WhirledView

Singapore Then and Now

by Patricia H. Kushlis

Last summer the Santa Fe Opera staged the World Premiere of Somerset Maugham’s “The Letter,” a compelling short story set in Singapore. Or mostly set in Singapore because this tale of murder on a rubber plantation begins, well, on a rubber plantation somewhere in the then British colony of Malaysia before the action moves south to the city of Singapore at the base of the tri-ethnic Malaysian peninsula. I meant to write about the opera much earlier – not to critique it because I’m not a music critic – but simply as I saw it from an audience point of view as well as to put it in a Southeast Asian context since I spent portions of my Foreign Service career serving in the region. (Photo top left of Patricia Racette (Leslie Crosbie)and Robert Maddalena (Howard Joyce) in court in Singapore in "The Letter" at the Santa Fe Opera 2009. Photo by Ken Howard courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.)

But then other things intervened – including a month long trip to East Asia. As it turned out my trip included two segments of several days each in Singapore – a predominately Chinese city which has – ever since I’ve known it beginning with my first visit in 1973 – been on Southeast Asia’s economic cutting edge. This is not to say, that Singapore is a model democracy.

A Model Democracy Singapore is not.

Nevertheless, I think the autocratic rule of the aging Lee Kuan Yew, incorrigible Minister Mentor since 1991, has moderated some under the prime ministership of his son Goh Chok Tong and for what it's worth, the city has a new parliament building. However, this city-state on the Singapore Straits has done a lot right over the years for the economic betterment of many of its peoples although the Gini coefficient of rich to poor is even larger than in the US and may be at an all time high. This is because of Singapore’s frenetic construction boom and the need to import unskilled labor to provide the needed brawn. Yet Singapore is light years away from the sleepy provincial colonial capital of the days when Maugham wiled away his time on the veranda of the venerable Raffles Hotel spinning his sultry, but far from sleepy, Southeast Asian tales.

Indian Embassy Publishes Well-Vetted Text, not Juicy Transcript of PM Manmohan Singh’s CFR Address

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

What a powerful address! I thought. The whole agenda is here.  Boom!  Boom! Boom!  I was watching Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the Council on Foreign Relations via C-Span on Monday night. 

But the question-and-answer period was even more interesting. Perhaps that’s why it was missing from the version I printed out from the Indian Embassy’s website, although the U.S. State Department scrupulously includes such exchanges as well as any prepared presentation when American leaders speak to foreign audiences.  These missing passages were so arresting, in fact, that both American and Indian newspapers quoted them in subsequent new stories.

Fortunately the Council on Foreign Relations provides a full transcript of speaker’s interactions with its audiences on its website.  Here the salient passage:

HAASS: Last question about China. There has been a lot of talk in the literature about the comparison of the Indian and the Chinese approaches to development. A question I had is, why do you believe that India's is preferable, assuming you do, given that China has grown at a higher rate for more years?

SINGH: Well, there is no doubt that the Chinese growth performance is superior to Indian performance. But I've always believed that there are other values which are important than the growth of the gross domestic product. I think the respect for fundamental human rights, the respect for the rule of law, the respect for multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious rights, I think those have values also.

There are several dimensions of human freedom, which are not always (caught ?) by the numbers with regard to the gross domestic product. So I do believe that even though the Indian performance with regard to GDP might not be as good as the Chinese, certainly I would not like to choose the Chinese, but I would prefer to stick to the India part.

Also, I believe India may appear as indecisive democracy at times. And it does, because many democracies are short-term maximizers. They're not able to take a long-term view.

But I have also believed that once a democracy decides on the basis of a wide-ranging consensus, any reforms that are undertaken will be far more durable, will be far more effective than reforms introduced by the writ of a ruling group in a non-democratic setup.

HAASS: Ladies and gentlemen, you've just been treated to an economist saying there's more to life than GDP. (Laughter and applause.) This is an important moment. (Laughs.)

