Saturday Morning for Saturday 8 April 2023

8:10 David Mitchell: Brexit's impact on the Good Friday agreement 25 years on

It’s a quarter of a century since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, ending decades of violence in Northern Ireland. But there are new concerns the document’s promise of peace could be threatened, as Brexit negotiations shine a light on Northern Ireland’s constitutional place within the United Kingdom.

Last month a deal, known as the Windsor Framework, was reached between the UK and EU leaders over the Irish border issue, but not everyone is happy with the outcome, including the Unionist leadership who have boycotted the Northern Ireland Assembly

David Mitchell is Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin in Belfast whose work includes coediting The Politics of Conflict and Transformation: The Island of Ireland in Comparative Perspective.

So what lessons have been learned since the grim days of the Troubles, and how big a risk are these negotiations to peace in Northern Ireland?

 

08:35 Meg Smaker: the most controversial film of 2022

Meg Smaker's 2022 documentary film about a de-radicalisation centre triggered such a backlash around the time of its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival that it was effectively blacklisted.

But Jihad Rehab, later renamed The UnRedacted, has gone on to sell out screenings in America, receive support from presenters, audiences and prominent American Muslims. It played in New Zealand at the Doc Edge Film Festival last year and Smaker will attend a special one-off screening in Auckland in late April to launch this year's festival.

The film follows four former Guantánamo Bay detainees who had been transferred and now detained by the Saudi Government in a ‘rehab center,’ to ‘de-radicalize’ them.

Smaker says the participants gave consent to be filmed and were able to speak freely. But other film-makers, led mostly by Muslim women, argue it is an unethical project that does a disservice to its main characters.

 

 

 

09:05 Poet Michele Leggott: waiting for a miracle 

Michele Leggott's latest book of poetry, Face to the Sky, explores her encounter with 19th-century New Zealand botanical artist Emily Cumming Harris.

But there's more to this story - Michele was battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma while working on the book.

In early 2020, Michele received her diagnosis, just as the Covid-19 lockdowns began. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and a stem cell transplant in 2021 failed to cure her cancer. Finally, in early 2022, Michele was able to participate in a CAR T-cell therapy trial at the Malaghan Institute in Wellington.

This is Michele's eleventh collection of poetry. She's a former New Zealand Poet Laureate, co-founder of the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre, and recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry. In 2017, she was even elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

09:35 Dr Fatima Cody Stanford: Obesity vs Ozempic

Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Dr Fatima Cody Stanford has spent much of her career pushing for changes in the way the medical establishment thinks about and treats obesity. 

Dr Stanford believes that continuing prejudice against people with obesity and a lack of recognition of it as a chronic health condition is an ongoing barrier to improved health outcomes.

She has long been an advocate for the use of medication to treat obesity, and is now at the forefront of discussion around the use of Ozempic and other similar medications as a treatment option.

Originally developed to treat type-2 diabetes the drug has become fashionable in Hollywood which in turn has led to a some shortages of the medication, as people turn to it for weight loss.

 

 

10:05 Daniel M. Lavery: the awkwardness and ambiguities of gender transition

Daniel M. Lavery says the only reason anyone needs to affirm their gender differently is because they want to.

The American writer who was co-founder of the satirical website The Toast, and an advice writer for online magazine Slate, explores the awkwardness and ambiguities of gender transition in his deeply personal book, Something That May Shock and Discredit You.

The book also delves into the pressures placed on trans people to know their gender without any doubt or uncertainty, and to then communicate their desire for gender affirmation at the exact right time in life, not too young or too old, for other people’s comfort levels.

Lavery will be appearing at the Auckland Writers Festival in May.

10:40 Nanny Pura Whale: a life of service to the Māori Wardens

Almost every Friday and Saturday night Nanny Pura Whale puts on her Māori Warden uniform and heads out into the night to watch over the shops and youth of Taihape.

It’s something the 79 year old has done for nearly 35 years. And she has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

She also stars in a new documentary about the wardens on Whakaata Māori (formerly known as Māori TV). 

The film focuses on the wardens as they face the most significant change to the organisation since its inception and seek autonomy from the government to become self-sustainable regions.

11:05 John Ross in Taiwan

Taiwan’s pivotal location off the China coast and between Northeast and Southeast Asia has served a variety of strategic purposes for regional powers both now and historically. It's proved to be as important for New Zealand writer and publisher John Ross.

John has spent more than 30 years living in and reporting on Asia. His solo travels have taken him to destinations including Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, and Myanmar, where he wrote dispatches on the Karen insurgency, embedded with the people.

Since moving to Taiwan in 1994, he has authored books and co-founded Camphor Press, the island’s leading publisher of English-language books on Taiwanese and East Asian politics and history.

He also co-hosts the popular podcast Formosa Files which tells stories from the history of Formosa (Taiwan) from c.1600 to 2000 C.E.

11:35 Danyl McLauchlan: why we vote the way we do

Scientist and writer Danyl McLauchlan joins Kim to tackle life's big questions, ideas and thinkers. This week he delves into the drivers of voting behaviour. 

Political scientists suggest there are three different types of vote: some of us vote based on identity; some of us vote retrospectively - we look at the last three years and ask if things have gone well. And some of us vote transactionally, i.e. anticipating that we might get a tax cut.

Danyl is the author of two novels and Tranquillity and Ruin, an essay collection.

Books mentioned in this show

Face to the Sky
By Michele Leggott
ISBN: 9781776711031
Published by Auckland University Press

Something That May Shock and Discredit You
By Daniel M. Lavery
ISBN: 9781982105228
Published by Atria Books

Dear Prudence: Liberating Lessons from Slate.com's Beloved Advice Column
By Daniel M. Lavery
ISBN: 9781922585219
Published by Scribe Publications