What does freedom have to do with democracy?

Yesterday I saw two more films in the Freep Film Festival of documentaries. One in the afternoon in Royal Oak, the other in Midtown Detroit in the evening.

The first was Freedom for the Wolf. Early in the film they finish off the phrase: Freedom for the wolf means death for the sheep. It is actually an old phrase – as in Ancient Rome old. The film looks at five countries around the world with illiberal democracy, where there is only the appearance of democracy. They have elections, but…

We first visit Hong Kong. Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1999. At the time Hong Kong was promised free and fair elections. But Beijing screened the slate of candidates. The locals said that’s not democracy. In 2014 the protests became the Umbrella Movement. The name came from the umbrellas used to shield protesters from police pepper spray and became a symbol of the movement. The protesters soon occupied the downtown area, living in tents.

In the film we see some of the encampments and scuffles with police. We also hear some voices from those who support the Chinese government and from the protesters. The government was able to turn public opinion against the protesters by recruiting workers who couldn’t get to their jobs because the downtown area was barricaded. Also recruited were taxi drivers who lost income when they couldn’t take riders to downtown. Faced with counter protests (some with people brought in from the mainland) the movement crumbled.

Some government arguments are familiar to me: We must maintain order. To me that is a government saying we must maintain order – with us remaining in control. That order, that ranking, is paramount. Another government argument is new to me: Why would you want to jeopardize your economy, your income, your wealth, your way of life? You have all these things! Why does it matter who is in power? You are still well-off. Don’t screw it up.

In contrast to Soviet Communism, modern authoritarian regimes, such as China, have pretty good economic wealth along with their tyrannical rule.

An online search brought up a couple websites that can provide some background. Here’s a news article that includes a timeline and the Wikipedia entry.

On to Tunisia. The Arab Spring spark was lit here in 2011. Protesters toppled the dictator. But it hasn’t gone smoothly since. Yes, there are elections. But Muslim conservatives seem to have outsize control of who is on the ballot – we can’t have him, he blasphemed Allah! This influence also prompts the government to temper their reforms.

The film explained the dilemma. Though the dictator was gone, the laws and security apparatus were still in place. It takes time to dismantle the bad things and create and nurture democratic institutions. Democracy is messy, uncertain, and slow. After a while citizens want a solution and certainty now. Add into that societal elements who like and gain from the previous laws. Because of all this uncertainty Tunisia is the source of the most recruits to ISIS.

The third stop on this world tour is India. The BJP, the Hindu nationalist party, took control of the government in 1998 and held it until 2004. They’ve led it again since 2014.

One might think with Hindus at 80% of the population they wouldn’t need to pull rank on other groups, in particular Muslims and Christians. But pulling rank – insisting that India is for Hindus and their religion is superior to all others – is what the BJP is all about. Whenever anyone does that some pretty absurd claims come out. We heard one speaker say that the Hindu religion is older than Christianity and Islam (likely true), so that the religion in pre-Christian Rome was Hindu! Um, Zeus (or maybe Jupiter) may have something to say about that.

Non-Hindus are pushed into the slums in the major cities where the government services, such as law enforcement and assistance for the poor, tend to disappear. The locals tend to develop their own governments, which frequently are made up of Godfather type characters.

One of the BJP supporters really annoyed me after a while. His soundbites were usually such things as we can’t be racist. See, the non-Hindus have freedom, they can do what they want. I wanted to stuff a sock in his mouth. I’ve heard a constant stream of this nonsense out of a lot of conservatives, how they don’t acknowledge the policies they enact make it very difficult for minorities to escape the slum.

The film showed how the BJP provoked the minorities to riot. They would do this a few months before an election. The police would crack down and the party would have a great campaign issue for that upcoming election.

Then to Japan. I’m already aware that Japan has a strict hierarchy and values conformity. This film repeated the phrase, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” However, this particular story was the weakest of the bunch. Japan has had a longstanding law against dancing. It was originally passed because dancing led to other inappropriate behaviors. A night club (likely one of several) promoted dancing anyway. The cops raided the place and intimidated the clientele. The situation ended with some official stating the police had acted inappropriately.

Finally to America. At the start of the film I (and probably lots of others) wondered if our own country would be included. It was.

