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The Current Transcript for July 11, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

The message that we will send not just to the Ukrainian government, not just to the Ukrainian people, but also to Russia, is going to be an important one.

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: It is being called one of the most consequential summits in NATO's history. And Turkey now says it will no longer stand in the way of Sweden becoming a NATO member. But what about Ukraine? It wants in, too. But the U.S. and Germany say now is not the time, because to do so would be to import a war into the alliance. So if not membership, what can countries offer Ukraine? We'll have that conversation next. And then pickleball isn't the only paddle sport having a moment.

SOUNDCLIP

While you're always trying to keep it off because it's safer up top?

RB: We'll hear why the old arcade game of pinball is finding new fans in 30 minutes. And then the story of why police dropped a bomb on a neighbourhood in Philadelphia in the mid eighties. In an hour, we'll bring you the first episode of the CBC podcast, The Africas versus America. But we begin in Lithuania with a last minute plot twist for NATO. I'm Robyn Bresnahan sitting in for Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

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NATO leaders grapple with Ukraine’s membership bid

Guests: Aisha Ahmad, Andrea Charron, Kerry Buck

RB: Today in Lithuania, NATO's leaders are meeting in what is being called the most significant summit in years. Ukraine will be the focus and whether it should be fast tracked for NATO membership. But yesterday, there was a significant development involving another country. NATO's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that Turkey had dropped its objections to Sweden joining the alliance.

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This is an historic day because we have a clear commitment by Turkey to submit the ratification documents to the Grand National Assembly and to work closely with the Assembly to ensure ratification. And then its historic goals are because we have Sweden committing so clearly to step up further the fight against terrorism working closely with Turkey.

RB: The Swedish prime minister reacted by saying it had been a good day for his country. Ukraine is also hoping for an open door into NATO's membership. But U.S. President Joe Biden has ruled out the idea in the middle of a war. So how might the Ukraine question be resolved at this summit? Joining me now are three guests. Kerry Buck is a former Canadian ambassador to NATO. Andrea Charron is a professor of political studies and the director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba. And Aisha Ahmad is an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. Good morning to you all.

AISHA AHMAD: Good morning.

KERRY BUCK: Morning.

RB: Kerry, let's start with you. Just this morning, Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky, said it will be, quote, absurd if his country is not offered NATO membership at this summit. How likely do you think that is to happen?

KERRY BUCK: Well, they certainly won't be offered accession to NATO's at this summit. For reasons that have been articulated by you and Stoltenberg and most leaders. And the reason is, of course, that Article five, the collective defence commitment of the alliance, the backbone of the alliance or an attack against one, is an attack against all. If during a hot war, Ukraine were to come into the Alliance for the Alliance to be credible, they'd have to rush to defend Ukraine. If leaders aren't willing to go into a direct war with Russia now, which wisely they're not, they certainly won't be tempted to accelerate that. But I had understood President Zelensky has also said previously that he understands there won't be accession now. I think the question now is how strong the language is about an invitation to join the alliance, what the conditions might be for Ukraine to join the alliance. And more importantly, I think what the enhance package of support to Ukraine is to bring them up to the place of standards where they could join the alliance quickly once the war ends.

RB: Aisha, what do you think of the idea of Ukraine being admitted to NATO's?

AISHA AHMAD: Well, right now, as as Carrie rightly points out, it's not possible because there is an active war going on. So we'd all be dead by the end of this conversation if we escalated it to that degree. But even afterwards, this is still highly controversial and frankly, provocative. The extension of NATO's eastward, it's one thing Scandinavian countries not inconsequential, but not nearly as provocative. It's another thing for, from the Russian perspective, for NATO to continue to expand eastward. There's a lot of evidence from the 1990s onward that there were informal promises from NATO's side, from the Americans, that they would not to do that. And then, you know, behind closed doors made plans to expand eastward anyway. Russia sees this as encirclement. It sees it as highly provocative. And frankly, Ukraine has been flagged by the Russians as a red line. So we say, okay, if after the war, the Ukrainians could Ukrainians could join NATO's, it presupposes a decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, which isn't clear that that would happen. And also it does indeed do the exact opposite of what Russia has expected in terms of its own security guarantees. So it is not an uncontroversial decision and indeed it would be a provocative action.

RB: So are you saying that we need to be asking if NATO's expansion has provoked Russia?

AISHA AHMAD: I mean, there is evidence of declassified documents from the 1990s onwards, American declassified documents about how NATO's promised to behave and then what it did. Now, the fact is nothing absolves Russia of its criminal actions in invading another country. But if you can't understand why your enemy is behaving the way it is, then we're going to be making strategic decisions that perhaps has outcomes that we don't want. And so from Russia's perspective, NATO's expansion has been highly controversial. And, you know, most importantly, NATO expansion along its borders, Scandinavian countries expanding anti-NATO certainly is not inconsequential, but it's not nearly as significant as what Russia sees as NATO expansion pushing right up against its borders.

RB: Andrea, what's your perspective on this? When would be the right time for Ukraine to join NATO's?

ANDREA CHARRON: Well, I think that's certainly a conversation to be had with the Ukrainians and with the needle membership. I mean, I agree completely with what my colleagues have said. But I think another point is what Ian Stoltenberg said was that, you know, Russia can't have a VETO on future members. And I think that's sort of the balancing act, especially now that we're in this age of authoritarian regimes. And Nito is seen as in many ways a bulwark to those authoritarian regimes that if we second guess ourselves based on what we think Russia or others might think, then they have the upper hand. And certainly the language from the secretary general has been that Ukraine will be a member. It's now a matter of deciding when, under what conditions, under what process.

RB: It's tricky, isn't it, Kerry? Because if you tie the timing of Ukraine's membership into NATO to a cease fire or the end of the war, does that not then create the incentive for Russia to escalate the conflict or or drag out the war?

ANDREA CHARRON: Well, I actually don't think it does. I won't try to prejudge Vladimir Putin's psyche. You never get that right. But, you know. Right. He's still fighting now. Many, many off ramps were offered to him before he invaded Ukraine, decided to invade Ukraine, and he drove right past all of those off ramps. I don't see this having much of an impact, honestly, on his calculus about how long he keeps fighting. He's committed to keep fighting right now. Second, I don't think NATO's actually the reason, I think,that he invaded. I don't think that it's entirely clear that there were promises by NATO that there wouldn't be an expansion. I've spoken to some of the Americans who are involved in that, and they said there was no promise made. And it wasn't NATO's. It was the U.S. And Russia. Even back in 2000, Vladimir Putin himself mused that Russia might think about joining NATO's. So I don't think we blame NATO's and I don't think NATO's signalling that Ukraine will be invited to become an ally changes Putin's calculus that much about how he's prosecuting his war of aggression. He's in it for the long haul now. Why? Because he's seeking to protect his own power.

RB: Aisha, what do you think about and what Kerry just said, that we actually can't blame NATO's for this?

AISHA AHMAD: Well, I mean, this is a big political narrative that we have with NATO countries. And obviously the Americans have come out and said that there was never any promise. But there is just hard evidence of this. And it's been published before this most recent round of crisis in which American documents do, in fact, show that there were two different messages sent to Moscow at that time. That doesn't excuse what Russia has done. But if there's no self-reflection or critical self-reflection on how NATO's has co constructed the security realities that have now taken root across the European continent, particularly in the Ukraine, then we're going to miss important parts of the story. And the fact of the matter is there was no official signed deal, but there were informal promises made to the Russians, and there's just hard evidence of that. You know, even though the Americans have turned around and said, no, no, we didn't do it, I mean, it's it's documented. This isn't a matter of politics or perspective. It's history. And and that does, in fact, you know, suggest that Russia also has a trust problem when it comes to NATO.

RB: When we talk about how united the alliance's at this moment, Andrea, I mean, Turkey and Hungary have both remained fairly friendly with Russia. How much of a challenge do you think they pose towards Ukraine's path into NATO?

