Timor Goksel on Lebanon After Last Summer's War

DATE July 12, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Timor Goskel of UNIFIL on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Today marks the first anniversary of the start of the war between Israel and
Hezbollah. Parts of southern Lebanon remain in ruins, and the country is
chaotic and unstable. Hezbollah claimed victory in the war and has been
demanding more power in the government. Since December, Hezbollah supporters
have been camped out near the prime minister's office in Beirut, calling for
the government to step down. Meanwhile, the Lebanese military has been
attacking radical Islamists in a Palestinian refugee camp. Joining us from
the BBC studio in Beirut is Timor Goksel. He got to know all the players in
Lebanon during his nearly 25 years with UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force
created by the UN to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and restore peace
and security. He served as UNIFIL's spokesperson and senior political
adviser. He joined in 1979, the year after the peacekeeping force was
created. Now he teaches at the American University of Beirut. Goksel is from
Turkey.

Timor Goksel, welcome to FRESH AIR. You know, as an example of what life is
like in Lebanon now, I'd like you to just describe where the BBC studio in
Beirut is that you're speaking to us from and what it's like to get to where
you are at that studio.

Mr. TIMOR GOKSEL: Well, this studio is in a building which houses many media
organizations, and is situated about 100 yards from the prime minister's
office, which is in this beautiful old Ottoman building called the
Grand...(unintelligible)...or the Great Palace.

And about seven months ago, you might recall, when Hezbollah made this protest
here against the government and then they decided that they will sit around
the government office, the prime minister's office. Well, that sit-in became
a tent city, hundreds if not thousands of people, especially in the first
months, spend 24 hours here. A city was born here, made out of tents. Very
quickly it became fully equipped with washrooms, toilets, municipal services,
etc. But of course it is surrounded by the army and the police and rolls and
rolls of barbed wire and other obstacles. So if you come here now it is quite
a hassle to get here actually, because we are constantly stopped and asked
where are you going, your ID. You are always checked and then finally you
find the building that we used to come and go with easier hundreds of times in
the past, and then I had to enter from the garage downstairs, be escorted from
up the stairs to the lobby three floors up and then from there take the
elevator to come to the BBC, and I--believe me, I have full admiration for all
these people who can cope with this in every day of their lives.

GROSS: So this whole area is surrounded by like a tent city of people
protesting the government and demanding that it leave?

Mr. GOKSEL: Yes, definitely, and I didn't think--I mean, I believe that even
Hezbollah, when they decided this very unique and unusual protest method,
surely they didn't think it will last this long. They probably thought that
they will be able to get something from the government as a concession, but
that concession did not come, and it did cause, I'm sure, a lot of soul
searching in Hezbollah. `Why did I get involved in this sort of street
protest?' Not all of them are very happy with this. They rather see
themselves as a resistance movement and not as a street political group. So
here we are. They are...(unintelligible).

But what the result is, this is the downtown area, which was, during the civil
war the destroyed green line. It was totally rebuilt, it really became the
center of Beirut, heavily secured area,
restaurants...(unintelligible)...shopping now is a deserted ghost town. There
are only one or two restaurants and cafes open. It's a big blow definitely to
the Beirut economy.

GROSS: From what I've been reading in American newspapers, it sounds like,
because Lebanon is in such chaos that Lebanon is becoming a haven for radical
Muslims leaving Iraq.

Mr. GOKSEL: Not only leaving Iraq. I mean, Lebanon has always--I mean, they
had a civil war here because every other criminal or guys who are, you know,
exiled from their countries or politicians or what have you, ended up in
Lebanon because it's a liberal country--I mean, in Arab terms, in Middle
Eastern terms, it is essentially a democracy, and so it has always been a
haven for people escaping from the tyranny of the Arab regimes around us. And
any source, it's very easy to enter Lebanon. There are no marked borders,
really, between Syria and Lebanon. If you cannot come by the airport, you
just walk across because there is no marked border.

Now, there is a unique, also, element in Lebanese, that the presence of these
Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, we have now 12 of these official camps,
we call them; there are about 20 or so unofficial Palestinian settlements
inside Lebanon. Now, these official camps, which are administered by the
United Nations Refugee Organization for the Palestinians are off-limits to
Lebanese security. Lebanese police and the army cannot enter these places.
So now even if the people you are asking about, if he comes from Iraq, goes
towards Syria, enters Lebanon with no hassle, and the minute he finds himself
in a Palestinian camp, he's home free. He is untouchable. Nobody can touch
him. He could be the worst murderer in the world. So what happens in
Lebanon? Even the criminal, the ordinary crooks, are ending up in Palestinian
camps because they are free from the government, the police, the army, the
whole lot.

GROSS: With the 12 Palestinian refugee camps being havens for people who are
the criminals or radicals, how is that affecting day-to-day life in Lebanon?

