FREEDOM FOR THE
WOLF
Written & Directed By: Rupert Russell
Transcription: 20 August 2017
Duration: 01:29:22
-----
[00:00:32.00] TITLE: Hong Kong 2014
[00:00:43.05] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-Democracy Press Conference
[00:00:45.17] BENNY TAI: The reason for
having this headshaving
action today
we want to show our determination
[00:00:53.00] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-Democracy, Benny Tai, Occpy Central Founder
BENNY TAI: for Hong Kong to have democracy.
[00:01:01.22] BENNY TAI: What is determination?
Determination is one who is willing
to give up something
that he or she considers to be precious
in order to get something
even more important.
[00:03:05.23] JOSHUA WONG O.S.: This is the era when even junior students
will come out to fight democracy.
Students used to talk about which textbooks were the best for exams.
But today they discuss things like which
brands of goggles are best to protect their eyes from pepper spray.
[00:03:38.29] TITLE: A Bulldog Agenda Production
In Association With Observatory
[00:03:42.07] V.O.: It is impossible to deny
we have a most serious challenge
[00:03:47.12] TITLE: A Film By Rupert Russell
V.O.: to the democratic progress
since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
[00:03:54.16] RONALD REAGAN: The wall cannot withstand freedom.
[00:04:00.02] RONALD REAGAN O.S.: Mr Gorbechev, tear down this wall.
TITLE: Artwork by Mark Badger
Animation by DARE Studio
[00:04:07.18] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Freedom!
[00:04:08.08] ORLANDO PATTERSON V.O.: The end of the cold war
was hailed as a triumph of freedom
around the world.
Fukuyama even suggested that it was the end of history. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Francis Fukuyama, The End Of History And The Last Man, 1992]
[00:04:20.04] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA V.O.: The end of history was simply to say the endpoint of that was not going to be Communism;
it was going to some form of liberal democracy.
[00:04:25.18] TITLE: Music by Alex Williamson
Edited by Bobby Good
Rupert Russell
Anthony Stadler
[00:04:29.05] ORLANDO PATTERSON V.O.: Well it hasn't turned out that way.
Democracy seems to be in crisis right now.
[00:04:33.19] TITLE: Executive Producers
Nick Fraser
Stephen Robert Morse
Sarena Snider
Maria Springer
Produced By
Camilla Hall
Patrick Hamm
[00:04:35.03] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: Build that wall!
[00:04:36.10] DONALD TRUMP: Build that wall! Build that wall!
[00:04:39.28] TITLE: Written & Directed By Rupert Russell
[00:04:41.06] ORLANDO PATTERSON V.O.: Isaiah Berlin once observed that freedom can itself become dangerous.
Freedom for the wolves has often meant death for the sheep.
[00:04:50.29] TITLE: Freedom For The Wolf
[00:04:54.29] ORLANDO PATTERSON: This is an old idea, which has haunted democracy if you like, and the idea of freedom.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Orlando Patterson, Harvard University]
[00:05:04.24] ORLANDO PATTERSON O.S.: A lot of people argue that freedom is written in the hearts of men and that it's an inherent part of the human condition. I don't think that's true. Freedom was something, which was invented in Ancient Greece, 5th century Greece. That society was also the first great slave-based society. That is, people came to view freedom as a cherished ideal, in the slave's desire to escape and be liberated from slavery but also in the slave relationship was born the idea of freedom as absolute power.
[00:05:41.03] ORLANDO PATTERSON: For the first time someone had complete freedom to do as they wanted and the Greeks celebrated that power over and the slave masters' view of freedom.
[00:05:50.15] ORLANDO PATTERSON O.S.: And in a way, Isaiah Berlin said it best, "Freedom for the wolf is death for the sheep." So it's an old idea, which we see revived by the rise of a new class of wolves, democratically-elected leaders who see their freedom as the
[00:06:10.24] ORLANDO PATTERSON: power to exercise domination over those who do not belong, over those who do not win, over those who are the minorities, whose civil liberties can be trampled on in the exercise of their absolute freedom, which we witness now.
[00:06:43.13] TITLE: Embracing Freedom
[00:06:47.27] TITLE: Hong Kong
[00:06:53.24] TITLE: Umbrella Movement: Occupy Central Protest 2014
[00:06:58.04] REGINA IP: I think there's no fundamental objection to more rights and freedoms.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-China, Regina Ip, Chairperson, New People's Party]
In fact, I think that the Chinese people, they love that. What the Chinese leaders are trying to build today is a society that not only embraces freedom but also development, innovation, rule of law.
[00:07:20.08] ANSON CHAN O.S.: When the British and the Chinese agreed to handover Hong Kong to Mainland China, Beijing promised the people of Hong Kong
[00:07:28.15] ANSON CHAN: the rights and freedoms that go with fully-fledged democracies elsewhere.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-Democracy, Anson Chan, Chief Secretary of Hong Kong 1993-2001]
What they have delivered is a fake democracy.
[00:07:39.02] REGINA IP O.S.: Beijing wants candidates to be nominated first and then
[00:07:42.17] REGINA IP: for the people of Hong Kong to choose. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-China, Regina Ip, Chairperson, New People's Party]
In a way, that's already a tremendous gift to Hong Kong,
[00:07:50.04] REGINA IP O.S.: giving a lot of power to Hong Kong people.
[00:07:53.28] ANSON CHAN O.S.: That's a somewhat disingenuous argument.
[00:07:56.24] ANSON CHAN: You're not giving voters a choice.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-Democracy, Anson Chan, Chief Secretary of Hong Kong 1993-2001]
You're presenting us with a scenario where two or three puppets are annointed by Beijing and then you go and tell us go away and exercise the vote in your hands and pick from amongst one of these three.
[00:08:16.22] MICHAEL O.S.: My name is Michael. I'm 23
[00:08:19.23] MICHAEL: and working as a normal, average Hong Konger in the past.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Michael, Activist]
And daily routine are really meaningless and we have no right to change anything and we have no right to choose people who represent us.
[00:08:42.09] MICHAEL O.S.: The whole occupation is really simple. We got some supporters and the donated some tents for us so we just build up the tents and we stay here and we sleep here until we get the true democracy for Hong Kong. You know, I try to physically and mentally train myself for combat. I'm kind of a fan of Bruce Lee and he told us, "Be water, my friend." Water feels nothing, feels like nothing when it is like a raindrop but more and more drops of water keep dripping in the same place, it can drill holes in rocks or mountains. If we are so hard like a rock, if someone tried to bend us, eventually they can do so, eventually it can break. But, if we act like water, if we are as gentle as water, as soft as water, if anyone wants to bend us, they could never do so. So that is just like what we are doing right now. There's only one single way to win and it's just really simple logic. That is we got enough headcount, if anyone hits us, we don't even have to fight back because we have too many of us.
[00:10:12.29] MAN SPEAKING: Our suggestions have been rejected by the government,
leaving us with no choice but to occupy, right?
Yes!
As our protest has escalated,
the government has become more closed off.
This is why we are occupying.
The government has power, money, and police,
but what we have are our conscience and ideals, right?
Yes!
[00:10:56.12] BENNY TAI O.S.: Protesters outnumber the police very much and the police use of tear gas attracts so much criticism so the
[00:11:04.26] BENNY TAI: police without using high degree of force and being outnumbered by protesters very much so that makes the police difficult to clear the place.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Benny Tai, Occupy Central Founder]
[00:11:22.00] MICHAEL: The police just without any warning, the police tried to push the fence line.
[00:11:35.19] MICHAEL: They're testing our bottom line, trying to clear us out. As far as we know, there's two of us who got seriously injured right now. The government is not ready for compromise yet, but what we can do right now is we could rise up the level of the protest.
[00:13:24.09] ORLANDO PATTERSON: When people think about freedom and experience freedom, they do not think about it in the abstract, they usually have in mind something they focus on, whether it's the right to vote or the right to experience inner peace or material possession.
[00:13:51.28] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA O.S.: The new authoritarianism is different from the old totalitarian regimes especially the Communist one, which is that it's combined with market capitalism and therefore it can create a great deal of wealth. China has become the big symbol of that.
[00:14:09.07] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: Now the Chinese middle class is about four or five hundred million.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University]
They are pretty content because they've been the big beneficiaries of all of China's economic growth.
[00:14:21.13] NEWCASTER O.S.: Pro-democracy protestors have blocked roads in Hong Kong's Central business district forcing the closure of many banks, shops, and schools.
NEWSCASTER 2 O.S.: Unrest may have caused the city's retailers more than two hundred million euros.