ANDREA CHARRON: Well, this is not new. You know, over the history of NATO, there have been fissures within the membership and certain natal members that will hold out for various reasons on decisions made. I mean, I'm struck by the fact that Northern Macedonia took nearly ten years to join NATO, and that was largely because of concerns from Greece. So it's it's an opportunity certainly for Turkey in the case of Sweden, to get some irritants addressed. And now we seem to have movement on the EU front. So I think it's just natural for states to look out for their national interests. And that's also the balancing game one plays when decision making is made by consensus. Essentially all 31 states have a VETO, and even if a decision is made collectively, there will be national interests that will intersect with that decision that have to be addressed.

RB: Kerry, I wonder what you made of the news about Turkey's change of heart, about Sweden joining NATO's because it had been resisting that for over a year. Why do you think that the Turkish president changed his mind?

KERRY BUCK: Well, I, I thought that Sweden I was convinced that Sweden would join the alliance that Turkey's resistance wasn't a block, but that it was seeking to gain certain political advantages, both domestic political advantages before Turkey's elections, but also advantages with some of the allies before they would bend and say, yes, I think he changed his mind now because the international reputational cost was starting to grow too high for him and the domestic political gain was less consequential because their elections had already happened. So and he might just might have been given the green light to purchase some F-16s from the U.S. as a quid pro quo. There were probably other things on the table. So I wasn't surprised. He said yes, and Hungary will follow suit on this. They'd already said that if Turkey goes along, they'll go along. So not surprised. Very happy, though. I think that Sweden's capabilities brought into the alliance are really important. Another important aspect for Canada particularly is that all Arctic nations say Russia are now members of the alliance.

RB: Right. Aisha, do you see this as a game changer in any way now that Sweden is set to become a member?

AISHA AHMAD: I don't know if it would be considered a game changer. I don't disagree with any of the comments that the Kerry made. It's it's not insignificant in terms of, you know, the primary security concerns that Russia has. They were much more about, you know, certainly about Ukraine than it was Scandinavian membership, anti-NATO. But as I said, it's it's not insignificant. What I am worried about, though, is that we have hit a point in which cooperation is at a profoundly low point and we are running out of time, and that everything that is happening at this summit, you know, frankly, continues on the path of escalation as opposed to de-escalation. And my colleague Kerry mentioned, you know, that off ramps were driven past, but the path of creating these off ramps can't just stop. We need off ramps today. We needed off ramps yesterday. We're going to need to offer since tomorrow. And so while this may strengthen the NATO's alliance, it doesn't actually do anything to find us those essential off ramps.

RB: And when you're talking about that, all signs point to escalation, Aisha, are you also taking into account the decision by the U.S., the unilateral decision to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs?

AISHA AHMAD: Yeah, cluster bombs. And of course, you know, additional weapons that continue. You know, Ukraine has been NATO's proxy to Czech Russia. You know, and these battles being fought on the backs of Ukrainian people. You know, are we moving the line 100 kilometres to the left? Then it gets pushed back 100 kilometres to the right and. Yeah, so it's the cluster bombs. Now we've got long range missiles, you know, and the goal and all of this is to use Ukraine to defeat Russia, but it's coming at a tremendous and extraordinary cost. And I am of the mind that if the line that's going to be drawn five years from now is fundamentally similar to the line that could be drawn today, then you've killed a lot of people over those five years. And so start the off ramps conversation as quickly as possible. And the best way to get a negotiated peace agreement was yesterday. But today's the second best option.

RB: Kerry, what are your thoughts on that?

KERRY BUCK: I think that Vladimir Putin won't negotiate a peace agreement until he's put into militarily into a position where he knows he's going to lose. And it has to be the Ukrainians who decide when that point is in conversation, of course, with, you know, close partners of theirs. But it has to be Ukraine deciding when that point is reached, when they can afford to pursue peace with Putin, because right now it's not NATO's using Ukraine to fight. Ukraine is using Ukrainian soldiers to fight and they're dying. And the problem is that the killings by Russians of Ukrainian civilians, Ukrainian soldiers, I don't think that that number would be lower. I know it would be higher if NATO's hadn't stepped in to help Ukraine ensure they had sufficient weaponry, ammunition, support, and prior to that, the training so that they're a more capable fighting force. So I agree entirely that there will need to be channels of communication with Russia. They will have to be rebuilt on things that are important to the West, like nuclear arms control, like the Arctic. Absolutely. But right now, the way to find peace, it sounds counterintuitive, but is to bolster Ukraine's capacity to repel Russia, because the only the other option is to let Russia continue to prosecute the war without helping Ukraine. And that would be, I think, annihilation of Ukrainian country and the Ukrainian people. And that's not good for peace. It's very bad for peace.

RB: It's interesting. Well, Andrea, where do you land on this? Because we had Isaiah saying that it's de-escalation that's needed. And Kerry is saying that escalation is the language that Vladimir Putin speaks. What where do you stand, Andrea?

ANDREA CHARRON: Well, I think for me, I'm, you know, sitting comfortably in in Winnipeg. And it's really difficult to know all the factors that are on the ground. You know, this is where marking 500 days at war, this is an illegal war by Russia that seems hell bent on doing this, regardless of what we say. But there are so many factors involved in this war, both how we support Ukraine, the armaments we do provide. I do think the US decision to provide cluster munitions is going to be another one of those decisions within the needle membership because. Most of the Nieto members are state parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and so we know the damaging effects of them. And so the conversation is going to shift to, well, how is it best to support Ukraine? So I think we're probably in in this uncomfortable grey zone between our and how can we de-escalate, but how can we not escalate? And in that is the quote unquote art of war that is is so difficult to manage because once you start down that path, both sides have implications in the war and one cannot always understand the consequences of those decisions.

RB: Kerry Just in our last minute, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today that cluster bombs should not be used. I mean, do his words hold any sway, do you think?

KERRY BUCK: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you look at the number of countries that have ratified the convention that bans the production sale and use of cluster munitions, pretty impressive. The U.S. is an outlier on this, as is Russia. And the problem is that post-conflict, they pose a serious hazard to civilians. They can duds can fail to explode on use and they can do so years later. So I think that Prime Minister Trudeau's words hold a lot of sway at the native table. Fact is, the US has decided to do it. They're seeking to justify it. Ukraine wanted it. I think it's an unfortunate decision that the US made.

RB: Do you think the U.S. will backtrack on it?

KERRY BUCK: No, but I'm guessing here. They've expended so much, they paid the cost already by announcing they're going to do it. So I don't think they will backtrack from it. But I think it's unfortunate. And as I said, I'm guessing.

RB: I really appreciated this conversation this morning. Thank you all.

KERRY BUCK: Thank you.

AISHA AHMAD: Thank you.

RB: It was Kerry Buck, former Canadian ambassador to NATO. Andrea Charron is a professor of political studies and the director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba. And Aisha Ahmed is a associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. Well, the CBC news is coming up next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

You have to focus on the game and you can't think of all the other stuff in your life, you know, like dishes. And you know what? I got to get at Costco and all those other things. I can lose myself in pinball.

RB: Well, pinball is apparently staging a comeback around the world. People are smashing flippers, chasing the high score in 6 minutes. Why it has become more than just a game for some enthusiasts. My name is Robyn Bresnahan and you are listening to The Current.

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Pinball enthusiasts lead a resurgence in 'kinetic, chaotic' game

RB: Hello, I'm Robyn Bresnahan and you're listening to The Current. Do you consider yourself a connoisseur of bumpers, flippers, and tilts? If you don't you're probably a little confused. Those are all pinball terms. Earlier this year The Current's producer Alison Masemann explored the resurgence of pinball. Here she is, speaking to Matt Galloway.