Mr. GOKSEL: Well, what's happening is that these people get organized in
these camps, and these camps, since the Palestinians in Lebanon have so
minimal rights, they cannot work in 70 jobs. There is a list of that. They
cannot improve their housing. They have to stay in this improvised, most
miserable conditions. Their economic situation is very bad, and there is a
huge number of young people just hanging about carrying a gun or looking for a
job that will give them anything, which includes carrying a gun for anybody
who offers the best price. And now we have an environment like this and we
have the criminal elements in those camps, they are finding ready recruits for
whatever their cause is, be it religious, political or pure, ordinary crime.
And there is a pool of recruits, young people, who know at least how to carry
a gun and shoot it and who don't mind shooting you, because they are bored,
they are frustrated, and they have nothing to look to--these young
Palestinians--can cause very serious security problems in this country
because, as I said, there, nobody can go after them.

GROSS: You know, right after the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Hezbollah
was seen by many people in Lebanon and many people throughout the Arab world
as being heroic because it stood up to Israel, and Hezbollah was seen as
having kind of won the war. Now that parts of Lebanon are still in ruins, is
Hezbollah still seen as heroic?

Mr. GOKSEL: Not by the vast majority of the country and not as it was last
year, as you explained. Look, you have to be in the Middle East to understand
this mindset here--not only here, but as you said yourself, in other Arab
countries. Since they have lost all the wars against the Israelis and have
not really been standing up to them for any reason, and here comes this
small...(unintelligible)...nonstate organization and they did stand up against
the Israelis and cause a lot of problems for the Israelis, and that was seen
as a major victory for most Arabs in the--I mean, I was in Beirut in those
days. I spent that war hid under shelling. But even my Christian population
neighbors here, they were all delighted with what Hezbollah did.

But this ended very quickly with the end of the war. Then the extent of the
damage Israel inflicted on the country, which is not only limited to the
Shiite areas but totally irrelevant places, way out of Shiite zones in
Christian areas, Sunni areas, that was seen. And then the scope of the
destruction in the south, in the Beirut southern suburbs, and when that became
visible, then the people start saying, `Well, was it worth this price to
engage in such a war?'

GROSS: Hezbollah had promised to rebuild homes that were destroyed and
provide or help people find homes. You know, those people who lost their
homes in the bombing. How much have they kept up their promise?

Mr. GOKSEL: Oh, they have paid money for to tide the people over. They are
not actually rebuilding anything. The construction is not something they can
undertake financially. It's been done in the south mostly by Arab countries
and some international organizations. They have a huge project planned for
the Beirut southern suburbs; they want to rebuild that whole area again. But
that hasn't started because, I think, mainly because of financial problems, so
they have not been yet able to deliver physically any sign of reconstruction.
Financial assistance, yes. But actually there is not much work done on the
ground, and I think this is what is annoying the people.

GROSS: Do you think that there's likely to be another war in the near future
between Israel and Hezbollah?

Mr. GOKSEL: Not in the near future. I don't think Hezbollah is
now--Hezbollah cannot initiate a war against Israel. Israel is a formidable
military state. And Hezbollah knows it, also. I mean, they're not going to
initiate anything against the state of Israel. They're not going to take
Israeli territory. Israel, I think, will come back. Israel has to settle the
score. For most Israelis that I know, this is an unfinished war, but it's not
going to be in the very near future. Israel army has seen its weaknesses in
this last war. That's going to take some time. So we still have some time
for any politicians or diplomats or something to end this conflict.

What we are having now in Lebanon is a patchwork, a conflict management
performed by the United Nations admirably, yes, but it's conflict management,
it's not a solution. And if we don't find the solution to this problem
between these two countries, yes, this war will recur again, but not very
quickly, no.

GROSS: You know, earlier in the interview you were describing how difficult
it was just to get to the BBC studio that you're speaking to us from in Beirut
because of this like...

Mr. GOKSEL: Yeah.

GROSS: ...tent city of protesting people, people protesting the government,
and that's kind of surrounding the area that the studio is in. Can you tell
us a little bit more about how your daily life in Beirut has changed since a
year ago at the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah?

Mr. GOKSEL: Our daily life in Beirut has changed mainly because of internal
security incidents--you know, the bombings, the killings--and Beirut has
become only now in the last 10 days or so, people started to come out of their
houses. I mean, it was like last year's Israeli shelling time. Everyone
stayed home, everybody was afraid to go because of these bombings,
assassinations that we suffered through here.

But the net result of it has been a total security panic here. You cannot
park in any of the streets. Anybody who is somebody, or knows somebody in the
security department, makes the front of his apartment `no parking zone.' At
night if you are driving, we have these barriers that force us to drive
through these really narrow openings. Beirut has became a very, very
difficult city. Because when you drive through this and you see the police on
every corner, the army on the next corner, one more checkpoint, one more
barrier, and again no parking. These street is closed because somebody lives
there, and life has become very, very difficult, and it's becoming very sort
of annoying for the people also, and we are in bad security hysteria here at
the moment.

GROSS: Do you go out very much in spite of it all?