NEWSCASTER 3 O.S.: The stock market has opened down here in Hong Kong and has continued to slide down.
[00:14:41.25] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Construction Union Counter-Protest
[00:14:45.27] SPEAKER: Please do not block the road.
Open up the road for us.
We need to work, we need to support our families.
[00:14:50.22] SPEAKER: I beg our students, please open up the road
so we can start working again.
[00:14:57.08] BLUE RIBBON SPEAKER O.S.: Hong Kong is our home!
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Blue Ribbon Counter-Protest]
Let's love and protect it!
Love Hong Kong!
[00:15:08.15] BLUE RIBBON PROTESTERS: Support the police!
[00:15:10.17] ORLANDO PATTERSON: Hong Kong is a template of the new kind of freedom, which is being pursued all over the world. The idea being, if you provide people with the power to consume, the right to consume, they won't want the right to choose their leaders, the right to vote, the right to participate in the political process.
[00:15:30.09] BLUE RIBBON SPEAKER: We have the freedom. Everybody got the freedom to enjoy, you know. Walk around and we can go shopping. But now you can see the shop owners in Hong Kong, they cannot do business and need to close.
[00:15:43.18] ROBERT CHOW: We're against Occupy Central,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-China, Robert Chow, Silent Majority for Hong Kong]
and we believe that it is hurting Hong Kong. They may have what they perceive to be noble ideas. If that is right then all the terrorists in the world are right because they all have perceived noble ideas. And then they go ahead and use bombs, use anything they like. If the minority can impose their will on the majority, where is freedom? We have kissed freedom goodbye.
[00:16:12.20] ANSON CHAN: Robert Chow undoubtedly has been persuaded to organize
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-Democracy, Anson Chan, Chief Secretary of Hong Kong 1993-2001]
this whole campaign against Occupy Central. It's completely orchestrated with funds from Beijing.
[00:16:26.16] ROBERT CHOW: Why? Why would so many people be puppets of Beijing?
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-China, Robert Chow, Silent Majority Hong Kong]
Don't you think Hong Kong is civilized and educated enough for people to have their own minds and think?
[00:16:35.22] ANSON CHAN: They organize massive demonstrations in the streets,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-Democracy, Anson Chan, Chief Secretary of Hong Kong 1993-2001]
but it was quite clear that quite a few of them had been paid to participate, quite a few of them actually came from Mainland China and didn't have a clue about what they were participating in.
[00:16:52.19] INTERVIEWER O.C.: Why did you come?
WOMAN: I came to have fun.
INTERVIEWER O.C.: Came for fun?
WOMAN: Yes.
INTERVIEWER O.C.: What is fun to do here? Has anyone told you to have fun here?
WOMAN: Shopping, shopping, shopping.
INTERVIEWER O.C.: Shopping?
WOMAN: Yes.
INTERVIEWER O.C.: What can you shop for here?
[00:17:08.12] ROBERT CHOW: If someone bused somebody else in from Mainland, they did, you know. I'm not going to deny it. So maybe they think this is a good, you know, tourist event to add to it. I mean, you know, this is a free place. You can do what you like.
[00:17:40.08] NEWSCASTER O.S.: It's been a two month stand-off in the former British colony.
NEWSCASTER 2 O.S.: Public support for these protests has waned.
NEWSCASTER 3 O.S.: Taxi drivers have taken out an injunction asking for the streets to be cleared.
[00:17:53.05] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Taxi Drivers' Counter-Protest
Open the roads!
Open the roads!
Open the roads!
[00:17:57.13] TAXI DRIVER SPEAKER: As the representative of the
Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions,
Everyone knows that
"When the road is blocked, wealth is blocked."
Taxi drivers and minibus drivers do not have any patrons.
Give us back our livelihood.
Let us work so we can get paid.
[00:18:14.26] REGINA IP: Freedom is not just do what you will.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Pro-China, Regina Ip, Chairperson, New People's Party]
If you look up the philosophy of all the greatest Western thinkers -- John Locke, John Stewart Mill, Montesquieu -- freedom is about delineating the freedom of the individuals and upholding social order.
[00:18:34.12] ORALANDO PATTERSON: The Chinese strategy of freedom as consumerism and prosperity is the strategy of the wolves all over the world. It seems to be working in Hong Kong, because in the end, the majority seem to have turned against the students and their struggle for political freedom, which they feel they don't need as long as prosperity reigns.
[00:19:00.17] NEWSCASTER O.S.: The lawyer for the taxi operators indicated that the authorities will likely start clearing the areas as early as this weekend with the support of police.
[00:19:11.20] MICHAEL: Whenever I say we are a bunch of people who has been chosen by history, you know, it's a shame that history couldn't choose very wisely. If you are a living organism which has no freedom to choose your own path or has no freedom to choose a better life for yourself then what's the point? What's the difference between you and a pig or a dog or any other animals?
[00:20:15.16] ON-SCREEN TEXT: We'll Be Back
[00:20:39.16] TITLE: After the Revolution
[00:20:43.25] TITLE: Tunisia
[00:20:47.11] KLAY BBJ O.S.: During the uprisings,
I was teargassed every day from the 5th to the 13th.
There was a lot of teargas.
I swear that I even missed teargas in the following days.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Klay BBJ, Hip Hop Artist]
[00:21:00.14] TITLE: Arab Spring 2011
[00:21:05.23] KLAY BBJ: I remember the scene when I would pick up the gas canister
and throw it back at them,
forcing them to run away from you.
These were my favorite moments.
The abundance of teargas taught us to drink milk.
This is a good thing for everybody.
We thank them for that.
[00:21:25.23] NEWSCASTER O.S.: Tunisia saw the first mass protest of the Arab Spring. And in January 2011 became the first to oust its longtime dictator.
[00:21:36.08] ORLANDO PATTERSON: For the first time in their history,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Orlando Patterson, Harvard University]
a large number of Arab States embrace freedom and democracy. And the whole world thought that Fukuyama's future had arrived.
[00:21:48.19] TITLE: Four Years After the Arab Spring.
[00:21:52.15] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Moncef Marzouki Presidential Rally
[00:21:57.25] MONCEF MARZOUKI: This revolution is an historic opportunity. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Secular, Moncef Marzouki, Tunisian President 2011-2014
Our historic opportunity, to build a new state for everybody.
To rebuild a diverse society,
to build new values, morals, and civil institutions.
Freedom is here to stay forever. This country has paid the price for it.
[00:22:17.08] MONCEF MARZOUKI: I'm prepared to talk about an Arab Earthquake.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Secular, Moncef Marzouki, Tunisian President 2011-2014]
Because in fact it was an earthquake.
Where the old regime was destroyed,
and now we are trying to build a new political regime.
I'm sure that Tunisia is going to show
an example for the whole Arab world,
and to say that we can also be Muslim Arab
and also a democratic state.
[00:22:36.11] KLAY BBJ: When you demolish a house,
you get rid of the roof,
and then you rebuild the foundations of the house.
That's not what we did.
We removed a few floors but not the base.
The columns of the former regime are still the same.
[00:22:56.02] KLAY BBJ: I was a boxer, then I quit and I started rapping.
When I started rapping,
I found many issues to tackle that were bigger than boxing.
It felt better because when you're fighting,
you're fighting the state and not an individual.
[00:23:12.23] KLAY BBJ RAP LYRICS: So bring all your backup.
Bust us!
The people's hearts are raging.
Bust us!
The government is pointless.
Bust us!
Sodomize the constitution.
Bust us!
So bring all your backup.
Bust us!
The people's hearts are raging.
Bust us!
[00:23:27.04] KLAY BBJ: I was performing at an international festival.
I only sang one song
and 80 police officers came at me.
We did not even finish the show.
We were arrested during a pause in the show.
A little bit of slapping, a little bit of kicking,
and a lot of baton-beating and oppression,
and finally they released us.
80 officers against 2.
So much love.
[00:24:00.08] AMNA GUELLALI O.S.: The security forces have not really transformed themselves from a police that serves regimes
[00:24:07.16] AMNA GUELLALI: and serves power and authorities to a police that serves the population alone on the basis of the rule of law and on the basis of the respect of human right.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amna Guellali, Human Rights Watch]
[00:24:18.14] MONCEF MARZOUKI: When you have a new regime, a new political regime,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Secular, Moncef Marzouki, Tunisian President 2011-2014]
let's say a new president and new ministers and so forth,
you have to deal with the machinery of the old regime.
You cannot get rid from -- you know we have more
than 50,000 people working in the security system.
You cannot get rid of these 50,000 people at once.