Based on his administration's record of retaining all too many Bush administration anti-terrorism measures, I’ve come to doubt the strength of President Obama’s commitment to civil liberties, but at least he was willing to sign on to some “shared values” in the Joint Statement issued by the two leaders, who  

noted that the shared values cherished by their peoples and espoused by their founders – democracy, pluralism, tolerance, openness, and respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights – are acquiring an increasingly greater prominence in building a more peaceful, prosperous, inclusive, secure and sustainable world. These values are exemplified by the vibrant linkages between their peoples, which are a unique asset for both countries, and are reflected in the role played by the Indian-American community.

Otherwise, during this five day state visit, it was Manmohun Singh who kept hammering away at the democratic principles that should make for a close and enduring relationship between the U.S. and India.  During the Welcome Ceremony, he said:

India and American are separated by distance, but bound together by the values of democracy, pluralism, rule of law and respect for fundamental human freedoms.

Toasting at the State Dinner, he said:

Mr. President, your journey to the White House has captured the imagination of millions and millions of people in India.  You are an inspiration to all those who cherish the values of democracy, diversity and equal opportunity.

No doubt these bits are digs at China as well as a way of reminding the American president that India really is a more compatible partner. Either way, keep it up, Mr. Prime Minister. American leaders these days tend to forget what America is/was/should be about.

100,000 American Students to China?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Why is it that the US media focused almost exclusively and sometimes even rather "creatively" on the atmospherics surrounding President Obama’s recent trip to Asia but ignored much of the substance? Didn’t the White House reporters who accompanied the president understand that foreign affairs and substance are related? Don’t they realize that parsing the sentences of a joint communiqué or even reading the text of or listening to a Town Hall meeting (as opposed to being frustrated because they couldn’t use instant messaging to contact their editors – or Twitter their fans due to over-zealous Chinese censors) can bear not only fruit but a few surprises? And maybe even a news article at that? Or don’t they care? Or perhaps future educational opportunities for young Americans just don't rate.

One US media ignored surprise

One of those media ignored surprises was President Obama’s commitment first announced at the Town Hall meeting in Shanghai to expand the number of American students studying in China from 20,000 to 100,000. This commitment was reiterated in more detail later in a joint communiqué issued in Beijing. The number 100,000 was likely selected to match the approximate number of Chinese currently studying in the US. Regardless, it would also represent a huge jump in American students studying abroad. Furthermore, it would be an about-face from the Bush administration’s policies that emphasized one way “exchanges” – namely foreigners coming here – while specializing in sending Americans abroad on troop ships or planes.

I had decided ever since I lived in the Philippines in the early 1990s that it was as important for Americans to travel, live and work abroad as it is for the US to play host to foreigners. Unfortunately, the successive administrations all too often saw it differently. The US government related programs that did involve two way exchanges – with the exception of Fulbright and the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange – were defunded, eliminated or devalued. But in reality, several of them were by far the most cost effective. They also had the greatest chance of furthering long term people-to-people connections - which is what I thought student and youth exchanges were all about anyway.

An Agreement "in principle"

According to the US-Chinese communiqué, the two governments agreed “in principle to establish a new bilateral mechanism to facilitate these (student) exchanges.” The communiqué also states that the US “seeks to encourage more Americans to study in China by launching a new initiative to send 100,000 students to China over the coming four years.” Presumably this would occur under the rubric of the US-Chinese Cultural Agreement to be renegotiated in 2010 - although the communiqué itself does not so state.

Pleasing China, Insulting India

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

The president of a republic bows to an emperor!  Not a courteous reciprocal nod in lieu of a handshake, but very very deeply!  Didn’t anyone bother to tell Barack Obama that presidents and emperors are equals as heads of state?  Even I, this mere citizen of a republic, would not curtsey to the Queen of England or bow to an emperor any further than he would bow to me.  The U.S. rejected subservience to hereditary rulers long long ago. 

Subsequently Obama’s conduct in China amounted to one kowtow after another.  Hasn’t he got protocol people who can explain the difference, verbal and otherwise, between due respect for others and servility?  Ah well, debtors can’t be choosers, I suppose.

And then!  Did your ears hear this?  Did my eyes see this?  It wasn’t just a matter of overdosing on politeness.  It was a gaffe of monumental—should I say Himalayan?—proportions.  The joint statement by the U.S. and China on Tuesday said:

The two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace and development in that region.

