Greg Barker's WE ARE THE GIANT: Remembering Arab Spring--together with its not-so-hot results

I suspect it will be very easy to get angry at Greg Barker and his new documentary, WE ARE THE GIANT, which offers up a few of the folk who were (and still are -- some of them, at least) actively involved in the ongoing protest collectively known as Arab Spring. After all, what looked like, at last, a wonderful explosion of the possibility of "democracy" in the Arab world, involving some 20 countries, beginning with Tunisia and spreading through-out, turns out to be either the further rise of putrid fundamentalism or rather an even stronger dictatorship, pushing citizens under its thumb ever more fiercely. Showing us Mao's revolution and then Chinese students protesting that revolution with no intervening commentary is perhaps not the most intelligent of choices.

So, when we begin our viewing, we see a quote from Che Guevara together with a rapid montage of various "popular" revolutions throughout history, though whether these involve Mao, Lenin, Jefferson or Castro, or whether these helped or hindered the people, does not seem to matter much to Mr. Barker (shown at left). It's the idea of a popular revolution that counts. But, then, when the documentary lets us know that its subject is the would-be "popular revolutions" in the Arab world -- after what has happened there over the past few years -- one's hope further declines.

Don't give up, however. Although Barker's initial foray into the Middle East involves Libya and a father-son team of born-in-America Arab patriots (pictured, above, front), who may be fighting more out of religious than populist fervor -- does not Barker notice the name of Allah being invoked here and what that might mean for women and other minorities, come the revolution? --  as the movie moves onward, to Syria and then Bahrain (where the fight is led by a father his two daughters, shown below), the film takes on increasing strength and meaning. (Although what this meaning actually is is up for grabs.)

In between, we meet two Syrian revolutionary leaders dedicated (initially, at least) to peaceful protest. One of them, below, remains so, even though we see the horrendous results of peaceful protest under a cruel dictatorship. The we see the results of violent protest, too, which Syria gave over to, with results no less horrendous -- except now, as one fellow points out, the protestors can at least strike back against their overlords using the same kind of death and destruction rained on them. Some fun. At least here, we get an interesting idea of how Syria's "Free Army" was born and then grew, unfortunately, into something that could be taken over by extreme fundamentalist killers.

We get a little Gandhi, Mandela, King and Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, before delving into the lives of that family from Bahrain, in which one of the sisters must finally ask America's government -- since we have refused to intervene in this country the way we have in Libya -- "Is a Bahrainian life not worth as much as a Libyan life?" Evidently, not. You see, Libya for years had a dictator unfriendly to the western powers, whereas Bahrain's equally cruel and dictatorial guy is friendly to us. The Maoris of New Zealand present a case study for one of the sisters to use in facing the opposition, but this goes only so far. We hear the tale of the girls' father being arrested and beaten in front of his family, and finally the remaining sister (the other has earlier fled to the West) is arrested, released, and then arrested again and again and again.

Does all this sound a bit depressing. It sure is. The titular "Giant," as explained by Dad to his children, stands for the people. Why should this enormous population be held in thrall to the small minority who rule, Dad asks? His daughters cannot answer. No more than can we. Except to note that, since that small minority controls all the resources and thus the power, its control will go on indefinitely -- despite any revolution, peaceful or violent. The "giant," as usual, is a helpless one. And we are, all of us, indeed that giant, serving ever more the powers-that-be -- which, here in the Western world, we now call the corporations and the one per cent.

While I doubt that this is the point the filmmaker intends to make, it is the depressing one that must be taken away from his film -- which is, above all else, hugely thought-provoking. We Are the Giant -- from Music Box Films,  running 92 minutes and in both Arabic and English -- opens tomorrow, Friday, December 12 in New York City (at the Cinema Village) and in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Music Hall 3). 

Jehane Noujaim's Oscar-shortlisted The SQUARE: the need for conscience-- & leadership --in Eqypt

While it's hard to fault the Academy's choices for Best Documentary film this year (well, how Cutie and the Boxer beat out Stories We Tell is a bit of an embarrass-ment), I am sorry to see THE SQUARE -- from Jehane Noujaim, the filmmaker who earlier gave us Startup.com and Control Room --left out of the final five. Although we've already seen two excellent documentaries that dealt with the so-called Arab spring in Egypt (which we dearly hope does not end up more like a nuclear winter) -- Uprising and Tahrir: Liberation Square, not to mention the so-so-to-crappy and generally uninformed media coverage that occurred at the time and after --- The Square proves to be the best and most inclusive of the lot.

