01x05 - Create a New Society

[bunniefuu]

[narrator] Let's take stock.

So far, the playbook has shown you

how to seize power, crush your rivals,

brutalize your people into submission,

and replace objective truth

with your version of reality.

Now it's time to realize

the true promise of tyranny,

by reinventing your country

into the utopia

you always dreamed it could be.

[man] The more dangerous

and interesting tyrants

are really convinced

they are creating a better world.

[narrator] Think your country needs

a new national flag? No problem.

Feel like implementing

a brand-new education system

with you as the main subject? Why not?

The playbook provides

all the tools you need

to create your perfect society,

and no one committed to this

quite like Muammar Gaddafi,

who made the complete transformation

of the Libyan nation his life's work,

no matter who… or what… got in his way.

This mad dog of the Middle East

has a goal of a world revolution.

[narrator] Follow his example

and you'll discover

how you too can create

an enduring heaven on Earth,

with you as its guiding light.

[theme music plays]

Muammar Gaddafi's eccentric vision

transformed his countrymen's lives

in ways that were good, bad, and weird.

Gaddafi is a bit of a tragic, uh, figure,

somebody who really started off

wanting to change the society around him,

and in the end

started to believe in his own stories.

He was famously corrupt and greedy,

he had all kinds of affectations

of dress and manner.

He visited foreign countries

and would sleep outside in a tent.

[narrator] And yet, despite his quirks,

this revolutionary and fashion icon

managed to stay in power for 42 years.

Before we look at how Gaddafi

remade Libya in his own image,

there are a few things you should know.

I have all the solutions here.

Muammar Gaddafi's parents

were illiterate Bedouin nomadic people.

The environment was

very, very difficult indeed.

Libya was one of the poorest

countries in the world.

The only means of changing one's status

was to join the military,

and Gaddafi did precisely this.

Gaddafi saw the Western-backed monarch,

King Idris, as extremely corrupt.

[speaking Arabic]

[crowd clamoring]

[Diederick]

It was virtually a bloodless coup,

really because there were

no institutions in Libya

that were organized well enough

to really stand up for the king,

to protect the king.

[Waller] Gaddafi began probably

as a sincere reformer.

He wanted to modernize an entire nation.

[Ruth] He was hailed

as a kind of liberator

across the Arab world

and the African world.

But ultimately, he was not interested

in liberating anyone.

He was interested in enslaving them.

[narrator] Gaddafi's lesson

really does hold the promise and peril

-of building a new society.

-[crowd cheering]

If you want yours to succeed,

it's going to need some ground rules,

and it's your job to lay them down.

[speaking Arabic]

[narrator]

As the creator of your new society,

you're more than head of state.

You're the parent of your nation.

And to truly show your love,

you'll need to guide your flock

with a firm hand.

[man] Authoritarian rulers exercise rule

by limiting the rights the public enjoys.

The leaders often claim

that this is in the best interest

of the state, of the people.

[narrator] After all, tyrants know best.

Upon taking power in 1979,

Ayatollah Khomeini

revoked Iran's divorce law

and lowered the marriage age for girls

to as young as seven.

Under Hitler, the Nazis instituted

a strict anti-smoking policy,

inspired by the Führer's

personal distaste for tobacco.

While Turkmenistan's dictator

Saparmurat Niyazov

banned the use of lip-synching

at concerts in 2006

and banished dogs

from the country's capital

due to their unappealing odor.

[machine g*n fires]

Like all other dictators, Gaddafi knew

he had to repress civil liberties,

so he prohibited free speech

and rights of assembly.

He would make up the rules

as he went along.

[narrator] Following Islamic law,

Gaddafi banned alcohol

and shut down all night clubs.

Hiring domestic servants,

being a doctor or lawyer

in private practice,

and even hailing a cab

were also forbidden…

while prohibited domestic acts

like adultery

could earn the offenders

lashings and loss of limbs.

Gaddafi also banned trade unions,

workers' strikes,

and cracked down on the true enemy

of his new society: foreign chickens.

[chicken clucks]

[Mansour] Gaddafi says

that Libyans must grow their own food.

A country's not free

if it eats from overseas,

and he says, "Let's start with chicken."

[chicken clucks]

"All Libyans must grow their own chicken."

[narrator] But liberating people

from store-bought poultry

only gets you so far.

By 1976, he realizes that the people, uh,

don't really share this vision that he has

of how a country should be ruled.

He turns increasingly autocratic.

Elections disappear.