The Chinese must have chortled over that one! 

But surely Obama’s advisers realize that India and China are bitter competitors who nevertheless sometimes manage to do a little mutually beneficial trading.  Trade aside, they  have an adversarial relationship along the northern border of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (see my recent post) and in Kashmir.  Mere weeks before Barack Obama set foot in Beijing, China was once again claiming territory that China had invaded in 1962.  Surely Obama’s advisors also know that Pakistan became an India-threatening nuclear power with the assistance of China.  It worked like this: India needed the bomb because China had the bomb, so China helped Pakistan to the bomb in order to retilt the balance in favor of China.  In fact, China has pursued a relentless policy of isolating and undermining India for decades, as I’ll detail below.  How, then, could  President Barack Obama have invited China to join the U.S. in “promoting peace” in South Asia?  You don’t ask a partisan to mediate.

As for asking China to “promote development” in South Asia, surely India could be expected to take that as an insult, pure and simple.  Should India trade the democratic model for one party rule?  Should India trade freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of religion, a free press, true ethnic and minority rights for Beijing’s totally authoritarian model?   As the old saying went, Hitler and Mussolini made the trains run on time, but were they models for the good society?  Sadly, the U.S. chooses convenience over democracy again and again.  We expected better of Obama.

The Internet, Obama and the Chinese Censors

By Patricia H. Kushlis

I’ve been dubious about the efficacy of social networking for government – or commercial – communication purposes for some time.   At least, I’m skeptical of too much reliance on social networking and the Internet in lieu of all other forms of communication - especially in communicating with foreign audiences.   The web is still no panacea. Especially in countries like China.

 OK.  So call me Neanderthal.

 But it’s pretty clear that an approach that works in communicating with the citizens of one country does not necessarily have the same reverberations or impact elsewhere.

 Let’s just take President Obama’s Town Hall meeting in  Shanghai on November 16 as a case in point.  This turned out to be a tame Q and A with about 400 Chinese Communist Party selected university students.  Even so the Chinese government censors limited the media coverage to local TV and Xinhua, China’s official news agency, while blocking – among other forms of media - Facebook and YouTube.  Meanwhile Chinese bloggers the US had hoped to invite to the event were barred by the Chinese government from attending and dissidents were rounded up ahead of time.  Although the Soviets didn’t have to worry about the Internet because it had yet to be born,  the latter move was an all too typical Soviet approach to restricting citizen access to high level foreign visitors from the West.

Overkill by the censors?

 Seems to me the media restraints in Shanghai were overkill on the part of the Chinese censors.  This was far from their finest hour.  If anything, they simply drew western media attention to a still uber-paranoid and stultified government “information” bureaucracy that has not yet caught up with the new freer-wheeling international communications environment that many young Chinese would like to be a part of.    

One has to ask the question whether the US Embassy should have recommended that the President cancel the event - given the constraints placed upon it.   Or, perhaps, Embassy staff did not know ahead of time that the Town Hall would be as restricted, scripted and constricted as it was.  Or perhaps they did, and chose to go ahead regardless but decided to conclude with the lone question that Ambassador Huntsman read out as the finale, a question that had been e-mailed to the US Embassy website asking about the President’s views on Internet censorship in China.  The question and response obviously caught even the censors off-guard.

Here's the White House's answer  bottom line - they did know in advance and for sensible reasons (including the large numbers of Chinese they would be reaching in any event) decided to proceed.

East Asian Impressions: Take One

By Patricia H. Kushlis

I just returned from nearly a month in East Asia.  My trip included Shanghai, Singapore, several places in Laos along the Mekong River from north of Luang Prabrang to the Cambodian border,  and Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. at the Mekong's mouth.  This was my first trip back to the region since a three week tour of China in 2004 and one of Vietnam and Cambodia in 2003. This is also why I haven’t posted much on WhirledView since I left the US on October 18.

