The Julian Assange Show: Episode 4

Transcript

THE WORLD TOMORROW – EPOSIDE 4

NABEEL RAJAB/ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH

GENERIC TITLES – JA VOICE-OVER CUT WITH AUDIO FROM NEWS CLIPS

00:01

I am Julian Assange.

00:05

Editor of Wikileaks.

00:06

We’ve exposed the world’s secrets;

00:10

Been attacked by the powerful.

00:18

For 500 days now I have been detained without charge, but that hasn’t stopped us.

00:26

Today we are on a quest for revolutionary ideas that can change the world tomorrow.

PROGRAMME SPECIFIC INTRO - JA VOICEOVER

00.35

Is the Arab spring the enactment of a dream or is it an impossible fantasy? This week, I cut through the spin and speak directly to two leading revolutionaries.

From Cairo, I speak to writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah. Imprisoned and now banned from travel, he has become the icon of a revolution betrayed.

Joining me under house arrest is Nabeel Rajab, the Director of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and one of the most important figures in the Bahraini uprising.

I want to ask them about the revolutions across the Middle East. Have they been successful, crushed? Captured or concealed? And, what motivates them to continue to put their lives on the line?

01.16

Alaa.

01.18

Hello!

You see me and we have here Nabeel from Bahrain.

Eh... [speaks Arabic]

We were worried about you.

Very good to see you. Yeah.

Yeah, he is out now, but not for long and...

None of us are out too long, eh?

Maybe not.

01.39

So, what happened in the past couple of weeks? When we called you to try and get you over here…

I mean, last time...

... that you were in jail so...

10.46

Well, I mean, yeah. I was in... I was just detained for almost half-day - and then before that month I was beaten up in the street. Few months ago, I was kidnapped from my home by masked security persons and taken to unknown place, after blindfolded and handcuffed and I was tortured, then I was thrown back home.

When I said in my Twitter account that I’m going to meet Julian Assange and I'm going to speak to him in a TV programme, and last night my house was surrounded by almost 100 policemen - armed, machine guns, and they realised then that I was not at home, then they just ask my family to tell me to come to the public prosecutor today at 4 o’clock. Well, I am here.

02.35

So, you're here today at 4 o’clock.

I was here, and I received that when I was last night, and I think... but I'm used to...

02.41

What are you going to do?

I'm going to go back; I mean, I have to face it, you know. I mean, it's not the first time but….This is the struggle. This is the freedom. This is democracy that we are fighting for. It has a cost and that we have to pay the cost, and the cost might be very expensive - as we have paid high cost in Bahrain. And, we are willing to pay that for the changes that we are fighting for.

03.06

And, Alaa, where are you at legally? Are you in the clear now?

03.12

No. Um, I am still pending prosecution. The case is under investigation. I am banned from travel and I am accused of murders, sabotage of public property, mainly military APCs, stealing military weapons, inciting illegal assembly for the purpose of terrorism. So yeah, so I'm basically accused of beating the hell out of a couple of platoons, stealing their weapons and then killing one of them... one soldier...

You're alleged to be a very naughty boy?

03.53

Yeah, and a superman also. [others laugh] I'm capable of doing stuff that would be impossible... confronting APCs on my own and so on…and I have witnesses that... the prosecution witnesses have testified to me being in two places at the same time, yet I am still being investigated, so I'm obviously capable of way more, you know, many superpowers, but er... which is pretty awesome. I had a good reputation and street cred in prison. You know, when people go to prison because they steal cars and... but I'm being accused of stealing tanks...

04.22

How do you think you will go?

04.25

I mean, I don't know if they are particularly interested in me or just the idea that they want to use courts as a tool against activists, and as a legitimate tool, you know, it's... it's not enough to be able to beat the hell out of them, it's not enough to be able to kill people. In fact, even when they do targeted killings – like, we think they are targeted killings - they are targeting people who are very crucial on the ground but they're not well known. So, they are stuck with this, you know, with the famous activist dilemma, what do you do about them? And I think they are trying to build a legitimacy for using the courts against us and it keeps backfiring, but they... they're biding their time, I mean, so that's why the case is still on, and that's why I am still accused. Maybe they will eventually manage to tarnish my image enough, and...and they are working on it, I'm... I'm being accused of holding pro-gay views, for instance, and - which again, you know, good street cred so... but yeah...