The positions of power are increasingly

occupied by loyalists of the regime.

So it becomes more and more

a classical dictatorship.

[narrator] And while

many Libyans seem fine

to embrace Gaddafi

as their absolute leader,

there were pockets of resistance.

As Gaddafi's repression expands,

student demonstrators

take to the streets in protest,

demanding that their freedoms be restored.

[crowd chanting]

[narrator] It's a moment of crisis

for the regime.

Gaddafi has a choice:

uphold the people's will or his own.

On April 7, 1976,

he makes the obvious decision.

Gaddafi sends his army

into the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi

to crush the protests.

Many who were detained are later released.

Others are not so lucky.

To make an example of those

that dared speak out against the regime,

a number of them

are accused of being traitors.

[narrator] On the first anniversary

of the protests,

two students,

Omar Dabob and Muhammed Ben Sa-oud,

are hung for their participation,

with a special guest in attendance.

From this day forward, Gaddafi declares

April 7th a national holiday.

And what better way to celebrate each year

than by rounding up his opponents

across the country?

It's a new annual tradition to make clear

that from now on, the leader is the law,

and the law must be obeyed.

Laying down the rules is a start,

but revealing the true promise

of your new society

will require even bolder action,

so think big.

Tyrants have great projects.

This is one of the ways

they can achieve immortality,

as a daily reminder of their greatness.

[narrator] Pick your projects well,

and they can upgrade your nation

and your image at the same time.

Hitler and the Nazis presented themselves

as the driving force

behind the Autobahn highway system,

which promised Germans

total mobility across the country.

Joseph Stalin greenlit the construction

of the state-of-the-art Moscow Metro

that was heralded as a triumph

of socialism when it opened in 1931.

While Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu

bulldozed one-fifth

of the capital city of Bucharest

to build the Palace of Parliament.

It took 13 years to complete.

It cost three billion dollars

and up to 3,000 workers' lives.

Too bad he was deposed and k*lled

before construction was completed.

Gaddafi had grand ambitions of his own,

and a key advantage to bring them to life.

[man] Gaddafi had an oil-rich economy.

The money is just coming out of the ground

and straight into his bank account.

After 1973,

the price of oil quadrupled globally.

He made a tremendous amount of money,

and he was able to use that money

for whatever he wanted to use it for.

[machine g*n fires]

[speaking Arabic] In the name of Allah,

we lay the foundation stone

for the Great Man-Made River.

[Diederick] Potable water

had become scarce in Libya,

so knowing there were these enormous

aquifers in the southern part of Libya,

Gaddafi set about exploiting those.

A man-made river that could one day

even turn desert into farmland.

[narrator]

What better symbol of a new society

than making the desert bloom?

Gaddafi's plan was

to drill into the Nubian fossil aquifer,

then transport the water

from there to northern Libya

through giant pipes and dams.

[Diederick] It was massive.

Pipelines of enormous dimensions,

literally hundreds and hundreds

of kilometers long.

[narrator] It didn't come cheap,

but Gaddafi saw the project

as his crowning glory

that would provide the majority

of Libya's water for decades.

He even began calling it

the eighth wonder of the world.

[magical chimes ringing]

Sadly, the construction met with issues.

[Diederick] There were all kinds

of problems with it.

Corruption was endemic,

so you saw lots of pipes exploding,

et cetera, et cetera.

[narrator] The Great Man-Made River took

nearly three decades to complete,

and some experts believe

the underground reserves will run out

before the end of this century.

But that will be someone else's problem.

[crowd cheering]

[Diederick] The Great Man-made River

Project was one of the very few ones

that was much

appreciated by the Libyans.

It was this kind of prestige project

that he could then portray as his own.

[narrator] But people have short memories.

You need to make sure

they never forget who's responsible

for the wonders they now enjoy.

How, you may ask.

I believe that children are our future,

so teach them well.

[man] Every dictator needs

a population that can read, write,

so they can work at menial jobs

producing money for the dictator.

What dictators don't want

is a well-educated population of people

with ideas who can become rivals.

[narrator]

For your new society to succeed,

you have to start early.

In Libya,

literacy and propaganda were twinned.

[narrator]

And Gaddafi's required reading list

for the nation's youth

was just one title long,

written by… you guessed it, himself.

The Green Book was

the Bible of Gaddafi's Libya.

Gaddafi would constantly cite from it.

Billboards had quotes from it.

[Diederick]

They were kind of random thoughts,

but because they came from Gaddafi,

nobody could question them.