The story started in Baltimore with the Freddy Gray incident and the general police violence against black men. Then we went to Ferguson. The story continued in Dearborn, which has a large Muslim population, as the country prepared for the nasty guy’s inauguration and the protests around it.

The main point of this section was about the definition of freedom. In recent polling (which I guess was about 18 months ago) people were asked what the word “freedom” means to them. Rarely did people connect it to democracy. For a lot of people it means to have and to experience what I want. As long as I’m satisfied I’m not particularly worried what happens to anyone else. This circles around to the Hong Kong story – as long as you have economic wealth and stability, why worry about who is in control? Never mind that so many of my fellow citizens are frozen out of that economic wealth.

The results of the poll did not get into the idea that for many people freedom means being free to act on their bigotries. I suspect that would not be something people would admit to.

This segment on Tunisia got me thinking about America and what comes after the nasty guy. How quickly will we be able to recover? Will we be able to have a process to hold his loyalists accountable or remove them from power? Will we be able to go through laws and perhaps also the Constitution and cleanse them all of the forces that brought the nasty guy to power (similar to what happened in Germany after WWII)? Will we be able to retire all the conservative judges he appointed?

The second film of the day was Last Days of Chinatown. The title will need a bit of explanation because the film is about the history of the Cass Corridor in Detroit. I saw it, appropriately, at Wayne State University, which is at the north end of the Corridor.

Woodward Ave. is the main street of Detroit. It runs from the riverfront north-northwest to Pontiac. To the west is Cass Ave. Then Second, Third, and sometimes Fourth before getting to the Lodge Freeway. These streets, from downtown to the WSU Campus is the Cass Corridor. It is less than two miles long and maybe a half-mile wide.

I moved to the Detroit area in 1978 and to the western suburbs in 1979. I started attending a church there in 1980s. Over the next couple decades on two or three Saturdays a year this church would take lunch to the Cass Community United Methodist Church in the middle of the Corridor. We might serve as many as 200 meals. Yeah, at that time this was the roughest area of Detroit. Yet, the sanctuary of the Cass church showed the area had a rich past – the stained glass windows were by Tiffany.

We stopped serving lunches at the church only because Cass Community Social Services opened a big facility a few miles north and we served lunches there. CCSS does marvelous work, and worth supporting.

In the 1950s this was a white neighborhood. A nearby Skid Row was demolished as a way to clean it up. At the same time a Chinatown was also demolished. The Chinese were told money was coming so they would relocate, but that money never actually appeared. So the people of both Skid Row and Chinatown moved into the Cass Corridor. For a while this was the most diverse neighborhood in the city. White flight turned the neighborhood (and the whole city) black. The crack cocaine epidemic pretty much emptied it out. The buildings became blighted. Cass Corridor was a symbol of the worst of Detroit.

The revival began when Dan Gilbert, head of Quicken Loans, moved his company downtown. His young employees wanted to live nearby (and I think I heard he subsidized their housing when they did). Gilbert owns a great deal of downtown and his businesses have made him worth at least a billion. Then Mike Illitch, also a billionaire, started buying property at the south end of the Corridor. He has now built Little Caesar’s Arena there (with a hefty chunk of city and state money).

For a while some residents thought all this development would be a good thing. Then they realized what was happening. The LCA is a playground for the rich. The poor need not apply. The Illich family has big plans for the Corridor. New neighborhood designations. Luxury lofts. Upscale businesses. Walkable streets. We’ll even rebrand it as “Midtown” and erase the Cass Corridor name to avoid its association with poverty, but also erase its rich history.

And the poor? Those who have lived in the Corridor for years, call it home, and can’t afford to move? Those who are elderly? Those who are homeless and live in shelters? Hmph. Well, you’re not going to live here.

The film shows us a few of the evicted people. They were given an apartment – it looked like it didn’t come with furniture. They were a long way from what they knew and no way to get around, even in their new neighborhood or to a job they might have. Uprooted and cast aside.

Yes, the Cass Corridor was full of poverty. Yes, the buildings were dilapidated and the whole area desperately needed help and renewal. But this was home to many people. And they weren’t consulted about their home or their future. Just pushed out.