[00:24:40.00] KLAY BBJ: The next day I was at home,
I was on Facebook and I saw an article online
that I was sentenced to two years in prison in absentia...
As if I had murdered someone.
[00:24:51.07] AMNA GUELLALI: There are still laws that serve to prosecute
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amna Guellali, Human Rights Watch]
people, bloggers, artists, journalists for having expressed ideas because there was no change in the legal framework on freedom of expression.
[00:25:06.19] MONCEF MARZOUKI: If I'm elected once again, it's to tackle all these issues,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Secular, Moncef Marzouki, Tunisian President 2011-2014]
because the legacy is so...
so complex.
[00:25:24.10] ORLANDO PATTERSON: Central to the idea of freedom is power. Freedom from the power of another. Freedom to exercise power. And there's a tension between the two. The way of having it resolved is a third dimension of freedom, which is freedom to choose one's government.
[00:25:48.05] NEWSCASTER O.S.: A moderate Islamist party claims victory in Tunisia's first democratic elections since the Arab Spring began.
[00:25:56.07] RACHED GHANNOUCHI O.S.: We believe that an Islamic society is compatible
with a democratic society.
[00:26:02.18] RACHED GHANNOUCHI: I am totally convinced that democracy will prevail.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Rached Ghannouchi, Leader, Ennahdha Party]
in the whole Arab World.
When we speak about "freedom," we mean freedom as in rights.
The right to choose one's faith.
And the right to participate in public matters.
[00:26:19.08] SHADI HAMID O.S.: Islamists believe that the natural inclination of any Muslim is towards Islam. And that's why oftentimes
[00:26:27.17] SHADI HAMID: Islamists will say freedom isn't the top priority. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution]
And that will actually pave the way for more Islamization because if people are given the choice, they're going to want more religion not less.
[00:26:39.23] SAYED FERJANI: We have proven as Muslims in Tunisia that we value very hard
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Sayed Ferjani, Spokesman, Ennahdha Party]
democracy, and the best ideas of the West we have embraced them without any complex. Because the Prophet Adam Alaihis Salaam has taught us wherever you find wisdom you have to grab it. But to do that while working in office we have never touched upon the liberties of people or their freedoms, whether their freedom of expression.
[00:27:05.13] JABEUR MEJRI: I was tortured in prison.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Jabeur Mejri, Blogger]
They tortured me with electro shocks and messed with my brain.
[00:27:22.27] ANNA GUELLALI: The story of Jabeur Mejri is very emblematic of the situation regarding free speech in Tunisia.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amna Guellali, Human Rights Watch]
[00:27:29.05] AMNA GUELLALI O.S.: He published on his Facebook page a caricature of the Prophet. And he was sentenced to seven years and a half in prison.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Tunisians gather behind Jabeaur Mejri]
And he spent more than two years in jail.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Tunisian loses jail appeal over Facebook cartoons of Prophet Mohammad] And several times he appealed to the President of the Republic Moncef Marzouki to ask for an amnesty, but he didn't grant amnesty to Jabeur Mejri until very recently.
[00:27:53.09] JABEUR MEJRI: In prison they were going to assassinate me.
The Islamists wanted to assassinate me.
I was so drained by my time in prison,
I started taking pills for nervous breakdowns.
[00:28:11.21] SAYED FERJANI: I don't have a clue
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Sayed Ferjani, Spokesman, Ennahdha Party]
about his name that he does exist. It's not that you are wrong, but because it's not a national thing everybody knows about.
[00:28:22.26] RACHED GHANNOUCHI: I didn't hear about Jabeur Mejri's case, [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Rached Ghannouchi, Leader, Ennahdha Party]
but what is important for me
is that people are free to choose their own beliefs.
[00:28:28.26] MONCEF MARZOUKI: I know this case very well.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Secular, Moncef Marzouki, Tunisian Presdient 2011-2014]
I've had a lot of pressure to keep him in prison,
because in this country, the religious --
it's an extremely sensitive point.
I've had a lot of pressure.
[00:28:40.12] AMNA GUELLALI: He is, as a human rights activist, someone who is I think naturally inclined to defend people like Jabeur Mejri, but on the other hand, as a politician, he was obliged to make some concessions, I think.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Tunisian pardoned over Prophet cartoons]
[00:28:53.21] MONCEF MARZOUKI: Well, they are saying,
Look, this would be very dangerous.
If you want to be re-elected, be careful,
because a lot of Salafists, Islamists,
they would never forgive you.
[00:29:03.02] SAYED FERJANI: If he wishes to release him
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Sayed Ferjani, Spokesman, Ennahdha Party]
there is nobody, according to the law, who would stop him from doing that. So what is the pressure? Where is the pressure? Are there people who are arm-twisting him? I don't know.
[00:29:18.00] SHADI HAMID: So these Islamist parties have to do a very delicate dance.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution]
They want to appeal to Western audiences and present themselves as moderate and open-minded, but they also have a local constituency, a conservative base that wants to hear more religious-infused language. And these two sides believe in mutually-exclusive things about foundational issues of religion and state. So how do you square the circle on that? And oftentimes you can't.
[00:29:53.21] PROTESTER: The revolution will only succeed
if we raise the new caliphate
that we have been promised by the Prophet Muhammad.
[00:30:08.08] SAYED FERJANI: The far right that you've got
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Sayed Ferjani, Spokesman, Ennahdha Party]
the different people, it's in any vibrant democracy and especially the newborn democracy. Many people exert their rights through their own views. But is there any complacency towards them? No. Is there anybody who's encouraging them to do that? No.
[00:30:33.12] STUDENT #1: It all started in my home. I watched the YouTube videos. I came up with the idea of why not organize a Harlem Shake in our school.
[00:30:56.09] I remember waking up a Sunday in the morning and found out that my video got more than 100,000 views on YouTube. I was like, woah! We got the surprise when we saw our pictures in jihadist Islamist pages on Facebook. I realized I was in trouble and my parents were terrified too.
[00:31:16.10] STUDENT #2: Some Salafists came to the school and threatened the main character, the one who did the Harlem Shake and he was left a bit terrified about it. And they said that they were going to burn our school down if we continue on this path.
[00:31:30.07] ADBDELLATIF ABID: If the dance video hadn't been posted on the internet,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Secular, Adbdellatif Abid, Education Minister 2011-2013]
nobody would have heard about it.
[00:31:41.00] STUDENT #1: What shocked me most was the reaction of our minister. That's what really shocked me and really terrified, and really made me afraid.
[00:31:47.11] ADBDELLATIF ABID: The photos that were shared from this incident disturbed many people,
because it showed our students almost naked,
dancing in their underwear.
I immediately called the highest-ranking officials
in the ministry of education,
even though it was the weekend,
to investigate the matter
and gather information about what happened.
[00:32:17.06] SAYED FERJANI: It's Mr. Adbdellatif who did that, took the decision.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Sayed Ferjani, Spokesman, Ennahdha Party]
It wasn't on the basis of religiosity or ideology. This is for sure.
[00:32:26.23] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Education Minister: Off Camera Remarks
ADBDELLATIF ABID O.S.: If I hadn't done this,
there would have been
a huge attack
on the school master.
Both parties were calling me and putting pressure on me
and saying, this is what happens when you're sleeping on the job.
[00:32:48.01] RACHED GHANNOUCHI O.S.: There is no perfect society on earth.
[00:32:53.16] RACHED GHANNOUCHI: Maybe, there will be one after Judgment Day.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Islamist, Rached Ghannouchi, Leader, Ennahdha Party]
On earth, everything is relative.
When we talk about freedom, we mean relative freedom.
When we talk about happiness, we mean relative happiness.
We aspire to a relative happiness and relative freedom.
Absolute freedom does not exist on Earth.
[00:33:25.16] KLAY BBJ: The youth's main problem is unemployment.
They study and study and study,
but in the end they get paid very little.
MAN: Life has become more expensive after the revolution.
Nothing is cheap anymore.
Everything has become more expensive.
STREET VENDOR: I would love to get a better job.
I am unemployed and I can't find a job,
so I really have to do any kind of work.
Before the revolution,
this very tomato can used to sell for 1.5 dinars.
People could afford it.
Now this sells for 2.3 dinars.
People can't [afford it].
[00:34:22.00] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: One of the big, I think, misapprehensions [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University]
is that you have this democratic breakthrough in which a dictator steps down and you have some kind of a liberal opening where people have more freedom, perhaps an election, a new regime comes to power, and all of a sudden it's going to have the capacity to actually deliver something like education or it's going to be able to enact certain kinds of reforms and you're going to get economic growth growing within the space of two, three, four years after the breakthrough. It is very, very rare for this kind of thing to happen.