05.18

What's the current status…the state of play in Bahrain right now?

05.21

I would say there are three different status. In Tunisia, complete revolution, complete overthrow of the regime, completely new system...

No, man. It's not complete in Tunisia at all.

05.35

Then you have in Egypt, which is halfway revolution, not yet completed, army and the system and the regime still exist. Then you have in Bahrain revolution still exists and working and did not yet achieve anything but the revolution is still in process. It is still continuing after a year. Many people were killed in terms of percentage, much more than people lost in Tunisia and Egypt. Unfortunately, we are in a region ruled by families, dictators, since 10th... of couple of hundred of years but their strength comes from the wealth, from the Americans' support, from the armies they have, and from no legitimacy from people. No other... no legitimacy from people - but those are realities that they are ruling us and we can't change them because nobody wants to talk about them.

06.31

Alaah. What's the present state of play in Egypt now?

06.38

Well basically, you know, the 18 days thing was quite surprising that that, you know, that Mubarak would fall that quickly, and the price was high but we thought it would be much higher and so on. So, what's happening in Egypt is that... what we expected should happen, like I mean, we would all have expected that a revolution would be something that would stretch over a year maybe, so that year that didn't happen with Mubarak is happening with the military. And, people after an initial moment of thinking, you know, that the military might just decide to retain its unity and status by not engaging and not protecting the regime is... actually, the military is the core of the regime... so the revolution now is a revolution against military rule.

07.27

The revolutionary groups in Bahrain and the people who supported these protest movements in Bahrain, have they been wound up? Are they too scared to act? Um, are they fractured? Are they apathetic? Who's left who's still pushing forward?

07.44

Well, still a lot of people. You have... I mean, I would didn't be surprised, or you should not be surprised, to see half of the Bahraini population coming out in one protest. It's still happening. It's not happening in any of the revolutions. None of the revolutions we had in the history in the past 50 years you would see 50 per cent of the population out in the street in one protest. But you will see in Bahrain. Unfortunately, because of the double standard of many countries, because of the double standard of many state channels like Al-Jazeera, like Al-Arabia, like other European channels that they don't highlight this but this is the reality.

08.23

Why doesn’t Al-Jazeera report the Bahraini... ?

Al-Jazeera were positive in Egypt, they were positive in Tunisia. In fact, Al-Jazeera were a sign for any revolution in the Arab world if it is a credible revolution or not. If Al-Jazeera will cover those revolution, it is credible. But when it comes to Bahrain, Al-Jazeera were quiet. I’m talking about Arabic Al-Jazeera not the English - English completely different.

08.45

Yeah. The English was alright, wasn't it?

It's still certain limit... they were ok. The Arabic one, they were complete silence. In fact, in many areas they'd taken the side of the government.

Why?

08.54

Why? Because they are all from similar ruling family and similar region. A democracy in Bahrain means it's going to have an impact on Qatar, it's going to have an impact on Saudi Arabia, which has the Al-Arabia TV channel.

09.08

So, why did Saudi send troops into Bahrain?

That's, er... I mean, this is something the whole world has to speak out and have to condemn what happened but we've seen the invasion of Saudis to my country with complete silence. Now the same governments sending troops to Libya to fight the regime and now they are against the Syrian Assad - which they have to be maybe - but when it comes to Bahrain they were complete silence. With Saudi and the troops...

09.37

Were they scared of the activist Shi’a in Bahrain spreading into Saudi?

