Desert Grapes

Jojo had everything going for her. With a teaching career back home and a mortgage down on a house in “Freo”, what Westralians call Fremantle, the funky port town appendage to Perth, what could hold her back?

“There’s something wrong with my throat,” she said, clutching at her neck, her voice raspy.

Jojo and her backpack rocked in from somewhere south of Santiago while I’d grabbed a bus down from up north. Chile is an endless Pacific sliver of a land: it can only increase the chances of a north-going, south-going running-into-each-other. There’s hardly room to step to the side in a country as thin as Chile. A step to the west, shoes will be ocean wet; a stride to the east, footprints will be Argentine.

Besides, it was only natural I should stop somewhere en-route from Iquique to Santiago, to avoid being entombed in a metallic express coach mega-journey for what would’ve felt like days. Jojo wanted to see La Serena. I wanted a bit of non-AC oxygen on the way.

It was the taxi driver in from the bus station who dropped me at the guest house door: he said he knew a place and I didn’t argue. It was a handful of rooms along an enclosed courtyard in an old grey house, colonial and quaint, run by an old grey woman, short and jolly. She dropped by my room, in turn, to tempt me with a tour for the following day. She had a brochure of the Elqui Valley, a winding sliver of green running off into the mountainous hinterland towards Argentina. It came with a price list and coffee presented as a cup of hot water with small packets of Nescafe, sweetener and powdered milk lined up on the saucer. With all the on-selling going on, Chileans had no deficit of entrepreneurial skill.

In the wealthiest country in South America, where the poor could be seen living in flimsy shanties along the vast stretches of otherwise empty rocky-sandy coastline, for the tourist all was ready.

Jojo wasn’t only a teacher. She’d had the experience of running a school in a remote aboriginal community in Western Australia, far enough into the desert that non-aboriginals needed a formal invitation from the tribal elders to drop by. She used to pack up the kids and take them into the bush in the school’s government supplied four-wheel drive for classes, as she could. They were at home in the outdoors. They learnt better there.

But Jojo didn’t get in until after dinner. I’d wandered, found La Serena historical, colonial, quiet and clean. The food was good, the servings judiciously small, as it is in Chile. Nick, the guy at the next table, struck up a conversation on the basis that because I put my chips in the bread and ate it like a sandwich I must be, as he was, British.

But like Jojo and the Chileans I was of colonial stock and not a European. It didn’t mean I couldn’t eat chips on bread.

It was Nick’s first time outside Europe but as a tour guide he’d visited all the countries of Europe apart from Russia, except for three. He asked me to guess. I chose at first Armenia and Georgia, which are technically Europe, but Nick didn’t consider them so. “Okay, it’d be Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.” He was shocked. I was right. “People always choose Albania,” he said, “but I’ve been to Albania.”

Nick enjoyed being a guide, especially for the Americans who were so nervous and naïve while on the wrong side of the Atlantic. He wanted to demonstrate they didn’t need to be fearful of France.

Jojo turned up as words, after that, from an old grey woman’s mouth. “There’s another tourist,” she said elatedly, “who is interested in the tour. You could split the cost?” Her on-selling had found new merit.

Jojo dropped by my room and we chatted. I heard how she was returning to Chile after a decade, that she’d once spent a year there as an exchange student. She kept touching her throat.

“What are Chileans really like?”

In her slightly rattly voice she narrated how she felt. “Maybe I didn’t notice before,” she said. She’d been shocked by how many Chileans seemed to blame poverty on the poor and how proud they’d been in her Chilean town of the wondrous new mega mall, of the sort that had multiplied across the country.

It seemed a shame if it were true, a country trading its soul for a mega mall.

Jojo said there were exceptions: not everyone was such.

“Did you catch a cold?” She looked nervous, stressed.

“I’m sure I have throat cancer,” she said, her words making her more worried.

“How do you know?”

“I feel it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s tonsillitis at worst!”

I agreed to the tour. At worst, it would be agreeable to spend a day with Jojo.

It might be that a tour guide should look intellectual, maybe with glasses. But there’s no exact model and when Jose arrived with his minivan, he certainly wasn’t it. He was muscular, moustached and about seven feet tall. His voice was so deep I wouldn’t want to take him up a mountain for fear its rumble might set off an avalanche. He could have been a member of the Chilean military’s elite whatever special something forces.

As we got into the minivan, one old grey woman waving us off, Jojo was busy fondling her throat.

