WOI TV: News Clips 369

Dr. John Katie distinguished professor emeritus of history at Ohio University participated in the Institute on world affairs this year the topic being the role of the military in the world 1971, now Dr. Katie has many things that contributed to him being a distinguished professor part of it I suspect being the time that you spent in Bangkok and studying Burma writing about many different things but with ten minutes we cannot hit all those but I think there is something valuable that you can do for us briefly and that is there is discussion whether it be in Vietnam or the other countries in Southeast Asia that elections free elections should take place now this is not as easy as it may sound to most Americans what are the problems involved the basic problem of course is that we we feel that that the present governments to be legitimate ought to have the support of their people and the way we would like to bring about this support is to have elections but they don't have a whole lot of confidence in elections this is the trouble they've seen situations where elections have been rigged repeatedly and they've seen also where in Burma the military dictatorship can arise and cancel the whole Constitution and Thanom Kittikachorn the present dictator of Thailand has done the same thing within the last three weeks and there isn't any great outcry among the people the burmese would like to go back to their constitution definitely and no doubt there are some thai who who fear it but who fear the results of this kind of dictatorship but basically except for the filipinos who really like elections they make fiestas out of them and have a lot of fun and they are much more freedom of criticism and even we have in this country really they're almost they run wild in it but you have had elections and elections in in Malaya a pretty good election was held it ended up in a terrible riot of Malays against Malays against Chinese and elections were held in 1955 in Indonesia they were cancelled two years later they've had more recent election and they've done a little bit better but it is based on on so-called functional representation rather than regional are parties they distrust party party groups and party factionalism they never can divide into two parties like we do more or less but they have 15 or 20 one friend of mine said in South Vietnam there are probably 60 parties and so fractionalism you vote your particular area your particular situation there's not enough experience with elections or with political activity to make them really have any confidence in them now sooner or later we have to divide orderly ways by which they can change the guard get rid of people that are hopelessly incompetent or are corrupt but it isn't easy just to say you organize a Democratic and Republican National Convention and this will solve all your problems a fellow would be a little bit fatuous to say that in any case I think but it doesn't it really doesn't work now as most of the political power vested in individuals who really are of a military background or active well this varies from country to country the military does not have any influence in Malaya to speak of military has no influence really in the Philippines at the present time the military has no influence in Singapore and perhaps the military as such has relatively little influence in Laos in Cambodia it's it's of course in a limbo of warfare and military rule it's hard to describe the government at all in South Vietnam of course the government is almost 100% military so it depends on the circumstances that you have usually military rule is better than anarchy and the military have the guns and if you want to have some kind of order you have no choice but to go to them but it isn't any long-term answer to the problems sooner or later you must recognize some kind of ability that grows out of ideas and competence and efficiency and public spirited interest how can you how you can do this without elections is a problem how how you can do it with elections is a problem we face perhaps the latter sometimes but this this is a long term business but we're going to have to go slow on this idea that just hold elections and everything will be fine it just won't work what I was gonna say are our right our expectations are too I started to say high but that's not exactly right perhaps they are so different that we get disappointed and we're we're impatient we we want to get things done and after all they've lived there long long time and this election ideas come in in the last few years and it's the foreigners' concern and we'll go along if it seems to please him and if you give us some money and support but will they have really very little confidence in it it will take time for them to work out but they're gonna have to work out their own system of change now how much of their problem is the result of the colonialism and getting rid of that and is this an adolescent period for them in government yeah where where you have the older order carryover as in Thailand and is in the Philippines and in Malaya the transition is fairly smooth the move from away from colonialism or semi colonialism to independence can be handled not not neatly not perfectly but it can be handled where you have an entirely new group come in as in North Vietnam or South Vietnam and or in Indonesia and Burma the situation is very difficult to stabilize Thailand has been able to keep the functioning of its own civil service intact they hold their allegiance to the king the king is important not powerful but influential and important the others have no kings but the rulers in Manila and Malaya are still all Sultans or Sultans' sons and the the leadership the leadership in Indonesia is in the outer islands is also based on some traditional factors the army playing an important role however too so there are places where traditionalism carries over and frequently it gets in the way a bit but it's probably better than simply complete destruction of it so you have you have to have some idea of how you can use their tradition and their sense of values and make that modulate over until it fits what we are convinced they need and let them try to make the decision now this takes a good deal of finesse and you can't take in some American advisors say now this is what you have to do it doesn't work we've got to be much more patient and understanding than we've been as (inaudible) all right now this is because we're going to have to quit but now you have done some writings in this area now tell me just briefly your favorite book and what's it about because it sounds good I think my best book probably is the history of modern Burma where you have where I was out in Rangoon for a full year and then in London for quite a while the book carries it clear up to the coup of 1962 I know Burma best I lived there before the war I was sent out by the State Department immediately after the war I was there on a Fulbright Guggenheim grant in 55 56 I have been back recently in 68 Burma is my favorite country but a very exasperating place to but that I think is generally recognized as the the best book on modern Burma and I'm very proud of it they actually use that book in the University of Rangoon and I'm extremely proud of that because ordinarily the (inaudible) books in English they just rule out at least I've convinced them that it is the best book on Burma and that's that's what I'm proud of and our guest has been dr. John Katie and I suspect if his sense of humor goes through his writing at all that the book it is a very very readable as well as being very good from the exact history background thank you very much and thank you very much for being here the little ark is opening in Des Moines with real premiere on Wednesday of this week that's correct and the producer the director all sorts of things happens to be Robert Radnitz and this is I would say what number almost five or six of a very successful this is my sixth film yes sixth film and the sixth award of this particular award