09.44

No, because the Saudis are very influential in the United States, in Europe. They have... for the interests of United States, for the interests of the many European countries, for the arms sales, for the flow of the oil, for the mutual interests which many countries seen it has more priority than the human rights of the Bahrainis. For example, the same United States which asked Russian not to sell arms for Syria, they are selling arms to Bahrain. Yesterday, a statement by the representative... American representative in the human rights council saying that 'We will not talk about Bahrain this session because Bahrain is improving itself and it is doing better' - where people d... As I’m talking to you, a few hours ago one man died because of tear gas. We have... daily basis people are dying.

10.35

Is... is Iran fuelling the revolutionary forces in...?

10.40

This is what our government's saying. This is what the Americans maybe try to buy that, but that's got nothing... none of the revolution is [inaudible]...

10.46

Did you...? I read a cable at the time of these Bahraini protests about eight months ago and this US cable which we have published, says that the Bahraini government officers came into the US embassy and they said: 'Look, Iran is behind these calls for human rights in Bahrain. It is funnelling money and weapons into the Bahrainian resistance', and then the US ambassador writing back to Washington said that he saw no evidence that that was true. That they keep claiming this... they keep claiming this but over years they had never seen any evidence.

11.26

Yeah, yeah. Similar to that at least one cable that was about me, where one of the government agents goes to the American embassy, says that Nabeel Rajab is receiving funds from the Iranian government and Americans tell the State Department that it's not true, they've got nothing to support that. But...

11.41

Do you think this fear-mongering about Iran is the... is it the primary reason why the West is not supporting..?

11.49

I'm sure they want Bahrain stable as the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain. They want Bahrain to be very quiet and stable. Losing Ben Ali in Tunisia and losing Mubarak in Egypt angered the Saudis very much. You know that there was a telephone call where they had a fight, the Saudi king with Obama? And when it comes to Bahrain, this is the last thing the Saudis want to see - a revolution on Bahrain a few miles from their border, which means going to have impact, negative, in Saudi Arabia. That's why Saudi sent the troops to Bahrain to take part in the crackdown, in killing people, detaining people, and they have taken part in that bloody crackdown with the complete silence of... from the international community. Yes, Saudi didn't want democracy; yes, Qatar, which want to promote democracy in Syria and other parts of the world but they don’t want democracy in Qatar - you have to ask your people, you have to share power, you have to share wealth and those governments will not accept that to happen.

12.51

Alaa, you may remember, during the heat of the Egyptian revolution, Suleiman, the head of domestic intelligence in Egypt, was proposed by Joseph Biden, by the State Department, by Hillary Clinton to be a sort of replacement figure for Mubarak, a compromise figure, and we released many cables about him and his position in relation to Israel and his relation to United States and being a sort of... a torturer-in-chief for...but, very quickly after it was apparent that Suleiman was not going to succeed, you saw Hillary Clinton turn around and start to praise the Egyptian revolution and say that in fact the Egyptian and Tunis revolutions were because of two great American companies, Twitter and Facebook [all laugh]. You must of heard this time and time again…

14.03

You have to realise that there's a... there's a battle for narratives in... in the revolutions. The revolutions are about ideas as much as they are about, you know, bodies in the streets and bullets and so on. And the most crucial aspect of this battle of narrative is to try and narrow down the revolution to being about the Facebook youth. That doesn’t meant that the Facebook youth didn't play an important role in the revolution - they did - but the thing is, if you draw a circle around, you know, a side of revolution and say this is the true revolution, everybody else is not for real, and then you play on everything, you play on class, you play on how much people are willing to use violence to defend themselves - to isolate, you know, the revolutionary forces from each other. So they're well- off, middle-class, highly educated, internet-connected youth played an important role in the revolution and they were, for very tactical reasons, they were the symbols of the revolutions because you needed the whole world to love the Egyptian revolution. So you also had this great Woodstock-like party in Tahrir without the drugs and the sex but, you know, you had this wonderful, you know, amazing and very inspiring - it's also very real, there's no aspect of, you know, of fantasy about it... a party in Tahrir Square... but if you tell the story... you know, that's right about Tahrir. You tell the story about the Egyptian revolution as these wonderful kids - good-looking, well-connected kids being in Tahrir - then you are ignoring the workers, you are ignoring the street battles, you are ignoring how much we had to use violence. We were not sticking to the script that people outside of the revolution think that was going on. So, Hillary was not just pushing to comp... American companies, she was pushing a narrative that is designed to stop the revolution, to make sure that it doesn't go deeper than Mubarak.