[00:34:56.10] KLAY BBJ: During this skirmish that people call a revolution,
let's call it a "revolution" for their sake,
the first new government came in but nothing changed.
The second and the third one, the same.
There's no trust anymore.
The trust that used to exist between young people
and the [new] political system is gone.
[00:35:15.17] SHADI HAMID O.S.: Democracy raises people's expectations, but early on it's very difficult for the government to meet those expectations so you have a real gap. People get frustrated. They start to become disillusioned with democracy. They move outside the process so radical
[00:35:30.26] SHADI HAMID: ideologies become more attractive and ISIS provides this very brutal version of Islam. And for people who want to affirm themselves, they don't want doubt, they don't want the gray shades of democracy.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution]
They want absolute certainty. And absolute certainty becomes very appealing in times of chaos and confusion.
[00:35:53.29] FATHER: My son dropped out of college.
He started protesting against the then status quo.
He hated the reality and the life under Ben Ali.
He was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison.
My son was released after the revolution,
because the regime that had imprisoned him had collapsed.
He was looking forward to new realities.
He couldn't find a job.
He tried selling second-hand clothes in Tunis,
but couldn't manage to stay afloat.
He held other jobs and then decided
to leave for Libya to find a job to support our family.
I tried to look for connections to find him in Libya.
I then found out that my son was a prisoner in Syria.
[00:36:39.16] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Families of ISIS Press Conference
[00:36:42.18] FATHER: I am here today to talk to the press.
They need to tell the true story.
We are dying.
We are suffering.
I hear you say that our sons are ticking bombs.
Our sons are not terrorists.
Our sons were fooled due to their poor life conditions.
Bring back our kids.
We don't know if our sons are alive or dead.
Of all my children, he was my best friend.
I loved him the most.
His mother has gotten sick.
We don't know his fate.
[00:37:40.16] ON-SCREEN TEXT: U.S. Embassy
[00:37:42.15] NEWSCASTER: Another terrorist attack in Tunisia
over an anti-Islam video.
NEWSCASTER 2: Tunisia, jewel of the Arab Spring, is in turmoil.
[00:37:56.11] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: The problem today is not that there is a powerful, authoritarian alternative to democracy that is necessarily gaining strength the way Fascism and Communism were in the 20th century. It's actually the existing democracies have failed to deliver on the substance of what people want from government. That's really what has eroded the legitimacy of democracy.
[00:38:21.24] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Two Days Before Presidential Election
[00:38:24.17] NEWSCASTER: The man leading the polls Béji Caïd Essebsi, he was a senior politician during the dictatorship.
[00:38:30.03] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Béji Caïd Essebsi Election Rally
NEWSCASTER 2: As a top security chief, Essebsi oversaw mass crackdowns on opposition and the suppression of dissent.
[00:38:36.21] ESSEBSI: I have been all around the country,
and the situation is terrible, terrible, terrible.
Everybody must go out and vote. Your future is in your hands.
[00:39:15.21] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Béji Caïd Essebsi: What he can do with his victory.
[00:39:31.06] TITLE: Illiberal Democracy
[00:39:34.15] LARRY DIAMOND: In almost every year between 1974 and 2005, [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Larry Diamond, Stanford University]
the number of democracies in the world either increased or remained more or less the same. And then in about 2005, 2006, things started to reverse. There's more or less stagnation in the number of democracies in the world, modest but steady decline in levels of freedom, including civil liberties, and political rights. We see the following pattern: The emergence of democracy with competition elections, but a weak rule of law, lack of equality for citizens, routine abuse of citizen rights by the police, weak responsiveness of political institutions in between elections, and if that prevails, you may have an electoral democracy but it may be illiberal.
[00:40:27.12] ORLANDO PATTERSON: Illiberal democracy is in essence a fake democracy.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Orlando Patterson, Harvard University]
Once people are elected, they begin to turn against minorities, begin to undercut the freedoms which people thought they have achieved. The real tragedy about what's happening now is that illiberal democracies seem to be on the rise everywhere.
[00:40:48.17] TITLE: India
[00:40:56.00] NEWSCASTER: This was the final day of voting in India's 6-week general election. Exit polls suggested Hindu Nationalist Narendra Modi is set to become the new Prime Minister.
[00:41:07.23] NARENDRA MODI: We celebrate the values shared by the world's two largest democracies.
[00:41:18.03] RAM MADHAV: Our party, the BJP, and our Prime Minister Modi
is committed to achieving a state in India,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist, Ram Madhav, General Secretary, BJP]
where people are capable of handling their own affairs.
They should be able to have their choices,
political choices, social choices, economic choices.
They should be able to express themselves freely.
That is possible only under a truly democratic system.
[00:41:41.00] TITLE: Mumbai
[00:41:49.05] TANMAY BHAT: A.I.B. started off as a comedy podcast,
it was one of the first podcasts in India.
A.I.B stands for All India Bakchod,
Backchod being slang for, you know, trash talking.
So we started off as a podcast,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Tanmay Bhat, A.I.B. Stand-Up Comedian]
and then Rohan and Ashish joined in.
Then we started doing live shows, and a year and a half ago,
we started with a YouTube channel.
[00:42:09.04] ASHISH SHAKYA: I think the reason behind the YouTube channel was also
that we've worked in television before, all of us,
and in India it's a very restricted medium.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Ashish Shakya, A.I.B. Stand-Up Comedian]
You can't say anything,
there's a certain level beyond which your jokes cannot go.
[00:42:19.05] TANMAY BHAT: Plus half the news channels are owned by politicians,
so where you going to get the satire from?
ASHISH SHAKYA: So the freedom to sort of subvert all of that,
and skip all of that and just do what you wanted on YouTube was
exciting.
[00:42:30.00] YOUTUBE VIDEO SONG LYRICS: Censors make Bollywood angry...
...but spoofs make you cranky.
Hypocrisy!
[00:42:38.29] TANMAY BHAT: So then the roast was the natural next big step,
which is how far can you take it?
As comedians we like to test the boundaries anyway.
ASHISH SHAKYA: Which is obviously as you know, insult comedy.
The format being one-liners, where you sit down friends
who are celebrities and you
make the nastiest jokes about them, all in good humour.
TANMAY BHAT: Then we got Karan Johar involved
who's like a really mainstream Bollywood personality,
and he agreed to be roast master.
[00:43:05.22] KARAN JOHAR: Some foul horrific things are going to be said tonight.
I'm not kidding, I truly am not.
If you're easily offended
or even really difficultly offended,
you should leave right now.
Seriously, it's going to get filthier
than Tanmay Bhat's colon after a buffet.
[00:43:22.10] TANMAY BHAT: The show was received very well.
Everyone walked out really happy.
I mean, it was one of the best shows we've done.
[00:43:26.28] ASHISH SHAKYA: Another little announcement:
Parineeti Chopra is not here tonight,
because we told her she'd get fucked by ten dudes
in front of four thousand people.
Karan Johar's here tonight, because we told him
he'd get fucked by ten dudes in front of four thousand people.
[00:43:43.20] TANMAY BHAT: And then eventually we put the video on YouTube.
And then I think four days later, we got a call from someone,
saying there's a news channel running a story about
how some people didn't like the roast.
Then, next thing you know, we got a call saying
that apparently there's a police complaint against you guys.
[00:43:57.04] [ON-SCREEN TEXT: AIB Roast Runs Into Trouble With Maharashtra Government]
SHABNAM HASHMI O.S.: When it went on YouTube,
it drew a very strong reaction from
the Maharashtra government.
So they said that
[00:44:03.24] SHABNAM HASHMI: these are highly offensive abuses,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Shabnam Hashmi, Human Rights Activist]
which have been used and they have denigrated people.
[00:44:09.18] TANMAY BHAT: I want you guys to give a round of applause to Ashish Shakya.
It's not cool that so many people came here and made jokes
about you being ugly. It's not cool.
Ashish, you are the hottest guy in the A.I.B., alright?
You are the hottest guy in the A.I.B.,
because black absorbs more heat.
Scientifically, he's the hottest guy.
[00:44:29.10] TANMAY BHAT: The cases have been filed against us, the organizers,
people who were in the audience laughing.
There's a case against two actresses
who were in the audience laughing.
ASHISH SHAKYA: Our stand is that
everybody should have the right to say what they want to say,
and if you don't like it, then you always have the option of
not watching it.
