The lady selling me the highlighter wasn’t exactly sure if the yellow inky stuff inside the highlighter was banned. I had asked. She said no one told her she couldn’t sell the pens but that I might as well just "innocently" stick it down further in my shirt pocket when going through the boarding gate. As I was already within the secured area I took her advice.

Mean time the lady at Second Cup was pouring all purchased bottled water and juices into plastic cups to make sure people consumed them before boarding.On the early morning ride the cab driver had said the terrorists were sticking up the world and it "just wasn’t right".

It’s difficult to know what goes on in the brain of a bomber, especially a suicide bomber. Ideology, revenge, property, resources, historical claims etc. all figure into it I suppose, but after a while it seems that violence and the war itself is the object of desire.

My wife Deb said it might be hard to find an old suicide bomber. It’s true. Usually age greys ideologies of blood and soil, confidence in violence wanes, maybe even possessions are seen with clearer perspective, and maybe relationships are venerated. All of this makes it hard to blow yourself and others up.

It’s the young that warlords and ideologues know to recruit. A dispossessed young person is fertile ground for an absolutist cause, particularly when that cause is habitually linked to a transcendent cause and calling.And any cause will do. Christian, Muslim, Jew. As long as the victims are well hidden. That is, abstracted and exterminated as infidels or pagans long before any plastique or nitroglycerine tears their limbs away.

In the end the bombers probably have very little knowledge about their "cause", outside of what’s been prescribed. "Causes" are like that. Veneers of freedom and security conceal confusion and a great vacuum. The original object of conflict is lost and people get locked into a spiralling conflict.

But then…as we took off for Canada’s east coast…there was the morning sunrise…

Technorati Tags: Peace, Violence, Terrorism, Sunrise

There were a number of good "folk" moments at this year’s festival. David Gray surprised. Cockburn was his stellar self. The Neville Brothers were tight, polished and took us to New Orleans. The Wailin Jennys, Baka Beyond, Sarah Harmer and others were great…not too many disappointments.

A personal surprise was K’naan, a young Somalian rapper. At a folk festival you say? Exactly my thoughts…but K’naan and his three band members fit the Fest perfectly. A line in one his songs sums up his philosophy. "Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

As far as I can tell–I’m no expert–"gangster rap" is all about cursing the darkness. On the other hand K’naan’s rap, while jagged at times, is political, poetic, occasionally melodic, and hopeful.

Growing up in Mogadishu in a neighbourhood dubbed the river of blood he is fortunate to be alive. Neighbours, friends, and family have been killed in the prolonged violence among warlords. He was able to get out in the late nineties and settle in Harlem. Much quieter there. Since then he’s moved to Canada and is living in Toronto.

To come from such a place, witness what he witnessed and still exhale hope, reflects an indomitable spirit. To take his experience and work for peace through his own brand of self-deprecating protest songs, is light for us.

Technorati Tags: K’naan, Edmonton Folk Fest, Somalia, Peace, Violence