Jonah Kanter

Jack Bauer Syndrome

So for those who haven’t heard, 24 is coming back next year for somewhat of a bizarre 12-episode run (for a show called 24). Despite the high fantasy in which the show is set, it was always hard to turn off, what with Jack yelling “WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!” every 5 minutes. Now the whole series is on Netflix making it even easier to re-binge watch. It’s a problem, and surely I’ll end up watching the reboot when it airs next year.

But more problematic was always how seriously people took 24. In the post 9/11 world in which the show thrived, millions of viewers were led to believe that art imitated life. Even 2008 Republican nominee for president John McCain cited Jack Bauer as someone he relates to, though it was Tom Tancredo, another Republican candidate, who openly called for Jack’s signature “enhanced” interrogations to disrupt the plots of real-life terrorists.

Indeed, there was a widespread outbreak of misconceptions, all together known as Jack Bauer Syndrome.

For instance, counterterrorism is only conducted in ticking time-bomb situations. Since everything in the 24 universe had to occur within 24-hour windows, including office romances, familial drama, and so on, of course there was no time for police investigation, long term intelligence operations, political oversight, etc.

Also, torture always works. Kiefer Sutherland once said in an interview that the show always made sure that Jack acquired key information from those he tortured so that the audience wouldn’t feel so bad about it—because those tortured were obviously guilty and, ipso facto, got what they deserved. Except this only reinforced the wrong message that torture works, not to mention the issue of how due process is portrayed as an annoyance—as a waste of time because Jack is always right. And how could anyone think otherwise? The situation was always such that there was a ticking time-bomb, incontrovertible proof that a suspect knew what Jack needed to know in order to stop said bomb, and doing so was just a matter of torturing the suspect into giving it up.

However, the show didn’t always cater to conservatives’ fantasies.

In the seventh season, Jack Bauer is pitted against African warlords bent on terrorizing the US in order to force the president to think twice about intervening in the genocide they’re committing in their home country. The show’s creators reportedly modelled the season’s story arc on Rwanda, suggesting that the outcome there could’ve been different if only the outside world had stepped in with their militaries.

In the show, the president ordered a humanitarian intervention in the made-up African country against the wishes of her advisors, at the risk of significant political harm, without any international partners to share the load, for no geostrategic objective, and, at one point, even in the face of Americans dying as the result of terrorist attacks against the homeland. Why? Because it was within America’s power and was its moral responsibility to stop a genocide, anywhere. It was a wholly and shamelessly idealistic premise for a show seemingly cultivated in conservative fantasyland—and yet, they might have had a point.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the most powerful militaries existed for no other purpose than to protect people? Or if humanitarian interventions could be carried out purely for humanitarian reasons? Unfortunately, as we’re witnessing with the case of Syria, intervention only seems to occur when it suits the intervenors.

Trudeau and Terrorism

It’s funny, I didn’t anticipate defending Justin Trudeau so much this week because, like many Canadians, I’m withholding judgment of him until things play out a bit. However, the attacks against him during his first week as Liberal leader seem to have raised some key grievances I have with the Harper Conservatives as well as fundamental issues that affect my thinking on politics and international affairs today. 

Trudeau’s comments about the events in Boston were the catalyst.

No, not very eloquent and a little presumptuous with respect to the implication that people don’t sometimes play a part in their own alienation from society. 

However, the gist of it—that despite the lunacy of terrorist acts, the perpetrators have their reasons for carrying them out—is a legitimate point worth considering. After all, as Trudeau explained, we will never be able to prevent all acts of terror. All we can do is try to stop as many of them as possible by maximizing the effectiveness of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, by pursuing accountability, and—just as important—by determining what, if any, political grievances and/or social conditions might be breeding terrorists. 

But no, says Stephen Harper (with reference to the attack in Boston): “When you see this kind of action, when you see this kind of violent act, you do not sit around trying to rationalize it or make excuses for it or figure out its root causes. You condemn it categorically and to the extent that you can deal with the perpetrators you deal with them as harshly as possible…”

Leaving aside the issue of how Harper politicized this horrific bombing only hours after it occurred, any prime minister would immediately do, or be urged to do, precisely what he is suggesting. Further, figuring out the root causes of the action is not equivalent to rationalizing or excusing them. 

But the narrative was set. Later, Conservative MP Stella Ambler stood up in the House of Commons, and stated, “There is no root cause and no tension that justifies the killing and maiming of innocent civilians.”

