESSE GOGOE: I waited for days, over 24 hours.

MG: And then you said that's the treatment from the military men was enough that you got into a fight with two of them. Tell me about the treatment. How were you treated?

JESSE GOGOE: We're being beaten. We're being pushed, at any point in time. We were being strangled. We were told to kneel down the code. We're told to sleep on the floor. I had other friends collapse and they were not being taken care of. Based on like that, you know, we're just pushing each other, every single person to pass through the gates. So like it was, it was really, really bad. It was a very, very bad experience.

MG: Were you treated differently then than others who were crossing the border?

JESSE GOGOE: Yes, there were two different gates. One Gates was for the Ukrainians and the other gates was for international students. So the Ukrainian gates was being open consistently. They were going five, I think, five five five five. And the international students was very like, the military man at the gates will leave for five good hours. Come back, come and call women and pregnant women and children. The pregnant women and children pass through the gates, they close the gates and leave again. We, the guys, were just there. Like, we didn't know what to do with this. Honestly, I just feel like I should just fall, like just return back to my city. And because it was really bad. Like the experience was really traumating.

MG: You're from Ghana. Were most of the international students African students? Is that what you were seeing?

JESSE GOGOE: Yeah, most of most of them were African students. We had Africans, Arabians, Indians a whole lot.

MG: What was it like to face that kind of treatment, given everything that you had gone through already just to get to the border?

JESSE GOGOE: Honestly, I wouldn't wish this experience for anyone because like I felt like I was a prisoner at twao point, I felt like I could even breathe. I felt like people that were- You know, I'm a medical. I'm aspiring to be a medical doctor. So people that's aware falling sick were not given the proper first aid. It was very bad. Anyone could do CPR. Anyone could do like any kind of thing. Just because I'm in the line, I can't go back. So I have to give someone [unintelligible] and focus on me getting to the gate. That was everyone's goal.

MG: How did you eventually get across the border into Poland?

JESSE GOGOE: It was a struggle. After 24 hours, I managed to get myself in front of the gates and due to the disturbances and stuff like that, the civilians had to like open the gates a little bit. Was the military men weren't there. And everyone was rushing in. So when they go to my turn. The militiamen push the gates towards me. So my leg went under the gates and like, the gates crushed my legs. So I was screaming and screaming and screaming. I screamed for like almost 30, 25 to 30 minutes, and one military man just pulled me out of the gates. That was [unintelligible].

MG: How do you understand what happened to you? This is in the midst of people fleeing a war, and we know that the United Nations has has confirmed stories like yours saying that that refugees, international students and others faced racism at the Ukrainian borders. How do you understand this?

JESSE GOGOE: Yes, we did. We did. We based on the fact that we blacks were not allowed to enter as much as the Ukrainians or other European countries could. So like we just felt like we were just be racist at the points, cause my friends, you know, the military men normally stand at the gates to call a pregnant woman, women and children. And when a black girl was behind them, the black girl was, sometimes, the black girl was not allowed to pass, which didn't make sense to anyone.

MG: Had you faced much racism when you were studying in Ukraine?

JESSE GOGOE: No, not really.

MG: So this was very different than than the previous year that you'd been there.

JESSE GOGOE: Yeah.

MG: When I said hello to you, you said that you still felt traumatised by this. What's what's the the after effect of this being for you?

JESSE GOGOE: Honestly, I'm up to now. I'm not being able to sleep well. I still keep thinking of my friend because some of my friends are still at the border. Yesterday, I met a friend I just came to and Warsaw, the capital, and the moment she saw me, she just started crying and I could feel I just could feel it because like the experience was bad, she fainted twice. So like the after effect of this, I couldn't think straight at that point because I'm still thinking of my friends. But there are constantly [unintelliglbe] rides, and my friends and I are really struggling to, like, gain a normal sense of that. But because sometimes we are hallucinating and other things like that.

MG: What will you do now?

JESSE GOGOE: All we have to do is try to calm down and pray to God, that's all.

MG: Will you stay in Warsaw? I mean, you said this is your final year as a medical student, you're training to be a doctor. So what happens next?