[narrator]

But you can't let a few bad reviews

get in the way of your nation's future.

Kids would be taking tests

on Gaddafi's Green Book,

on what he said and what it means.

[narrator]

Now that's smart lesson planning.

The genius of Gaddafi's education system

wasn't just what it taught

the children of Libya,

it was also what it didn't.

In this new Libyan society, no history

before Gaddafi's reign was taught,

because what's the point of learning

about the bad old days?

No geography. Don't want people thinking

about the world or the way out.

No foreign languages. Don't need them.

And since Gaddafi saw units of measurement

as symbols of Western oppression,

he banned the metric system.

So maybe it wasn't all bad.

But sometimes,

despite all your careful planning,

your little ones still don't learn

what you want them to.

That's why Gaddafi liked throwing in

the odd face-to-face lesson,

just to make sure his message hit home.

In the summer of 1984,

thousands of school children

in the city of Benghazi

were told they were

going on a very special outing.

The students were loaded into buses

and transported

to the city's open-air basketball stadium.

But what they were about to see

was a whole different ball game.

The main attraction:

Al-Sadek Hamed Al-Shuwehdy.

[speaking Arabic] The accused

has confessed to t*rror1st activities.

[narrator] A 30-year-old engineer,

recently returned

from studying in the US.

The audience was told

they would be witnessing a trial,

but he was already condemned.

As the crowd realizes what is

about to happen, some beg for mercy.

Others celebrate.

But something goes wrong.

The condemned man doesn't die.

Out of the crowd, a woman emerges.

Her name: Huda Ben Amer.

And with a firm tug,

Huda finishes the job.

She became known as Huda the Executioner.

This act of helping the state

to m*rder an innocent victim

jump-started her political career,

and she actually became

Minister of Sports and Tourism.

[narrator] What a fitting reward

for serving as a role model

for the youth of the nation.

Especially the little girls.

But Huda's shining example also shows

how powerful,

and even deadly, one woman can be.

That's why,

on the path to building your new society,

you need to give

the fairer sex extra attention.

All the major dictators

in modern history have been men.

As a group, they see women as necessary,

but they also see women as dangerous.

The authoritarian mindset

responds to the restoration of a hierarchy

in which men sit atop of the social order.

[narrator] But Gaddafi wanted to be seen

as a modern tyrant,

building the perfect society

for all of his people.

In principle, Gaddafi argued

that, uh, women should be equal to men.

And so throughout his reign,

he tried to,

at least symbolically, uh, promote women.

[narrator] And what better symbol

of female promotion than this?

[disco music plays]

He had this weird bodyguard of women.

[camera shutter snaps]

Almost like something

out of a James Bond film.

Libya, when Mr. Gaddafi come, became free.

Before, the woman, uh… not free.

[Ruth] They accompanied him abroad.

Gaddafi was expert at manipulating media.

He knew exactly

what would get into photographers

and get into the TV screens.

[narrator] But behind closed doors,

things weren't quite as ready

for prime time.

Many people didn't know. Those bodyguards

were what some people call a harem.

[narrator] New members

of the Amazonian guard were recruited

during Gaddafi's travels

throughout the country.

He was partial to beautiful, young women,

some no more than 14.

Scouts from his current guard were

always on the lookout for fresh faces.

New recruits would be invited

to a private reception to meet the leader.

If a woman received a pat on the head,

she had been chosen,

and soon… she would disappear.

[tires screeching]

And whether she wanted to or not,

she'd become what Gaddafi called

a "virgin of the revolution,"

duty-bound to serve her leader.

[Ruth] These women were often

abused and r*ped by Gaddafi.

Sometimes girls were allowed

to go back to their families,

but in a traditional Muslim society,

many times they were shunned.

Gaddafi abused thousands of women

for years in this manner.

[all] Yah!

[narrator] It was all part

of Muammar's vision for his perfect world,

where the greatest honor was

to be of service to Libya,

and thus to him.

Gaddafi was the nation.

Dictators have a completely proprietary

view of the nation.

They own its… wealth. They own its people.

Their bodies are-- are his

to do what he wants.

[narrator] If you're Muammar Gaddafi,

it might now seem

that you've got everything you need

for your new society.

Money, loyal subjects,

concrete symbols of your greatness,

exciting job opportunities.

But now is no time

to rest on your laurels.

When there's a whole world out there

that's yet to learn

of your path to national glory,

why keep it to yourself?