Stella, you’re right. Let’s say it all together: terrorist attacks are not just. They are unequivocally cruel and inhumane, they target innocent people, and they pull at the fabrics of societies. But look at you be all sneaky conflating the determining of one’s motivations with justifying them. 

Indeed, the Conservative party wants us to believe that only they are tough enough to stand up to terrorists. This is the exact same attitude they have towards the issue of traditional crime and justice in Canada. They are ‘tough on crime’ so they legislated a host of mandatory minimum sentences even when numerous studies have concluded that such penalties don’t deter crime and lead to other societal problems such as prison overcrowding, strains on court systems, and budgetary issues. 

And what of prevention? The Conservatives could not be less interested in the notion that socio-economic issues cause crime, instead believing that, since you can’t prevent all crime, you shouldn’t try to prevent any crime; you should just pursue and punish those who do commit crimes as a lesson to those who might do so subsequently, as if criminals would be spurred to check the Internet beforehand to see how bad the mandatory minimum penalty is…

Apparently it’s all the same for terrorism. In the eyes of the Conservatives, since there are no reasons behind terrorist attacks, trying to explain them is tantamount to excusing them. 

Meanwhile, the whole incident has sparked a national debate on terrorism, tracing back to 9/11. Take Robert Sibley who wrote the following in the Ottawa Citizen:

Trudeau, on the other hand, with his concern for the “feelings” of bomb-makers, his fretting over their sense of exclusion, seems to think we can come together to sing We Are The World. He does not apparently understand that modern societies have enemies, whether foreign Islamists or domestic neo-Nazis…who are devoted to destruction of the western world in large part because they hate its progressivist notions of inclusion, toleration and multiculturalism. It is ideas like freedom, democracy and equality that the terrorists, whether Islamist or Aryan, loathe.

So modern societies have enemies—inherently—without having ever done anything to create enmity amongst others. They could be saintly in their interactions with the world, but still others would hate them. 

All this logic does is ignore history and allow us to implement whatever foreign policy we want even to the detriment and the dismay of others around the world. After all, it’s not what we do that spawns enemies, but who we are. Hold that thought. 

Then there is Andrew Coyne, who normally I agree with, and for the most part defends Trudeau on this. Coyne wrote in the National Post: 

… it’s important to remember exactly what made those post-911 comments so objectionable. It wasn’t that people were trying to understand what caused the terrorists to act as they did. It’s that they weren’t. They were simply leaping to conclusions. Worse, the “root causes” they were so quick to assert seemed to coincide, with remarkable frequency, with their own pet causes. If you disliked American foreign policy, you attributed it to American foreign policy. If global poverty was your thing, global poverty was responsible.

I’m sorry, but to so easily dismiss such enormous global issues as ‘pet causes’—as if there is no way they could possibly be linked to transnational terrorism—is a little too politically correct if not cynical for Coyne. To him and Sibley I ask ineloquently: is it so inconceivable that some Western policies could have pissed people off in other parts of the world? This is taboo to discuss, but sometimes it’s necessary.

Coyne implies that American foreign policy has nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, American foreign policy facilitated the oppression of millions of Muslims by propping up and arming the dictators who ruled them for decades. The US has a permanent military presence throughout the Middle East, notably in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and very likely will in Iraq and Afghanistan—all around Muslim holy sites. The US government instituted a culture of torture throughout the immediate post 9/11 era. Oil. The list goes on. 

Coyne also says poverty has nothing to do with it. Well, poverty is what drives young unemployed men towards terrorist groups, lured by the promise of money, sustenance, a sense of purpose, and religious gratification. And like it or not, global poverty persists to some (big emphasis on some) extent due to western policies, including, again, support for dictators who sifon off resource revenues, massive agricultural subsidies at home, and structural adjustment schemes imposed through the international financial institutions. 

Yet just as Coyne predicted I would say: of course none of this justifies the mass killing of innocent people. Nothing does. Except I don’t say it to cover up my desire to discuss my ‘pet causes’; I say it because it’s true. 

Here’s the thing: part of looking into the root causes of terrorism involves accepting the possibility that some of our actions have been counterproductive, or just plain wrong. Nevertheless, people like Sibley would have us believe that, in such a grim world, acting selfishly—even if it means compromising the interests of others—is necessary and thus can never be ‘wrong’. I disagree. There are limits and there are consequences—what they call blowback in US government circles. This can manifest itself in terrorism, which is sometimes senselessly its own end, other times the warfare of the weak, but always barbaric and most certainly unjustified. 