JESSE GOGOE: Yes, and that's for now. I'm waiting for a message from my university concerning the situation, so I know what I'll do because my parents are telling me to go to the UK, where I have an immediate family member to be safe for now and will know what to do from there. If my school is to bring out any information.

MG: Who do you think you'll get back to to Ukraine?

JESSE GOGOE: Honestly, no.

MG: I'm glad to talk to you. I'm really, really glad that you made it to the other side, you've been through a lot, so thank you for speaking with us and good luck.

JESSE GOGOE: Thank you so much, sir.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

JESSE GOGOE: Bye bye.

MG: Jesse Michael Gogoe is a student from Ghana who was studying in western Ukraine. We reached him in Warsaw, Poland. Since stories like this have started to emerge, many governments in the region have made statements that all those fleeing should be treated fairly. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry tweeted yesterday that it had established an emergency hotline for African, Asian and other students, and that the government was working intensively to ensure their safety and speed up their passage. Juliana Wahlgren is acting director and senior advocacy officer for the European Network Against Racism. She's in Brussels. Juliana, hello to you.

JULIANA WAHLGREN: Hello, good morning. How are you?

MG: I'm well. Are you at all surprised to hear reports of racist abuse and unfair treatment by security officials towards those who are fleeing the war in Ukraine?

JULIANA WAHLGREN: Yes, it's overwhelming, it's really sad, but it's not a surprise. It's not the first time and it's really recurrent. What is impressive here is really the double standards comparing who is able, who is allowed to cross the border and who is not allowed. And visually, the the issue of racial profiling is really what worries us the most. So what we have seen over the last days or last weekend was really an amplification of the current status of racism across Europe. But with this element of police violence, racial profiling and violations of fundamental rights and the borders, especially in moments of crisis. So what we are trying to understand here is where the member states where the national targets should be held accountable by the issues that, by the whole the whole treatment and afterwards migrants are The Current state.

MG: What is your understanding as to where this is occurring? Is it by Ukrainian officials or officials that are in the receiving countries where those who are fleeing are ending up?

JULIANA WAHLGREN: From our understanding maths and I think it is very is also very difficult to make concrete on the analysis of the situation. But from the narrative and the testimonies that we have collected, people face violations and really being [unintelligible] by law enforcement authorities in both sides. So first, they face a really some challenge with the Ukranian authorities and there is a split like with as mentioned before of white, Ukranians and people of colour, and then when once they cross the borders and sometimes even when they are being managed to seek international protection immediately, sometimes they are returned to the border because they are not even allowed to stay in the country. And then, of course, you have a ramification of different violations in these stages. There are people who are not being granted any kind of protection that are people that are getting 15 days of protections when Ukrainians are getting three months. So it's really complex in terms of where, what, what is the responsible of all this sequence of events. I think it's a very it's a very complex question to answer because here I think their responsibility should be addressed to everyone.

MG: How encouraged are you by what I mentioned in the introduction? The Ukrainian government has put together this hotline, and the message that the Foreign Ministry and others are putting out is that everyone should be treated fairly.

JULIANA WAHLGREN: Let's hope that European authorities listen and hear this message, because what we are seeing today, and especially the discussions and the proposal of the European Commission, is really an attempt to choose to have a classification of people who can enter and how they enter and how they're going to be protected after they cross the borders. So although I think is really important, you are embraced his narrative and really make sure the politicians understand that we cannot make a separation, a split between the different categories of citizens we cannot continue to talk about, no Ukrainians in this spectrum as second class citizens, although we embrace this [unintelligible], what we really want to see is political commitment. It's what comes next. And what we want to do is also to understand how after they managed to cross the borders. Once the document and the protection is really granted to these people, how the member states will treat them. Because race is something that is not new in Europe, but the recognition of racism is something that is very recent. The not forget that even the question of the colonial abuses, even the history that colonialism as fact are not included in many European books.