Becoming an absolute ruler

is an impressive feat.

But creating a global movement?

That's the stuff of legends.

Which is why our most ambitious tyrants

love to spread their wings.

In 1940,

Adolf Hitler installed a puppet regime

known as the Vichy government

in occupied France,

which went on to strip citizenship

from the nation's Jews

and send more than 70,000

to die in concentration camps.

After World w*r II,

Joseph Stalin aggressively supported

the spread of Communist governments

across Eastern Europe and the Baltics,

creating a buffer zone

of countries friendly to him.

And China's Mao Zedong provided weapons,

cash, and supplies to North Vietnam

as part of his plan

to dominate Southeast Asia.

But for some tyrants,

hooking up can be tough.

[Mansour] He tried very hard

to be the center of attention

within the Arab world.

The leaders, they looked down upon him.

[narrator] But no matter

what the rest of the world thinks,

there are always going to be some groups

that will take you and your fat wallet

into their hearts.

[g*nshots]

Gaddafi sponsored

many, many separatist movements.

[narrator] Across the globe,

anytime a revolutionary group

needs some cash,

Gaddafi is there to provide.

The danger of allying

with the wrong sort of friends, however,

is that people judge you

by the company you keep.

[reporter]

It was around 2:00 a.m. in Berlin

when the b*mb went off

in the crowded La Belle discotheque.

Police say there were

about 500 people inside,

many of them off-duty US soldiers.

The b*mb exploded…

These murderers

could not carry out their crimes

without the sanctuary and support

provided by regimes

such as Colonel Gaddafi's in Libya.

[woman] Gaddafi was a t*rror1st.

He wanted the respect of the world

while he was terrorizing everybody.

We refuse to bow our heads

in front of America.

[narrator] Word to the wise:

terrorizing people at home is a lot easier

than taking on the entire Western world.

No one can k*ll Americans

and brag about it. No one.

[machine g*n fires]

[Ruth] When the Americans retaliated

and bombed Libya,

it was truly a shock to him,

because he thought he was infallible.

[crowd shouting]

[reporter]

As dawn shed light on the devastation

caused by the American bombing,

Washington said the targets were

military bases or t*rror1st camps.

This fallacy came to a crashing halt.

[narrator]

Beginning of the end? Not so fast.

When you're sitting on one of the world's

ten richest oil reserves,

you can afford the odd miscalculation.

But as you'll see,

the playbook will keep you in power

only as long as you heed its lessons.

Muammar is going to

find that out the hard way.

Gaddafi has a good thing going.

Wealth, power, impeccable fashion sense,

and a vision to create his ideal society.

But as the new millennium dawns,

the US goes to w*r

against S*ddam Hussein,

and life as a Middle Eastern dictator

starts to feel like a dicey proposition.

Our w*r against terror… is only beginning.

[narrator] When times get tough,

the playbook insists

that you ruthlessly

stick with your program.

-["Friends Are Friends" playing]

-Gaddafi chose a different path.

'Cause when friends are friends… ♪

[man] He made changes in policy…

It lasts forever ♪

…that he thought

would curry favor in the Western world.

Free speech,

freedom of assembly, free press.

He stopped torturing people.

Now, that's a nice thing to do,

but t*rture is a good way

to deter people from opposing you.

What was the consequence?

These are the mechanisms

by which people organize

and overthrow their governments.

[machine g*n fires]

[narrator] It's quite inevitable.

These enlightened reforms

will ultimately be seen

for what they really are: weakness.

[reporter] Colonel Gaddafi,

is your army deserting you?

-[expl*si*n blasts]

-[people clamoring]

I forgot your language.

They rose up against him,

the Western world did nothing to save him,

and he was dead.

[Ruth]

When he's finally cornered by rebels,

he says, "I haven't done anything.

Why are you treating me this way?"

[narrator] A fair question

under most circumstances.

[woman] He k*lled my brother, my cousin.

He k*lled my friends.

He burned my family's house.

[narrator] Though you might say

what doomed Gaddafi in the end

is that he abandoned the playbook,

went soft, and paid the ultimate price.

Eventually, of course,

um, he was hunted down and-- and k*lled.

[narrator] But take heart.

The playbook offers another path,

a gateway to achieving

the ultimate tyrant's dream:

a regime without end.

The final chapter awaits

in the hermit kingdom of North Korea,

where the Kim Dynasty

has cracked the code to eternal rule.

Are you ready to become a god?

[theme music plays]