ScreenWize

Despite the fact that John Pilger has been based in England for more than forty years, there’s still something very Australian about him. He strides into the hotel lobby looking relaxed and fit, his hair now a shock of white. He’s a tall, well-built man and shakes hands firmly before easing himself into a comfortable chair. In conversation, he’s just as relaxed, almost laconic, with a confidently casual answer to the difficult questions that surround power, politics and the people. Clearly he is enjoying his whirlwind tour of Australia, appearing at openings of his new film The War on Democracy.

Pilger was born and raised in Bondi, which might explain some of his ease. He spent his youth swimming in the surf and rowing fanatically for Sydney High, a sport that brought him lifelong friendships and lifelong calluses on his hands. When he left school he joined the Sydney Sun newspaper as a copy boy and then the Daily Telegraph as a cadet journalist. He describes those days as “one of the happiest periods of my working life.” Yet after four years, when he was only twenty-two, he was convinced he needed to leave Australia. “It’s a derivative culture,” he explains. “I wanted a more connected perspective on the world.”

England was good to Pilger. He quickly found work with Reuters and then The Daily Mirror, where he eventually became Chief Foreign Correspondent. Within five years he won the prestigious Journalist of the Year Award for his coverage of the Vietnam War. He repeated the feat twelve years later for his work in Cambodia, which included writing the television documentary film Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia, directed by David Munro. In that chilling film, Pilger’s emotive and confrontational approach is already apparent, and he thanks his time working for ITV’s World In Action for his exposure to principled and hard-hitting investigative journalism. “World In Action was the only current affairs programme taking risks at the time,” he says. “It was well known for exposing corruption and wasn’t afraid to step on the toes of the rich and powerful.”

Since the early eighties, stepping on toes is what Pilger has been all about - a consequence of pointing out the structural failings of society. He is stirred by the twin evils of abusive power and willful ignorance, the latter of which he believes journalists are prone to as much as anyone else. In his 1986 book Heroes, he wrote: “as secrecy and the deception of governments grow more sophisticated, the need for explanation, investigation and polemic has never been more urgent.” His films and books since read like a response to that call: A Secret Country, Distant Voices, Tell Me No Lies, Breaking the Silence, Paying the Price are just a selection of his titles.

The War On Democracy is Pilger’s first film made for the big screen – all his other films have been made for television. He thanks Michael Moore for opening up the opportunity. “Moore really put the documentary back where it started. Before television the cinema was where you watched documentaries, and Moore managed to convince Warner Brothers to help fund and distribute his feature length documentary Roger and Me back in 1989. He has really opened the door.” Yet Pilger explains that he hasn’t made any significant changes to his approach. “Apart from having a second cameraman who came from a cinema background, I have made the film in the same way that I make all my films. We didn’t have to make any dramatic changes to the style or the way we approached the content.” Pilger certainly didn’t want to alter the way he presented himself on screen. “Michael Moore is very likeable, and - yes - he’s patriotic, and at times almost a comedian. But that’s not me. I am who I am, and it would have been a mistake to try and pretend to be something else.”

In The War on Democracy, Pilger – on screen as the serious investigative journalist - focuses his indignation on South America and the USA’s foreign policy and influence across that continent. “It has been something that I have wanted to do for a long time. I thought about the Middle East, but I wanted to get away from the news. My first assignment as a foreign correspondent in South America in the 1960’s left an indelible impression on me. I witnessed extremes – extreme events, extreme movements, extreme failures. I also reported from there in the 1980’s and I made a film in Nicaragua. But there’s a terrible ignorance about recent history.” Pilger moves his large hands around, shaping something in the air. “Especially to do with the role of South America’s powerful neighbour, sitting on top of it.”

The War on Democracy traces that recent history from a classic Pilger perspective. History and social memory, he argues, is written by the powerful, and it is the poor and oppressed who become invisible in the pages of its telling. For Pilger, the USA may be currently waging a war on terror, but it has waged a longer war on democracy in South America. He talks with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a man who grew up in the barrios, who was democratically elected in 1998 but who was deposed briefly in a right wing, USA supported coup, before people-power restored him to office. For Pilger, Chavez is a symbol of the true democracy that has been struggling to survive against intervention and manipulation by the USA for more than half a century.

One of the highlights of the film is an interview Pilger manages to organise with ex-CIA chief for Latin America, Duane Clarridge. In an extraordinary outburst, Clarridge shows us the raw face of power at work. “Is it alright to overthrow a democratically elected government?” Pilger asks him. “Of course,” says Clarridge without pause for breath or thought, “if it’s in your national interest.” Pilger says he was shocked by the interview and in the film he looks clearly stirred up, only just able to hide his feelings behind his professionalism. “There was no point getting angry at what Clarridge said. He was so frank, so candid. I just had to go with it – it was extraordinary.” But Pilger admits that Clarridge didn’t last long in front of the camera, walking out on him. “He stood up and said he couldn’t put up with it anymore. H’s an angry man, and he is clearly annoyed that people don’t understand how he sees the world. We used just about everything he said in the film, and I wished I’d had more.”

Hugo Chavez was quite the opposite, inviting Pilger and his team to join him on the road for a week. After three days Pilger had enough footage. “It took us a long time to get access to Chavez – almost a year – and in the end it happened by accident, but he was very amenable and invited us to travel with him.” On his journey through Venezuela with Chavez, Pilger talks to many people for whom the President is their only hope for deliverance from poverty, and their stories – along with others from Bolivia and Chile – that occupy much of the film.

Just as we finish talking about The War on Democracy, coffee arrives and we switch the conversation to Australia and the current state of journalism. “Australia is so silent on these kinds of issues, and the management of journalists is a serious problem,” says Pilger. “There seems to be a more pervasive propaganda force at work here, especially in the broadcast media. In addition, the forces that have traditionally organized dissent, like the Labour movement, have moved over to the other side. There is no organization anywhere for people with different views to go to. The only real option for people who feel the need to speak out is civil disobedience.” Ultimately this is why Pilger feels more comfortable in the UK. “There’s a much greater history of dissent against the establishment there, and of course – as a journalist – there’s the advantage of size. The same sharks are there, but it’s a much bigger pond for people like me to swim in.”

Filed Under: Interviews by Simon