16.05

Alaa you wrote... 'The square is a legend that would fall if the families of martyrs stopped to believe in it. The dream is the alternative to the regime, if we let go of it for realistic, rational and committed debates that follow the right order of priorities, it would perish. . Leave the experts behind and listen to the poets, for we are in a revolution. Let go of the mind and hold onto the dream, for we are in a revolution. Beware of caution and embrace the unknown, for we are in a revolution. Celebrate the martyrs, for amidst ideas, symbols, stories, spectacles and dreams, nothing is real but their blood and nothing is guaranteed but their eternity.' That part of the revolution in Egypt has now finished - the Square - but is the dream finished?

16.59

There is no articulation of what that dream is. It's certainly not a boring Western representative democracy where your nation could go on a war, like the UK went without consent of the populous; where electing the president who promised hope is almost exactly the same as electing the president who didn't promise hope as happened in the US; you know... Um, the dream is... the dream is what makes your work unnecessary, Julian; the dream is what makes... is a democracy that doesn't give rise to Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London and the Greek riots, and so on. So it's... but it's still very much... it's still very strong and it still lives there, but it is not... it has not been articulated. We don't have a theory. We don't have...yet… So, the dream, you see it in moments when you can become poetic like I managed to do in that article; the dream you see in the graffiti, and that's why it has been very much tied to the martyrs. I mean, we don't just treat them as people who died, they are immortal. And, it is not in their sacrifice but it is in how we see their sacrifice and how we re-express their sacrifice and how we keep their memory living, then we touch what the dream is - but I cannot tell you what it is exactly. And it is in moments of battles, actually, that I almost can touch it, like there are... When we... when we are battling the police there are always these moments of ceasefire that don't last for very long - I think they're usually the police refilling their ammunition and so on - and when the police stops firing we stop automatically, but in these moments, you know, you find the people that form circles. You've got fires all over the place because fires, you know, people have been using Molotov cocktails or something like that, so these fires become actually like a bonfire, people sitting around it, yeah. Tea…suddenly, you know, street merchants come up out of the blue and, you know, the people are drinking the tea and singing together and so on. There is a post-modern state that we are trying to reach, and we don’t know what it is exactly but this is why we are having a revolution and not just an orderly reform, and this is why it doesn't actually matter what this US government wants and what Al-Jazeera is doing and so on because it's about something that is much deeper. I don’t know if we are going to win it this time, and I don’t know if we are going to win it in my lifetime, but it's enough that I... that I, you know, on almost weekly basis, that I get moments where I can almost touch it.

Nabeel?

19.48

I think with... in the end of 2010 with the Bouazizi, wave have started - tsunami - and I think it's going to change the whole region, maybe in very few years the whole region's going to change. Those smart governments in the region, which going to reform themselves fast, and those governments who will resist changes, I think the tsunami will move them... remove them from their seats. Those governments, in the United States or European governments who have... who built their relations... who built their interests, long strategic interests, with those dictators - I think they're going to lose a lot. Those governments who are smart enough to have a relation with the people rather than those dictators, I think those will benefit. Changes... I'm very optimistic that changes are going to happen in our region, positive changes.

20.46

In these moments, whether you are in prison or you are in a situation of being held and kidnapped and beaten, when you are... you have the maximum isolation, you do not have control of your physical space, you do not have control of your body. Someone else has your body, er, and you are not at liberty in the most fundamental sense of the word. What do... what do you think about, and how do you try and control your feelings, to see you through this moment?