yes this is we just found out last week this is the sixth time that the Parents magazine has awarded us their gold metal for picture of the ye of the period so we're very pleased about that and of course Parents magazine is not the only organization or group that has honored your abilities in many different ways if we spent the time going on down over the award we wouldn't have any time left right I want to talk about a little bit about the type of concerns or the concerns that you have in that area but first tell me a little bit about the the little ark well the little ark is based on a novel of Jan de Hartog you know wrote the four poster and the captain and the hospital it's a story of two children during the 1953 floods the most disastrous floods that they'd had in Holland two children and four animals a dog a cat a rabbit and a rooster who become separated from their family during the floods and on one level it's a story of the children's search for their family on another level it's a story that basically says that in times of stress what is comedic to children is horrendous to adults and vice versa and on another level it's a film that says that in times of stress people human beings seem to have an ability an affinity of working together and then when things start to get a little bit better we seem to fall back and fall apart again which is too bad so the film as well as the book is the kind of thing that I've generally looked for with the work that I've done that is I feel it it's possible to make a motion picture on a number of levels so that the adult viewing the film can enjoy it just as much as the younger person I see no need no necessity to talk down to young people when you're making a film for them the analogy that I like to use is that for instance when looking at literature for a moment that when Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn he didn't start out to say I'm now gonna write a book for children he wrote out of his own heart and out of his own mind he didn't talk down and consequently a youngster can read Huckleberry Finn you can read it again on a university level and you can read it again when you're older I think too much so-called Family Fare or children's fare talks down and I see no need for it well it certainly doesn't give it's a long answer to your question no that's alright the longer answer but at the same time this doesn't give even the varied abilities and experiences of a child a chance to uh to relate if you just take it to one level of children because were you going to find that one level exactly it doesn't exist I remember once the librarian saying something to me which i think is very applicable to what we're speaking of and that is that show me a children's book that an adult cannot pick up and enjoy and I will show you a children's book that a child will not enjoy and I think this is true I think that so much of what we have particularly on television you know it just allows them to sit there like non-reacting sponges with nothing happening up here it's ridiculous it's foolish it's no need for it and again the same thing could happen to the theater but I get terribly concerned about this in television too because you don't even have then the facial expressions to respond to back and forth and what happens and we get a batch of just stone-faced individuals it's quite possible all right what are some of your real concerns in addition to this as far as movies are concerned at the present time well one of the things that's concerned me and continues to concern me too particularly today is the whole issue of sex and violence in motion pictures although I make family films I personally have nothing against sex and violence in a motion picture with one simple proviso and that is that it not be gratuitous that it not be put in there as a grabber which is I think what's happening with about three-quarters of the films that we're getting on our screens today I don't believe that you can hide life from children and I think it's a mistake to try to do so what concerns me particularly is the gratuitous use of violence I'm not so concerned about the sexual area I am very concerned about the violence area it's not that I think that necessarily a child seeing violence on the screen or on television is necessarily gonna go out and shoot his father or something although that has happened what I am concerned about is that if they see that much of it it begins to inure them I think they begin to accept it as a way of life and I'm afraid or at least in my mind I think that in our country today we are be that's the greatest malaise that we have possibly is that we are becoming inured to violence children see so much of it on the screen they see it in newsreels and they have no framework of relation and so if it's in a film and there is a scene a scene of death in this particular film hopefully it's done in taste and hopefully it's within a framework in which they can relate and it's in a framework from a family standpoint where they can discuss it with their family and with older brothers and sisters or their teachers or whatever it happens to be and for me this is important the other thing that I try to do in my films besides entertained and and that word in itself is a strange word you know really what do we mean by entertainment entertainment for me means many things but in the brief time we have here entertainment for me really means involvement are we involved with what we say too frequently I think we're not we're just kind of sitting there like this you know I think the things that most entertain us are the things that most involve the things that we have to work along with that aren't just spoon-fed to us so much fare of this nature is pap and suet you know and nothing happens up here what I'm aim for as well is that it makes no difference in my films whether the story as this was the case in misty is a story of a youngster growing up in Virginia or whether in this particular case it's a story of two Dutch children or in my side of the mountain of a Canadian youngster or in now Miguel whether it be a story of a mexican-american child growing up that although these stories are particular to place and into the customs of those areas nevertheless people seeing them in an entirely different area for instance an Italian child seeing the story of my side of the mountain can look at that and say yes I understand that boy I can relate to that boy and if he's able to do that and if his family is able to do that and if anyone seeing the film is able to do that then they're able to make the other jump and say that people basically are the same the world over and for me this is very important in my films now do you film all these in a sense in the natural sort of environment yes I've shot every one of my films completely on location I've never shot a film on a back lot studio and never shot a film in Hollywood our present film little ark was shot completely in Holland we would never have been able to shoot the film I must say without the enormous cooperation of the Dutch government and the Dutch navy because from a logistics standpoint alone had meant flooding a whole area recreating this terrible flood of 53 what is more violent than that nothing is more violent than that and the interesting thing that happens if you shoot on a actual location is this first of all it gives an honesty to the film secondly from an educational standpoint people are able to see a part of the world that they haven't seen before or frequently haven't seen before and from a young persons standpoint it adds another dimension and that is this the first question that youngsters from about the age of 5 to about 12 always ask when they see a motion picture I mean I've constantly had this experience is they always ask is it real did it really happen it's the first and foremost they've been tricked too often and I'm sure that you'll enjoy the little ark and our guest has been Robert Radnitz and I hope that he continues to do more film thank you thank you Thank You Dorcas