It blows our minds that
for making a joke you can end up sharing jail space with a guy who's
murdered somebody, or robbed somebody,
or is a sexual offender, or whatever.
And that to me is just mind boggling.
TANMAY BHAT: We're just twenty-something year-olds,
ASHISH SHAKYA: a bunch of comedians making jokes.
[00:45:12.15] SHABNAM HASMI O.S.: You see, the BJP and its allied groups have been
doing this moral policing across India.
What you will speak, what you will wear,
whether women can wear jeans or not,
whether you can speak about something,
what you will write, what you will paint.
[00:45:33.12] MAHESH BHATT O.S.: We have got recently the reputation of being called
the Republic of Ban.
The world's largest democracy which boasts to the world of being
a nation which has its plurality as its life blood.
It's a culture which has such diversity.
[00:45:49.25] MAHESH BHATT: There is a political ideology which is being
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Mahesh Bhatt, Filmmaker and Commentator]
imposed on us, which
hopes to paint India with just one brush,
one colour.
[00:45:59.04] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist Rally
[00:46:07.25] SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY: Christians and Muslims can live here [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist, Subramanian Swamy, Senior Leader, BJP]
but at its core it is a Hindu land.
We cannot let the Hindu population get below 80%.
[00:46:36.05] We want India to be a Hindu nation.
[Minorities] should not demand rights saying,
I am Muslim or I am a Christian or I am a Sikh.
[00:46:48.12] LARRY DIAMOND O.S.: This nationalism is an illiberal nationalism. Democracy can't be liberal unless it's based on equality, tolerance, and peaceful co-existence.
[00:47:02.17] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA O.S.: When you have a racist or nationalist, exclusivist kind of political program where a majority of the population wants to oppress a minority then you have real threats to the liberal part in a liberal democracy.
[00:47:16.20] RAM MADHAV: This is a criticism that never comes
from the Muslim community.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist, Ram Madhav, General Secretary, BJP]
but somehow from outside,
that this nation is anti-Muslim.
I mean, if we were to take some anti-Muslim decision,
then we should encourage the eating of poek in India,
which we don't do.
[00:47:36.04] BASHARAT PEER O.S: "How do the minorities fare in India?"
This was a report commissioned by the Prime Minister's office.
And it made it very clear that essentially there is
overwhelming prejudice.
Whatever institution you look at,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Basharat Peer, Author, A Question of Order]
whether you look at a university,
a government office,
police services, military,
that the doors do not open for them.
That the number of people who do have jobs
and who have access to higher education among the Muslims
is insanely small.
[00:48:15.01] BASHARAT PEER O.S.: The segregation in India increased exponentially
after the rise of the BJP in the early 90s.
In every major Indian city,
there are ghettos.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Mumbra, 17 Miles Outside Mumbai]
100% of the people who live in the ghettos,
in the inner city ghettos,
are Muslims.
[00:48:29.01] RAM MADHAV: Every community has full freedom to grow,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist, Ram Madhav, General Secretary, BJP]
full freedom to rise economically.
Among the Muslims, a large section of people
are getting educated,
they are joining big companies, they are becoming entrepreneurs.
[00:48:44.21] DANISH REYAZ O.S.: Here in Mumbra,
even with such a big population,
there is not one government hospital.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: DANISH REYAZ, Journalist]
There are no government schools or colleges here.
And with such a big population,
this clearly shows the injustice against us here.
To change the situation, residents and community leaders
are building their own institutions.
[00:49:09.18] WASIM QURESHI: For the past 15 years,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Wasim Qureshi, Mumbra Community Leader]
I've been doing social work against drugs,
or providing ambulance services to poor people.
[00:49:21.08] BASHARAT PEER: The state doesn't go in, it doesn't work there.
You just leave them to fend for themselves.
And when people are just left to fend for themselves,
then you have local
Don Corleone kind of figures who arise
and provide services and win your loyalty.
[00:49:37.08] WASIM QURESHI: We have a lot of manpower now, about 100 to 150, spread in all areas.
I would get calls informing me of who is selling,
and then we set a trap for that dealer.
Those peddlers who we got arrested are now
threatening us and plotting against us, even in prison.
But, we are not scared.
We will die when we are destined to die.
Nobody can kill us before that.
[00:50:03.21] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: There has been always a pushback against liberal universities.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University]
Human beings are social animals by nature, these are very powerful communal instincts that people have. And that's what makes nationalism, religion, identity politics in general very powerful even within established democracies.
[00:50:27.09] LARRY DIAMOND O.S.: Nationalism is an invitation to authoritarianism,
to violence against minorities
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Larry Diamond, Stanford University]
to violation of rule of law.
[00:50:38.27] PRAVIN TOGADIA: The Hindus of this country don't
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist, Pravin Togadia, President, Vishva Hindu Parishad]
need your sermons of tolerance.
My brothers, Hindus are not safe here.
If no Hindu had ever converted, there would never have
been a Pakistan or a Bangladesh.
2,000 years ago, there was not one Chistian in the world.
1,400 years ago, there was not one Muslim.
So, 1,400 years ago, who would have been in Mecca?
Hindu!
Who would be in Rome?
Hindu!
Who will be everywhere on Earth?
Hindu!
No to religious conversions.
No to Love Jihad.
[00:51:24.01] AJAY TYAGI O.S.: This is a conspiracy against our community by Muslims,
forcing their religion on non-Muslims.
Marrying Hindu girls, trapping them in their love,
and forcing them to change their religion.
The train their boys well,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Ajay Tyagi, Anti-"Love Jihad" Organizer]
and get them new motorbikes,
and good clothes as well.
Those who get married are treated like a baby making machine.
After having eight or ten children, they sell them to foreign countries.
When all these things are done,
they prepare them to become a suicide attack team.
[00:52:04.17] BASHARAT PEER: People actually -- I mean, it's absurd that they... [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Basharat Peer, Author, A Question of Order]
they in fact believe that
there was a big meeting of Muslims,
in which it was decided that all young men
will go out on motorbikes and
try to flirt with young Hindu girls.
It's utter madness
that these became massive campaigns.
[00:52:23.10] PRAVIN TOGAIDIA: Now Hindus will only grow, grow, and grow.
[00:52:29.10] SHABNAM HASHMI: In Germany, Hitler was
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Shabnam Hashmi, Human Rights Activist]
finding every fault with the Jews.
In India it is the same situation.
There are campaigns after campaigns
against the minorities,
which are both Muslims and Christians in India.
[00:52:41.15] SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY: Well, I think the Nazis would never have accepted
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist, Subramanian Swamy, Senior Leader, BJP]
a Jew to be converted to
a German.
Or an Anglo-Saxon to German.
Here, we welcome Muslims to return back to our fold.
So that's one element which is not there.
And second thing is that
Hitler, after 1933,
there was no democracy.
There were storm troopers.
There are no storm troopers here.
[00:53:18.05] ORLANDO PATTERSON O.S.: India's perhaps the most extreme and perhaps the most dangerous case
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Orlando Patterson, Harvard University]
of the use of a nationalist strategy to exacerbate violence as a means of winning elections and maintaining power.
[00:53:34.02] RAHEEL DHATTIWALA O.S.: When elections are three to six months away,
violence, in the form of rioting,
is often provoked to consolidate
the Hindu vote against the Muslim vote.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Raheel Dhattiwala, University of Amsterdam]
[00:53:47.00] ON-SCREEN TEXT: BJP gains in polls after every riot, says Yale study
[00:53:51.28] RAHEEL DHATTIWALA O.S.: Gujarat, in 2002, was one of the worst in the country,
and it started off after a train was burnt.
[00:53:58.24] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Fire started on [train]
ON-SCREEN TEXT: carrying Hindu activists
ON-SCREEN TEXT: ...[acti]vists kills 58
[00:54:04.24] SANJIV BHATT O.S.: In one of the meetings,
the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi,
was clearly advised
that the dead bodies should be cremated,
so that the dead bodies are not taken out in processions.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Sanjiv Bhatt, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence, Gujarat]
He listened very patiently to the advice
and then he said that, "No, this time
it would not be possible to take even-handed actions
against Hindus and Muslims.
And that there was so much anger in the Hindus, you will have to
let them vent it out."
[00:54:31.18] MUKHTAR MUHAMMAD SHEIKH: I got my family in the car and had them sit on the floor,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Mukhtar Muhammad Sheikh, 2002 Riot Victim]
so that they don't get harmed if we get attacked.
They were looting these shops
and after looting, they set the furniture on fire in the road.