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MG: That's Oliver and Owen trying at pinball machines for the first time at a new arcade on PEI. This game is vintage. It's made in 1988. It is called Secret Service, with a little model of the U.S. Capitol in it. And your job is to protect Washington from the evil Soviets. That plotline is a real throwback, kind of like the idea of pinball itself when you think of it. It is an old game that is finding new fans. Stern Pinball, one of the big manufacturers based in Chicago, reported that sales went up five-fold during the pandemic. The International Flipper Pinball Association, which is, yes, the governing body for competitive pinball, says that in the past decade, the number of competitions has also increased five-fold. Our producer, Alison Masemann, has been looking into the new found appeal of this old school game. Alison, good morning.

ALISON MASEMANN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Tell us about your first stop on the trail of the popularity of pinball.

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, it's actually just a quick ride outside Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on the outskirts of that city, to seven’s Pinballorama, which is located in a squat one story building across the way. There's a motel. The business right next door is a pizza and Donna Air Place. It's really not much to look at, but once you step inside, it's a bit of sensory overload.

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[pinball machine sounds]

MG: Reminds me of like the arcades that I used to go to as a kid. Do you remember arcades?

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah. Yeah. [laughing]

MG: Sorry. There's a whole generation that is like, continue, old man.

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah. This place is wall to wall machines around the entire outside of the room. Plus there's a bank of them in the middle. The walls are dark, primary colours, a bit kind of eighties style, but the lights are dim. So what you really notice are all the flashing lights and graphics on the machines. And then there's also a little snack bar in the corner, which is stocked appropriately with retro style soda pop.

MG: Very nice. It's been a while since I've played pinball. Yourself?

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah. Like you're saying, it's sort of a vestige of earlier times. Last time I played pinball was probably in my friend Michelle's basement in the 1980s.

MG: Classic moment.

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah, for sure. I was actually a pinballorama with my own kids, part of our family vacation. And I think this was actually their first time ever seeing a real pinball machine.

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MAN: This one, there's three flippers instead of two. And it's all about the army and aliens.

ALISON MASEMANN: Oh, and what one are you playing now?

CHILD: I'm playing Batman Forever, I think. It's quite fast and hard to see the ball because it's quite dark and it's a lot harder than the other ones.

ALISON MASEMANN: Another kid, Mitchell Perry, was finding it pretty hard too. He was next to us, flipping furiously, trying to get his ball up this one particular ramp. He's here with his daddy.

MITCHELL PERRY: I'm here because my dad and I are making a pinball video game, and we're getting ideas for it here to make it more interesting, I guess you could say. My dad and I, we both knew that we wanted to make some sort of video game for phones, and we didn't know what. But then my dad came up with the idea and I thought it was an amazing idea. I like like the chaos. Kind of like how like the ball goes everywhere. And sometimes you can get multiple balls and stuff like that. It's free, like interesting, and all the flashing lights kind of. It's just chaotic and fun pretty much.

MAN: You know, you can play on your phone, you can do all that stuff, but this is just a hands on and it's, you know, it's mechanical. It's not computer based. So it's just different.

ALISON MASEMANN: So it's a totally new experience for a kid like Mitchell. But then I did also run into a grandpa at the arcade who said playing pinball again reminded him of going to the old pool hall in Charlottetown back in the 1970s.

MG: It's like a time machine, but a nostalgia there for you. How far back do the games go at this place?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, the games here, there's about 40 of them all together, really span the entire history of pinball right back to the 1930s.

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SEVEN GRAYLAND: As a historical item, this one back in the corner, this is a 1934 Rube Grossman Company The Mystery six.

ALISON MASEMANN: Seven Grayland and his partner, Sophia Creuzcamp own this place.

SEVEN GRAYLAND: So this was early, early pinball.

ALISON MASEMANN: Seven says it's the largest collection of classic pinball machines in Canada.

SEVEN GRAYLAND: 50 Yuma, Arizona, they've now kind of figured out flippers. They figured out how to light lights behind the back glass to show you what your score is. Same with this one, 1954, a big hit.

ALISON MASEMANN: That's a baseball theme.

SEVEN GRAYMAN: baseball theme.

ALISON MASEMANN: How would you describe kind of the different themes that pinball machines encompass?

SEVEN GRAYLAND: It seems like in the fifties and sixties, they did a lot of familiar sports. So they did a lot of baseball, there's a handful of bowling themes, something that people are more familiar with. And then getting into, after Space Invaders and the space thing started and Star Wars, then we started seeing a lot of space themed ones. Stellar Wars and Alien Poker and a lot of science fiction based stuff.

MG: Alien poker? Do tell.

ALISON MASEMANN: [laughing] I wish I knew more about alien poker.

MG: Yeah.

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah. After that sci fi phase, we kind of move into the fitness craze of the 1980s. Remember let's get physical? There's one machine.

MG: I thought you were just about to dance, but continue.

ALISON MASEMANN: [laughing] There's one machine here that'll take you right back to that era. It's actually a body building theme covered with images of women in bikinis flexing their muscles.

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SEVEN GRAYLAND: This is a mid-eighties ballet hardbody themed as one would expect in the eighties. It looks like an eagle print kind of. This was my very first pinball machine right here. We started looking into the idea of getting a pinball machine, but the prices were quite expensive. So I didn't know if I would play it after a week or so. So we found this one on Craigslist for around $800. We brought it home, and then we just played the hell out of it. We just played it non-stop. So the next one I got had port bumpers, which are the little Daley Bobbers.

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah, circular kind of bouncer things.

SEVEN GRAYLAND: Then I wanted one with multi-ball. So the next one I got was. And that's how this whole madness started.

SOPHIA CREUZCAMP: When we started collecting more and more, it was like, okay, yeah, we'll get another one and another one. And we had the space at home.

SEVEN GRAYLAND: At eight machines, I met up with a bunch of other people that were involved in pinball. They had collections at home. And my friends started telling me, you know, we go to all these different places. We really like come into your house because you have all these really interesting machines. So that's when we decided, let's see if we can open an arcade.

MG: So they decide to open an arcade. Sure, why not? How difficult is that?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, that’s actually a bit of a story. They were ready to do this several years ago. They'd accumulated this collection. At the time, Seven and Sophia were living in British Columbia, and they wanted to open up there. They'd found a good location in Mission, B.C., and had agreed in principle to leasing. He had the paperwork in hand to open the business, and then.

SOUNDCLIP

SEVEN GRAYLAND: The very next council meeting, they banned arcades in that zone and just shut us down completely. And I could never get an explanation. Like, well, there haven't been arcades in Mission in 20 years. Why now? Like why worry about it now?

MG: Did they ever figure out exactly why?

ALISON MASEMANN: No. Seven says he's still not really 100% sure why the town passed this new bylaw. Although, I looked it up, and it seems to have been designed to prevent not just arcades, but also things like tattoo parlours, flea markets, stores that sell marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia.

MG: I mean, how unusual is a bylaw like that?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, there actually used to be lots of towns and cities with arcade laws. Montreal actually had a by law on the books until 2017 that banned “amusement machines in places where alcohol is served”. In Toronto in the seventies, there was one famous raid where 150 machines got unplugged at one place. And in fact, there’s still a Toronto by law that says you can only have two mechanical gaming machines in a restaurant or place of amusement. But apparently, that is very rarely enforced.

MG: I can imagine people across the country kind of nodding knowingly about Toronto and its bylaws. Seven And Sophia ended up on the other side of the country to set up their arcade?

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah. So no bylaws there, apparently. Sofia had travelled to PEI for work and sort of fell in love with it. Still, there were issues. The pandemic delayed their opening. But now that the place is up and running, Seven has really been surprised at the interest.

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SEVEN GRAYLAND: Some people that came in today, they had never played pinball of any sort before. They didn't know. They didn't play video pinball or anything. So I have to give them a little lesson. Here's how you start the game. Here's what the flippers are. Here's how to get the ball onto the playfield, which I love. I love that aspect of it.