“Stop it! It’s not cancer!”

The landscape of the Elqui Valley was unique. Some might marvel at the engineering in the irrigation that let the grape vines grow; for me it was enough to enjoy the contrast of the vineyard green with the dusty, barren hills.

But the Elqui was a distraction, like a suave French film going on in the background of a dinner party. It was the conversation with Jojo at valley centre: it filled the several Elqui hours, interrupted by the occasional rumbling fact supplied by Jose, delivered at the very lowest end of the human hearing scale.

The aboriginal kids saw a flock of birds, Jojo said. It was a particular type of bird that shot up from the sandy ground. It meant nothing to her, but the kids in unison excitedly shouted the word in their language for “water”. Those birds meant water: what the elders taught them, and in the desert water-finding is more important that mathematics.

Meanwhile there was Jose explaining about the pisco, the vodka-like drink allegedly invented in the Elqui Valley, although Peruvians claim it too. We dropped by a distillery and tried a sample.

The aboriginal kids used to tell Jojo where she’d been on the previous evening, the exact houses she’d visited and when. Expertly they read her tracks in the sand.

“The community was like one family. Things go wrong when the kids get older and have to move to Perth for opportunity. The city is a society they don’t understand.”

Jose took us to Vicuña for lunch: the main Elqui town.

Another non-aboriginal worker in the desert once captured a baby camel, Jojo said. He named it after the then Indonesian President, Megawati Sukarnoputri. He liked that name. And Megawati the camel lived in his backyard, everybody knew.

By evening we were back at the old grey house in La Serena. Luckily Jose’s voice had caused no avalanche.

Jojo decided to head down to Santiago with me. I think she liked my non-medical medical opinion concerning her sore throat. As it turned out, after a few days the throat cancer cleared up. 

I should mention: the rest of the world calls her Jo. It’s in my mind that it’s always been doubled: two letters never seemed enough of a name for Jojo.

Grapes...

             wheat

     rice

                               horticulture

               bamboo

          coffee








This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Desert Grapes

Forensic Echoes

Review of photography exhibition published in Star Magazine on 21 June 2013, here: Forensic Echoes

Death by Recruitment

Not a travel article...

The death of soldier Lee Rigby outside the Woolwich barracks in London has Britain questioning the efficiency of their security services in monitoring Islamists to prevent acts of violence. The British parliament has debated internet regulation as a means to prevent radicalisation. However, it remains possible that Lee Rigby’s death was equally a result of MI5 recruitment processes. 

In the 21^st century western intelligence agencies face particular recruitment challenges that are unparalleled in a Muslim-majority country like Bangladesh. Following the September 11 attacks on New York, agencies in countries like Britain discovered a need to exponentially improve their knowledge of Islam and Islamism, which was arguably rudimentary.

Further, with the stage set for rapid expansion in terms of budgets, powers and employee numbers, the need to recruit agents from more diverse backgrounds became immediate.  Otherwise security agencies risked becoming outdated.

Gone were the days of the proverbial tap on the shoulder when the ideal agent was from an elite school, male and white.  Gone was the cold war framework where the “enemy” was a foreign state’s agent of similar training and background.

Western security agencies were slow to recognise these changes, but some years after September 11, British agencies in particular tried to engage with Muslim minority communities in the UK, in terms of targeted recruitment campaigns directed at shedding the white, elitist image of MI5 and MI6, and also through general advertisements.[1]

By contrast, coercive or punitive recruitment, while tempting for security agencies, is fraught with dangers.

Shortly after Rigby’s death, suspect Michael Adebolajo, a man of Nigerian Christian background who converted to Islam in 2003, was captured on film holding a bloodied knife and meat clever. It is reported he was arrested in 2010 in Kenya, on suspicion of travelling to Somalia to join the terrorist outfit al-Shabaab. There are allegations he was tortured and sexually assaulted in Kenyan police custody.[2]

It has also been alleged that Adebolajo was approached by MI5 and asked to work for them, that he refused and was subsequently harassed. Such allegations raise concerns MI5’s recruitment efforts might have pushed Adebolajo ‘over the edge.’ Further, if the recruitment claims are true, then the issue of failings in risk identification and surveillance by MI5 are a furphy, since Adebolajo was a well-known quantity; and issues of hatred on the internet become a scapegoat.