I was surrounded by a mob on both sides,
and there was this fire in front of me.
The mob attacked my car and tore off the backside.
So finally I thought, if I wait here, they will kill us.
If I drive my car into the fire, it's fine.
I'll have a life, I'll survive.
I crossed about 100-150 feet of fire.
The Muslims didn't know me, so when I got to the Muslim pocket,
they thought somebody was coming there to kill them.
So they stood in front of me in a way that scared me.
I thought, I just survived the mob and now these people
might do something because they don't know me.
Then I greeted them and explained my situation to them.
That's when they let me into their homes and helped me.
[00:55:58.01] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Gujarat riot death toll revealed
[00:56:02.03] ON-SCREET TEXT: 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed
[00:56:07.05] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalists win landslide vote in Indian State
[00:56:11.10] RAM MADHAV O.S.: It happens in a number of countries,
some amount of violence sometimes happens.
You have to only look at whether the government of the day
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hindu Nationalist, Ram Madhav, General Secretary, BJP]
is committed to containing it or not.
As far as our government is concerned,
ever since the BJP came to power,
except in Uttar Pradesh,
nowhere else was there any riot situation in the country.
[00:56:30.26] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Communal violence shows 24% jump in first five months of 2015, shows govt data
[00:56:36.03] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Gujarat: Three Killed in Communal Clashes in Bharuch
[00:56:42.06] TITLE: Bharuch
[00:56:48.00] ON-SCREEN TEXT: The Police Stopped Our First Interview
[00:56:51.16] ON-SCREEN TEXT: The Police Escorted The Crew Out Of The District
[00:56:54.24] ON-SCREEN TEXT: This Is What They Said
[00:56:57.09] POLICEMAN O.C.: If you had come in the evening,
we wouldn't have let you go.
If we had caught you in the evening, we would have beaten you up.
After 4 o'clock in the evening, they are drunk.
It doesn't matter if you are black or white, they will beat you.
[00:57:27.12] BASHARAT PEER: There's two parts of Narendra Modi's appeal.
One is the Hindu nationalism.
The second is, here's a man who can bring in more money,
who can guarantee that my mortgage goes smoothly.
And to sell their dream,
and that's very attractive to the middle classes.
[00:57:43.24] MODI SUPPORTER: Narendra Modi has come, at least we can see
GDP is increasing, the foreign exchange money is increasing,
he's getting money from different countries,
and bring a digital world here, that's his idea.
[00:57:54.28] ORLANDO PATTERSON: One instrument of the new world is economic nationalism with its emphasis less and less on the basis of guaranteeing basic rights and more and more on just how many material choices they can offer their citizens as a basis of freedom.
[00:58:21.04] RAM MADHAV O.S.: India's economic growth is not just about
providing bread and butter to people.
It is also freedom for people to aspire.
They should be able to have their choices.
[00:58:33.11] WOMAN MOTORCYCLIST: When I was working in the call centre,
that's when I actually got my bike.
I really went against everyone to get it.
People were not very happy with it.
I have a gang of guys, where we all go out in the night for a ride,
and I'm the only girl.
It gave me [feeling] that I can do things my way
it gave me my freedom.
[00:58:56.12] ORLANDO PATTERSON: Consumer freedom is extremely seductive, but it masks not only the freedoms that are quietly being taken from them but also the freedom that is being denied other groups such as farmers.
[00:59:11.05] SHABNAM HASHMI O.S.: A huge amount of land is being taken away from farmers
at very small prices, and it is being given away
to a large number of corporate houses at literally throwaway prices.
[00:59:22.19] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Farmer's Protest
[00:59:25.03] FARMER'S PROTEST SPEAKER: Friends, here we are struggling for every penny,
and Modi's disciples are earning billions.
We have bruises on our hands and feet, and you are minting money.
[00:59:33.18] RAM MADHAV: It is not like
going and taking over land from poor people.
It is actually the other way.
They will get best remuneration.
In fact, it is in the interest of our farmers,
it is in the interest of our land-owning poor people.
[00:59:46.28] PROTESTERS: Fuck these assholes!
Down with Modi's government!
Shame! Shame!
If you talk to us, we will talk!
Otherwise we will fight!
[00:59:59.22] MAHESH BHATT: Just because it is stated in the constitution
or that you are told by the leaders from the platform that you are free,
that doesn't mean that you are free.
Freedom is something which we have to go out and fight for.
[01:00:30.19] TITLE: The Personal Is Political
[01:00:35.14] TITLE: Japan
[01:00:42.24] ORLANDO PATTERSON: Illiberal democracy can express itself in many ways. It can take the form of the assault on practices, which are considered either immoral or not in keeping with the prominent group's view of how people should behave.
[01:01:08.11] MAN IN COSPLAY: There is a Japanese proverb,
"The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."
That's true.
If you stick out, people do not feel good about you.
[01:01:22.05] HACHI BALMUNG: When Lady Gaga came to Japan,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Hachi Balmung, Balmung]
she asked us to make her costumes.
I've been feeling negative about the problem of the social system.
The pressure of conformity is overkill, oppressive.
I feel it is destroying something important.
So I wish the uniqueness of the individual
could be expressed more freely.
[01:01:56.27] PARTY ORGANIZER O.S.: As the title says, it's heavy and pop.
It's music, art, and fashion mixed with something extreme.
[01:02:09.07] FEMALE PARTYGOER: The hair accessory is part of "Decora" fashion.
FEMALE PARTYGOER #2: I like blood and bones. I find those things cute.
[01:02:32.00] PARTY ORGANIZER: Because of the No Dancing Law,
we have to hold our events during the day,
to ensure that our customers are safe [from the police].
[01:02:46.07] ON-SCREEN TEXT: No Dance Act
[01:02:47.06] ON-SCREEN TEXT: No Dancing
[01:02:48.26] ON-SCREEN TEXT: No Dancing
[01:02:50.08] The No Dancing Law was originally passed in the 1940s.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Takahiro Saito, Lawyer, Let's Dance]
Unemployed women were using Western "dance" culture
as a cover for prostitution.
[01:03:01.12] RYO ISOBE: The law has been on the books for a long time,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Ryo Isobe, Author, "Japan: The Country Where You Cannot Dance"
but all of a sudden, in 2010, an intense crackdown started.
[01:03:11.25] MASATOSHI KANEMITSU: I thought, "we won't get busted."
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Masatoshi Kanemitsu, Owner, Club Noon]
We were having a British rock event.
Undercover detectives, disguised as couples, infiltrated the club.
Then, when "Trash" by Suede was playing,
forty-five more policemen stormed inside.
"Stop the music!" they said.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: Stop
We stopped the music.
"Freeze right there! Stop! Stop!" they said.
The lights went up.
"Have you been dancing?"
"You have been dancing, haven't you?"
They asked them one by one.
Me, the head manager, and the manager were put into jail.
We were in jail for twenty-two days.
For making people dance
the prosecutors were requesting
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Masatoshi Kanemitsu, Owner, Club Noon]
six months in prison and a one million yen fine.
[01:04:24.19] TAKAHIRO SAITO: [The judge] said that he was innocent.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Takahiro Saito, Lawyer, Let's Dance]
That although the No Dancing Law was not violating Japan's constitution,
the extreme way it was enforced by the police was a violation.
[01:04:38.10] RYO ISOBE: We realized that Japan isn't so free after all.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Ryo Isobe, Author, "Japan: The Country Where You Cannot Dance"]
So several activists are standing up to change the No Dancing Law.
Because the police went too far,
activists began a social movement called "Let's Dance."
We collected more than 150,000 signatures.
We presented the signatures to the legislature,
and are continuing to lobby politicians.
[01:05:05.13] MADEMOISELLE YULIA O.S.: Dancing is one of the ways to express yourself. What I need to do is play music. It makes people happy. I don't really care about the law.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Mademoiselle Yulia, DJ]
[01:05:21.04] ORLANDO PATTERSON O.S.: The strong resistance of the young people to this illiberal intrusion by the police demonstrates that it is possible to win back one's rights.
[01:05:33.10] RYO ISOBE O.S.: Now, finally we are realizing what freedom is and are fighting for it.
[01:06:02.19] TITLE: Freedom for Sale
[01:06:06.04] TITLE: U.S.A.
[01:06:08.25] LARRY DIAMOND O.S.: We are in a period in terms of the evolution of democracy in the United States, where the quality of democracy has been eroding down a very dangerous road to illiberal democracy and potentially authoritarianism. One obvious area is in policing,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Larry Diamond, Stanford University]
where we simply cannot tolerate this kind of police abuse of citizen rights and particularly the deeply troubling evidence of it being so heavily patterned along racial lines.