Indisputable

Since 9/11, we’ve all heard the rumours, read the news reports, watched the documentaries, and witnessed the scandals. Indeed, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made an industry out of alleged American conspiratorial behaviour. 

But if there was ever a shred of doubt left about the Bush Administration’s complicity in and outright sanction of torture, 580 pages of evidence should finally lay it to rest. 

From the Guardian:

An independent examination of the US rendition programme after 9/11 has concluded that it is “indisputable” that America tortured prisoners, and that the country’s highest officials were responsible.

A 580-page report published on Tuesday by the Constitution Project, a non-partisan Washington-based thinktank, concludes that the programme was unjustified and counterproductive, damaging to the country’s reputation, and has placed US military personnel at risk of mistreatment if they are themselves taken prisoner.

In findings similar to those of a report published two months ago by the New York NGO Open Society Justice Initiative, the study concludes that the US rendition programme enjoyed widespread international co-operation, with the UK, Canada, Italy, Germany and Sweden identified as prominent supporters alongside Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Jordan.

The authors also conclude that the UK-Libyan rendition operations that resulted in the abduction of two dissidents who were taken to Tripoli along with their families in 2004 were intended not to combat international terrorism, but to “gain favour” with the Gaddafi regime.

[..]

The report also concludes that the CIA operated secret prisons within three European countries: Poland and Lithuania, which have acknowledged their existence, and Romania, which continues to deny that such a facility existed.

[..]

In one of their most damning conclusions, the panel says: “In the course of the nation’s many previous conflicts, there is little doubt that some US personnel committed brutal acts against captives, as have armies and governments throughout history. But there is no evidence there had ever before been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 11 September, directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”

So not only did the highest levels of the Bush Administration work deliberately and persistently to institutionalize the use of torture, they tried their damnedest to justify it despite being in clear violation of international law, and to prove it wise in the face of fairly wide consensus that it is plainly ineffective (for those ends-justify-the-means’ers keeping score at home). And no Zero Dark Thirty is not proof to the contrary.

This is what precipitated Abu Ghraib—not renegade soldiers. It was a culture of cruelty that permeated every level of the US government and military, leaving an undeniable stain on America’s global reputation. 

And what of justice for those responsible? Nothing, of course. Western leaders are exempt. 

Attack Politics as Bullying

Justin Trudeau’s victory in Canada’s Liberal Party leadership race was as unsurprising as the Conservative Party attack machine being out in full force just hours later. There is already a website and the first of what will most certainly be many negative television ads.

But what is surprising is that less than 24 hours after Trudeau’s victory, the Conservatives have already been nailed for cutting together out-of-context statements and images. I mean, I figured it would take at least a week…

Here’s the first:

The B-roll used in the beginning clearly attempts to portray Trudeau as an irresponsible playboy when in fact that footage was cut from a charity event where this ‘striptease’ raised almost $2,000 for the Canadian Liver Foundation. 

Then Trudeau’s subsequent comment regarding Quebeckers being better than the rest of Canada was cut smack out of a completely unrelated documentary about the FLQ crisis in Canada in the 1970s. In it, Trudeau was explaining what he perceived to be the mindset of his father’s political rival, Rene Levesque, a staunch Quebec nationalist. Here’s the full context video courtesy of CTV. 

Unbelievable, right? 

Now here’s the second attack ad:

Every teacher in Canada should be offended by this. Apparently their work does not breed real leadership and thus none of us should ever deem them worthy of public office, particularly that of prime minister.

And HEY—I was a camp counsellor.

Say what you will about Trudeau’s candidacy; I’m not necessarily sure myself at this point. But it’s outrageous that King Stephen and his associates think that they can actually sneak this stuff past us. The arrogance and scorn littered throughout each reeks of outright bullying. 

Mission Statement

Didn’t give a second thought to that title, which came before all that’s about to follow.

It was ten years ago tonight that I opened my eyes to the world. 

I was 19, about to graduate from high school, and set to go to college in Toronto a few short months later. It was also March break so all of my friends were either in Cancun or Murtle Beach, partying in honour of our impending convocation. Why wasn’t I with them? Well, weeks earlier I had decided to spend all my money on a personal digital recording machine (big ups to the Roland VS-1880!) and stay home over the break to write and record an album. Yeah, it sounds like melodramatic musician talk, but it’s the honest truth. And record an album I did: End Calamity, which some readers might have gotten their hands on back in the day. 