Coercive recruitment can hardly be considered legal activity since the British parliament has not deigned to introduce conscription to Britain, nor has it granted security powers to agencies for recruitment purposes. Any such powers used in that way are surely powers misused. Indeed, security powers are properly for the benefit of public safety and not for the benefit of security agencies.

Where recruitment pursues a coercive course, it cannot amount to less than a form of public corruption, since Britons retain the right to live their own lives and choose careers independently, regardless of whom they know or how “useful” they may be.

Prolonged coercive recruitment efforts are a recipe for just the kind of violence that occurred in Woolwich, or worse. Any individual plagued by a security agency for illegitimate reasons will have their breaking point, especially where “No” is not an accepted answer. 

Meanwhile security agencies involved in coercive recruitment have significant incentive not to desist, not to fail. It is not possible that prolonged recruitment efforts will not result in the recruitment target gaining some knowledge of security agents’ methods or, where they have spoken directly to the target, of agents’ identities. The further the process goes, arguably the stronger is the incentive for the agency not to desist, because successful coercive recruitment is needed to secure methodology and identities, especially in circumstances like Adebolajo’s where there are suspected links with Islamist groups who might otherwise take benefit from the recruitment target’s observations. 

Further, recruitment is an ideal means of cover up for any excesses or “anomalies” on the part of agents, because the recruited cannot speak. Excesses become likely because individual agents involved put at risk their careers when information and identities are compromised. The answer of no, calls into question the agent’s judgement.

It is not possible to conduct coercive recruitment exercises without these inherent conflict of interest issues. The practice is a big welcome mat for corruption. This is beside the practical issue as to what quality of informant or recruit a coerced individual might be.

Indeed where coercive recruitment mingles with investigation and it becomes unclear where the one activity finishes and the other starts, the ability of agents to manage decisions about the proper use of security powers will become murky. This is likely to be in the majority of instances since the investigated and the potential recruit will be the same person: a Muslim or somebody with Muslim affiliations, and ideally with some link to Islamism, and people or organisations of interest.

It is worthwhile turning one’s mind to what coercive recruitment may mean. It is not simply the “tap on the shoulder”, but potentially interference with careers, friends and family. Potentially, the goal might be to make life so unbearable that the target has no choice. Armed with extensive powers and operating in the shadows it is not difficult for agents to pursue such a course. Should such non-consensual intrusive exercises be allowed?

Details concerning Adebolajo’s recruitment claims are sketchy. His friend Abu Nusaybah said on the BBC’s Newsnight that Adebolajo felt harassed by MI5 and told his friend, “They are bugging me. They won’t leave me alone.”[3]

The Independent newspaper meanwhile, reported claims Adebolajo was first approached by MI5 while in custody in Kenya. In light of the allegations of mistreatment by the Kenyan police such claims are very serious. Abu Nusaybah has since written to the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, the government probe into MI5’s role in the events, requesting investigation as to whether there was any connection between Adebolajo’s alleged mistreatment in Kenya and MI5.

Regardless of the outcome, coercive recruitment exercises are not in the interest of good governance and public safety. Self-managed and self-assessed, such exercises are easily without limit: the minimum possibility in Adebolajo’s case is six months but coercive recruitment could potentially last for years.

For reasons of conflict of interest, the potential for corruption and to cause violence, coercive recruitment should be legislatively banned, with punitive measures for agents that cross the line.  Security agencies committed to professionalism would have no difficulty committing to such management safeguards.

But security is an unusual matter of state. Unlike health or education, in security it may be considered more beneficial for responsible ministers and parliamentarians passing security legislation not to know, not to consider the details of how those agencies operate. “Let the experts do their job” and “We don’t comment on issues of national interest” are a common refrain that would not be acceptable in other portfolios. Thus it remains to be seen how seriously the issue is investigated this time.

One can’t help but wonder if, because coercive recruitment is likely to affect almost solely Muslims, whether security agencies in western countries haven’t been dealt a freer hand than they otherwise would have been.

It may be that a valid measurement of a western government’s commitment to professionalism in the security sector is to examine just how it is that coercive recruitment is regulated. 

Lee Rigby: did he die due to identification and surveillance failures, due to online messages of hate or was his in equal part a coercive recruitment fatality?  If the latter, how many more should there be?