SOPHIA CREUZCAMP: It's been interesting watching folks that have never played pinball, especially younger folks. We did a fair a few years ago, and there was a boy who couldn't understand that the score reels were mechanical on one of our machines. He thought it was an LCD screen. So it is really interesting to see people get pulled into that mechanical world and kind of understand a little bit more about pinball. And I think you start to get hooked on them, and also seeing people getting hooked on the different machines.

ALISON MASEMANN: So people are getting hooked on this. They've even started up a competitive pinball league at the arcade.

MG: A competitive pinball league. What is that?

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah. So this is a whole other world that I knew nothing about. But there are thousands of pinball competitions around the world every year.

SOUNDCLIP

[pinball machine sounds]

JULIE DORSERS: So you can see that 5000 saucer at the top is lit and that one is not. So that's where I want to put the ball.

ALISON MASEMANN: So that is the voice of a competitive pinball player. That's Julie Dorsers, who I met while she was practicing at a friend's place in London, Ontario.

[pinball machine sounds]

JULIE DORSERS: Look at that. And I did it.

ALISON MASEMANN: We're just in the basement. It's like most rec rooms, a comfy couch, a TV, a light on the wall with the logo of a beer company on it. Although to fit the vintage theme, it's the old Vienna beer brand, which you may remember as well.

MG: Indeed.

ALISON MASEMANN: But the big difference with this basement is a row of seven pinball machines along the wall.

MG: And tell me about the games.

ALISON MASEMANN: So Julie is playing one called pin up. This is another vintage number from 1975. It's based on the game of bowling. And the graphic on the back panel shows characters who sort of look like they're from the Archie Comics, trying to score a strike. Her friend Corey Cook is looking on, and Julie shows me just how you rack up big scores in this game.

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[pinball machine sounds]

JULIE DORSERS: Well, you're always trying to keep it off the top because it's safer up top.

COREY COOK: There’s a lot more involved than just keeping the ball in play. You know, when you're a kid, all you really are trying to do is make sure you don't lose the ball. So in this case, Julie's trying to hit down all those drop targets, because if she manages to do that, once they reset, it'll light the drop targets for more points. And it'll also allow her to add balls to the game. So instead of having only, say, five balls to play, she'll have six.

JULIE DORSER: So now it's on the other side. I lost the ball and I didn't get anything. Yeah.

MG: So she lost the ball that time. But she is a competitive pinball player. So how good is she?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, you can sort of hear she knows the ins and outs of all the games in this basement as she shows them to me. She can rhyme off the special features, the tricky bits. Her eyes sort of light up like a pinball machine, you might say, as she shows them to me.

MG: How did she get so good at pinball?

ALISON MASEMANN: So lots and lots of practice, lots of playing with friends, and then lots of competition over the past ten years or so. She started in a local league here in London, and then worked her way up to the big time.

MG: What is the big time in pinball?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, we mentioned that off the top, this organization called the International Flipper Pinball Association that keeps track of all the tournaments and rankings. Before COVID hit, Julie was competing at tournaments in New York City and Pennsylvania, up against the best in the world. There are some women only tournaments that she's in. She likes those. The vibe is a bit more supportive, but she does play against men also. It's hard to find enough tournaments otherwise.

MG: How did she get into this?

ALISON MASEMANN: It's funny. I mean, she didn't really do it as a kid. She grew up on a farm. There was no pinball to be found, really. So it started for her a bit later in life.

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JULIE DORSER: When I was in college, I don't really drink. So I would be the driver. And by about 11:00, everybody's like saying the same thing and you know, they're a little bit pickled and tipsy. So I would go play the pinball machine at the bar, and I would meet people just playing pinball. They go, Oh, can I play? And I'd be like, Yeah, well, I have a couple of games, right? And we'd play together. I really enjoyed that.

ALISON MASEMANN: So Julie got hooked at that point. And as she's gotten older, she's in her fifties now, she says pinball has sort of almost become this meditative experience for her.

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JULIE DORSER: For me, pinball, I like it because when you play pinball, you have to focus on the game and you can't think of all the other stuff in your life, you know, like dishes and, you know, what I got to get at Costco and all those other things. So I can lose myself in pinball. The other thing is there's a big pinball community, and nobody talks about their job. They talk about pinball. So it's a really good way to get away from the daily stresses of life, I guess.

MG: So she plays competitively. And this is not in any way to diminish her abilities as an extraordinary competitive pinball player, but how much of this is like skill and how much of it is just luck?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, that is sort of the $10,000 question or the 25 cent question, you might say. I talked to her and her friend Corey Cook about this, who actually runs a business repairing pinball machines.

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[pinball machine sounds]

JULIE DORSER: The trick is you have to get it in the lit saucer at the top when you plunge the ball, and then you've got to hit all the pins down like in bowling. And these flippers, they're called mini flippers, and two pop bumpers which can really mess things up.

COREY COOK: And the geometry is a lot like, you know, billiards. In that, you know, you're using the flippers to aim the ball where you want it to go. And there's a famous story of a gentleman named Roger Sharpe, who had to demonstrate the skill involved in pinball in order to convince the New York City Council to legalize it within the city in the mid-seventies.

JULIE DORSER: He loved pinball, but he never saw the games because it was illegal. And so he was like, Well, why is it illegal? And it was because of the mob era way back in the day when there was no flippers. So initially, games didn't have flippers. You just plunged the ball and the ball would go.

ALISON MASEMANN: Totally more of a game of chance.

JULIE DORSER: More of a game of chance. But because all these mob guys had games everywhere to make money, you know, five cents, they decided it was gambling.

ALISON MASEMANN: So that's more talk there about why pinball used to be banned and why it's sort of always been associated with kind of the city side of life. What's funny is as I was talking to Corey, over his shoulder on the window ledge, there was this framed vintage print, it said, no gambling. For amusement only

MG: Very nice. And people aren't really gambling necessarily on pinball anymore. But you still can make money from this, right?

ALISON MASEMANN: Yeah, you totally can. I mean, Corey, who I mentioned, makes a full time living doing this, fixing pinball machines. He hasn't always done this. For two decades in fact, his career was as an audiovisual technician at the local university who just tinkered with pinball machines in his spare time.

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COREY COOK: In 2008, 2009, I started doing pinball house calls on the side just to bring in some extra money. People started to find out that I knew how to fix the machines. I was pretty active on pinball forums. There's quite a collector community out there for these types of things. And so the phone started to ring and I started to go and do more and more house calls. You know, people would call me and say, Can you fix my machine? And I'd love to be able to just say yes rather than say, you know, sorry, I don't have time or. And considering how few individuals there seem to be in southern Ontario who are willing to travel and go into people's homes and fix a machine, confidently fix a machine, it seemed that the time was right for me to start up my business.

MG: This may be a silly question. Why is it that so many people need their pinball machines repaired?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, you can buy new machines and people are buying those, but there are obviously a lot of used ones out there. When arcades would closed down over the years, they'd try and sell off their stock. And lately, more and more people have been deciding it would be fun to have one of these old machines in their basements or whatever. They usually need at least a tune up.

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[pinball machine sounds]

COREY COOK: I'm just going to open up the machine, and the first thing I would do is make sure that the score motor turns. It should always turn if you start to turn the score motor just with your hand. The stepper units, you can check their operation by making sure that they step up and reset. I found the idea of owning your own pinball machine. Fascinating. Like that you could own something that was supposed to be in the arcade. It was really industrial equipment, but you could own it in your own home. And so the idea of taking this broken machine that has, you know, for all intents and purposes, is destined for the scrap heap, to take something broken like that and make it work again, you know, it really is a bit of a rush.

MG: So he gets a rush from fixing these machines. But what about people who play them? There are so many different ways that you can amuse yourself and games that you can play in ways that you can be entertained. Do we know, having, you know, gone into the tunnel of the pinball world, whether playing the games now can give you the same sort of rushes as playing a video game?