MG: So let me ask you about that bigger picture, because as you said, this is an amplification in many ways of racism in Europe. We saw the Prime Minister of Bulgaria say that - these are the prime minister's words: "This is not the refugee wave. We have been used to. People, we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts who could have been even terrorists. We know that in Poland", and we spoke about this on this programme just last year. Refugees who are trying to cross the border with Belarus were pushed back in the cold. There was water cannon use. Tear gas was used. Turkey has seen it be a hub in some ways for this, and we've seen those refugees end up in the back pushed back into Turkey. In Hungary, there have been issues as well. What's the bigger issue here when you see this around, who's considered a refugee, a legitimate refugee and who's considered a European?

JULIANA WAHLGREN: I always respond to these questions by being objective. So what you have to take a look is the how the European Union, how the member states have responded to a similar crisis since 2012 2015. They always have have a kind of approach that probably which was a problem that was from the member states, that it was local. It was up to the member states to resolve. They tried to come with a coordinated approach, but that was not binding and there wasn't a certain time frame that was shorter than the really problem of the migration management crisis. And now, for the first time, they are really addressing this as a responsibility, a duty of the union. So objectively, what you can say is that they now consider the other kind of migrants being asylum seekers, being refugee resettlement, third-country nationals in need of international protection as people that should be prioritised in the programmes of the union. And when you see someone coming from a country where there is already a set of negotiations to be a member of the union. And of course, we are talking about eruptions that are massively not, of course, at this time there is more, let's say there is more flexibility in the terms of the upcoming package for migrants.

MG: What is that about? At its core, what do you think it what is it about?

JULIANA WAHLGREN: It's about the structural racism is about the colourblindness of policies is about how race was removed from old European perspectives and how each was very uncomfortable and taboo until the until COVID and George Floyd to address the question of racial justice in Europe. So this is just an amplification in just a second layer to the the question of the system of inequalities that were there across the European Union over the centuries.

MG: I spoke yesterday on this programme with a representative from the UNHCR. He was in Poland right along the border and talked about what he framed as an extraordinary sense of solidarity that he was seeing amongst ordinary citizens there a genuine desire to help not just in Poland, but in other European nations as well. There are also these reports, though, of far right supporters targeting people of colour at the Polish border cities, people hiding in train stations because they're afraid to go out. How much faith do you have in that feeling of solidarity that it applies to all refugees, regardless of their race?

JULIANA WAHLGREN: I think this is not the first time over the last seven years that we see such a response in terms of solidarity and empathy towards people, victims of war conflicts and mass influx. The question here is where there is a possibility here. We cannot replace the solidarity of an individual. We cannot replace it by the accountability of a state. And what we see is that sometimes a member state, they are willing to project towards the individuals and the communities the burden to act, to manage and take care of a crisis that is of migration, that should be addressed and should be treated as a priority by the institutions themselves. So in the long run, we know it's not sustainable. We don't see anymore the initiatives that were implemented in 2015 in the middle of the Mediterranean crisis and after the African crisis. We don't see these initiatives existing anymore. Of course, we what we see is the immense community building strategy, is an immense community care to take care of peers, but not from people outside the community themselves.

MG: Are you optimistic that this could lead to any change in that, in how people think of refugees in that part of Europe?

JULIANA WAHLGREN: I hope. I hope so, and I hope so. And I think the intense discussions over the last weeks and over the last days was, especially in the Brussels bubble, was a lot about what origin means in the technocracy of the EU legislation. Because in this new Temporary Protection Directive, the discussions around what you interpret by origin, because they say any person who is originated from Ukraine can have protection under the EU mechanism, which is complementary to the Geneva Convention. So hopefully there is an attempt to enlarge the standing of 'origins' in all knowing EU citizens, documented, undocumented, all asylum seekers system or refugees. So we hope that at least by challenging the terminology, we can see some advancement in the policy [unintelli gible].

MG: Juliana, great to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

JULIANA WAHLGREN: Thank you, Matt. Have a nice day.

MG: And you, Juliana Wahlgren, is acting director and senior advocacy officer for the European Network Against Racism. Well, coming up after your regional update, something different. The icy waters of the St. Lawrence maybe frigid at this time of the year, but our next story, trust me, will warm your hearts. How a family of belugas have taken a lonely narwhal under their fins. That story in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway The Current is right back and we will use the word ;narluga', in our next half hour, what does that mean? Will you have to stay tuned to find out.

