Aside from him putting words in Kalia’s mouth, aside from taking complete ownership of what they said, interpreting their words for his own purposes (ironically enough, to express indignation that Kalia and Eng might take ownership of the story), there’s the idea that Robert has the power over what truth should be presented. That Radiolab will dictate where the story goes. The Hmong taking ownership of a story about the Hmong genocide, “that we can’t allow.” I’ll come back to this, because this is where storytelling dies its death on Radiolab.posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:27 PM on October 23, 2012 [8 favorites]
A pretty clearly stated thesis: "Sometimes getting to the fact of the matter—a fact of the matter—that can be tricky. You end up finding things you didn't expect, that are way more complicated than you expect."As Jad says at the end: "What do you do when three truths are right at the same time?"
Several variations on "the truth":
The politically powerless Hmong believed yellow rain was a chemical weapon, and their daily experience of brutal killings confirmed this belief.
Politically powerful CIA agents thought Laos was a jungle backwater full of rumors and wanted to hear from a Harvard scientist.
An epistemologically powerful chemist says "this leaf has abnormally high concentrations of T-2 toxin." The CIA hears "this is a new type of chemical weapon."
Leaders in a powerful country believe yellow rain is a chemical weapon because they heard it from a scientist at a prestigious university. They want to believe because it is politically convenient.
Scientists in a slightly less powerful country generate a better explanation: yellow rain was created by bees. Several independent tests falsify the politically convenient explanation. Planes were shooting bullets and bombs every day, all the time, and some deaths could have been wrongly attributed to chemical weapons.
The Hmong (politically powerless people being used by a powerful country) say they know yellow rain was falling where there were heavy concentrations of Hmong people. Plus, the powerful country that exploited them now confirms the truth that they have known all along.
A science journalist making a radio show on the nature of truth talks to one Hmong survivor through an interpreter trying to "carry meaning across the chasm of English and Hmong." His questions seem a little rude and uncomfortable.
One "Hmong guy" (Okay, this term was a pretty poor choice) says he knows the chemical weapon explanation is true. Planes were shooting bullets and bombs every day, all the time. Why does it matter if it was bombs or chemical weapons? Why does their experience have to be confirmed by scientists? Everybody knows that chemical warfare was being used.
My uncle says for the last 20 years, he didn’t know that anybody was interested in the deaths of the Hmong people. He agreed to do this interview because you were interested. You know what happened to the Hmong happened. And the world has been uninterested for the last 20 years. He agreed because you were interested. That the story would be heard, and that the Hmong deaths would be [well?]-documented and recognized. That’s why he agreed to the interview. That the Hmong heart is broken. That our leaders have been silenced. And what we know has been questioned again and again is not a surprise to him or to me. I agreed to the interview for the same reasons. That Radiolab was interested in the Hmong story. That they were interested in documenting the deaths that happened. There was so much that was not told. Everybody knows that chemical warfare was being used. How do you create bombs if not with chemicals? We can play the semantics game. We can. But I am not interested. My uncle is not interested. We have lost too much heart, and too many people, in the process.Sidenote: The whole interview was two hours long. This is an excerpt that the Radiolab people chose to play for their audience. Personally I'd find it deeply humiliating if a recording of me losing my composure was played on radio, and I don't understand how their story necessitated doing that.
I think that the interview is done. [transcript taken from Matthew Salesses]
A joint team of State and Defense Department officials also reinvestigated the Yellow Rain allegations in Thailand from November 1983 until October 1985. They questioned some of the same Hmong refugees who had been interviewed between 1979 and 1981 in an effort to cross-check their reports, and found little or no confirmation. The earlier interviews had not distinguished clearly between first-hand accounts and hearsay, and there were numerous inconsistencies in the testimony of different people who claimed to have witnessed the same attack. According to the Haig and Schultz reports, more than 200 attacks had taken place in the vicinity of Phu Bia, yet a Hmong resistance leader who had spent eight years there told the State-Defense team that he had never experienced a chemical attack and dismissed such accounts as rumor. The State-Defense team concluded that the Hmong were not accurate reporters of reality, and that in some instances, coercion from activist Hmong had caused respondents to make allegations that they subsequently denied. [emphasis added]In other words, even if we consider only the testimony of Hmong who were there, and ignore the physical evidence, we still have contradictory evidence and recantations, and even indications that some of the initial testimony had been coerced to further political interests. And this is from a U.S. government investigation! So no, it's a lot more complicated than villagers knowing the eternal patterns of bee behavior in their native lands. The entire article is indeed a good read.
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Here's a Radiolab blog post about the episode, in case you're in the same situation as I am.
posted by dammitjim at 1:12 PM on October 23, 2012 [3 favorites]