Video review: Bringing Down a Dictator

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Edmund Dawson
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1 Possible Films to plan a film festival or screenings and talkbacks about peace Film: A Force More Powerful A Force More Powerful (2 X 84 min) explores how popular movements battled entrenched regimes and military forces with unconventional weapons like boycotts, strikes, and demonstrations. Acts of civil resistance helped subvert the operations of government, and direct intervention in the form of sit-ins, nonviolent sabotage, and blockades frustrated many rulers' efforts to suppress people. The historical results were massive: tyrants toppled, governments overthrown, occupying armies impeded, and political systems shattered. Entire societies were transformed, suddenly or gradually, as nonviolent resistance destroyed the repressor's ability to control events. The story begins in 1907 with a young Mohandas Gandhi, the most influential leader in the history of civil resistance, as he rouses fellow Indians in South Africa to a nonviolent struggle against racial oppression. The series recounts Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign against the British in India; the sit-ins and boycotts that desegregated downtown Nashville, Tennessee; the nonviolent campaign against apartheid in South Africa; Danish resistance to the Nazis in World War II; the rise of Solidarity in Poland; and the momentous victory for democracy in Chile. A Force More Powerful also introduces several extraordinary, but largely unknown, individuals who drove these great events forward. The greatest misconception about conflict is that violence is the ultimate form of power; but in conflict after conflict throughout the 20th century, people have proven otherwise. At a time when violence is still too often deployed, A Force More Powerful dramatizes how ordinary people throughout the world, working against all kinds of opponents, have taken up nonviolent weapons and prevailed. Originally released as a feature-length film that played in festivals worldwide, A Force More Powerful was expanded into a 3-hour television series which aired nationally on PBS in 2000, and has since been seen around the world. For questions about film production, including sales, licensing, screenings and broadcasts, contact Miriam Zimmerman at mzimmerman@yorkzim.com. Video review: Bringing Down a Dictator By John Bacher

2 At a time when the prospects for nonviolent solutions to the twin problems of war and dictatorship appear bleak, especially in the Middle East, it was refreshing when on April 3, 2002 the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) broadcast the remarkable video, "Bringing Down A Dictator." This details the remarkable success in the nonviolent destruction of the dictatorship of The power and impact of "Bringing Down A Dictator" is further enhanced by the excellent choice of Martin Sheen, an actor familiar to millions as the presidential star of the fictional political drama series, West Wing. As narrator, Sheen's message is hammered home quite appropriately in a brief final update at the end of the video. Here he stresses that after September 11th, the nonviolent destruction of dictatorships is more important than ever before because of the role that repressive countries play in provoking terrorism. As one would wish the real President George Bush would indicate, Sheen stresses that there are simply too many dictatorships for the United States to invade and conquer, so the US has to orchestrate more nonviolent defeats for them around the world. The video "Bringing Down A Dictator" is the second triumph in promoting strategies for nonviolent democratizing change by partners Jerry Ackerman, a dedicated scholar and author, and film makers Steve York and Miriam A. Zimmerman. Earlier these important apostles of peace collaborated on the equally remarkable film, "A Force More Powerful," which was broadcast on PBS last year. This featured little known successes in nonviolence, including how these tactics were used in the most difficult circumstances, such as in opposition to Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark. The value of "Bringing Down A Dictator" is further enhanced by the excellent web site produced by PBS that complements the video. This provides links to ongoing movements for enhancing democracy in Serbia. It also is full of extensive bibliographic references to other literature on the success of nonviolent strategies in overthrowing Milosevic. The study questions and bibliography would provide a fine basis for courses in political science and peace studies. What is so astonishing about OTPOR is that after its founding by only a dozen Serbian students in 1998, it would succeed in its goal of bringing democracy to Yugoslavia in only two years. In the beginning the group simply improvised, using good instincts. Later, they studied nonviolent strategy, primarily through the writings of American scholar Gene Sharp. They immediately adopted Sharp's ideas as the basis for their training manuals, combining them with a clever flair for both humor and courage. In "Bringing Down A Dictator," Miljenko Derata, the director of a Belgrade group called Civic Initiatives, explains how he received funding from the US human rights organization, Freedom House, to print and distribute 5,000 copies of Gene Sharp's book, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. OTPOR also got hold of Sharp's main three-volume work, "The Politics of Nonviolent Action." They translated this into a Serbian language notebook, which was called the "OTPOR User Manual." COMMISSAR

