E4. Breaking the silence on invisible wars_Stephen Pine_Rumana Kabir_220923

Hello, and welcome to My MARS mantra podcast. I'm Rumana Kabir, your host for today's episode. In this podcast series, we will be speaking to changemakers from around the world who are working in disasters and development. Today I'm speaking to one of my favorite colleagues, Stephen Pine. Hi, Steve. Hello. I met Steve when we were working together in a consultancy project, and he helped me to reach my deadlines and to manage the stress I go through when I need to complete any work. So welcome, Steve, and thanks for sharing your story today with us. You are a humanitarian researcher, so where did it all start? Yeah, I think it started with being part of a family who always had an international focus and were very interested in the news and international events and keeping up to date with things going on in the world. I think that led on to me just having a natural interest in wanting to see things that were happening improve. I remember seeing things like the – when I was maybe, I don't know how old I was, 8, 10, maybe 11 years old, seeing things like the Ethiopian famines on television and Bob Geldof and all of that kind of stuff. Live Aid. All the Live Aid. I remember thinking, well, I'd like to do something – I'd like to have a career that actually does kind of make some impact in the whole area of – well, just the international arena really. I wanted to do something that had a focus beyond the UK. And where did you grow up? I grew up in the tiniest village you can possibly imagine in the middle of the Worcestershire countryside, so the kind of village which has no shops, one church, a few farms and a few houses that nobody outside of the county would even know where it was. Being a small boy from a small village, how could you relate to what's happening in another part of the world? Well, you can't. I mean, that's the thing. You can't. It's only through just the basic feeling of these people are people and I'm a person too. So it's really just down on compassion level from human to human. That's brilliant. So tell us more about your work now. What did you do after that? How did you channel your compassion to help others? So I went to university and did my bachelor's degree in modern history. And like most modern history students struggle to know what to do after I got out of university. And I quickly found out that I didn't really want to go into a secondary school in the UK and teach history to teenagers, which is one of the options I did. I thought about for a bit, but I quickly, quickly rejected that. And after a few years, I decided to start teaching English as a foreign language just for a few years. And then I did that and traveled a lot, which again, teaching English in other countries, it increased my awareness of other cultures, places. I lived in South Korea for three years, things like that, things that open your mind and allow you to sort of realize that travel is more than just getting on a plane. It's a different, you know, different countries, different cultures with different perspectives, you know, different ways of thinking, different ways of seeing the world. Good that you mentioned about travel, because you know, one of the charm about working internationally in disasters or development, people call it disaster tourism. But it gets into your blood when you travel and see the cultures from different perspectives. And if you live in a country, you learn more rather than just flying in and out. Yes, yes, actually staying for an extended period of time makes a huge difference, of course. But yeah, so I after that, I was determined to do something that made more of an impact than English teaching. So my story is that I then went back to university in my mid to late 30s and did my master's degree in international development. And within that, there were sort of, it was quite a generalized degree. And there were many different sides to that, that you could study and part of the path that I took was definitely focused on human rights and conflict. And that's so that has led on to what I'm doing now. Yes, I remember when I saw your master's dissertation, which is available online, because you got distinction, it really struck me. And that's how I found you when you were working together. That is the picture of that cover page of your dissertation. Can you tell me what was it about? That was a photo that I blew up and put onto the cover of my dissertation, or in the first page, but which was a is a photo of a family who had lost a son, I think a teenage son to a US drone strike to an innocent teenager who was killed. And it was quite a rugged lawless part of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, where militants had been known to use as well to use it as a as an area of refuge, but because of its slightly rough, lawless nature, where the United States, the US, and under the Obama administration, could almost operate and carry out drone strikes, pretty much with impunity at the time, maybe less so now, because, you know, these things get attention over the years. But at the time, yeah, the drone strikes were carried out with impunity, why were they doing it in the first place? I was just of the war on terror, part of the sort of the international hunt to eliminate Al Qaeda and bin Laden. That was the political purpose at the time. I see. So how did you do the research? I understand it's all death's work. It was as simple as sitting down after having an initial idea about wanting to study the social effects of drone warfare, to see how a more technological style of warfare that continues right on out right to this day, how that actually affected normal people living on the ground. And it wasn't difficult to start to