20.21

I think if you have a goal, if you believe in the just of your goal, of your struggle, you will come... you will overcome those difficulties. And you know that it's changes that you are fighting for, it's been there for hundreds of years, it's not an easy thing to change. So to achieve those changes, you have to be willing to pay a price, and might... that price might be your life. And, I’m sure those people heading the movement in the Arab world are that type of people who are willing to pay their life to achieve those changes.

Alaa?

22.02

…prison sucks man. I mean, this is my second time to be, um, to go to prison - and my fight was this time that I was facing a military prosecutor and I refused to recognise the legitimacy of the military justice system, and so I was sent - eventually, we managed to win this major victory and I was sent to a proper magistrate - and then he still kept me in detention, and so there was this moment where I was completely collapsing, completely collapsing, and I really wanted to be out and attend the birth of my first son, and I couldn’t because of that, and so I collapsed and then he was born and then three hours later my family managed to send me photos of him. And it didn’t matter - at that moment it just didn't matter at all, and since, you know... So it's always been... it's always been the experience of being surrounded by love, on a very personal level, but also in the solidarity, you know. I've been privileged and lucky enough that when I go to prison there's a massive, massive solidarity everywhere in the world and it's usually of a very personal fashion.

23.23

Did you know the support that you had on the outside when you were on the inside?

23.29

Yes, um, mostly through family visits. So, it isn't isolation - that I... that I wouldn't be able to handle - and it isn't being put with dangerous criminals in a very crowded cell - that I wouldn't be able to handle - but if I was prevented from visits then I don’t know how I'd be able to handle that and that's, yeah... Don't tell them!

23.52

Nabeel, you're a father of two.

I have two, yeah.

23.58

Will you tell your children to grow up to be an activist like you, and maybe kidnapped and put in prison and beaten up?

24.08

You don't have to tell them. It's just by default it's going to happen, and er...

They'll learn by example?

24.14

Yeah, I mean, my son and my daughter now head of each protest. I just moved them from school because they were harassed. This same school from the children of member of the ruling family and they are paying high price, maybe higher than me because I am doing my fighting struggle and I’m ready for the reaction, but they started growing up, seeing reaction, for reason they don't know why. Being... their house being raided at midnight, their father is being removed from bed and beaten in front of their eyes. Their house has been tear-gassed maybe more than 20 times in the past one year. They’ve seen things normal children they did not see in their life, but they have learnt a lot, they are much older than their age. When they...

How old are they?

25.10

My daughter, she is nine years old, and my son just become 14 years of age. I mean, he used to take part with me in each and every protest since he was five years old, and so my daughter - she never liked human rights and politics and nothing like that - but since I was kidnapped and beaten in front of her, she become a radical now and an activist, and my wife also, she's a very quiet woman but she is an activist. I think the whole family become activists. We are almost more than a thousand members, talking the...

The whole clan?

25.46

Yeah, the family... and, I mean, I think many of them become activists now. The whole nation - the revolution have made the whole nation activist. Imagine Bahrain government stopped journalists to get into the country, stopped the human rights organisations to get into the country, but most of the people, young people become journalists, become human rights activists, become bloggers, become internet...

There's a market opportunity now. [laughs]

26.09

So thanks God and government of Bahrain have made such a young movement, which is... I think we're going to benefit and the whole Arab world will benefit from them in their own revolutions as well.

26.22

Alaa, your son is going to grow up into the new Egypt.

26.28

I had this... this thought that, like, now I need to bring up my son to hate football in order for him to be... to avoid being killed. And then I remembered I named him afer Khalid Saeed, who is a victim of police torture - he died in … a young man who died in Alexandria two years ago prior to the revolution but his face has been a symbol for the revolution - and he did nothing... There was, you know, there's no way I can protect him. There is no point in telling... in... in raising my son to avoid being an activist, or even to be pro-regime or anything like that, because it doesn't matter. When you have repression, the violence is so random that it's going to affect you anyway. The injustice is so random that it is going to affect you anyway. You cannot guarantee, you know, a good life for your child unless you guarantee it for ever other child, and so that... it's not in my hands, I can't even do anything about it.

27.35

END CREDITS

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