Meanwhile, George Bush’s televised ultimatum to Saddam Hussein—that he and his sons leave Iraq or face the US military—had been repeatedly shown over the airwaves for 48 hours straight. Then of course that night ten years ago, the first American planes dropped their laser-guided payloads on a location Saddam was thought to be. 

I didn’t really know what to make of this besides that it was potentially world history in the making. Sure, I had then fresh memories of 9/11 and even had some understanding of the recount election debacle that brought George Bush to power. But I had no context, only the newspaper and CNN, both of which were thumping the Bush Administration talking points and the glory of war into the ground. Most importantly, I couldn’t find within myself the impetus to seek out context elsewhere. This left me thinking that the war was not only justified, but necessary. Saddam had to be booted out and thus prevented from ever again unleashing chemical weapons on his own people, as he had done on the Kurds in 1988, or so I was told. When I saw the massive anti-war protests in the US and around the world, I thought, ‘These people have it all wrong.’ Of course I had it all wrong, and each of the many articles that came out today on the ten-year anniversary of the war partly help explain why. 

However, I wasn’t a total lost cause. At the time, I had been religiously listening to Matt Good’s Avalanche record, which had just come out a couple of weeks earlier. The conviction Matt brought to that politically charged album spoke to me even when I couldn’t yet make sense of this monumental event going on in the world. Specifically, this lyric in Lullaby for the New World Order resonated with me:

Somebody gave you a choice

And all you do is abuse it

If God he gave you a voice

Then use it

With this in mind, I wanted to change. For up to that point, I had only written songs about all that seemed important then: girls and high school. What followed from that first week of the war was my best attempt at an album with broader horizons. 

In many ways, I feel that this personal transition is embodied by my song Mission Statement, which to this day continues to hold a timeless quality to me. It’s a song about leaving old habits behind and starting a clean slate, something we all often feel an urge to do in our lives. Today I know full well that, had this experience not occurred, I would never have changed course and completed two degrees in international affairs or started blogging, among other things.

With all of this in mind, however, it’s not lost on me that it took a human catastrophe—with over 100,000 Iraqi civilians dying in the name of lies and misguided ideology—to burst me from my bubble and trigger some personal sense of civic mindedness. I wish it were some harmless local event, like a park closure. 

Therefore, I have mixed emotions tonight, not least of all because 100 more Iraqis died today in over a dozen separate attacks, with little fanfare. 

A New Normal

Two years ago today, the Syrian uprising began in the southern city of Dara’a in response to the arrest and torture of 20 kids who had only painted anti-regime graffiti. 

Now, over 70,000 people have been murdered, hundreds of thousands more are unaccounted for, three million are internally displaced, one million have fled as refugees, and two million children—who UNICEF calls a “lost generation”—are shamefully among the victimized. Yeah, what has been only two years feels like a lifetime; a new normal to which the world has mistakenly grown accustomed. 

It’s really hard to stomach and one wonders when the international community will finally man up and do something about it. Unfortunately, President Obama has set the red line at Assad’s use of chemical weapons, which would be horrific in and of itself, but otherwise seemingly permits him to continue committing heinous acts of violence using any other means. 

As I’ve said before, no question this is a mess without any clear cut solutions. No matter who wins the war, and regardless of whether there’s international intervention, the outcome will likely be chaotic with an ongoing risk of sectarian violence and human rights violations—and that’s just weighing internal considerations. Geopolitically, all countries and entities in the region have a stake in the outcome, particularly Iran—which has recently redoubled its efforts to arm Assad’s forces—but also Hezbollah, the Sunni Gulf states, Turkey, and of course Israel. 

Then, let’s be clear: this is not a story of bad government and good rebels. The opposition contains many militia groups that are simply operating on their own while committing murder, rape, torture, and forced disappearances, and using child soldiers. Some of these groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, are Islamic extremists who have no intention of allowing the romantic notion of a free and democratic Syria, which the original protesters clamoured for, to manifest. Meanwhile, the British, French, and Americans are already trying to counter by training secular elements of the opposition in neighbouring Jordan. 

I would argue that three things need to happen as soon as possible:

1) International donors need to follow through on their humanitarian aid commitment of $1.5 billion; so far only 20% has been delivered. Right now the humanitarian situation is just dreadful and only degenerating further every day. 

2) Britain, France, and the US need to re-engage with Russia and China at the UN Security Council (UNSC), exercising any and all leverage against them, to get them to abstain on a vote to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This will put all high-ranking members of the Assad regime on notice, forcing them to start considering when to pull the plug on their allegiances. With enough defections, the regime could crumble. I should also add that I find it extremely disappointing that Canada has chosen to avoid any and all talk of the ICC.