find data. Because it's a subject area that at the time, was still quite new and quite fresh, and not a lot of academic studies had been written on this. Right. Yes. These days, war is like computer games, isn't it? Because you're disconnected. Yeah. In the past, you see pictures of war soldiers getting wounded. But now, you don't see or you don't hear what's happening on film. It's increasingly like that. The thing with drone strikes about it being what they call, in quote marks, remote control warfare. And yes, whilst it does impact those who are participating in it, on every level, even the pilots of drones often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, year for years and years. It is still a totally different and separate and distinct style of warfare. What do you mean by the pilots getting affected? They're just playing computer games. They're not looking at what they're doing. No, they are. They see, it's almost like, if you imagine a sniper who sees the face of the person he's about to shoot. And so, the drone pilots have regularly been disturbed by the images that they see as they target missiles launched from drones. And also, they don't see the face because they just do it from the air. They're disconnected. They see, it's not exactly a close-up image of a face, but what they do see is outlines of people in often quite high resolution. And they know that, they often know that there is at least a chance that civilians will be killed. What about the removed nature of it, of remote warfare, where even some of the language and the slang that is used, soldiers always have used pretty horrific, casual terms and slang. Things like referring to people killed in a drone strike as bug splats, like they are kind of the hand of God just crushing insects from above. Oh dear. That's scary. And, you know, these days, kids are also loving playing computer games. It's scary the way we are all removing ourselves from the reality and all this virtual reality coming. And I remember watching on TV when you see that how bin Laden was killed and everyone was watching. It just looked like a game, a computer game. And also, it looked like we're watching a film. It just feels very scary. And when you really think deep, how people are affected. So how do you unwind yourself, Steve, because you mentioned about soldiers, but you read all these documents. Yeah, well, that's true. Take it all in. And then how do you channel your knowledge? Well, part of the research I have done is looking at a lot of declassified military documents, summarizing them, writing my own articles and things like this. So you're right, it's heavy stuff. And it's not something that you necessarily wake up at, you know, seven o'clock in the morning wanting to immediately jump into once you've got yourself a mug of coffee. But I think it's two things if you're into conflict research that are essential to remember really. One is that you are doing good work. I mean, it is working in conflict is different to normal development work. And you don't necessarily get the same job satisfaction, but it's a different kind of job satisfaction. I mean, my passion with it is I think I've always had always had a heart and a passion for holding people in positions of power to account. That's what drives me. And the element of that is being outraged. An element of that is anger and anger controlled can drive you and it's not necessarily a bad thing either. I so much agree with you, because I think that when you channel your anger and frustration in a positive direction, you can make a difference. So how do you unwind yourself, Steve, after reading all these documents? What do you do in the end of the day or in the morning, you said you don't start straight to the research in the morning. I mean, to be honest, it's a it's a lot like other forms of war journalism where you do over time become a bit numb to it. And I think at the moment, having done, you know, quite a lot of it, I think I have a certain immunity to that kind of well, of course, a lot of horrific things that I read about. But I still do get points where I read a particular story or I look at a particular case. It does get under your skin a little bit. But I think I find that I just I need to give myself time, give myself space. And then remember, again, like I was mentioning before, remember that the research you're doing could actually be used to make the world a better place and to actually have an influence on national and international policy, which is which is a satisfying thing to think about. I think that's true, because, you know, these people, they don't speak English, they don't have any power to influence. I think that with your research, you have that power to influence channel your anger to influence the policy. And also people like us to know what is it like to be on ground? Yes, that's right. Because you look at you look at stories and you realize that these stories, hundreds of them will never make the BBC, they will never get onto an international news. And people, you know, won't have these stories, you know, coming into their living rooms. It's not because I mean, we all know that the amount of coverage that many things get on the news, it's the coverage is restricted and it's very selective. So there's a satisfaction in knowing that you're publicizing and bringing stories that really should be heard into the public eye. Thank you, Steve. So what is your inner resilience? What is your Mars mantra? I think it would be to keep focused. Remember that you're human, give yourself the time and the breaks that you need. Use your passion and selectively use your anger and outrage to to make a difference and to drive you forward in your work. And that's not a bad thing. Thank you, Steve. My pleasure.