[01:06:39.08] TITLE: Baltimore
[01:06:42.05] KEVIN MOORE: I was asleep, actually.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Kevin Moore, Filmed Freddie Gray Arrest]
I was resting. So somebody came in and woke me up and was like, "They're tazing him! They're tazing him!" I'm like, who? So I get up and grab my phone and I put some clothes on real quick and I shoot out the door. And, like, as soon as I get to the corner of the opening where the plant is, I could see Freddy, Freddy Gray. I'm like, "Man! Dude, they are bending him up!" You know what I'm saying? I recorded with my phone.
[01:07:13.22] KEVIN MOORE O.S.: I've been recording. What car did he come out of, you all? He on a bike, yo, right there! Him right there. You on a bike.
[01:07:18.17] NEWSCASTER: Thousands took to the streets in Baltimore to protest the death of 25-year-old Freddy Gray, who suffered a severe spinal injury while in police custody.
[01:07:29.09] KEVIN MOORE: I was at a protest against police brutality. And it was going fine. We marched down to City Hall, and after that we decided to split off. We get in the car. We go down the street. Like the police were sitting right here on Pennsylvania Avenue. I looked at the police, he looked at me. [siren]
POLICE: Police!
They hopped right on us. POLICE: Pull your car over!
We saw the first chopper, the first helicopter. The got a spotlight over us. They had, like, it looked like a platoon of state paddywagons, but it was much bigger, right? It was armour-plated. It had like roof slots where they could shoot you and little holes where they could throw stuff. Like dude, what is this, you know what I mean? So it was like, "Man, we're real here." My homeboy was like, "You want me to stop?"
I'm like, "Hell no! Don't stop right here. Dude, I just filmed the Freddie Gray video. They could possibly kill me. Because they had no street lights. There was no CCTV for like a block. Don't stop until you get to the projects where we got CCTVs." So once they get in front of us, they get out of the truck with their guns drawn out and sure enough he had a gun in my face, you know. So I'm like, "Well, OK. So am I being detained?"
POLICE: You are being detained.
KEVIN MOORE: Why?
POLICE: Traffic violations.
KEVIN MOORE: Dude, I wasn't even driving. I was in the passenger seat. So, first of all, who gets locked up for traffic violations? So they take me to the precinct. It took an hour and a half to run my background, which is clean, by the way. Dude, we're really fighting for our life here, and people don't understand it or get it. Come live here for a couple days. Come live here for a week or two, and you'll see. You'll see. You'll understand then.
[01:09:10.03] ORLANDO PATTERSON: So when the police become delinquent, when the police begin to act as an occupying force, interfering with the right to protest, the right to self expression, the police become an agent of illiberal democracy by such acts.
[01:09:24.22] ON-SCREEN TEXT: World Trade Organization Protest 1999
[01:09:26.29] NORM STAMPER: I made the worst mistake in my 34-year career [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Norm Stamper, Seattle Police Chief 1994-2000]
when I authorized the use of chemical agents against non-violent, non-threatening protesters. We had had an agreement with demonstration leaders to a civil disobedience photo op[portunity]. We were going to make the arrest. We were going to pass in front of the media. That's what they wanted. That's what we agreed to. We also had unfortunately, at the same time, huge bodies of other contingents of demonstrators, amassing in various locations around that intersection. We made a decision that we can't possibly honor our commitment. For the rest of that week, we did have arson, we did have looting, we did have a lot of bottle-throwing, because we made the decision to use chemical agents, a euphemism for tear gas; we triggered what happened during the rest of that week. We were the cause of the violence.
[01:10:32.16] [MOVIE TITLE: ROBOCOP]
ROBOCOP DIALOGUE: Robocop, who is he? What is he? Where does he come from?
[01:10:39.10] ED NEUMEIER: You want to predict the future, just think how bad it can be and make a joke about it and that's what it will be.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Ed Neumeier, Screenwriter of ROBOCOP]
[01:10:43.26] ED NEUMEIER O.S.: In Robocop, you know, it was just like, "well, what if corporations took over and started running things?"
[01:10:51.09] ROBOCOP DIALOGUE: Use your gun in a threatening manner.
ED NEUMEIER O.S.: That's kind of the joke right there.
ROBOCOP DIALOGUE: Get away!
[01:11:01.26] TOM NOLAN O.S.: Military equipment is a huge industry that has seen the need for its products diminish with the drawdown of the wars that we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they have seen the market that has disappeared with the United States military reimagined with domestic law enforcement.
[01:11:22.29] [ON-SCREEN TEXT: MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) $205,680]
And what it's creating for people or manufacturers in the industry [ON-SCREEN TEXT: $1,180 Per Tire]
is a huge windfall of profits at the expense of the taxpayers.
And if the officers have this equipment,
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Tom Nolan, Boston Police Department, 1978-2004]
they're going to use it.
[01:11:40.19] TITLE: Ferguson
NEWSCASTER: Overnight violent confrontations between police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. Just over a week after an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, was killed by police.
[01:11:50.26] ASH-HAR QURAISHI: We arrived a couple of days after the shooting death of Michael Brown down in Ferguson.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Ash-har Quraishi, Al-Jazeera America]
We were the second Al-Jazeera America crew to arrive there. So we set up about a half mile from really the epicenter of these protests. Just before 9:30pm, we started to see what looked like a vehicle, a military-style vehicle, rolling up parallel to us without warning and we heard a shot fired. [Gunshot]
MAN O.S.: Oh, Jesus!
WOMAN O.S.: Hey, there's press over here!
MAN O.S.: Hey, it's the media!
WOMAN O.S.: There's press over here!
MAN O.S.: Holy *beep*!
MAN: See, they're media too!
[01:12:28.15] ASH-HAR QURAISHI: Initially, I thought, "well maybe this is white smoke." As I moved closer, it hits me in the face immediately, and I know, this is tear gas.
[01:12:37.21] WOMAN O.S.: Ash-Har! Get Ash-Har!
[01:12:47.25] LAWMAKER: This is not an amendment that restricts the distribution of guns or ammunition. Rather, this is an amendment that restricts the distribution of armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, toxicological agents, chemical agents, biological agents, launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, torpedoes, bombs, mines, and nuclear weapons. And unfortunately, Madame Chair, those are all legally permitted to be distributed to our local law enforcement under current law. That's what I'm trying to prevent here.
[01:13:16.24] [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amendment to Defense Spending Bill, Grayson of Florida Amendment on Agreeing to the Amendment]
NEWSCASTER: New figures show that lawmakers who voted to fund a controversial program behind the trend of police militarization got 70 per cent more money from the defence industry than those who voted against it.
[01:13:31.09] TITLE: Oklahoma City
[01:13:35.18] SPEAKER: You really want to know how Republican leadership works?
TERRY NEESE: I'm Terry Neese, and I own Terry Neese Personnel Services. I'm the founder. The owner today is my daughter so it's a second-generation firm. We're hoping for the third-generation to come along.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Terry Neese, Founder, Terry Neese Personnel]
We're staffing industry and I started the firm in 1975. I really believe that if you run a business and you're not involved in politics then politics will run your business.
[01:14:04.10] LAWRENCE LESSIG: In a system like ours that depends on money, [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Lawrence Lessig, Harvard University]
the people who can bring the most money to the table get the most rewards. Now, for many years, the total amount that any individual could give was capped. But then people figured that instead of just giving a single contribution, they could begin to gather a bunch of contributions.
[01:14:24.19] TERRY NEESE: I became a bundler for President George Bush in 2004. I contacted small business owners all across the country. I encouraged them to have parties and then raise money at the party and send those cheques to me. And then I would bundle all of those cheques together and send that off to the campaign. I ended up raising about a million dollars. I was invited to the White House periodically to have conversations with him about issues that were of concern. I had a voice.
[01:14:57.15] NEWSCASTER: The Supreme Court's ruling today in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission citing that corporations had all the rights of people. Any restrictions on how these corporate beings spend their money on political advertising are unconstitutional.
[01:15:12.05] LAWRENCE LESSIG: That decision is what then led to an explosion in spending, because people now could channel their money into these coordinating bodies called Super-PACs. So these bundlers, who were quite effective at raising money at the $100,000, $500,000, million dollar level, can't begin to compete today with people who are giving $50-million-dollar, $100-million-dollar contributions to these Super PACs.