The good news is that East Asia – with the exception of Japan – is coming out of recession far faster than predicted and the turn-around is led by China.  Much is due to the Chinese government’s domestic pump-priming financed out of its huge reserves.  But the latest numbers indicate that Chinese private sector growth is also increasing and that the country is set for 8-9 percent growth for 2009. (Photo left:  Shanghai, Pu Dong, by PHKushlis 10-23-09)

The annual APEC (Asia and Pacific Economic Council) Summit took place in Singapore over the November 14-16 weekend.  In reality, APEC began the weekend before: delegates were being welcomed at the airport when we arrived there on November 4 with special passport control lines reserved for them.

Ministerial meetings began last week:  Hillary Clinton, for instance, was photographed having coffee at Starbucks in Suntec City, one of two major APEC meeting sites, on November 11.  The Chinese president had already arrived in Singapore, Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev is making his first visit to Singapore and the November 12 edition of The Straits Times (Singapore) was rife with speculation about where the various leaders would be, or were already, staying.  Given the wealth of luxury hotels in the city, there are more than enough to go around.  Obama, for instance, was rumored for the Shangrila. (Photo above right  "Singapore Welcomes You" by PHKushlis 11-11-09)

 China’s Soft Power Diplomacy: Playing the Panda Card

 But the news that dominated the front page of The Straits Times the day I left was the present of a young panda pair to the Singapore Zoo from the Chinese leadership to the Singaporeans.  China’s president who had already arrived, presumably bore the new bears message. The black and white furry “gifts,” however, do not come without strings – including a healthy price tag for the Singaporeans and the promise to repatriate any future panda off-spring to China.

 What I had not known, however, about this cuddly form of diplomacy is that the Chinese only offer pandas to countries with which they have especially good relations.  According to the newspaper whose reporter did some homework, the Chinese first used panda diplomacy in the Seventh Century and Singapore will be only the seventh country to be offered a panda pair.  Earlier recent recipients were the US, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Austria and Taiwan.

Clearly then, Chinese-Taiwanese relations are on an up-swing. Not only did Taiwan receive a panda pair, but it is now possible to fly directly from Shanghai to Taiwan – something that shaves off hours and relieves much needless aggravation.  What is also interesting is the countries not on the panda-receipt list.  Think about it.   (Photo above left of young panda pair at Chengdu Panda Preserve by PHKushlis 2004)            

From APEC to ASEAN

Barack Obama is scheduled to devote November 15 to APEC meetings as well as one multilateral with ASEAN heads of state before departing for Shanghai.  He arrived for the conclusion of the dinner on November 14.

This is the first time an American President has ever met with ASEAN counterparts – as incredible as that may seem given Asia’s economic and security importance to the US.  One supposedly controversial aspect of this particular meeting is that the Burmese president will be in the group of 10 and US policy towards the junta has been to shun engagement of any sort until Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs in the State Department, visited Rangoon last week where he met with less august levels of the ruling clique as well as Aung San Suu Kui still under house arrest.  The Obama administration has – following its predecessors lead – continued to press for her release.  Whether they will succeed where others have failed is an open question.

Because of the Ft. Hood killings, Obama cut his Asian trip a little short.  Because of the recent change in Japanese governments and the new government’s decidedly less pro-American stance towards the US and the US base on Okinawa, Obama spent nearly two days in Tokyo meeting with the new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama and others.  The discussion with Hatoyama focused on security, not economic, issues. His major speech on US-Asian relations was also delivered there.  Whether or not the latest fracas between North and South Korea was mentioned was not indicated - and no reporters asked the question in the press briefing thereafter. But certainly recognition of and concern for the plight of Japanese who have been abducted by the North Koreans was because several of the families of the abductees were in the audience for Obama's speech at Suntory Hall.

Obama More Popular than the US - Latest Pew Poll

The most recent Pew public opinion survey of Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans indicates that Obama is more popular in Asia than is the US.  I don’t know whether this is true or not.  Clearly, Obama is far more popular among many people who live outside the US than his predecessor.  This is true from what I heard during my travels - albeit totally unscientifically.   But the degree of differentiation between reactions to the President and the US as a whole among Asians as also reflected in the Pew survey is beyond my level of competency.  The troubles with the US economy may be a major factor influencing the poll results. So too would be the way the US is portrayed in the various national media.