ALISON MASEMANN: Well, I've been thinking about that question too, especially for kids. You have to wonder if this old technology can really compete with what they've got at their fingertips these days. I asked Corey about it.

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COREY COOK: Pinball is far more tactile and engrossing than video, than, you know, digital, whatever screens. You know, if you learn the rules and how a machine works, you can get so many long hours of enjoyment out of a game like that. And also, it's imposing. I mean, they're not small. If you've got a machine in your house and it works well, everybody's going to notice it. You know, everybody's going to gravitate towards it because it's still unique and unusual to most people.

ALISON MASEMANN: I also raised this issue with Seven Grayland who you'll remember, the co-owner of the arcade out in Cornwall, PEI.

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SEVEN GRAYLAND: You can have two machines that are the same title side by side, and they're both going to play just a little bit different because the target that the ball hits is going to rebound a little bit different on one than the other. There's little imperfections in the play field. That's what people like about them too. I think in the last 10 years, there's been a big resurgence on pinball. And I think it's sort of video games or one of those things that the pattern that the computer is programmed to follow. You can win the game. It just takes tenacity. There's probably a little bit more skill required to win some of the newer video games. But pinball is random, it's kinetic, it's chaotic, it's physical. You know, it's a physical, tangible item. It's a thing.

[pinball machine sounds]

MG: It sounds almost poetic the way that he describes it. It's a thing. So the big question having done all this work, it's a very fascinating story, how is your pinball game?

ALISON MASEMANN: [laughing] I have to say, I tried to play a little bit and I'm not that good. I think it'll take a little bit of practice. At the pinballorama, you actually pay a flat fee. So it's better for beginners, right? Like, you can keep trying and trying.

MG: You know, just pumping quarters into the machine.

ALISON MASEMANN: [laughing] Exactly. It's a little less depressing. But I really do think I need a lot more practice. Although I can see what Julie was talking about, about the stress relief. I could see how you could get really into it.

MG: It sounds like you're hooked.

ALISON MASEMANN: I may well be. I’m going to have to find an arcade here in Toronto.

MG: Alison, thank you.

RB: That was Matt Galloways in conversation with one of The Current's producers, Alison Masemann. And now, some music to suit the topic. Here's Pinball Wizard - Pinball Wizard - performed by Canadian guitarist and songwriter Steve Onotera -- with actual pinball machines on percussion.

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[song: “Pinball Wizard” by Steve Onotera]

RB: That was Pinball Wizard by Canada's own Steve Onotera. Coming up after your regional update...

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Around mid-afternoon I was assigned to cover the city's headquarters. So on my way there, I saw a reporter that I knew and he said, you know, the city's going to drop a bomb on then. I'm like, What? Drop a bomb?

RB: In 1985, police dropped a bomb in a Philadelphia neighbourhood. Their target? A home associated with a Black liberation movement called MOVE. We'll bring you the first episode of the CBC Podcast The Africas Vs America in 90 seconds. I'm Robyn Bresnahan, You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

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And episode one of CBC podcast The Africas VS. America

RB: I'm Robyn Bresnahan and you're listening to The Current. Throughout the summer we're bringing you some of CBC's best podcasts. Today it's episode one of The Africas vs America. It tells the story of how police in Philadelphia dropped a bomb on a Black radical group called MOVE. And a note: This episode describes acts of police brutality and violence which some listeners might find disturbing.

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JANET MONGE: This is one of these cases where the material has some flesh on it. Which I know is not uncommon, actually, in forensics and forensic anthropology.

MATTHEW AMHA: The audio you're hearing is from a video first offered to undergraduate anthropology students at Princeton University, then posted on the free education website Coursera. It’s called Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology. Professor Janet Monge and a student are standing at a display table. Behind them, rows and rows of skulls sit in glass cabinets, and laid out before them are human remains. What Monge refers to as “the material.”

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JANET MONGE: The bones are, I mean, we would say, like, juicy. You know, meaning that you can tell that they are of a recently deceased individual. They have a lot of sort of sheen to them. At least this one does.

MATTHEW AMHA: As she speaks, the camera closes in on Monge. And she’s got a partial femur in her hands.

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JANET MONGE: If you smell it, it doesn't actually smell bad, but it smells just kind of greasy, like an older style grease.

MATTHEW AMHA: Experts in her field have concluded that the bones she is handling belonged to a teenage girl who was killed in 1985. They also know what killed her.

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JANET MONGE: And the bones were actually burned as well. So it's got quite a complicated history.

MATTHEW AMHA: Monge is right. It is a complicated history. And contested. And deeply misunderstood.

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MIKE AFRICA JR: A reporter called me and asked me to have lunch with her. She wanted to talk to me about something.

MATTHEW AMHA: This is Mike Africa Jr. In April 2021, he was contacted by a reporter from Philadelphia’s indie news site, Billy Penn. The reporter had also worked in the physical anthropology section of Penn Museum. And over lunch, Mike says she told him that Penn Museum and Princeton University had been using the remains of a girl he considered his sister, for science. Patricia Dotson Africa was 14 years old when she died. Her family called her Tree, and they’d been told that her remains had long been accounted for. But now a reporter was telling Mike that this wasn’t true. The news flattened him.

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MIKE AFRICA JR: She was going to break the story in the news that day. And I told her, wait, let me tell people first.

MATTHEW AMHA: So Mike got word up to the family elders.

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MIKE AFRICA JR: As you can imagine. Disbelief. Shock. Hurt. Confusion. Anger.

MATTHEW AMHA: Do you think had this story not been reported, you guys would have ever been told or would have found out about this?

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MIKE AFRICA JR: Probably not. I wouldn’t think they would have. They didn’t tell me. They didn’t tell me. For 36 years they kept it a damn secret.

MATTHEW AMHA: The details of these remains are shocking. As are the events that led to the death of the girl they are believed to belong to. Tree died alongside 10 others, all members of a family of radicals known collectively as MOVE. This is the story of those deaths and that group, and how its members became ensnared in the U.S. government's domestic war against Black liberation. I’m Matthew Amha, and this is The Africas VS. America. I was about 16 years old when I first saw the name MOVE. The group was a footnote in some reading I was doing into a Black Panther named Mumia Abu-Jamal. I was a young first-generation kid in Toronto, trying to make sense of my place in the world. Trying to understand my relationship to the police, to the education system, to my country, and to myself. I grew up in what you might call a Pan-African home, and was already reading pretty widely about Black history. About the likes of Thomas Sankara and Maurice Bishop and Ella Baker, and independence stories like The Battle of Adwa and the Haitian Revolution. But MOVE -- something about them was different. This had to be the most radical group I’d ever come across. And in the past few years I’ve found myself returning to this formative memory of the group pretty often. I was the same age that Trayvon Martin was when he was killed by a vigilante in 2012. And about a year younger than Ahmaud Arbery, who was murdered by a group of self-deputized white men a near decade later. In those intervening years, I watched the biggest protest movement in American history come and then go in response to police violence.

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PROTESTERS: No justice, no peace!

MATTHEW AMHA: This was a movement demanding a systemic overhaul. From policing, to prisons, to housing. I watched people compile so-called anti-racist reading lists, champion the works of radical Black thinkers and writers, and call for a re-examination of the historical record. But even then, against that spectacular backdrop, all of that energy, there was still no mention of MOVE. It was as though their story had been erased from our public consciousness. And then I read about the claims of Tree Africa’s remains being used as teaching props. So I’ve come to Philly to try to make sense of one of the most unforgettable stories I have ever come across.

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MIKE AFRICA JR: It’s been a minute.

ACQUAINTANCE: Yeah, man. How you doing?

MIKE AFRICA JR: I’m all right, man. How you feeling?

ACQUAINTANCE: I see you’re busy, man.