3 Srdja Popovic, who is interviewed in the video, was key to shaping OTPOR's nonviolent strategies. In a typically humorous reference to Yugoslavia's communist heritage, he was sometimes called OTPOR'S "ideological commissar." This was an appropriate label for Sharp's Serbian translator who developed OTPOR's training manuals. "Bringing Down A Dictator" shows astonishing details as to how OTPOR brought together the key elements for the nonviolent destruction of the Milosevic regime. The video shows how its demonstrations successfully persuaded the Yugoslavian opposition to run one presidential candidate against the dictator, ending the destructive bickering among opponents that had helped Milosevic cling to power. It also details, through an interview with Daniel Serwer, director of the US Institute for Peace's Balkan Initiative, the successful meetings between himself and OTPOR, which resulted in American and European funding of $25 million for nonviolent resistance. The details in "Bringing Down A Dictator" are surprising and revealing. The Yugoslavian democratic opposition was assisted in a remarkably non-partisan way, receiving funding and advice from two sources. These were the National Republican Institute, an external foundation for the Republican Party, and the National Democratic Institute, a similar organization for the Democrats. Viewing this video will make Canadians more critical of the way foreign and defence policy options in this country are considered. Generally, they are conducted in the sterile fashion of either lining up with the US to overthrow a repressive government, or doing nothing to foster democratic change. "Bringing Down A Dictator" shows that there are realistic ways to foster the destruction of such terror states without recourse to war. MEDIA DISTORTION Another immediately important insight from "Bring down A Dictator" is how the American mass commercial media, through its appetite for violent imaging, distorted the reality of this remarkable triumph of the power of nonviolence. The PBS course guide notes that following the success of OTPOR's occupation of the Yugoslavian parliament buildings with a peaceful army of 250,000 protesters who had gathered from all parts of the country, the lesson was lost through media manipulation. It notes that "[u]nfortunately the smoke that billowed out of the parliament and state television buildings when rooms were set afire encouraged CNN and other television networks to use seemingly violent images as the visual emblems of their coverage, even though only two people were killed in unrelated incidents in Serbia. (One was an elderly man from a heart attack - the other was killed through a traffic accident.) As usual, the world media focused on the frenzy, not the patient movement that produced change." John Bacher is a Toronto -based writer. Dirty Wars: The World as a Battlefield

4 Dirty Wars follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill author of the international bestseller Blackwater, into the heart of America s covert wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond. With a strong cinematic style, the film blurs the boundaries of documentary and fiction storytelling. Part action film and part detective story, Dirty Wars is a gripping journey into one of the most important and underreported stories of our time. What begins as a report into a U.S. night raid gone terribly wrong in a remote corner of Afghanistan quickly turns into a global investigation of the secretive and powerful Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). As Scahill digs deeper into the activities of JSOC, he is pulled into a world of covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress. In military jargon, JSOC teams find, fix, and finish their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the kill list, including U.S. citizens. Drawn into the stories and lives of the people he meets along the way, Scahill is forced to confront the painful consequences of a war spinning out of control, as well as his own role as a journalist. We encounter two parallel casts of characters. The CIA agents, Special Forces operators, military generals, and U.S.-backed warlords who populate the dark side of American wars go on camera and on the record, some for the first time. We also see and hear directly from survivors of night raids and drone strikes, including the family of the first American citizen marked for death and being hunted by his own government. Dirty Wars takes viewers to remote corners of the globe to see first-hand wars fought in their name and offers a behind-the-scenes look at a high-stakes investigation. We are left with haunting questions about freedom and democracy, war and justice. Children of War (2009) 75 min - Documentary

5 Ratings: 8.1/10 from 8 users Director: Bryan Single A unique and incandescent documentary which follows a group of former child soldiers as they undergo a process of trauma therapy and emotional healing while in a rehabilitation center. Filmed in the war-zone of northern Uganda over a period of three years by Director Bryan Single. 'Children of War' is a unique and incandescent documentary which follows a group of former child soldiers as they escape the battlefield, enter a rehabilitation center, and undergo a process of trauma therapy and emotional healing. Having been abducted from their homes and schools and forced to become fighters by the Lord's Resistance Army - a quasi-religious militia led by self-proclaimed prophet and war criminal Joseph Kony - the children struggle to confront and break through years of captivity, extreme religious indoctrination, and participation in war crimes with the help of a team of trauma counselors. As these fearless allies guide the children forward into new lives, Children of War illuminates a powerful and cathartic story of forgiveness and hope in the aftermath of war. Review of Countdown to Zero Using the quote "Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, etc." by John F. Kennedy as a structure of storytelling basis, Countdown to Zero explains in an essay-like form of the dangers of nuclear weapons even after decades since the end of the Cold War, and how these could be detonated, intentionally or unintentionally, and blow numbers of the human race off the earth. Walker explains this in three categories: "Madness" "Accident" and "Miscalculation." Examining the back story of the invention of the A-Bomb by Oppenheimer, to more current events of near catastrophe, she exacts just the right tone that is necessary for the film. While the editing and pacing feels very slow, and a bit choppy at times, as well as slipping a little back into madness every so often, it's nothing if not a brilliant piece of research into this very subject. It's a very eye opening movie, probably the best example of this, and the best scene of the film, is a hypothetical nuclear explosion taking place in New York City at Times Square after the New Year's Eve countdown, that features a brilliant sound mixture of audio narrations by many of Walker's sources by Michael Minkler and Tony Lamberti, and boy, is it one intense hypothetical. It's a compelling piece of film making that asks many to help eliminate a major threat, and never becomes sleep inducing.

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