---

[1] Working for MI5: what you need to know about the recruitment process, The Guardian, 9 March 2012

[2] Terror in Woolwich: MI5 ‘tried to recruit suspect in Kenyan jail,’ The Independent

[3] Woolwich terrorist attack: friend claims MI5 to recruit Michael Adebolajo, ABC News

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: Death by Recruitment

The Monkeys with Attractive Eyes

If eyes stick out like golf balls, bulbous enough to have inspired a hideous new creature on a Star Wars set; if a head is disproportionately small, looking like an animated sultana atop a skyscraper; if ears are of the larger, protruding variety that give the impression of a pair of satellite dishes in search of a cricket match, it’s probably best not to say anything.  Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, fashions change and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  There’s no such thing as ugly, only unique or exotic.

Besides, the owners of any differently shaped or sized features would likely have heard all the unfortunate quips and taunts.  They may feel self-conscious.

The human species, when at its best, seeks rather to concentrate on the positive, because it’s a nice thing to do.  

Indeed, through fashion humans have acquired an understanding of the available techniques for enhancing certain features or accentuating beauty.  Everybody knows that the more robust among us can favour vertical stripes to look thinner, that high heels for women are at least sometimes about height adjustment and that the right set of frames can bring emphasis to well-shaped eyes.

It's not so easy for monkeys.

There’s little a female gorilla can do, for example, to make its hands look daintier.  It’s difficult to say how a gibbon could give their lanky arms that shorter appearance, and with the swollen red rump of a baboon… well, fashion options are not easy to list.  Monkeys are left with the singular hope that those they come across in the forest will have the good grace not to draw undue attention to certain, exceptional features.

In the forests of Brunei Darussalam on the island of Kalimantan is yet another species of monkey in such a predicament.  How to describe them?

Well, they have very attractive, brown, almond-shaped eyes.  They have suave hairstyles, brushed back, that are almost retro-1950s hip, in a good way.  Their longish faces have a welcoming quality, with an endearing heart shape to them, while their mouths are petite and aristocratic, not at all obnoxious-looking.  Their eyebrows might not be lacking in bushiness but that could be described as distinguished or intellectual, surely.

Nor could one speak highly enough of their nature-chosen jackets, in coordinated earthy tones from brown to beige, tan, light orange and grey, which give a sense of chic casualness and must belong to the very highest echelons of forest wear.  That’s certainly something to focus on.

In Brunei these gentle creatures live in proximity to the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan.  They prefer the environs of the mangrove forests that line the riverbanks and channels just beyond the city limits, accessible to humans via easily arranged boat tours.  The monkeys are shy, preferring to spend time away from society at large.  I don’t know why.

In that neck of the woods are other animals to observe, such as monkey species of less distinctive appearance and maybe large sea otters, seen scampering along the bank.  But I digress.

The human species when at its best seeks to concentrate on the positive, but unfortunately the human species isn’t always at its best.  Sometimes humans can be rather cruel and biologists, apparently, are no exception. 

I’m considering the insensitivity in the naming of this particular primate: the proboscis monkey.  The word proboscis refers to a long flexible snout or trunk, or, more specifically, a large nose.

But I ask, with a nose that’s up to ten centimetres long and is odd for a monkey, is it entirely necessary to bring any further attention to it by choosing such a name?  It’s not small. It’s hardly to be missed. And to add insult to injury the biologists have placed those gentle simians in the genus Nasalis.

Meanwhile those monkeys with attractive eyes go on living peacefully in groups, groups with overlapping territories.  They are among the larger species in Asia, and pursue a diet of leaves and fruit, occasionally insects.  Unlike some other monkey species they are rarely aggressive towards each other and tend to mingle when one group in the forest canopy comes upon another.  They certainly have great personalities, one could say.

But unfortunately the biologists haven’t been alone in not looking beyond the matter at the centre of things.  The locals have likewise demonstrated insensitivity towards these gentle forest dwellers.  In Malay there are several names, and it’s the colloquial one, orang belanda, in which there may be an issue.  It translates as ‘Dutchman’.

It so happened that at the time when the first Dutch arrived in the Indonesian archipelago, their European heritage pot bellies and comparatively larger noses made an impression on the local people.

And while it cannot be assumed the proboscis monkey minds being called a Dutchman, or even that the Dutch take offence at having a monkey species named after them, the particular reference to the pot bellies and large noses upon which the comparison relies surely has the potential to offend both parties.

It’s as well to assume the kindly beasts remain unaware of what the humans call them.  On the other hand, it’s difficult to say definitively just what it is that a monkey knows… I mean, understands.

rat 

                  pigeon

                 zoobr

red bird

                            kangaroo 

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The monkeys with attractive eyes