3) An international coalition, including the US, Canada, EU and Arab countries, needs to establish humanitarian corridors and safe havens in Syria’s border areas—defended via no-fly zones. While the notion gives me pause given the Libyan case, as well as the aforementioned difficulties inherent in obtaining UNSC authorization, I see no other way of countering Assad’s increasing use of jets and attack helicopters to murder civilians with ease from the air. 

What does this all mean? To the political pundits, yes, I’m insinuating that Assad has to go and that we have to side with the opposition, as unsavoury as parts of it may be. The alternative—doing nothing—leaves us only with the rapidly deteriorating status quo, which is utterly unacceptable. 

Two years into the world’s biggest crisis, many are still troubled by the uncertainty of how much worse things could get in the event of international intervention. But all the same, if we just continue to be bystanders, how many more people will suffer and die? 

The Campaign

One year ago today, Invisible Children (IC) released the Kony 2012 film, which went on to live in infamy as the most viral Internet video of all time. Over 100 million views, a media firestorm, a backlash, a counter-backlash – all of it the product of a 30 minute film about an African war criminal produced by San Diego surfers.

Shortly after, I came out ardently in support of IC’s efforts. In addition to addressing many of the criticisms hurled at the campaign, I also participated in a televised discussion on the issue on MTV Canada. Now one year later, I still maintain and defend many of those beliefs.

The Integrity of NGOs

I believe that NGOs should be given the benefit of the doubt, if not our donations. If you want to donate, then by all means do your due dilligence; but to accuse an NGO that spends some of its revenue on advocacy, fundraising, and administration costs – ie. not direct goods and services for those they support – of being a scam is nothing but conspiratorial dribble. The fact is that all NGOs do this to varying degrees, albeit some more efficiently than others; but this should not discredit the important work that they do.

Unfortunately the episode with Jason Russell that followed only seemed to confirm the worst in everyone’s mind. While having little concept of what really happened, I can only imagine what pressure he and the organization were under to seize the unexpected opportunity while simultaneously fighting to seemingly defend their honour in the face of foes from around the world. 

Ultimately, Invisible Children is not alone in its methods. All NGOs are on social media and I would bet the bank that most only wish they could achieve the kind of global viral campaigning success of Kony 2012.

The Need For Justice

I believe that bringing Joseph Kony to justice remains an important goal for the international community, regardless of how fleeting the LRA threat allegedly is. When the campaign began, many said that since Kony’s only got 200-300 fighters left, the whole thing was misguided. I disagree. These criminals survive by pillaging defenceless villages in the tri-border region of central Africa where even only a handful of men with machetes can inflict exponentially greater damage. For this reason, over 450,000 people remain internally displaced, unable to return to their homes.

What’s more, the International Criminal Court (ICC) – of which I am a big supporter – will only be perceived as a legitimate bulwark against impunity so long as it can actually bring its indictees to trial, and eventually to justice. While several individuals wanted by the Court are still out there, Kony was the first, which carries huge symbolic significance.

The Reason For Military Action

I believe that – and in some sense, regrettably – only coordinated military action at the African Union level, led by the UPDF and with US support, can bring about the apprehension of Kony and his similarly ICC-indicted senior commanders. Now I, as much as anyone, hesitates at the thought of military intervention in any context, especially given the dramatic blunders we’ve seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and so on. The primary issue of course being the seeming inability of the intervenors to act in any way beyond the confines of their own interests. 

Yet in this case, there unfortunately is no other recourse. In previous entries, I’ve explained at length how, for over 15 years, Kony repeatedly used peace negotiations to stall and regroup. This was of course never more evident than during the Juba peace talks of 2006-2008 during which Kony transferred his remaining forces out of South Sudan and into the Democratic Republic of Congo using some of the very resources given to him by Uganda and others to keep him at the negotiating table. By the end of the talks, virtually all of Kony’s alleged political grievances – those truly and legitimately held by the Acholi people of northern Uganda – had been addressed and yet still he rejected them. In November 2008, after months of haggling over last-minute changes, Ronald Iya, a Madi tribal leader, went to convince Kony to sign the deal. Recalling the encounter, Iya said:

As far as the talks are concerned, I am not sure whether Kony was ever really committed to them. They were always one of a number of options that he was exploring. Also, he was being given lots of things to encourage him to participate in them. Perhaps if he was really sure that he would not be punished for his crimes, awarded large amounts of money and given an influential job he might have signed a peace agreement. But really there was not much in the one on offer for him personally…

The Haters

I believe that the majority of the criticism of Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 campaign came from a place of either cynical contrarianism disguised in pseudo-legitimate argument or of simply just wanting to get a cut of the action. Yeah, for something this big, everyone and their mother had to have their say. 

