Directed by
John Pilger / Christopher Martin
94 minutes
Rated M
Reviewed by
Sharon Hurst
The War On Democracy
Synopsis: John Pilger’s first feature film following on from an extensive career in making documentaries for television looks at the America’s self-appointed mission to spread democracy Uncle Sam-style throughout the world, with particular reference to South America. Pilger begins by travelling with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and goes on to examine how, in South America over many years, the USA has systematically been involved in coups, oppression and the installation of puppet regimes for its own nefarious purposes.The War On Democracy opens with George Bush giving a speech in which in the best propagandistic method he mentions democracy and liberty umpteen times and says that “America will not impose its own style of democracy on the unwilling.” Needless to say we later hear how the USA has tried to overthrow 50 governments of which it did not approve and has attacked and bombed 30 countries.
Pilger is well known as a fine investigative journalist. Some of the interviews he conducts are nothing short of shocking – ex-CIA operatives who confess to taking part in campaigns against democratic countries and explicitly admitting “we didn’t give a hoot about democracy”. The same odious fellow claims that it is legitimate to overthrow democratic governments if it’s in your (read USA’s) national security interests. The American anti-Red propaganda is revealed in all its shocking glory along with secret filming of the “School of Americas”, where Pinochet’s torture squads were trained. There are interviews with people who had been tortured, and one especially chilling in which a nun identifies the leader of the gang who raped her as an American. Virtually every South American country has a ghastly story to tell, beginning with Guatemala where the American-backed puppet government had thousands of people murdered and ranging through Chile and then Bolivia, where the country’s fundamental assets such as water were up for grabs by overseas corporations.
Pilger is completely upfront about his attitude to the USA, calling them an empire “vicious thieving and secretive” and is a confronting screen presence. He certainly doesn’t have any of the humour of Michael Moore but he’s hard hitting and deeply probing with his material and facts.
I’d have liked to see this film cover more material than South America – get into the Iraq and Vietnam situations for instance to further reinforce its point although perhaps it was felt that the latter had been already extensively covered in documentaries like Hearts And Minds (1974) and The Fog Of War (2003) and the former was probably too current be a feasible task. The film is not entirely bleak. Pilger does hold out hope with his use of Venezuela as a grounding point of the film. There, US attempts to oust Chavez backfired and the people, in the true democratic spirit of government for the people and by the people got him reinstated.
I’m not a political person generally speaking but this film certainly got me fired up. If you were pro-America before you see this film (and if so please do), it will give you plenty of food for thought and if , be warned, you’ll come away very, very angry!!
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