The George W. Bush administration had developed a good relationship with the Chinese – but pretty much ignored everyone else so Obama and the rest of his administration need to keep the Chinese relationship on track while fence-mending with the others.  There was no coincidence then that Hillary Clinton's first foreign trip abroad as Secretary of State was to Asia.  Thus far, it seems, they’re off to a good start. And the Asians like it.

       

The Borderline Blues

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Walls are always porous in one way or another, yet people keep building them because boundaries are frightening places where various sorts of intellectual and physical miscegenation occur.

The space between armies or warring states is traditionally a no man’s land, a place that’s safe for no one.  As one set of laws and customs meets another, a gap occurs where no writ applies, especially if that boundary coincides with mountains or jungles or pirate-ridden oceans or vast deserts, all of which have always symbolized the unbounded—the savage, the fantastic, the unowned, the undisciplined.  Walled or not, legal or not, borders are essentially arbitrary.  They break down.  They become bones of contention.  They make news.

Borders have been much in the news this week.  The Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago.  That erasure of ideological boundaries was celebrated this week.  Meanwhile, India and China were at odds over the Dali Lama’s visit to Tawang because the two countries cannot agree on where their Eastern boundary runs. Here at home, the U.S. Supreme Court has to decide whether there is an inviolable line to be drawn between adulthood and adolescence when it comes to punishment for violent crime.  Many of the issues in play during the current period of economic recovery have to do with the boundaries between government and private enterprise in our economic lives. The American doctrine of the separation of church and state is also a border issue—as is the application of Sharia Law.  

Dragons and Diplomacy

So far as China is concerned, the dragon has been breathing heavily, in hopes of controlling people and events far from its physical borders.   The Frankfurt Book Fair erupted in controversy when China attempted to dictate which writers of Chinese origin could be featured during the Fair.   Because of its intense concern about its internal boundaries, China breathes heavily on countries that allow Uighur nationalists to speak more freely outside China than they may within Chinese borders; ditto for Tibetans.    As I wrote last week, China’s baleful influence even reached into the White House, preventing President Obama from meeting with the  Dali Lama.  Sanctions and financial manipulations are other ways to achieve, more or less subtly or successfully, cross border influence.

Thus, there are so many ways in which countries attempt to control events beyond their  formal boundaries.  War is one.  The threat of war is almost as effective.  Diplomacy is another way to achieve influence across borders, as is its hand-maiden public diplomacy, which characteristically attempts to distinguish itself from propaganda. The latter is no small debate.  It concerns the borders to be respected when attempting to influence.  At one end of the spectrum is rational persuasion through information and facts; at the other end is emotional manipulation—or worse.  At what point does legitimate persuasion turn into fraud, deceit, duplicity, conning?  All of the latter are usually considered to be immoral and/or illegal, however effective they may be in achieving the manipulator’s ends.  And how about this one—when does psychological pressure or physical discomfort turn into torture?  In domestic politics, a related boundary question is this: when does an inspiring speech turn into demagoguery?  Indeed, much of the debate over health care reform has crossed the border from informed debate to scare-mongering.

Blind Buddhas and Incendiary Cartoons

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Santa Fe is full of Buddhists, but no one has erupted with religious rage since this image (a sculpture by David Kimble Anderson) was placed on display in the atrium of a building that housed an art gallery and other business enterprises.  As anyone with the least facility in reading symbols will immediately have grasped,  there are innumerable ways of interpreting this work of art.  Since many possible interpretations are decidedly negative, I found my recalling the violent  reactions to the now infamous Danish cartoons, which were condemned by many believers as an affront to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.  The result?  Riots in several countries.  Some people unfortunately died.

Multiple Interpretations

Let’s consider some ways in which the Anderson piece might be understood.  The gold surface could be an indictment of materialism on the part of traditional Buddhist temple builders or on the part of current practitioners whose lives verge, hypocritically perhaps, on the sumptuous.  Of course, many traditional images of the Buddha are also flamboyantly gilt, to symbolize the transcendent value of the teachings and to honor the one who enunciated them.

In this case, however, the figure appears to be bandaged.  It is, evidently, blind and essentially quadriplegic.  Unable to see.  Unable to act.  Impotent.  Useless.  Is this a statement about the futility and irrelevance of Buddhism? On the other hand, meditative insights are available to those who sit without moving,  looking inward.  Sometimes these insights have effects that are far more powerful than actions that are not guided by wisdom. 