This is because Ms. Noujaim, shown at left, manages to let us in to the real conflict that's going on here -- the dismal choice between, as one person puts it, the "killer" (a continuation of the Mubarek regime) and the "traitor" to the revolution (The Muslim Brotherhood). The film-maker does this by concen-trating mainly on three men and a few more peripheral women (well, this is Islamic territory, right) heavily involved in helping this revolution onwards. In one of the film's most shocking moments, the wife of one of these men (he's a member of The Muslim Brotherhood whose "faith" has begun to waver) says that she would not care if a Jew was running this country, so long as justice is finally provided.

The need for "justice" -- for Egypt to finally understand and accept that all its citizens are worthy of this gift -- comes up time and again during the documentary's 104-minute length. This is not sledge-hammered home by any means; it simply arises over and over via both the stupidity and horror of the Mubarek regime, the military who enabled this (along with the United States and other western powers), and the thuggish and fundamentalist-fueled Brotherhood who betrayed the revolutionary cause in order to be able to take power -- and then just as stupidly refused to share that power with the people.

The three important men we get to know here are Ahmed (above, center: a young fellow mostly seen organizing and then fighting on the front lines), Khalil (below: an actor born of Egyptian parents and rasied in England, it seems, who has now come back to Egypt to see this revolution through) and Magdy (two photos below: the married man with family who is best friends with Ahmed, even though the two disagree about the benefits of the Brotherhood).

Ms Noujaim begins with the first major uprising when the populace took to Tahrir Square (of the title) and then shows us the various points along the way, as time and again the people had to go back to that Square -- often at the cost of their health or life -- to make first the Mubarek regime, later the military and finally the Muslim Brotherhood understand that what was happening was NOT  the hoped-for revolution. As one woman points out: While plenty of the revolutionaries have gone on trial, none of the corrupt and terrorizing regime has yet been tried.

We also hear arguments that get to the core of the difference between a religious and a secular state -- and not the kind of secular rule that countenances constant surveillance and torture. As Ahmed tries to point out to Brotherhood members, "You don't need your religion to be written into the Constitution. Don't you know in your heart that you're Muslim?"

Like our own "Occupy" movements, these revolutionaries literally have no person to get behind, no leader to follow or help elect. (This may be wise in one regard, for that leader would probably soon find himself "disappeared.") Instead, they pride themselves on following a kind of "collective" conscience. Only trouble is -- this is why I do not foresee the Arab spring leading to Arab summer -- when you step up to that ballot box, just how do you vote for a "conscience"?

The Square -- a gift from the Netflix organization -- opened this past Friday around the country in Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC (click here for theaters) and can concurrently be seen via Netflix streaming.

Fredrik Stanton's UPRISING: Egypt's Arab Spring in a way we've not been privy to--until now; a short Q&A with the filmmaker

Can it really have been almost two years since the world watched its television set, enrapt, as Egypt's citizens, in what we were told at the time was a peaceful demonstration, brought about the downfall and abdication of their highly unpopular President/Dictator Hosni Mubarek? Next month marks the two-year anniversary of that storied event, time enough for the world to have realized -- yet again, if anyone's sense of history remains intact -- that Democracy doesn't simply appear in a country, once the current set of bad guys bites the dust.

The occasion for my musing is the theatrical opening today of a new documentary called UPRISING, from first-time filmmaker Fredrik Stanton (shown at right) that gives us the aforemen-tioned event in a manner that seems to me more compelling and complete than anything I've yet seen -- certainly more so than the sound-bite TV coverage we received, and even more than the interesting, on-the-ground-amongst-the-people documentary Tahrir: Liberation Square, that opened at the Mayles Cinema this past June.

For those particularly concerned with what has happened to Egypt since those heady days, I urge you to read the excellent article in this week's The New Yorker magazine by Peter Hessler, explaining quite a bit about The Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that rose to power shortly after the overthrow of Mubarek. Mr. Stanton's film, by necessity, deals only with the period of the initial protest leading up regime change, but the view it allows us to see and the voices we hear are interesting & pointed.

Mr. Stanton also provides us the clearest, most focused assessment of the reasons for the protest -- repression, youth activism & social media, the murder of Khaled Said, and the Tunisian revolution -- and then shows us why all this helped turn a protest into the amazing event that it became. (You may find the story of Khaled and the powerful photo shown of his mutilated body enough, all on their own, to foment a revolution.)