MIKE AFRICA JR: Yeah, man. You know. We’ll talk though.

WOMAN: Hey!

MIKE AFRICA JR: Hey, hey. How you doing? I’mma still contact you, we’re gonna talk.

WOMAN: I love you.

MIKE AFRICA JR: I love you back!

MATTHEW AMHA: Mike Africa Jr. and I are on Osage Avenue, in the Cobbs Creek neighbourhood of West Philly. Unremarkable brick row houses line either side of this block. They’re modest -- just two storeys. Each with a small front stoop and a patch of grass that inches up against the sidewalk. There's a part of me that even wonders how they fit all of those police officers on this narrow little street. We stop, and Mike gestures toward a row house across the way.

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MIKE AFRICA JR: That’s it.

MATTHEW AMHA: This is it.

MATTHEW AMHA: In the early 1980s, 6221 Osage Avenue was MOVE's official headquarters. Back then, the house belonged to Mike’s great aunt. In its earliest days, MOVE was largely a family affair -- blood relatives of its founder, John Africa. That would evolve over time. But no matter how they came to the organization, anyone who joined MOVE adopted the surname ‘Africa,’ and they considered each other to be family whether related by blood or by choice. And though they didn’t all live together, the MOVE children were raised together. So Osage, it was a place of real love and familiarity for Mike.

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MATTHEW AMHA: You think the person that lives in there knows about what happened?

MIKE AFRICA JR: He's probably looking at us right now. I mean, you might hear him say, “Michael!”

MATTHEW AMHA: Mm-hmm.

MIKE AFRICA JR: I come here all the time, like around May 13th. So he knows, he sees. He's got that ringer.

MATTHEW AMHA: He's aware of the history.

MIKE AFRICA JR: Yeah.

MATTHEW AMHA: When Mike played here as a kid, the street had a little more character. Bigger trees, deeper porches. Windows with wooden detailing. Lots of bright white paint. And in 1985, the home at 6221 Osage Avenue was distinct from the others. For one, the windows were boarded up with wood. Also boarded up was the garage, which opened onto an alleyway behind the house. And it boasted a bullhorn propped up on the outside of the property, and a fortified bunker on the roof, complete with a gun portal. They couldn’t get to the bunker from inside, so on any given day, members of the family could be seen scaling the walls of the property with rope. Now, all of this might sound a bit extreme, but the Africas had their reasons. For more than a decade, MOVE had been the target of violence and subversion by the Philadelphia Police Department and the FBI. And these tensions, between city, nation, and family, would finally come to a head here, on May 13th, 1985.

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RAMONA AFRICA: Well, the first thing I always tell people about May 13th is that it began on Sunday, Mother's Day, May 12th of 1985.

MATTHEW AMHA: Ramona Africa is one of 13 people inside the MOVE home on Osage Avenue that Mother’s Day. MOVE’s founder, John Africa, is there too. Six children, ages 9 to 14, are asleep in the second-floor hallway. And the radio’s on, turned to the local all-news station, KYW.

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RAMONA AFRICA: And they start talking about the cops amassing around, you know, our home. Around Osage Avenue

MATTHEW AMHA: MOVE had grown accustomed to being monitored by the police, but this was different. There’s a small urban army gathering outside their home, and they hear it from the radio first. But for the past couple of hours, neighbours up and down the block have been getting phone calls and visitors. Here’s some tape collected shortly afterward, part of a WHYY-TV documentary.

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NEIGHBOUR: They called me up in the morning and said, “This is the city police department. We would like you to vacate your premises by 10 o'clock tonight because we have reason to believe there's going to be gunfire in your neighbourhood."

NEIGHBOUR 2: When I got up, it was about 500 police on the scene. So when we went to church we asked our minister to pray for the neighbours, to pray for MOVE, to pray for the police and the firemen, which he did. The whole church prayed for them.

MATTHEW AMHA: Inside the house, the MOVE family keeps company with the radio. Hour after hour after hour.

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RAMONA AFRICA: We were listening to KYW. And during that time, throughout the day, the cops went door to door; was telling people it's Mother's Day, take your wife/your mother/your family out to dinner or whatever. Just get out of the area. Any cars that was on Osage Avenue, they removed.

MATTHEW AMHA: Police are building a perimeter around the MOVE home, and neighbours are beginning to understand what’s taking shape. They’re here to resolve a 13-year standoff with MOVE. Here’s more from that WHYY documentary.

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MOVE SUPPORTER: Then I began to notice this top brass, I guess, coming in. Trucks coming in bringing weapons. And the stakeout officers began to come in, and each one of them had a weapon. Then they brought in this heavy artillery, something that looked like a cannon.

MATTHEW AMHA: This buildup continues through Sunday, into the early hours of Monday morning. By 3:30 on the morning of May 13th, the 6200 block of Osage Avenue has been emptied. Police stakeout units and bomb disposal teams are on standby. By 4 a.m., the city cuts gas and power to the entire neighbourhood. From behind the cover of night, MOVE confronts police with their bullhorn.

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MOVE MEMBER: Y’all motherf--kers been asking (Unintelligible). Well god damn, that’s what the f--k y’all gonna get.

MATTHEW AMHA: There are now hundreds of Philadelphia police officers in the street, and many of them are armed with high-powered automatic weapons: M-16s, Uzis, and .30 calibre machine guns. By 5:35 in the morning, Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor is on the scene, armed with a bullhorn of his own, and an ultimatum.

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RAMONA AFRICA: Gregore Sambor gets on his bullhorn and says, "Attention MOVE, this is America. You have to abide by the laws and rules of America," and he goes on and on. And gave us 15 minutes to come out.

MATTHEW AMHA: Police say they’re here to arrest four members of MOVE, on charges ranging from criminal conspiracy to possession of explosives.

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RAMONA AFRICA: I'm thinking when I hear this, "Attention MOVE, this is America," and I'm like, “Yeah?” you know. "Do you know what America stands for? The wholesale slaughter of the Indigenous people of this country," you know? So we didn't come out at the 15-minute deadline. And we didn't come out because we knew without a doubt that they were not there to arrest us. They were there to kill us. People ask us, “Well, why didn’t you send the children out?” Were Indians expected to turn their children, their babies, over to the cowboys that were shooting at them? No. Would you expect Black South Africans to turn their babies over to the Afrikaners? No. But people want to look at MOVE and ask us why we wouldn’t turn our children over to our enemy.

BIRDIE AFRICA: It was halfway nighttime.

LAWYER: The first thing you said was you heard someone on a bullhorn. Do you know who that was on the bullhorn?

BIRDIE AFRICA: It was Mona, and Commissioner Sambor was on too. That's when I woke up.

MATTHEW AMHA: Up in the second-floor hallway, 13-year-old Birdie Africa is startled from his sleep by the sound of the piercing bullhorns. This tape you’re hearing is Birdie’s testimony to an investigative commission a few months after May 13th. By now, Birdie and the rest of the children are wide awake. The adults are leading them to the cellar. And for a while it’s just the kids down there, but it’s not long before they’ll be joined by the women.

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LINN WASHINGTON: I got a call around three o’clock in the morning, and it was a very cryptic call. “Linn, get over here. It's going down.” Click. But I knew what they were talking about because, you know, things had been escalating. So I knew it was MOVE.

MATTHEW AMHA: On May 13th, 1985, Linn Washington Jr. is a print reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News. His reporting connects issues like race and police brutality -- the kind of things which go hand in hand in Philadelphia. He’s been on the MOVE beat for more than a decade at this point.

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LINN WASHINGTON: So I get on my motorcycle and drive over, which turned out to be good because I was thinking the motorcycle will give me more mobility to be able to move around and everything. And it was able to get me through the checkpoints and whatnot. So I got there around five o’clock. Start to (Unintelligible) on with some reporters, try to get the lay of the land.