However, I’m not oblivious to the legitimate mistakes that were made through the Kony 2012 film, the biggest of which, in my view, was the conflation of what happened in Uganda from 1988-2006 with what needs to be done now in central Africa. I’m aware that this was not done intentionally, yet critics still saw it as an opportunity to accuse the organization of tricking people into thinking that the LRA was still in Uganda. IC addressed many of these issues subsequently and moreover I hardly blame them for not being able to anticipate everything in advance – above all, the kind of phenomenon the whole thing would become.

Moving Forward

Today, Invisible Children has released a new film to mark the anniversary of Kony 2012, embedded here. 

Say what you want about their methods, their naiveté, their fundraising motives, or about whether white people in general should even be doing stuff like this in the first place. However, no one can deny that the Kony 2012 campaign made a positive and tangible impact on the world. LRA killings of civilians have decreased, senior LRA commanders have been captured, African Union representatives have been spurred to greater co-operation, US lawmakers have passed legislation supporting the effort to destroy the LRA, and Barack Obama ordered the mission of US advisors in Uganda to be continued.

Admittedly though, Joseph Kony is still at large and the true test of the campaign’s effectiveness – indeed, of online campaigning in general – will be whether interest lingers long enough to keep international co-operation and funding at a high enough level to finally get ‘em. 

To A Peaceful Vote

Tomorrow Kenya’s democracy will be put to the test when the country elects a new president. Last time it tried in 2007, violence erupted between the rival Kikuyu and Luo ethnic groups. Others from all parts of the nation were quickly drawn into the horrific events, which left over 1000 dead in just days. Ultimately it took Kofi Annan and an undemocratic power-sharing agreement to end the crisis. 

A year later, I spent 3 weeks in Kenya, touring the countryside and meeting various groups and communities. With fond memories of the trip, I’m certainly hoping there’s a peaceful go of it this time. 

However, two huge uncertainties underlie even the regular election drama. 

First, one of the leading candidates, Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s first president and easily the country’s wealthiest man, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court and is about to face trial on charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged role in fueling the post-election violence in 2007. If he were to win (probably will take a run-off vote between him and the other leading candidate, Raila Odinga, scheduled for April), Kenya would be put through the ordeal of watching their president stand trial, which could easily divide the country once again. 

Second, there are reports that militants from neighbouring Somalia are planning on carrying out acts of terror to prevent the election from being executed peacefully. While the country has made dramatic improvements in its election monitoring and security capabilities – not to mention the peaceful adoption of a new constitution – any terrorist attacks could severely destabilize the situation and turn Kenyans against each other. 

Regardless of the result, the world will be watching – and I’ve definitely got my fingers crossed. 

Update (March 4, 9:53am):

From Reuters:

Just hours before the start of voting and with long lines across the east African country, at least nine security officers in Kenya’s restive coastal region were hacked to death, and six attackers were also killed, regional police chief Aggrey Adoli said. The total toll had earlier been put at 17.

There were two separate attacks which senior police officers blamed on a separatist movement - which, if confirmed, would suggest different motives to those that caused the post-2007 vote ethnic killings and could limit their impact.

Update (March 4, 12:30pm):

From the New York Times:

Turnout was tremendous, election officials said, starting hours before dawn, with lines of voters stretching nearly a mile long.

In the Kibera slum, a sprawling settlement of rusted shanties and footpaths, some people waited nine hours on their feet under a withering sun. “We’re tired! We’re tired!” they yelled, but still, they stayed in their places, with no food or drink, determined to vote.

“People didn’t come in a trickle, they flooded,” said Njeri Kabeberi, the head of the Center for Multiparty Democracy — Kenya, a nonprofit organization.

Ms. Kabeberi said that the voting was slow in many places but orderly and that over all the election was going “very, very well.”

Rock Opera Personified

Having had 2 weeks to soak up the incredible conclusion to Coheed and Cambria’s double album, The Afterman, I can safely say it’s the band’s most ambitious, most eclectic, most operatic – and dare I say, best – album to date. 

In particular, I’ve felt more closely connected to the album’s underlying science fiction rock opera this time more than ever before. But more on that later…

When you stack up the two halves of the album back to back, the music takes you on such a journey, with several unexpected stylistic twists and turns along the way. 