Which, one wonders, did the sculptor have in mind?

Mummies, Too

I simply don’t know.  When I first saw this image, I was and still am totally ignorant of the sculptor’s intention, as ignorant as many of those who rioted over the Danish cartoons surely were.  Nor would many of those angry Muslims have cared in the least whether the cartoonists’ intentions were pure or not.  The cartoons, taken at face value, appear to insult the prophet.  Enough.

This past weekend I had an opportunity to show a photo of the blind Buddha to a very knowledgeable Buddhist teacher/scholar.  “Give me your first reaction,” I asked.  “How do you feel?  What are your unconsidered thoughts?”  I should have known better.  I did not get any unconsidered thoughts. 

But I did get some interesting information.  This scholar said that the image reminds him of the mummy of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Cha’an (or Zen) Buddhism, who was born in AD 638 and is known for enunciating the revered Diamond Jewel Platform Sutra.  Evidently it was the custom to mummify great teachers back then in China.  The proper term, I just learned courtesy of Google, is “whole body relics.”  Mummies!  This seemed strange to me.  Buddhism supposedly teaches impermanence, while mummies are intended to make the physical remains last forever or as long as possible.  My bewildered personal reaction to Buddhist mummies notwithstanding, could Anderson’s work be an homage to Hui Neng?

And so the inquiry widens, opening my horizons, giving me pause to think.

Looks Like We’ve Given Up

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

For decades now the US has been closing its cultural centers and trying to whip up enthusiasiam for cheap substitutes which surveys have shown to be ineffectual.  The rationale for the cost cutting jag?  That old end of history canard.  Once the Cold War was over, there’d be no need to promote the American brand.  We’d won.  The future was us—the U.S.

The Greeks were so right about the need for self-knowledge and the dangers of hubris.  Our joy and relief when the Berlin Wall came down were so extreme that we thought the U.S. would be on top for ever—well, there were some level headed sorts who considered such thinking to be absurd, but they were pooh-poohed.  We cut back on our public diplomacy programs, and within ten years our public diplomacy agency went poof!  Gone.  In all fairness, I need to add that the Brits were cutting back on British Council expenditures, the French were less generous to their Alliance Française operations and the Germans were closing Goethe Centers, too.  The West, in general, was pretty smug about winning the Cold War and was determined to reap financial dividends.

But history, as it will, moved on.  Islam exploded, Russia refused to play the role of deferential poor provincial cousin, and if the 20st century was the American century, the competition for which country will dominate the 21st century seems to be constrained only by the never properly appreciated or understood efforts of India to deny the honor to the Chinese.  However, the Chinese are looking so good that the Russians, evidently, have decided to follow the Sino one-party-capitalism model to prosperity.

WhirledView Weekend - Sunday afternoon at the Lensic with Nobuyuki Tsujii and the Santa Fe Symphony

By Patricia H. Kushlis

The Santa Fe Symphony’s opening concert for the 2009-10 Season last Sunday featured Van Cliburn Competition winner Nobuyuki Tsujii performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor. The twenty one year old blind Japanese pianist is already a sensation in Japan. He burst onto the American scene at the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition in Ft. Worth, Texas where this crowd pleaser shared the gold medal with 19 year old Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang.   

 Tsujii is amazing – not just for overcoming his tremendous visual handicap – but for his wonderfully lyrical interpretation of Chopin, a welcome respite from the hard bitten pyrotechnics of far too many young celebrity pianists today.

 His performance in Santa Fe was filmed by Japanese television for inclusion in a documentary being made about Tsujii for broadcast in Japan.  How much of the  footage from Santa Fe’s Lensic Theater will make the final cut, of course, is another question but if filming a full house, multiple curtain calls, standing ovations, an excellent orchestra, an attractive and unique venue and an encore are indications of audience approval then at least a clip should appear. 

Tsujii’s win makes him the first Japanese ever to have won the 47 year old Van Cliburn Competition.  No wonder, then, that Japanese television decided to make the documentary.