MATTHEW AMHA: Outside, this small city block is spilling over with activity. There are news trucks, cop cars, fire engines, wagons and vans. The fire department has taken up position on Pine Street, just behind the MOVE home. At 5:50 that morning, Commissioner Sambor’s 15-minute surrender deadline passes. First light has only just broken. Firefighters unleash high-pressure water cannons onto the bunker on the roof, co-ordinated with police units who are unloading canisters of tear gas into the home.

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RAMONA AFRICA: It was pouring down on us in the basement.

BIRDIE AFRICA: We got the blankets and they was wet. And we had them in the bucket and they was wet. Then we put them over our heads and started laying down.

MATTHEW AMHA: The rowhouses on Osage are connected by adjoining walls, and the police use this to their advantage, blasting three-inch-wide holes into 6221 from either side with explosive devices. Tomaso, the youngest, takes shelter under a blanket with one of the women. Birdie tucks himself in with his mother, Rhonda, and Little Phil, aged 12. The girls -- Netta, Delisha and Tree Africa -- they don’t have their mothers here to comfort them. Their parents are in prison, and will only learn the horror of this day from fellow prisoners and prison guards.

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LINN WASHINGTON: And then the shootout started. There were so many bullets in that morning shootout that they were ricocheting off the sidewalk like hail.

MATTHEW AMHA: Over the next 90 minutes, the Philadelphia Police Department will fire at least 10,000 rounds into the home. When the shooting finally stops on Osage Avenue, it’s shortly after noon. Reporter Linn Washington is looking around, trying to figure out what might happen next. That’s when he spots John Africa’s right-hand man in the crowd out on the street. Big Jerry Africa.

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LINN WASHINGTON: And he's with two other people. One, a civil rights activist from West Philadelphia. And the other was a recently retired judge who was the Democratic Party's official candidate for district attorney.

MATTHEW AMHA: Jerry tells Linn that MOVE is ready to surrender, but he wants to speak with Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode to work out the details.

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LINN WASHINGTON: They could never get Wilson Goode on the phone. They call Wilson's office -- “He's not here.” It got so desperate that they called the chief justice of Pennsylvania Supreme Court and asked the chief justice to call Wilson Goode. He did, and Wilson wouldn't get on the phone with him. So an effort to try to resolve this was blown because Wilson wouldn't get on the phone.

MATTHEW AMHA: Wilson Goode disputes this claim, but he does give the OK for others on the scene to negotiate on his behalf. But MOVE isn’t having it. They want to talk to the guy with the power. For an excruciating five hours, things remain at a tense standstill. And in the midst of that standstill, Mayor Goode delivers a press conference from city hall.

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MAYOR WILSON GOODE: We intend to evict from the house. We intend to evacuate from the house. We intend to seize control of the house.

REPORTER: How will you do that?

MAYOR WILSON GOODE: We will do it by any means necessary.

LINN WASHINGTON: Day goes on, goes on. There’s just a stalemate; it’s hot. Around mid-afternoon I was assigned to cover the city's headquarters. So on my way there I saw a reporter that I knew. And he said, “You know, the city's going to drop a bomb on them.” And I'm like, “What? Drop a bomb?” Now, anything the Philadelphia police did was not outrageous to me knowing what they did. But I just could not fathom that they would drop a bomb on a house that they knew had kids in it.

RAMONA AFRICA: So we’re in the basement. After the water, after the tear gas, after the thousands of rounds of bullets shot at us. And there was a lull. You know, it was a lull; kind of quiet where nothing was really happening. And then all of a sudden the house kind of shook.

BIRDIE AFRICA: All the men was upstairs.

LAWYER: All the men were upstairs? And then what happened?

BIRDIE AFRICA: They was still up there, and then they came down. Everybody came down.

LAWYER: All the men came down?

BIRDIE AFRICA: That's when the big bomb went off.

LAWYER: Did you hear the big bomb?

BIRDIE AFRICA: It shook the whole house up.

LAWYER: It did? And what happened then?

BIRDIE AFRICA: They told us to stay together.

LAWYER: Just all stay together. Did you all try to get out of the house during the day?

BIRDIE AFRICA: When the fire started, we did.

MATTHEW AMHA: It’s now 5:30 in the afternoon, and all 13 people inside the house at 6221 Osage Avenue are believed to be alive. They’ve been bombarded with water. They’ve been shot at, tear-gassed, blasted, and then bombed.

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RAMONA AFRICA: We didn't realize what it was at the time. It never entered my mind, at least, that they had dropped a bomb on us. Gregore Sambor, the police commissioner, gave us that 15-minute warning. They never said anything else to us. They never announced or said that they were preparing to drop a bomb. They flew over our house with no warning, and dropped the satchel containing the C4 incendiary explosives -- incendiary meaning fire-causing explosives -- on the roof of our home.

MATTHEW AMHA: After feeling the blast, Linn Washington makes his way back to Osage.

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LINN WASHINGTON: So you look up, and you see a little trail of black smoke coming off of a house in the 6200 block of Osage Avenue. And it looked like a backyard barbecue, charcoal barbecue. When they first start, there's a little stream of black smoke. And then that black smoke turned to black-grey smoke. And, you know, having been a general assignment reporter for so many years, I know the evolution of fires. This fire is getting bad.

RAMONA AFRICA: The smoke was getting thicker, and it didn't have the same potency or, or feel of the tear gas. Then we heard the tree in the back of our house, crackling. It was on fire. We realized at that point that it wasn't tear gas that we were dealing with.

LINN WASHINGTON: Then you started seeing the thick yellow smoke, and I knew it was burning through the roof. So we're all there like, whoa, what is going on here? The house is on fire. And then the next question is, well, why aren't the firefighters fighting the fire?

MATTHEW AMHA: The fire department just stood idly by.

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RAMONA AFRICA: I can't recall any situation where firefighters, who have four deluge hoses that they have aimed at our house, flooded our house with tons and tons of water when there was no fire, suddenly could not put any water on our house when in fact there is a fire.

LINN WASHINGTON: And the firefighters were standing around, and the people were like, “Fight the fire! What do you mean? Fight the fire!” Then it became a little more profane. “Fight the damn fire!” Then fight the, you know, F-word fire. Fire’s now billowing. And you can just see the fire jumping across the street, jumping down the roofline.

RAMONA AFRICA: They made a conscious decision not to put the fire out because their aim was to kill us, plain and simple. When have you ever heard of firefighters knowing that there are men, women, children, animals in a house that's on fire? A row house. They didn't care about any of that. They made a decision to let that fire burn.

MATTHEW AMHA: There’s this video footage that was made available to the public in the months following the bombing. Frontline used it in this 1987 episode. It’s from police officers who were filming across the street. In the grainy footage you can make out 6221 Osage, with their windows blasted open and fire raging through the home.

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POLICE OFFICER: They won’t call the police commissioner a mother--ker anymore.

[Laughter]

MATTHEW AMHA: It’s kind of hard to hear. But that? That’s laughter. And one of the officers says about MOVE members trapped inside the burning building, quote: "They won't call the police commissioner a mother--ker anymore."

SOUNDCLIP

LINN WASHINGTON: What none of us knew is that the police commissioner had given the fire commissioner the order to not fight the fire. So now the fire has engulfed the entirety of the 6200 block of Osage Avenue, and we're all just standing there watching this like, ‘God damn it.’ We can't even believe this. And now, night is falling. This orange glow made it look like it was daytime, just like now. But it was, you know, orange because the whole block was just-- I mean, it was an inferno. So, you know, we're watching this and the crowd is now restive. You know, they're cursing at the police, they’re cursing at the firefighters. The firefighters are starting to, you know, fight the fire. And then I heard that some residents were still stuck in their houses. So I said, you know, initially, like, OK, well, let me go back here. Let me see this story, right? So I go in to the back behind the houses. At this point, the police barricades they’re broken down, so you could pretty much move where you wanted or where it was, you know, safe to move. And I walked into, literally, a canyon of fire. I mean, it was so hot. And my skin was boiling.