Back To Top »

A pod of beluga whales adopted a stray narwhal — could they produce a baby narluga?

Guest: Robert Michaud

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current it might sound a bit like a bedtime story. A baby narwhal wanders too far from his Atlantic home and winds up adopted by a pod of belugas in the St. Lawrence River. Well, this baby narwhal was first spotted in 2016 and has been seen every year since. Now that baby narwhal is reaching maturity and as spring approaches, researchers are wondering if he's ready to mate. Robert Michaud is president and scientific director of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals. He has researched and monitored the beluga population of the St. Lawrence since the 1980s, and he's been tracking this narwhal over the years. We've reached Robert Michaud and Bergeron, Quebec Ribeiro. Good morning.

ROBERT MICHAUD: Good morning.

MG: You have done this research, as I mentioned for for many, many years now. When you heard that a narwhal was spotted in the St. Lawrence, what went through your mind?

ROBERT MICHAUD: Just a big wow, this is this is great visit. We thought it would be just a short one or two day visit from this young, well, it was not the first we had heard of another narwhal visiting about 10 years previous to that and even the very previous years. In 2015, one whale was very briefly sighted, so we thought that, OK, this is a cool observation. But what got us very excited is the second and third and fourth and now probably 20th cycling is the idea that this animal has made to St. Lawrence is home now, has made this little population its home population. This is fascinating.

MG: Do you remember the first time you saw it with your own eyes?

ROBERT MICHAUD: Yeah, unfortunately, I didn't sight the very first day Michelle was on the boat and he called me from the [unintelliglbe], "You won't believe what I'm seeing". He had the narwhal just beside the boat, so he was describing me to me with the observation. It was very exciting [sound: dog barking] - as my dog is excited about the ice - but in that very first season, I think the third, the third encounter, I was on the boat with the narwhal and this was as it is often very brief view that I add to the, well, you know, most of what we know of these animals come from very small windows we open on their lives, but it's on the third year in 2018 that I have finally my shot, my long encounter with the narwhal. We spent almost a full day tracking the narwhal, making several successive slides with the drone. The drone have been the amazing tool for us to measure how much this animal has integrated the social networks of belugas. Seeing a whale just swimming on the surface, you don't know what's going on exactly, but since we use drones to track the whales, it is like that. I've I spent 30 years of my life just waiting for drones to happen. Now finally, we see what's going on, and there's so much going on between the narwhal and the other whales that this is when we started using the idea. This whale have been adopted by belugas. He is one of the crew. He's one of the buddy in there.

MG: And that's what it seems? That word specifically, that's what it seems as though is happening, that the whale population, the pod there has adopted the narwhal?

ROBERT MICHAUD: Now adopted is a difficult word. We use these words with caution usually. But the fact that there are a lot of social interaction between the narwhal and the others, some social sexual behaviours are directed to the narwhal. The narwhal is directing such behaviours to the other belugas. The fact that he's always in the same general social gathering with juveniles, this is exactly what a young beluga of that age would do at that time of his development. So this is what makes us believe that this will is well integrated in the group. Obviously, it feeds well because the last encounter we had last summer, we were able to have good images from the drone to see its body shape. It's a healthy animal. It grows regularly. Does it communicate? This would be the the the thing about the integration that might be difficult, that these animals have very vast, complex vocal repertoire. We don't understand much about their acoustic communication, but we believe they do communicate and a lot of information between each other. How this young narwhal understand or all of the other belugas understand its language. Are they communicating well? You learn, adapt, adjust or just accommodate the complex vocal repertoire of belugas? Big question mark. There are several things that we won't be able to answer, at least not right now, but this is a very interesting puzzle, communication wise, how this animal is doing.

MG: How do you know that he is he?