Mr. GOKSEL: Oh, I do, always because it's the only way I learned to survive
in Lebanon. If you confined yourself to indoors because of this then you lose
your bearings. I mean, last year during the war I insisted in Beirut my
favorite pubs and cafes in...(unintelligible)...to stay open and I promised
I'd bring business. Thanks to journalists who arrived in town, I kept my
promise.

This year also, I really prevailed upon some institutions that I know to stay
open. I move around as much as I can. I have two children myself, but I do
watch where they are going. I tell them to report to me where they are going
and take my advice before they go to certain areas. Yes, we take those sort
of measures. But I cannot lock myself in. I can't survive. Otherwise I
can't survive here.

GROSS: My guest is Timor Goksel, the former spokesperson and political
adviser for UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. He's speaking to us
from the BBC studio in Beirut. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Timor Goksel. He's a former
spokesperson and former political adviser for UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force
in Lebanon. He was with UNIFIL from 1979 to 2003, and he now teaches at the
American University in Beirut and also consults on security.

When you were working with the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, and you
started working with the in 1979, were you there to kind of witness the very
beginnings of Hezbollah?

Mr. GOKSEL: Oh, yes. Hezbollah appeared in south Lebanon at the--it was the
end of 1983. Yes, I'm the witness of their birth, more than themselves. Most
of them are so young they don't remember it as I do. And they came from the
north of Lebanon. They came from the Bekaa area, and they immediately
declared the UNIFIL as a hostile force and they started having clashes. They
would not talk to us because we are foreigners. So we went through a very
difficult time with them until--it took about seven, eight years before we
could finally get to talk to each other and stop shooting at each other. So I
lived through that, yes.

GROSS: Were you involved in organizing some kind of open channel between the
UN peacekeeping forces and Hezbollah?

Mr. GOKSEL: Oh, yeah. I was the channel.

GROSS: You were the channel. OK.

Mr. GOKSEL: The channel, yes.

GROSS: So how did you open things up? Like, what did you do to finally
convince them?

Mr. GOKSEL: You see, I'm Turkish and I know how Turkey--Lebanon is very
similar. It's been occupied, you know, it was a Turkish Ottoman colony for
400 years, so we have our traces all over the place. So I know how the
villages operate. So I started to go to the village mosques and to village
coffee shops where these people hang out. They knew me from television and
newspapers, and being a Turk made me a bit more acceptable, I guess. So they
slowly started to come to me, and I started explaining to them, I said, `Look,
you guys are shooting at the UN. Why are you shooting at us? What is your--I
mean, what do you want from the UN? We have been here all these years, we
provide services.' They said, `Well, it doesn't make sense why are these
European guys are in Lebanon under fire if they don't have a agenda or some
interest, sinister motive. Why are they here?' They couldn't understand that
there would be people risking their lives to keep the peace. It's all just
not understandable to them.

So I kept persisting on it. It was a bit hairy at times; not all of them
liked it. So I kept on going and going. And for this very fine service I
thought I was doing, I got reprimanded by the UN, because I was talking to an
nonstate actor and that we should not be giving them recognition, that sort of
nonsense. You know, I said, `Who did you want me to talk to? These are the
guys who are killing us.' I mean, we were actually shooting each other.

But I persisted, and the UN said, `OK, you are on your own. If you get in
trouble, we don't know you. If you succeed, we take your credit.' I said,
`Fine, that's OK.' Go with it And the--it went OK, improved for awhile. But
the major--the real change with our relations with Hezbollah to a more
civilized level, although not very friendly, came after the appointment, or
election, of Hassan Nasrallah as the secretary general for Hezbollah in 1992.
That made the big change. And after that we had the most civilized dialogue.

GROSS: What changed when Sheik Nasrallah became the head of Hezbollah?

Mr. GOKSEL: Hassan Nasrallah is from the south, and he was
a...(unintelligible)...member in the past, so he knew UNIFIL quite well. And
he--actually we had soldiers in his home village, so, I mean, he knew UNIFIL.
And he's a very pragmatic man. And when I went to him, I said, `Look, we
cannot go on like this.' He said, `OK, we don't have to love each other.' I
said, `Fine. We don't hate you or anything, but let's not--let's talk about
it. Why are we shooting?' And he was out to change the image of Hezbollah
anyway, so he immediately appointed senior liaison officers to UNIFIL, and he
said, `These people are at your service. Anytime you have any problem with
our guys in the south, call them and they will sort it out for you.' And he
says--and then at that time we had an office in the town of Tyr. I said, `If
you have a problem with UNIFIL, you come to this office and leave your
complaints there with my staff even though I'm not there.' So at least we
started this mechanism.

And then I discovered--I didn't know him that well in those days--that when he
said it, it's the law. I mean, his organization's behavior changed
immediately after that. OK, we occasionally had problems. Sometimes we had
confrontations, but it was all at the civilized level.

GROSS: Did your discussions with Sheik Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah,
convince you that some kind of meaningful dialogue could be opened with him,
that--or do think that it would be kind of impossible, for instance, Israel
and Hezbollah to actually have some kind of negotiation?