MATTHEW AMHA: Despite media reports suggesting MOVE members wanted to be martyrs, that they had planned to die in their home, Ramona Africa has always insisted the family did everything in their power to escape the inferno with the lives of their children and animals intact. And she would eventually help Birdie escape the fire -- the police find him outside, unconscious, and he’s rushed to hospital with second- and third-degree burns to much of his body. Ramona escapes the house as well, but not the police. She’ll spend the next seven years in prison, on riot and conspiracy to riot charges. By midnight, the better part of two residential city blocks lay in ruins. Sixty-one homes had been destroyed; two hundred and fifty people in this working-class Black neighbourhood made homeless overnight. Everyone else in the MOVE home -- six adults, five children -- is now dead. A number of them will be found with bullet fragments, in what little is left of their remains.

SOUNDCLIP

RAMONA AFRICA: If they wanted to simply arrest us, they could have done that, I mean, any number of times. We had a routine: going to the park, running, swimming in Cobbs Creek. We had the same shopping routine. They could have snatched us up anytime, but that was not their aim. We’re not going to allow people to sit back and hallucinate that what happened May 13th was just things going awry, things getting out of control. That’s bull; that’s not what happened. Their aim was to kill.

MATTHEW AMHA: The city would later acknowledge that the day’s events were part of a broader plan. And we’ll get into that later in the series.

SOUNDCLIP

JANET MONGE: Today we’re actually going to look at an actual forensic case from here in the city of Philadelphia.

MATTHEW AMHA: So back to that call Mike received from the reporter from Billy Penn. She called him because these days he’s MOVE’s de facto leader. The organization is Mike Africa Jr.’s inheritance. His great uncle, John Africa, founded the organization, and his parents were among its founding members. The story of Tree’s remains is long and incredibly complicated, but here are the broad strokes. In the aftermath of the bombing, the medical examiner’s office called on a local academic named Alan Mann to help identify the remains of the 11 members of the Africa family. Mann brought his research assistant, Janet Monge. But others in the field say the scope of the investigation was beyond the expertise of both Mann and Monge. And when the pair weren’t able to identify the remains of five of the victims, the city called in outside help: a team of internationally renowned forensic consultants. And this is the team that would identify the remains in Monge’s video as belonging to Katricia Dotson Africa. Their findings were then confirmed by another four outside experts. But even then, the Medical Examiner’s Office asked for further consultations from Alan Mann on two identifications, including the remains said to be Tree’s. And that’s how the remains ended up back with him. And once again, Alan Mann concluded the remains could not be positively identified. So he kept them in his office at Penn Museum, and for decades that’s exactly where they would stay: in a cardboard box, on a shelf, in a nondescript cabinet.

SOUNDCLIP

JANET MONGE: So it’s got quite a complicated history. This is the tissue, which is present on this specimen.

MATTHEW AMHA: Then they turn up in this video, taught by Alan Mann’s former research assistant, now the adjunct professor, Janet Monge. We made a number of attempts to speak with Alan Mann and Janet Monge. We did not receive a response to our request for interviews, or to our detailed questions about the case. After the Billy Penn article was published, Monge launched a civil claim alleging defamation. In it, she states that she worked to identify the remains, quote: “all while contextualizing the tragedy of the MOVE bombing in social and political arenas.” Monge acknowledges the remains belong to someone from the MOVE bombing, but while numerous experts determined the bones almost certainly belonged to Tree, Monge has held fast to her original position that identification was not possible. And the bones, in her opinion, belong to a young woman who she considers a “Jane Doe.” In August 2021, independent investigators working on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania found that Alan Mann and Janet Monge broke no laws or university codes. But given the number of experts who have determined the remains belong to Tree, investigators say both Mann and Monge showed, quote: “extremely poor judgement” and “gross insensitivity” in their ongoing insistence the bones remain unidentified.

SOUNDCLIP

[Birds chirping near Cobbs Creek]

MATTHEW AMHA: Mike and I are sitting by a creek, where he and the kids from Osage used to play together. It’s where they would test themselves against the elements. Where they would climb trees and swim. It’s where they were happiest. I ask him what it was like to watch an academic -- a white woman -- lift remains he believed belonged to a girl he knew and loved like a sister, look into a camera, and describe them as “juicy.” To talk about their smell. To treat her remains with such clinical remove, 35 years after she was killed by the city he still calls home.

SOUNDCLIP

MIKE AFRICA JR: I felt like some of the things that white people have done to Black people, I felt like some of those things should have been done to her. I felt like she would never do what she did to a white person. I felt like she would never disrespect a white mother that way. And I felt like she should feel some of the pain that she caused Tree to suffer. That's how I felt.

MATTHEW AMHA: We asked Janet Monge to respond to what Mike has just said. Again, we’ve heard nothing back from her. But in her civil action, Monge refutes any suggestions of racism. Now, Mike is looking me dead in the eyes as he says this. His glance is unwavering. Though I am not party to this story, I think I know what he’s talking about. That desire for revenge. This wrestling with whatever it is people mean when they use words like "justice." My family’s from Ethiopia, the North and East of the country. Which suffered heavy looting during Italy’s unsuccessful attempts at colonization. And from the time I was a child, the spectre of that theft has hung over me. To this day, our bodies and cultural works line the coffers of some of the most powerful institutions in the world. It's worth mentioning -- the story identifying the remains as Tree's became public just as the University of Pennsylvania had publicly apologized for another collection, founded by a man who has been called ‘the father of scientific racism.’ It's a crania collection of nearly 1300 human skulls, which Samuel Morton used to justify his belief in the intellectual superiority of white people. At least 14 of those skulls were believed to have been looted from the gravesites of Black Philadelphians, and more than 50 from the burial sites of enslaved people in Cuba and across the United States. I remember it said to me very early on in my life that every museum is an active crime scene. That their very existence justified all kinds of violence we would otherwise never excuse. And I’ve always wondered, at what cost are we willing to stir the dead in order to add to an archive of violence?

SOUNDCLIP

MIKE AFRICA JR: You know, one of the things they did as a way to raise money during fundraiser dinners, is they would bring out the remains of different people, different body parts, to the donors and say, “This is the kind of... This is what we need money for, research for,” and all this kind of stuff. And she routinely brought out remains and passed them around the buffet tables and shit. It's pretty gruesome.

MATTHEW AMHA: Again, we asked both Janet Monge and the University of Pennsylvania about this, and again, we haven’t heard back. But an external report commissioned by the university found that Monge showed the remains to donors, graduate students, and museum personnel on at least 10 occasions between 2014 and 2019.

SOUNDCLIP

MIKE AFRICA JR: You know what she would think of me if I did that? If I took her mother and dug her up, or acquired her, whatever, put her in the back of my f--king car? I'mma go to 39th and Reno -- “Hey, guys, check this out. I got this f--king bag of bones. And look, look at this f--king bone right here. This is a long-ass bone right here. What they call that, a femur? This bone still got meat on it. Man,” you know. “Yo, y’all give me, y’all give me $10 I show you the skull. And you know what? When I'mma need some money, I'mma host a party, I'mma have a gala, and I’mma bring those bag of bones out to the gala. And I’mma parade them around and say, 'This the kind of shit that Mike Africa Jr. does. Pay me some money and I’ll show you where this mother--ker’s liver at in this mother--ker. Like yo, yeah.'” What she would think of me if I did that? In the name of science. Black people will never get justice in America. I ain't talking about an individual person here and there. I'm talking about people, Black people, will never get justice. It wasn't made... it wasn’t made for us.

RB: That was episode one of the CBC podcast The Africas versus America, entitled "Mother's Day". We'll bring you the next in the series tomorrow. The whole series is available on the CBC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Tuesday July 11, 2023 Episode Transcript

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