ROBERT MICHAUD: We presume is a he because he has this tusk, which is a secondary sexual character of males. It does happen that female we'd have would bear a tusk like that, but it's kind of more exceptional. This is the first cue. The second cue is the type of social gathering you joined at is age. Female would tend to be always in female community with young. The daughters of a given female will join the same community as its mother. Is kind of the kind of a metro lines that is building over the years and the juveniles as they grow up, they tend to segregate by sex, female with the female community and the males with the young males, and eventually the older adult males will be with only other big adult males. And this is in those male gathering that are formed, those kind of long term coalitions or alliance between individual. They find their buddies for for life. But now, as a young adult or old juvenile is in bachelor groups with mostly males. So it would be very surprising that this young animal was a female for those two reasons this social affiliation and the fact that he's bearing that tusk, which is beautiful.

MG: It's a strange question, but I mean, do you think that the narwhal would consider himself to be a narwhal or to be a beluga?

ROBERT MICHAUD: I absolutely can't answer your question, but it is a fascinating question. You know, there has been studies on the behaviour of of of dolphins in aquariums to verify if they have self recognition are maybe a apprentice's for self-consciousness. And there are few animals for which those tests have been carried on that tested positive. Dolphin are self conscious, at least if you paint a little colour patch on its head and you present the dolphin with a mirror. You will notice that something's different on him than if we try to transpose this little piece of information that we finally obtain. What does a narwhal know about narwhals and what we now know about belugas? Well, these are fascinating questions, and this is why I'm very excited about going back on the water next spring and to see if it's there again. And we might keep this excitement going on for for 20 years. These animals live pretty long, so if he's doing well, he might be here for the next 40 years. They do live up to 60-80 years old.

MG: Wow. If he wasn't adopted by this pod, would he have survived alone? This is not his normal swimming ground.

ROBERT MICHAUD: Now, what does happen, I don't know for this narwhal, obviously, this is kind of speculation, but what happens to belugas when they get lost and as a vagrant, they end up, for example, on the east coast of the United States or in the Maritimes or Newfoundland. It does happen almost every summer, and often these last belugas have a very sad ending. These are not only gregarious animals, they're very social animals. So when they are alone by themself, they tend to establish relationship with boys, with boat, with humans, sometimes with dogs in harbours. They have a strong appeal for interaction, and they feel that whatever's available and most of the time it end up that a beluga whale would get habituated to boat and there's an accident that will come up. So fishermen are taking care of these animals most of the time, but at one point, it's not a good marriage, it's not a good mix. This narwhal is very lucky to have found a host community to make this its life, but usually vagrant becomes solitary. They develop social deviation, for example, and it's not. It's not a good thing. These animals are social. They need others. This one find others of a different species. This is what is so special with this.

MG: I mentioned in the introduction and you've hinted at this that that spring is approaching. The narwhal is reaching adolescence. It will look to breed. Do we know biologically whether a narwhal can meet with a beluga?

ROBERT MICHAUD: We've heard stories over the years that, yes, it was possible. But finally, few years ago, we got a confirmation. A skull that was taken in the lab in in Scandinavia was examined, and we discovered from DNA analysis that this was a formal hybrid of the female mother and a male father that survived to pretty grown up. This was a cranium, a skull that came from an adult. So this animal that survived. It had a weird look. We don't know if it was fertile. One of the thing with hybrids in different species is they might survive, but they might not reproduce themselves. So we know that hybridisation is possible. It does. It did happen a few times. We have one beautiful example with a skull and a Danish scientists made a drawing of what this hybrid could look like. So maybe a couple of in the next few years, we're going to start to look out for not only our last narwhal, single narwhal, but maybe four descendants. So it is feasible. We don't know if it will happen. We don't know either at what age, exactly belugas start to to reproduce. This one has reached sexual maturity or is very close to sexual maturity. But reproduction is not only about maturity, it's also a social behaviour. Belugas, at least, are not single in that adventure. They need buddies. They work in coalition in alliances. Would this young narwhal, get intimate enough with other males to join in and alliance a coalition to to work out its way to reproduction. Is that happening a little later in life as they're grown up as 20, 25 years when they are bigger and they are better positioned for competing? Now we're speculating, but tracking the life of this young animal is kind of a little a little hint or help for us to study the social life of these animals because we're able to singling out one animal and is so easy to recognise and track over its lives. So we're learning. It's fun, it's intriguing, but it's also very powerful and useful information for us tracking this. The life of this narwhal amongst the belugas.

