Hug Joan Sekler

Interview and Hug by Ahmed Nassef

I have known Joan Sekler ever since we first met back in the fall of 1990 at a meeting of the Los Angeles Coalition Against US Intervention in the Middle East. One of the things that first impressed me about Joan is how, although a seasoned, life-long activist, she never got involved in the petty side-politics that often preoccupy progressives. While many were fighting over the fine points of Marxist sectarian doctrine, Joan was anxious to organize. Unlike so many of us who were so full of ourselves back then, she never judged other people according to ideological labels—if you were willing to work for justice, then you were OK in her book—and it was never about her ego, it was only about the cause.

Since then, Joan founded the Los Angeles Alternative Media Network (LAAMN), an online e-mail listserv on progressive activities in the Southland, co-founded the Los Angeles Independent Media Center, a worldwide network of independent journalists and videographers who produce media on political and social issues, and has been an associate producer and/or publicist for numerous political documentaries including the Academy Award winning film, "The Panama Deception" and "Yellow Wasps: Anatomy of a War Crime", about the war in Bosnia. She recently co-directed an award winning documentary, “Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Elections”, which details how George W. Bush stole the presidency of the United States… and got away with it. This film is being used by grassroots activists all over the country as an organizing tool to defeat George W. Bush in November 2004.

We sat down at a good old fashioned 4th of July family barbeque, hosted by in-laws Italian American style (pasta is served before the hot dogs), and talked about her life as a social justice activist, her new film, and how she plans to defeat President Bush in the next election.

MWU!: What do you hope will happen out of this Hug-a-Jew award?
Joan Sekler: I hope this can be a part of a cultural revolution where ethnic differences and the concept of race are eventually eliminated.

MWU!: When and how did you become an activist?
JS: It started when I went to college in 1958 at City College in New York. Back then, if you were in college, you had to get involved in politics. So through friends I met, I became involved in the civil rights movement through Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and in SANE, the anti-nuclear movement.

Then in September 1960, I took a trip to Cuba. It was just a year after the revolution there, and I had an amazing experience. I lived three months there, teaching English in cooperatives in the countryside, giving immunizations in rural clinics… I even got to meet Che Guevara!

When I came back, people were just beginning to talk about the developing war in Vietnam. I took part in the May 2nd Movement in 1964, when we organized the first major national demonstrations against US intervention in Vietnam. We marched from Columbia University to the UN Headquarters.

From then on, I became very active with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organizing against the Vietnam War.

MWU!: What happened after the Vietnam War?
JS: Everything just fizzled out, and everybody just decided to get a career.

MWU!: Many sixties anti-war activists ended up disappearing from the activism scene. What made you continue to work in progressive causes?
JS: I guess I was never interested in becoming rich and famous—I just always wanted to work for social justice and pursue my ideals. We are raised here to be consumers, and I don’t want to just be a consumer.

MWU! How does President Bush compare with other Presidents whose policies you’ve opposed?
JS: Dr. Lawrence Britt wrote recently about how fascist regimes from Hitler to Suharto to Pinochet all have 14 things in common…like the use of nationalism, finding scapegoats, a controlled mass media, an obsession with national security, fraudulent elections, etc. And the scary thing about Bush is that you can find most of these points at play now. I haven’t seen anything like it in my life here in this country.

MWU!: What is the issue that worries you the most?
JS: It’s that most Americans can’t see—or are not allowed to see—the bigger picture. Like you might see a report on the news one night about how Bush wants to privatize Medicare, then the next night, there might be a story about how he’s eliminating overtime for millions of workers, but they don’t make the connections. When they finally do, I hope it’s not too late.

MWU!: When you decided to make “Unprecedented”, you had to pay for the whole project out of your own pocket in the beginning, even to the point of using friends’ air miles… why was it so important for you to make this film?

JS: Because there was this huge story that wasn’t being told. During the whole controversy, the media was concentrating on the hanging chads and butterfly ballots. But that was never part of the Republican plan in Florida. The real story is how they systematically suppressed the African American vote because 93% of African American voters are Democrats. It all started two years before the 2000 presidential elections when the State of Florida paid $5 million to a private company to make a centralized computerized list of people who are not eligible to vote. Most of the names on that list were ex-felons since Florida is one of the remaining states which does not automatically restore voting rights to ex-felons. Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, and the Division of Elections under her, instructed this private company to include residents of Florida on that computerized list who had similar names or birthdates to ex-felons, but were not exact matches.

So let’s say there was an ex-felon named Bill White; that company excluded everyone named Bill White, plus anyone named William F. White, Sr. or Jr. or Billy White, etc. Since African Americans are in the criminal justice system in disproportionate numbers, this computerized list impacted tens of thousands of African American voters who were illegally purged from the voter rolls.

To this day, we don’t know how many African Americans tried to vote on election day but were turned away at the polls because they were purged from the rolls. But we do know that when civil rights groups settled a lawsuit against Jeb Bush and the State of Florida last year, it was discovered that 95% of the 94,000 names on that list were not exact matches. Under that legal settlement, Florida is supposed to clean up that list by November 2004, in time for the next presidential election. Who knows if that will happen!

MWU!: What does being Jewish mean to you?
JS: I’ve been a secular Jew all my life, and I have always had close friends of different nationalities and religions. I grew up in a family that really cared about social justice, even though they weren’t political activists. I’ve also always believed that the only realistic solution to what is happening in the Middle East is for Palestinians and Jews to live in a democratic, multi-cultural, multi-religious country.

MWU!: How can Muslims and Jews get along better?
I think the only way is to develop personal friendships. When you know Muslims as friends, then you won’t believe all the crap you hear about Muslims being terrorists and all that. But it’s very hard to develop these relationships, since we live in a very segregated society here.

For more information on "Unprecedented", and for a schedule of screenings in your area, visit the film's official website.
Click here to watch a clip (Real).

The film is also available for purchase through Amazon.com in VHS and DVD formats.