Mr. GOKSEL: Oh, at that level, I mean, I know one day--I mean, he's a very
pragmatic person, but I think his nonrecognition of his side is an ingrained
mindset which will be very, very difficult to change. Apart from that, I
found him very practical, especially on the Lebanese internal political scene.
When he took over, there were people in Hezbollah who were talking of an
Islamic state of Lebanon, and he's completely squashed all these talks. I
mean, he actually emancipated the woman. He lifted all of these Islamic
strictures of wearing the veil and not going to the beach. And he basically
said leave the people be and they will help us more and they will join us
more, which he turned out to be correct.

But on the more high levels of policy, we really didn't discuss it. But I
know one thing, he doesn't recognize the Israelis. (Unintelligible)...his
side, because he sees his side as intruding and taking over the Muslim lands.
That is his conviction.

GROSS: And you don't think that'll ever change?

Mr. GOKSEL: That is very, very difficult to change. But on the pragmatic
level, they will deal with them. He will exchange prisoners. He will make,
you know, other--through third parties, never face to face--he will make
deals. He will, for whatever he thinks is right for his community and his
party, he will do those things. He is very pragmatic. And I also--I mean, I
think most of my Israeli friends would agree, and the Israelis take his word
for it. That's amazing, also. They say, `This man promises, he delivers.'
And so, I mean, he--but it's all on pragmatic basis. I don't think that he
can ever recognize the existence of Israel, no.

GROSS: You know, six UN peacekeepers were killed in a car bombing very
recently.

Mr. GOKSEL: Yes.

GROSS: And that was allegedly done by this new radical Islamic group that's
based in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.

Mr. GOKSEL: Yeah.

GROSS: The group Fatah al-Islam. So do you think the UN peacekeepers are
trying to go through establishing some kind of contact with this new radical
group in the same way that you tried to open up a dialogue with Hezbollah?

Mr. GOKSEL: No. First of all, I don't think the main suspicion falls on
Fatah al-Islam, but on Esbat al-Ansar, which is another Sunni fundamentalist
group based in Southern Sidon. In the city of Sidon, there is a huge
Palestinian camp called Ain al-Hilweh. This is a very fundamentalist group.
Most of the suspicions fall on these people. And, no, there has not been a UN
effort by anyone to establish contact with these people, certainly not with
Fatah al-Islam. What the UN is doing, as they've always done, is to work with
the Lebanese army and their intelligence setup, which also has very good
relations with Hezbollah security.

So, I mean, I don't think there is a--I don't think UNIFIL will come to this
point of dealing with the minor or small groups that they cannot reach anyway.
I don't think that is in the cards. But there is dialogue with Hezbollah
through the Lebanese army. That is correct.

Mr. GOKSEL: Timor Goksel spent nearly 25 years as the spokesperson and
political adviser for UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. He's
speaking to us from the BBC studio in Beirut. He'll be back in the second
half of the show. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Timor Goksel, who is
joining us from the BBC studio in Beirut. For nearly 25 years he worked with
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. He served as spokesperson and
political adviser. He now teaches at the American University of Beirut.
Today is the first anniversary of the start of the war between Israel and
Hezbollah.

You know, now that your work with the UN peacekeeping mission is over, why do
you stay in Lebanon? You're of Turkish descent, you've lived in Lebanon
since, what, 1979. The country has been in chaos for decades and, just as it
was really turning around, the war between Israel and Hezbollah happened and
things just went back into chaos, so what keeps you in Lebanon?

Mr. GOKSEL: I like the people. They are the most amazing people, really.
Look, I'm not saying a nation, because this is not a nation. You cannot have
a nation like this. Nations don't behave this way. Everybody's on their own.
At most, loyalty goes to their sectarian group. It's village-based,
family-based, but they are gorgeous people. They are really, really friendly,
especially to foreigners. You feel very welcome here. They really make you
feel welcome. Charming people. Very educated. They are linguists--better
than me, anyway. I mean, they are educated. They teach the whole Arab world
what technology and high-tech is all about. Amazing group of people who live
the life to their best. You should have seen it. I mean, we are in the
middle of war here and every day a new place is opening up where you can go
and lounge about or eat and drink or what have you. They have a penchant for
good life. So you go along with that.

I mean, there's all the dangers that you listed, and, in my particular case,
since I'm sort of a local hero, public figure here, you know, because I'm
always on TV, newspapers, radios, mostly defending their cases and making a
case that nobody else is making for them, it's amazing how much appreciation
they show. I mean, I can barely sit in a coffee shop in Beirut and pay for my
coffee. There's always somebody paying for it, and I don't know even who they
are. That plays on my vanity and I love it. I love the country, and it's not
really a country. It's a piece of land, if you ask me. But I mean, it's
that's kind of a piece of land. Also I have my own kids are going to
university here. So I became a stake holder and I'm staying.

GROSS: Explain to me how a place like Lebanon can have like, you know, the
nicest people in the world and also educated and everything and, at the same
time, it's so factionalized and there's so much fighting between the factions
that's been going on for decades.