MG: Is the technical term. If the narwhal was able to meet with the Beluga is the technical term a 'narluga'? It's a nice portmanteau, but I don't know if that's actually the scientific term or not.

ROBERT MICHAUD: It's not a scientific term, but it's the one that have been proposed and that is being used the most frequently that I've seen, at least. So, yeah, we might be looking for another Luger's in the next years in the St. Lawrence.

MG: You've studied these waters for 30 years, as I mentioned and listened to you talk about this, you still have this incredible sense of wonder about what it is you're seeing. What do you think that's about?

ROBERT MICHAUD: I don't know. We're just going out on the water, this is amazing, it's a chance. Sharing part of your life with others, it's quite stimulating. And when these others are not amenable easily to your understanding, it leaves a lot of space for fascination. There's a lot of things that we don't know about these animals where we're getting to know them much better now, and it increases with new technology, with the culture that we feel, with all the knowledge that we've gained over the years. Now we have more and more student joining. So over the last 30 years, I feel that it's just accelerating. It's a great time to study these animals because we get more information and we are also sitting on a treasure of 30 years of detailed information. There are belugas out there that I've known for 35 years. I've seen them having calves. I've seen their calves having their own calves. So we're building this kind of detailed knowledge so we can ask questions that we never thought about 20 or 15 years ago. So it's very exciting. So it's a call for for the youth to jump in science. The world is fascinating, complex. There's so much teaching to understand and get on in and study in biology and join to understand others. We're in a world where we have problem sharing the planet with others, with our neighbours. What we see these days reminds us of those challenges. But learning about others, being other species or another species, learning about another species is also something great. So learning about others in order to be able to share the planet with them is fascinating in itself.

MG: When are you back out on the water?

ROBERT MICHAUD: I can't wait. Almost daily, I see the water. I scan the surface of the water to see if there are whales. Over the last months...

MG: Are you looking right now?

ROBERT MICHAUD: Yes, I'm looking at the water in Deltron. It's beautiful to witness, especially today. It's beautiful. It's fine, not so cold, but we'll start to see whales in front of the house in about probably a month from now. But the last week of March, usually belugas start to make their way back into the estuary. But we are still going to be back on the water, at least not on their research boats before the end of May. So we'll still have to wait a little bit.

MG: Someday, I would love to go out on the water with you and see what you see because the sense, as I say of wonder and fascination that you have, is really, really powerful. In the meantime, it's great to hear about the work that you're doing, and we will watch to see for the future of this narwhal and perhaps the nalagarh as well. Robert, it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

ROBERT MICHAUD: Indeed. A pleasure.

MG: Robert Michaud is the president and scientific director of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals. He was in Berggren. Quebec will share some of their video so you can see the drone footage of this narwhal swimming with his beluga family. It's wonderful, kind of just what you need right now. You'll find it on our Twitter feed @TheCurrentCBC and on our Facebook page. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway like Terry Fox, Steve Fonyo had a dream, a dream to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. Both men lost a leg to cancer and both inspired others to keep fighting. In March of 1984, Steve Fonyo dipped his prosthetic leg into the Atlantic and headed west.

SOUNDCLIP

STEVE FONYO: The reason I'm running in the winter is because the people who are in hospital now, who got cancer, who are getting the treatments, it's really tough for them. They just won't quit after my treatment and I'm sure that they'll probably want to do the same. And if nobody really talks and sits down and quit encouraging them, they will quit. But when they see somebody like me moving down the highway, not giving up in that kind of cold weather, it's going to give them a lot of hope and they're going to fight that disease might. We know you went through the same thing. So I decided, well, I want to try to help these people. I'm just like the hero to them and I cannot let them down in any way. I will keep on going no matter what anybody said.