To mange this point-by-point, step-by-step recap, the filmmaker interviews a fairly wide range of Egyptians who protested, from students to one rather famous actor, and then intercuts after the fact a lot of on-the-street action with intelligent, thoughtful ruminations from his talking heads.

The movie helps us understand the incomprehension and stupidity of the Mubarek regime in the manner in which it tried to contain the revolution. As one speaker explains, the decision to shut down internet access was pivotal -- not in clamping down on things, but in forcing citizens back out into the streets which was by then the best means of communication and exactly what the regime did not want to happen.

We also learn, Khaled Said aside, that this was anything but a peaceful, non-violent revolution. While the protesters were initially non-violent, things changed. Notes one speaker, "If you beat us, we will beat you; touch us and we will touch you." At another point, men kneel down in prayer in Tahrir Square, and the regime attacks. "Kill us whilst we pray," a demonstrator urges. "Show us how ugly you can be." While, for the demonstrators, it was mostly merely pushing, the police, we learn, would sometimes shoot protesters in the face. In the end, the body count was 840 killed and more than 6,000 injured. So much for the non-violence theory.

This is a powerful movie, and though we know how it turns out, Mr. Stanton has made the event seem exciting, suspenseful -- and most especially vivid, vital and important -- all over again. Uprising opens today, Friday, Jan. 11, in Manhattan at the Quad Cinema.

 Meet the filmmaker in person, as Fredrick Stanton 

shows up for a Q&A with his audience 

following the 7:15 show tonight, Friday, January 11.

*************

TrustMovies has his own short Q&A with this filmmaker, too. The following questions were emailed to him, post-viewing. Below, TM appears in boldface, Fredrik Stanton in standard type:

As middle east dictatorships fall, whether the Shaw in Iran, Sadaam in Iraq and now Mubarak in Egypt, all they ever seem to be replaced with is horrific religious fundamentalism. Any hope here for democracy resting side by side with Islam?

The important thing is protection of basic rights, minority rights, separation of powers, freedom of the press, and a functioning independent judiciary. If these are put in place, there are fewer opportunities for abuse. The Middle East would benefit from more examples of countries where piety does not have to result in control and despotism.

Amen to that.  So what is your gut feeling, and that of those Egyptians you are closest to, regarding what is going to happen? Will the military allow any sort of democracy? And worse, is the Muslim Brotherhood set to destroy the budding of democracy?

The young activists I interviewed are keenly aware that removing Mubarak is only the first step to achieving a functioning democracy in Egypt. It is very encouraging that they have continued to push back against both the Egyptian military and the Muslim brotherhood's encroaching on their rights. This is a process that will take time to play out, and there may be a period of continued instability. The opposition is learning from its mistakes, and over time I have confidence in those Egyptians who desire freedom and don't want to live under an authoritarian theocracy.

I am hoping that this will not be the final choice Egypt faces, but if so, which is better for the country -- a secular dictatorship or a fundamentalist religion leading it?

I think the distinction between a secular dictatorship or a fundamentalist religion leading the country means little to those who can be arrested without cause, taken away in the middle of the night and tortured, or to to the people whose government is unaccountable to their basic needs. Lack of freedom in any form is unacceptable, and the Egyptian people deserve better than either type of tyranny.

Finally: my favorite part of the film -- and one of its most ironic, hilarious sections (I thought, at least) was your interview with ex Ambassador Frank G. Wisner, who tells us something to the effect that seeing an orderly transition simply had to be the U.S. ambition because, "We are a responsible nation." Did you have to keep from giggling at this point? Hasn't the U.S. supported Mubarak for decades? 

I think Ambassador Wisner represents a major school of thought in American foreign policy that believes the US needs to deal with governments in power, even if we find their behavior offensive, especially when vital strategic interests are at stake. This is why the US supported Mubarak for decades, and continues to support similar regimes around the world. I recognize that this is a prevailing view, and I strongly disagree with it. Of course the US must look after its strategic interests, but in the long run our interests are better served by supporting peoples' desire for freedom, which is more consistent with our principles. And, as we have found, dictatorships are fragile, and when they fall, this leaves us in a very awkward position.

I agree, and I wish our political leaders could find a way to implement this idea. Anyway, thank you so much for this film, and I'll look forward to whatever you're doing next. What might that be -- if you even know at this point? 

I'm hoping it'll be a vacation. Thank you for taking the time to write about the film and share it with your audience.