Mr. GOKSEL: The thing is, this is the way Lebanon has been coming along, and
in 1943, it was a French-mandated country, and the French gave their freedom.
They made sure that the country was divided, according to their own interest,
probably, and make sure the sectarian lines there are drawn. So I mean, the
future of Lebanon was already decided in 1943 when French dictated it as a
sectarian country and everything be divided according to the regions. So now
after that point on, the country became deeply entrenched in the system. It's
a patronage, it's a feudal system actually. I have long given up in Lebanon
that going to become a unified state and a model of this or that. If anybody
asks me now, I'm sure you're going to ask me the same thing. What next? What
I tell them is, `Enjoy what you have, don't shoot.'

GROSS: Do you think there's going to be a civil war in Lebanon?

Mr. GOKSEL: No. There is no required essential militarization of the
society at the moment. Yes, in Lebanon, never mind what you read.
Everybody's lying about this when it comes to this. Everybody has a gun in
Lebanon. Lebanese is a heavily armed country. First, it's the culture.
Second, it's the...(unintelligible)...war, and also here in this part of the
world, having a gun is equal to being a man. So we all have guns. Everybody
has a guns here. So don't worry about that. I mean, they're lying.
Everybody has guns. Not only one group.

GROSS: Do you have a gun? Do you have a gun?

Mr. GOKSEL: Oh, I'm a peaceful man. And yet. Now, in Lebanon, the civil
war, as I said, needs a certain level of militarization of the groups, heavy
financial outlays, and very deep, even deeper intrusion and commitment by
outside sponsors who'll have to put in lots of money and all that.

But now people have woken up in Lebanon. I mean, if you do that now, there is
so much international interest in our presence in Lebanon, you cannot do that
secretly. There cannot be such a big infusion of military hardware into the
country without being noticed, first of all. Second, there is no
Christian-Muslim conflict as it was in 1975, and one of the main causes of
that war was a really heavily armed Palestinian presence, which turned the
country upside down in terms of sectarian balance. That is not there anymore.

So I mean, first of all, I don't know who's going to fight each other in the
civil war that everybody's telling me about. Yes, there will be security
incidents as there are problems within these sectarian groups. But one hard
fact of life is in Lebanon today, to have a civil war, it has to include the
Hezbollah. If they don't want a civil war, there will not be a civil war in
Lebanon.

GROSS: And you think they don't want it now?

Mr. GOKSEL: No, I don't think so, because that will be very bad for their
community. The Shiite community, which has always been the marginalized,
demonized, forgotten, neglected, deprived, or what have you, they have
achieved a lot of things in Lebanese society. They have not gotten all what
they wanted, but they have made a lot of big headway. That community is
improving in their medical and social and economic lives, so they are not
going to risk that, first of all. Moreover, they prefer to be seen as an Arab
nation and as an Arab unifier and not a sectarian group. Like, they don't
like to be identified as Shiite vs. the Sunnis, for example.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. GOKSEL: And they also are perfectly aware, especially the current
leadership of Hezbollah, like Nasrallah and people around him, are aware that
a smaller Lebanon, cannot survive. No way. Economically, politically,
militarily, it cannot survive. So they have to keep the state. And they know
this. So I think they will stick with it until the end.

GROSS: Our interview started with your description of how difficult it was to
get to the BBC studio in Beirut from which you're speaking to us now.

Mr. GOKSEL: Yeah.

GROSS: Because there's a tent city of people protesting the government, and
this is a protest that's led by Hezbollah?

Mr. GOKSEL: Right.

GROSS: OK. So what are your plans for getting back to your car and getting
back to where you're going next?

Mr. GOKSEL: Next, I'll go and ask my BBC colleagues outside whether I have
to go through the same basement and down to the garage and out of the garage
and say hello to the Lebanese army security and then say hello to the
Hezbollah guy there who also is watching but they already caught up with me.
They usually recognize me from TV and then say hello to three other guys and
walk down the hill to where my car is in an underground garage, very
civilized. But by the time I get there I'll be saying hello to several armed
people, and then finally I'll make it and then I deserve a drink after that.

GROSS: Well, I hope you enjoy your drink after saying hello to several armed
people. Timor Goksel, thank you very, very much for talking with us.

Mr. GOKSEL: My pleasure, my pleasure.

GROSS: Timor Goksel is the former spokesperson and political adviser for
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. He now teaches at the American
University of Beirut.

Coming up, the new film "Talk to Me." It's based on the life of a Washington
talk show host who got his start as a prison deejay.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Kasi Lemmons, director of, and Dewey Hughes, consultant
on the film "Talk to Me," on the real events behind the movie
involving Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene
(Soundbite of "Talk to Me")

Mr. DON CHEADLE: (As Petey Greene) Guess what? I'm telling it. That's
right. And I'm going to keep on telling it. Some of it you gonna like. Some
of it you ain't. If you got something to say, give me a call.