MG: Steve Fonyo made it to the Pacific, a little over a year after setting off. Along the way, he was greeted by thousands of admirers and raised nearly $14 million. His Journey for Lives Marathon also earned him the Order of Canada. But that order was revoked in 2009 after several criminal convictions. Steve Fonyo died last month, and now his family and friends are calling for his order to be restored posthumously. A Canadian filmmaker has been reflecting on his memories of the man he got to know well and how he would like Canadians to remember. Steve, fine you.

SOUNDCLIP

ALLAN ZWEIG: My name is Allan Zweig. Steve sort of jumped on my radar in a harder way when they took the order kind of away from him and not just something about that. As a filmmaker, that just got my attention. I made two documentaries about Steve Fono; Hurt, which came out in 2015 and Hope, which came out in 2017. He was just he was he was fun to be around in the sense that it was fun to be around an excitable, petulant, stubborn, silly, frustrating, annoying child. And he was a child with a toy, you love toys. He loved tinkering. He loved tinkering with his leg, which caused many legs to break, and he always end up with the crappy auxiliary leg. 2015, weirdly coincidentally, the last day, we were there shooting was the day that he was beaten almost to death and put in a coma for three weeks. We all felt kind of strange leaving him like that, and then I said, I'm not going to just make another sequel of him hanging around a tree with his other ne'er do well, friends. I'm only going to do this if we actually get him in rehab, if we actually intervene in his life in a major way. We decided to perform essentially an intervention with the second film. When we came to get him and take him to rehab, coincidentally, my cameraman had bought a drone when we were waiting for the ferry to come in, took out the drone and Steve was so excited. He said to me that his estimation of me as a filmmaker went way up when he saw that I had a drone over the years he bought and crashed many drones. Finally, about six months ago, he sent us some really good drone footage he finally perfected. We became friends, however unlikely our friendship was. We became friends and that's why we stayed in touch and why I enjoyed hearing from him for the rest of his life. I was more a kind of friendly antagonist. I know I've had friends who saw me kind of the way I saw Steve and a friend who exasperate to no end. But nonetheless, you enjoy their company and you care about them.

[Music]

VOICE 1: Aren't you afraid of being with yet another woman who takes drugs? You end up hitting rock bottom again?

VOICE 2: No. And don't kid yourself, it is on top of my list. I'm monitoring it extremely carefully.

ALLAN ZWEIG: If you knew Steve and you cared about him, you would worry about him for the rest of his life.

VOICE 3: I think the best thing is learning gap and continue on. I know we're here anyway, you know. I'm sorry. If I did, I thought going [unintelliglbe] with myself. I guess maybe wrong. I'm sorry.

ALLAN ZWEIG: So. There are people that are trying to get the order of Canada restored to him. I wish those people well. I don't think they're going to succeed. When I think people should turn their attention to instead is some kind of commemoration of him, some kind of statue, something permanent. I'd like to have them have some shot at being remembered. We too easily give people the status of Hero. We too easily take it away from them. If our notion of what a hero is was a little more nuanced, a little more complicated, a little more realistic for how real life is made than we could confer heroism on people. And if they fail us, we could bring some empathy and forgiveness rather than anger. I think, Steve, by Canadian standards, is, if there is such a thing as a hero, he's one of them.

MG: The Canadian filmmaker, Allan Zweig, Steve Fonyo, died in February. He was 56, and as you heard, many of his friends and family are calling for his order of Canada to be restored. That is The Current for this Thursday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, its q. Today, Tom Power speaks with the photographer Mark Neville about capturing Ukrainian life in a new book Ukraine Stop Tanks with Books and about the Power of Photography in a time of war. That conversation coming up in just a moment. To help lead you there, we heard earlier about how some Russian artists, athletes and musicians are denouncing their country's aggression in Ukraine. The pianist Kirill Gerstein is one of those speaking out. He wrote on Twitter this week: "This war, and most especially the barbaric military force used on the civilian population, is utterly unacceptable and unjustifiable. I abhor the violent actions of the Russian government and empathise and grieve with his victims in Ukraine and elsewhere". We will leave you this morning with Kirill Gerstein performing Chopin's Waltz in A flat on NPR. I'm Matt Galloway thanks for listening to The Current and we'll see you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

[Piano]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Thursday March 3, 2022 Full Transcript

More Stories Like This