Ascension

Six albums later, the band still somehow managed to open with yet another epic rallying cry in Domino the Destitute. You’d think after Time Consumer, In Keeping Secrets, Welcome Home, No World For Tomorrow, and the Broken that the band would eventually tire out the formula, but no. Domino clocks in at over 8 minutes and has incredible production value (I particularly love the oohs and aahs Claudio layers underneath the build up to the final chorus – SO operatic).

Then the title song, the Afterman, catches you completely off guard. Ballads are rare for Coheed, and usually don’t hit you before a sizable slate of heavy songs. Not here. The song is just pretty; such simple, subtle beauty. 

Goodnight Fair Lady is another first half highlight. The song harkens back to some of the pop/rock songs from earlier Coheed albums – all the while being about a suspicious date-rape predator who targets the story’s leading lady, an unexpected contrast considering the song’s light tone. 

Holly Wood the Cracked is about as industrial as the band has ever gotten – and it rules. When the key change hits – “She’s a few cards short of a full deck, a joker in the game, ohh” – just awesome classic Coheed. 

My favourite song on the first half though is easily Evagria the Faithful, the band’s first real attempt at ethnic sounds with its infusion of Latin-esque percussion. And what a chorus: “Goodbye forever, my darling whether…” 

Descension

I didn’t think Descension could top the first half, but it did. Sentry the Defiant – again – another epic battlecry. Production-wise, the band could have probably done more with it, however. 

The album’s incredible core though is in the sequence of the Hard Sell, Number City and Gravity’s Union.

The Hard Sell grooves unlike any other Coheed song in the verses and then goes big and heavy for what are great classic choruses. 

Number City is my favourite track from Descension – and of all things, it’s a dance song. Just so catchy and so much fun. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you’ve surely noticed random citings of numbers, which in this song have never been so much fun to shout. Plus, again, similar to Goodnight Fair Lady, the song’s upbeat tone contrasts the underlying plot, which is about a car crash and major turning point. Oh, and there’s HORNS! 

Gravity’s Union completes the loop. Upon first listen, I thought it was just an extension of Number City, but the two were blended on purpose. Aside from maybe The End Complete (from No World For Tomorrow), there may not be another more self-contained direct rock opera in all of the Coheed catalogue, which often shrouds the plot in metaphor. 

The conclusion of the album is highlighted by the Dark Side of Me, which is just a great soaring rock ballad – akin to The Road and the Damned from No World For Tomorrow – about self-reflection and regret, something with which we can all relate to some extent.

The Saga of Sirius Amory

Even though The Afterman is a prequel to the original story of Coheed and Cambria, I’ve never been so enthralled before by what is happening behind the music. Some of it has to do with the fact that there is actually dialogue in between some tracks, but I think it probably has more to do with how character-rich the story is. 

Whereas the 4-part story of Coheed and Cambria has an assortment of main characters, this is Sirius (pronounced Cyrus) Amory’s story.

(Nerd alert!)

Sirius is the man who discovers the Keywork, a mysterious energy source connecting the 78 planets of Heaven’s Fence. This would later be harnessed and exploited by the evil dictator, Wilhelm Ryan, to seize power over Heaven’s Fence years later. 

On his journey through the Keywork, Sirius quickly learns that the energy is a form of purgatory containing lost souls with unfinished business. Along the way he encounters 5 in particular: Domino the Destitute, Holly Wood the Cracked, Vic the Butcher, Evagria the Faithful, and Sentry the Defiant. Domino, who destroys Sirius’ spacecraft, was a former boxer who eventually committed suicide in disgrace after becoming obsessed with fame, success, and drugs; Holly Wood was an insane superfan of an artist she eventually kills so that she can assume her identity; and Vic was a ruthless army general who committed egregious crimes against humanity. The three entities torment Sirius as he is forced to experience who they were and what twisted things they did in their lives.

Meanwhile, back home, Sirius’ wife, Meri – who never supported his mission of scientific discovery, equating it with suicide – hears reports that he has died after traces of his spacecraft are recovered. Saddened, she goes to a bar to drink her sorrows away, but is targeted by a date rapist. Before she can be seriously harmed, however, she is saved by Colten, a police officer and one of Sirius’ friends. Believing Sirius to be dead, Meri engages in a relationship with Colten. 