(End of soundbite)

TERRY GROSS, host:

That's Don Cheadle as Petey Greene in the new movie "Talk to Me." It's based
on the life of Petey Greene, a street-wise, Washington, DC, radio talk show
host in the '60s and '70s. He talked about race, politics and whatever he
thought was on his listeners' minds. Greene got his start in prison as a
deejay on the prison PA system. He was doing time for armed robbery. One of
his fellow inmates was the brother of the program director at WOL, a
black-oriented AM station in Washington.

After Greene got out of prison in 1965, he went to WOL and insisted that the
program director, Dewey Hughes, put him on the air. Hughes saw potential in
Greene and decided to take a chance on him. Considering Greene's prison
record and his problems with alcohol, it was a big chance. But it paid off.
Greene was a success on WOL and later got his own TV show.

The real Dewey Hughes was a consultant on the film and is my guest, along with
the film's director, Kasi Lemmons. She also made the films "Eve's Bayou" and
"The Caveman's Valentine." Here's a scene from early in "Talk to Me." Dewey
Hughes, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, is trying to convince his station manager,
played by Martin Sheen, that they should put Greene on the air.

(Soundbite of "Talk to Me")

(Soundbite of door opening)

Mr. MARTIN SHEEN: (As E.G. Sonderling) I've been hoodwinked.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(Soundbite of door closing)

Mr. SHEEN: (As E.G. Sonderling) You are out of your mind if you think I'm
going to put this person on the air.

Mr. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR: (As Dewey Hughes) Sir, I know this is unorthodox.

Mr. SHEEN: (As E.G. Sonderling) Unorthodox? It's insane!

Mr. EJIOFOR: (As Dewey Hughes) Sir, hear me out. This man has a unique
voice. I just have a feeling.

Mr. SHEEN: (As E.G. Sonderling) I have much more than just a feeling.

Mr. EJIOFOR: (As Dewey Hughes) Sir, we need to put somebody on the air in
the next two minutes or we go black.

Mr. CHEADLE: (As Petey Greene) Black black black.

Mr. SHEEN: (As E.G. Sonderling) Freda, run after Jim. He might still be in
the building!

Mr. EJIOFOR: (As Dewey Hughes) Sir, we don't have time. You're just going
to have to trust me. One show. One shot.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Kasi Lemmons, Dewey Hughes, welcome to FRESH AIR. I'd like you to
start by describing Petey Greene's radio style. And, Dewey, since you work
with him and you heard him, why don't you give it a shot first?

Mr. DEWEY HUGHES: Well, he had no style. That was his style. No one, not
even Petey, knew what he was going to do when he opened the mike, and he
carried his work with him. So if he was drunk the night before, he might open
up talking about being drunk the night before and it went from there. That
was the beauty of being connected to someone like him.

GROSS: So he would talk. He would talk to listeners, also, through the phone
and play records, too?

Mr. HUGHES: He did not play records. He would talk exclusively to
listeners. And it was the first time that the black community in Washington,
DC, had an opportunity to call, whether their grammar was correct or not, and
speak their mind. And if they wanted to talk about a neighbor being drunk and
throwing their liquor bottles over in their yards, they would do that. And
there was no place else for them to do publicly and, you know, share that kind
of information. Most people thought it was frivolous. Petey, you know, he
didn't feel that way. There was an absence of those voices on the airways,
and that's what Petey was all about, really.

GROSS: Dewey Hughes, you first heard Petey Greene being a disc jockey in
prison when you were visiting your brother there, and your brother--go ahead.

Mr. HUGHES: Well--right. I did not hear him in the visiting room, but I
heard about him all the time from my brother and other people, so I heard him
in spirit. But visitors went to visit, you know, the inmates and I went to
visit my brother. And before that, I knew the legend of Petey Greene at
Lorton. And the first time seeing Petey, I didn't see his face. I saw a man
sitting there with some green alligator shoes on and I nudged my brother and I
said, `Is that guy an inmate?' And he said, `Yeah.' And then he said, `Fool,
that's Petey Greene.' I said, `How in the hell does somebody'--he says, `Petey
Greene.' And that was my first sighting of Petey. But I'd heard about him,
and he was a legend.

And one day my brother said, `Petey's going to be getting out of jail and
would you help him get on the radio?' And I asked him how long did Petey have,
and he said, `Ten years,' and I said, `Yeah, well, I'll help him. Yeah.' Next
thing I knew, he was at the station, and that's how it began.

GROSS: Yeah. He got out early. Kind of surprising.

Mr. HUGHES: Real early.

GROSS: Kasi, the way you depict it in your movie, Petey Greene and Dewey
Hughes kind of were two flip sides of a coin, and they kind of completed each
other. Would you describe that kind of relationship, like what they had in
common and how they were different?

Ms. KASI LEMMONS: Well, I was very informed by a conversation that I had had
with Dewey over lunch, and the way that he talked about Petey and the words,
the specific words that he used and also his body language in talking about
him. So in some ways I had studied Dewey and the things that he said to me.
He said, for instance, he said, `We fell in love.' And I thought that was a
wonderful way of describing this friendship and that they could work together
all day and then go home and call each other.