[01:15:36.23] TERRY NEESE: The Super PACs today are really where the money is and the super rich, not that there's anything wrong with being super rich, it's super great to be super rich. But if you can write a $5-million-dollar cheque or a million dollar cheque to a Super PAC, then you're more valuable to a candidate than a small business owner who is out here struggling to keep their business open. And that's not what democracy's all about.
[01:16:26.21] LAWRENCE LESSIG: America used to have a single election.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Lawrence Lessig, Harvard University]
Then we created the primary. So you had to qualify in the primary to be able to run in the election. We've now created another primary, the money primary. Or you can call it the green primary. You have to qualify in the green primary to be able to run in the regular primary, to be able to compete in the election. And that green primary, right now, is dominated by an incredibly small percentage of the American public, maybe 0.2 per cent is the maximum number of participants in that green primary who count, who give enough to matter to the candidate. If you look around the world, in Iran you have the Guardian Council, small number of clerics who pick the candidates, which Iranians get to vote on. In the former Soviet Union, you have the Communist Party that selected the candidates that the rest of Russia got to vote on. In Hong Kong, Chinese government wants a nominating committee of 1,200 people, 0.2 per cent of Hong Kong, to select the candidates that the rest of Hong Kong then gets vote to choose their Chief Executive. And it exists in America too. Because the way we fund campaigns means there's essentially a committee, the funders, who decide who the candidates are that the rest of us get to vote on. That's not democracy. That's not representative democracy. That's nothing to do with what the framers of our Constitution imagined they were creating.
[01:17:54.03] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: The elites have ignored the old white working class, neither political party really served their interests or paid much attention to them.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University]
And that's politically preparing the ground for the rise of this kind of populist nationalism or illiberal democracy.
[01:18:10.15] TITLE: Michigan
NEWSCASTER: Donald Trump has won the Presidency of the United States.
NEWSCASTER 2: After two weeks of counting ballots, it appears Trump won Michigan by the barest of margins.
[01:18:21.23] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Five Days Before The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump
[01:18:26.10] FORD WORKER: I'd been in the Ford system for almost 23 years now. I was thrilled that Obama beat Romney. Unfortunately, he was more into globalism. The top percentage is the one that's benefitted for all this time while everybody else has been struggling.
Ford Motor Company have had a reduction of a hundred thousand UAW members. You know, it's real easy to take American jobs overseas and of course get a cheaper wage out of it. With Mr. Trump that wants to change that policy...we'd rather you keep the jobs here and we'll make it work for you somehow. I appreciate that.
[01:19:10.02] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: We will make Michigan into the manufacturing hub of the world once again and no politician will do that. They don't have a clue.
[01:19:20.09] LARRY DIAMOND: This new era of populism is illiberal; it celebrates a direct relationship between a leadership and the people.
[01:19:32.23] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: My pledge reads: I'm with you, the American people. I am your voice.
[01:19:41.04] LARRY DIAMOND: This kind of illiberalism is always impatient with checks on the power of a leader so it is intrinsically hostile to the constraints of constitutional courts.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Article 3. Section 1 (of the Constitution of the United States of America) The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court]
[01:19:56.00] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: I've had horrible rules; I've been treated very unfairly by this judge. Now, this judge is of Mexican heritage.
[01:20:03.14] LARRY DIAMOND O.S.: demonized broad swathes of established elites and ridiculed them, wiped them away
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amendment 1 (of the Constitution of the United States of America) Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;]
[01:20:11.20] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: written by a nice reporter, now the poor guy, you gotta see this guy, "Aw, I don't know what I said. I don't remember."
[01:20:17.04] LARRY DIAMOND O.S.: It is also disdainful of typically minority groups, people who don't fit in, people who don't belong to the majority and the real people.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Amendment 15 (of the Constitution of the United States of America) The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall nnot be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.]
[01:20:28.15] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: We're going to build the wall. We have no choice. We have no choice.
[01:20:34.05] ORLANDO PATTERSON: These are the many ways in which this man has illiberally threatened some of the most fundamental elements of American democracy. So why? The question is why did he succeed? When people are asked to say, what do they mean by freedom, hardly anyone mentions democracy. Hardly anyone, about 5 per cent, mentions anything having to do with democracy. It's things like freedom to move, freedom to shop, freedom to have choices.
[01:21:10.05] ORLANDO PATTERSON O.S.: It's, "I can drive my car. I feel most free when I'm in my pick-up and playing Bruce Springsteen and driving on a highway."
[01:21:19.18] FORD WORKER: It is a nice sense of freedom, it's a calmness. It's kind of like my own meditation sometimes at times, I guess. I think having the job that I have creates freedom because it gives me the opportunity to go do all the things that I would like to go do, go take a Sunday drive, that opportunity was there because of the job that I had. Without that job, I wouldn't have the same freedoms that I have today.
[01:21:42.00] ORLANDO PATTERSON: This is a very good indication of the uncoupling of freedom and the experience of freedom from democracy itself. Not that I hate democracy, it's just uncoupled from the idea of freedom. This has paved the way for an illiberal leader such as our Trump to promote himself as the pre-eminent lord of consumerism.
[01:22:09.00] TV COMMERCIAL: Trump -- the game where you deal for everything you've ever wanted to own. Because it's not what you win or lose, it's whether you win. If you like it.
[01:22:17.17] ORLANDO PATTERSON: To feel that freedom is threatened you really then are inclined or motivated to take action. But you're not if freedom means going to the supermarket, and having choices between 20, 30 different kinds of soup. It's not going to be very disturbing to you if the political process is becoming hijacked.
[01:22:42.07] TITLE: Dearborn, MI
[01:22:46.07] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Three Days Before The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump]
[01:22:54.15] Surveys show that 30 per cent of Muslims voted for Trump, where Romney had 4 per cent of the Muslim vote. I'm the editor of the Arabic section of the newspaper. I came from Lebanon in 2003. When you have for decades, in the media, in the movies, everything showing Muslims are the bad guys, I don't expect from someone who lived in New York all their life to understand Muslims and to be understandable and defend Muslims. I didn't expect that from him. So I wasn't asking for that. I'm asking for a person who is going to make this country good for living again. So that's why I supported him.
[01:23:42.25] ORALANDO PATTERSON O.S.: America and China and India and a great number of other countries seem to be converging in what all their people conceive of as freedom, as personal experience and consumer choices.
[01:24:18.01] ORLANDO PATTERSON O.S.: Trump, as a leader of the most powerful nation of the world, has now become the symbol and the model of such illiberal leaders all over the world.
[01:24:35.27] TITLE: Washington, D.C.
[01:24:39.12] LARRY DIAMOND O.S.: We're swimming against a global tide now that is illiberal, infatuated with certain authoritarian temptations. This is a new and dangerous period for democracy globally.
[01:25:00.18] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Trump vs. All of Us
[01:25:04.11] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear [ON-SCREEN TEXT: People vs. Donald Trump]
that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Resist Trump. Festival of Resistance]
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.
[ON-SCREEN TEXT: Trump Presidency is a Threat If You Are Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans/Queer, Black or Brown, Not Rich, Immigrant, Woman, Muslim, F*uck Up His Inauguration. #DISRUPTJ20]
[01:25:21.26] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: I don't believe historical inevitability.
[01:25:26.06] ON-SCREEN TEXT: The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump
[01:25:27.15] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA O.S.: I don't think anything in politics is inevitable.
PROTESTERS: Not my President! Not my President! Not my President!
[01:25:36.07] DONALD TRUMP O.S.: From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. America first. America first. The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.
[01:26:03.21] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Women's March
[01:26:07.08] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA O.S.: Resistance against illiberal regimes has to begin with grassroots mobilization, so it has to begin with protesting.
[01:26:18.08] TITLE: Los Angeles
[01:26:20.16] FRANCIS FUKUYAMA O.S.: People aren't going to have a democratic form of government if they don't want to defend democracy. And they're not going to be able to do that unless they're willing to organize to get out on the streets to make their voices heard. [ON-SCREEN TEXT: New York]
LARRY DIAMOND O.S.: Campaigning for diversity [ON-SCREEN TEXT: London, England]
equality [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Paris, France]
justice and the rule of law [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Barcelona, Spain]
can have the effect [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Nairobi, Kenya]
of constraining [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Seoul, Korea]
and pre-empting [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Athens, Greece]
a potential slide toward illiberal democracy [ON-SCREEN TEXT: Erbil, Iraq]
and potentially authoritarianism.
[01:26:52.05] ON-SCREEN TEXT: Bridges Not Walls
DONALD TRUMP O.S.: Together, we will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. And yes, together, we will make America great again. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America.
[01:27:26.23] END CREDITS