In the Keywork, Vic attempts to trap Sirius, but Evagria comes to his rescue and shields him for as long as she can. Eventually her power is completely drained and it again seems that Sirius will be doomed to suffer an eternity of Vic’s horrors. However, Sentry – a former rebel soldier who opposed Vic in their past lives – then emerges and confronts Vic. The two battle, Sentry wins, and Sirius helps him ascend beyond the Keywork purgatory. 

Sirius then returns home with Evagria’s help, but discovers that over a year and a half has passed when he was certain to have only been gone a week. He not only struggles with what to share with the world with respect to the nature of the Keywork, but also learns of his wife’s affair with Colten and that she is carrying his child. Amidst a huge blowout argument with her while driving in his car, Sirius, overcome by anger, purposely crashes, gravely injuring himself and killing Meri. 

When Sirius is revived, he is distraught over what he’s done – for killing Meri and for neglecting her by leaving for the Keywork in the first place – and considers committing suicide. After much self-reflection, Sirius decides to return to the Keywork so that he can find his wife’s soul and help her ascend.

As he prepares to take flight, the artificial intelligence unit on his spacecraft reminds him of the dangers of the Keywork: “You fought to withdraw from a location which has incited severe, quantifiable pain and nearly terminated the mission – nearly terminated your life. Yet, you desire to set a course back to it. I am not equipped to comprehend human rationale.” It asks, “Sirius, is this what love is?”

Sirius replies, “Yes.”

(Nerd transmission: over.)

Wow, right? And that is just a basic plot summary that omits many of the story’s nuances and character backstories.

This is why I love this band. The story is not only epic in scope, but it laces the band’s music with such high stakes drama, permitting them to essentially do whatever they want musically. This is why they can cross genres at will, use language no one else does, and produce such uniquely rich soundscapes – all while taking listeners on an unforgettable journey. 

Some People Just Wanna Rock

I had to comment on this story – ‘cuz some of us just wanna rock, and freedom of expression conquers all.

This week the first all-girl rock band in Indian-controlled Kashmir territory disbanded in the face of threats and smears via social media following their first live performance in December. A prominent Muslim cleric in the region even issued a fatwa against the group, condemning their alleged satanic Western exploits and demanding that they never perform again. 

From the Associated Press:

The fate of [the band] Pragaash, which means “First Light” in Kashmiri, highlights the simmering tension between modernity and tradition in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where an armed uprising against Indian rule and a relentless crackdown by government forces have killed more than 68,000 people since 1989. Separatists criticized the band for what it said was “Western-style cultural waywardness.”

Adnan Mattoo, the rock group’s music teacher and manager, said the three high school students who formed Pragaash — drummer Farah Deeba, bass guitarist Aneeqa Khalid and singer and guitarist Noma Nazir — won’t talk about their decision to disband and what led to it.

“They feel terribly scared and want an immediate end to this controversy once for all,” Mattoo said Tuesday. “First, the girls had decided to quit live performance due to an online hate campaign and concentrate on making an album. But after an edict by the government’s own cleric, these girls are saying goodbye to music.”

[..]

Many commenters [on social media] backed the girls, but others were abusive, calling them “sluts” and “prostitutes” and calling for them and their families to be expelled from the region.

I’ll not claim to know exactly how to reconcile all conflicts between human rights and issues of cultural relativism. There are certainly some instances where discussion is warranted, though I tend to draw the line when people are being hurt, subjugated against their will, or disenfranchised politically or economically. That is to say that civil and political rights are about as close to sacrosanct as I can think of. 

Freedom of expression is one of those untouchables. While it’s certainly not a blank cheque – people should be held accountable for hate speech and incitement to violence – it’s pretty close, especially in these kinds of situations where no one and nothing is under threat. 

I suppose someone could easily then turn around and dub me a selfish Westerner, predisposed to my way of life, and ignorant and insensitive to the notion that other societies do things differently. What can I say, rock and roll can never die?

Luckily, the news wasn’t all bad and that it appears the girls in the band have some support. In my favourite quote from the article, Omar Abdullah, the region’s top elected official, promised to investigate the threats, announcing via Twitter that:

“the talented teenagers should not let themselves be silenced by a handful of morons.”

And it seems that Abdullah has followed through on his promise. So far 3 of those people that issued threats online have been arrested by police and more may be coming. According to IBN Live, police have started tracking down the IP addresses of the 26 users whose comments, out of the total 900 posts on the band’s Facebook page, were considered abusive.

It’s important to point out, however, that there is probably more going on here, namely the exploitation of the situation by rival political factions in Kashmir, where music and women performers are generally permitted.