And also, just in knowing Dewey, who, the first time I met him had on the most
incredible suit I've ever seen. It's like `Oh my god, a king has walked in.'
And then you talk to him for a while and you realize the stories, when he gets
into his brother's being in prison, and I was so moved by this contrast that's
in him as a man and in the character. So really, that was the interesting
thing, to have a character that appears to be one thing until you begin to
scratch the surface and then there's a complete other man underneath, and
Dewey said to me he didn't want to disappoint his mother and end up like his
brothers that were incarcerated, and I thought--I don't know. I thought it
was very powerful. And so you have this man who's really self-made into an
ideal of what a man is supposed to be in his eyes. And then you have Petey,
who's, you know, Petey. Petey's just Petey. He is what he is. It's like,
what you see is what you get. That's Petey.

GROSS: How did you decide to cast Don Cheadle as Petey Greene?

Ms. LEMMONS: Well, because the character of Petey--he's a difficult
character, you know. He can be abrasive, and so I knew you wanted an actor
that was deep enough to pull off the outrageousness, and yet was an actor that
was so attractive that you naturally moved towards them, and Cheadle has this
quality that you are drawn to him even when, for instance, in "Devil in the
Blue Dress," he's playing a killer...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Ms. LEMMONS: ...you still kind of love him. You know what I mean? And I
thought that was a really great quality for Petey Greene to have. And I knew
Don--not very well, but I knew him well enough to know that he was funny. And
just tremendously talented, and so I thought he'd be a great choice.

GROSS: How did you go about dressing him?

Ms. LEMMONS: Well, it's funny. We went through a lot of magazines. Gersha
Phillips, the costume designer, who I think is just extraordinary, she and I
would go through tons of old Ebony magazines. That's really funny, because
one thing you realize is that you can't go too far. I mean, it's amazing what
people actually wore, you know. And you know, these models with a very
serious expression on their face, you know, while they're wearing mesh
underwear, you know? So we really got a lot of it from magazines.

And then a huge amount of it was actually vintage. Some of it she created,,
but very much based on authentic, you know, outrageous fashions at the time.
And also we had some photographs of Petey and imitated some of the clothes
that we saw him actually wear in photographs.

GROSS: In "Talk to Me," Kasi Lemmons, you portray what happens in Washington,
DC, right after Martin Luther King is assassinated.

Ms. LEMMONS: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: And there's rioting and looting in the streets. Parts of the city are
burning down. And in the movie, the Dewey Hughes character asks Petey Greene
to like, you know, go on the air and calm things down. Actually, I think it's
like your boss, Dewey Hughes, your boss who asked Petey Greene to do that.
Could you share your memories of what Petey Greene did on the air right after
King's assassination?

Mr. HUGHES: Well, I mean, he did exactly what Kasi shared with us in the
movie. It was brilliant. He connected with the community. He reminded them
that Dr. King would not be a happy man right now, and that resonated deep and
wide, and she depicted that brilliantly.

GROSS: And then the next night there was a James Brown concert in Washington,
and Petey Greene introduced it in the movie. He shows up late. He's drunk.
Dewey Hughes, did it happen that way?

Mr. HUGHES: Does it matter? James Brown came to DC, gave a concert, and me
and Petey, by the request of the mayor and the council members got James Brown
to come from Boston to Washington, and that's what happened. And the only
thing he wanted was to go up on Capitol Hill and have his words in the
congressional record, and that's exactly what happened. So Kasi put a
creative touch to it and it's brilliant.

GROSS: Now, in the movie, Dewey Hughes, you're portrayed as having learned
about fine suits and standard English from modeling yourself on Johnny Carson
while watching "The Tonight Show." Did you watch "The Tonight Show" and model
yourself on Carson?

Mr. HUGHES: Every night. I never missed a show. My sister, my baby sister,
would always wake me up to watch Johnny Carson.

GROSS: So what did he mean to you?

Mr. HUGHES: Everything. I thought I could be him. But I knew because of
the color of my skin I'd never get a shot, but--so I lived vicariously through
Johnny Carson. So when I got an opportunity to have someone that maybe I
could introduce Johnny Carson with Petey Greene, I used it. It took me three
years to convince them to give Petey a shot.

GROSS: And what happened that night?

Mr. HUGHES: Well, Petey got drunk and he sabotaged it. Petey used being
drunk not to do the show. He had no intentions of doing the show. I mean,
we'd been there before, but I didn't think he was going to blow Johnny Carson.
It was like, you know, the stand-off, but he always sabotaged the real good
stuff because DC was his base. He didn't want outside of DC. All of that was
my dream.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. HUGHES: And we were very clear on that, you know? So he went along when
I was hoping that he would go out on Johnny Carson and just do his Petey
Greene thing and impress the audience and become a hero across the country.
But he didn't want that.

GROSS: My guests are Kasi Lemmons, the director of the new film "Talk to Me,"
and Dewey Hughes, who's played in the film by Chiwetel Ejiofor. We'll talk
more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: We're talking about the new film "Talk to Me." It's based on the life
of Washington, DC, talk show host Petey Greene, who got his start as a deejay
in prison. My guests are Dewey Hughes, the program director who put Greene on
the air, and Kasi Lemmons, the director of "Talk to Me."

Now, the period that the movie is set in--late '60s, early '70s--is a period
in which you were basically a child. You kind of missed out on the, you know,
culture and politics of the period.

Ms. LEMMONS: Right.

GROSS: What do you find most interesting about it, because you had to immerse
yourself in it to actually make a film?

Ms. LEMMONS: Well, yeah, immerse myself in it to the point where, when we
would go on the street and people were, you know, walking around in 2006, they
looked weird to me. We were living in the late '60s the whole time we were
making the movie.

I had one incredible memory. I had a memory of my mother screaming, and a
sound I've never heard before or since came out of her. And she kept
screaming. She kept screaming. And I went into the other room, and she was
rocking back and forth and keening. I mean, it was really, as a very young
child, completely terrifying to hear your mother in this state. And she
said--I thought she said, `The king is dead.' And I said, `What king?' And so
too young to know really who Martin Luther King was, I will never forget the
sound that my mother made. And so in some ways, that was one of my entry
points into the story and into the period.

You know, when I would do research on the King assassination, one of the
things that struck me was that people dropped dead on the spot--heart attacks,
aneurysms. You know, people dropped dead on the spot, fell to their knees and
screaming, you know, `God, why not me?' And I thought, wow, this is
incredible, when we really look back at this time to think of the things that
really happened in this country, fairly recently and what we've been through.
I mean, we're so, in some ways, isolated from the trauma of that time, you
know? It was a very, very violent and interesting time, and yet a time full
of possibility. And so there's something that I wanted to bring home to an
audience that might not have experienced it. I wanted them to feel like they
were there.

GROSS: Where were you when King was assassinated?

Ms. LEMMONS: I was in Boston and, you know, I just remember my mom
screaming. It was interesting, actually. It's an even longer story. My
older sister decided we would go to the movies. And I don't know if, in my
mind, this was related to, directly right afterwards, maybe my mother sent us
to the movies so she could kind of grieve alone. But we went to the movies
and the subway was stopped in the middle of a tunnel. No, I guess we pulled
into a station, but it wasn't the station we were supposed to get off at and
they made everyone get off the train. And it was lines of police, and they
looked to me like the army. Anyway, the Boston riots had broken out. Rioting
had broken out. And so I was separated from my mother. Of course, this was
way before cell phones, right? My sister and I, we were children, were
trapped in Harvard Square, and my mother, finding out about this, came to look
for us, and we didn't find her for a day.

Mr. HUGHES: Wow.

Ms. LEMMONS: Hippies took us home. You know, I can remember the beaded
curtain in this girl's house. And in retrospect, she must have been a very
young woman. Took us in. You know, but I was really young, and it was an
adventure to me, so I actually had a direct experience even though I was very
young.

Mr. HUGHES: Wow.

GROSS: What a frightening series of events that whole thing was.

Ms. LEMMONS: Yeah. Yeah. It was a story that I told every single person
involved in the movie. Talked through it with the actors and the crew
because, you know, we were shooting in Canada and not even all of our actors
were African-American. We had a British Nigerian and Caribbean-Canadians and
so just to get them into a time and place where we were going to recreate that
moment and what that experience felt like, I told everybody my story.

GROSS: Dewey Hughes, what do you remember of the funeral for Petey Greene in,
was it in 1982? He died of cancer at the age of 53.

Mr. HUGHES: I didn't come to the funeral. They wanted me to...

GROSS: You didn't go to the funeral?

Mr. HUGHES: They wanted me to come and speak but I was afraid that if I'd
gotten up behind the podium, I would have cursed a lot of people in the
audience up who were there crying about Petey, and they didn't love Petey at
all. So I passed on the funeral.

GROSS: In what sense did you think that they were hypocritical?

Mr. HUGHES: I knew they were hypocritical. They didn't like Petey. They
used to tell me they didn't like him. They used to tell me--they asked me why
did I put him on the air. I mean, council members, congressmen, teachers,
principals, policemen, government workers...

GROSS: What...

Mr. HUGHES: ...fathers who, you know, had kids and stuff. They thought he
was an embarrassment.

GROSS: What were their objections?

Mr. HUGHES: It was at a time when blacks were coming into their suits and
ties and their upward mobility. The poverty program was kicking in stuff, and
everybody was trying to go establishment. Petey was anti-establishment. I
mean, he didn't sound like anybody else, he didn't think like anybody else.
And everybody felt, especially a lot of the blacks, felt that he was an
embarrassment. So, you know, you should have somebody who wasn't an ex-con on
the air. Somebody who, you know, graduated. All of those points were good,
but I had those people on the air, too, so it wasn't like Petey was the only
one.

GROSS: Well, Kasi Lemmons, Dewey Hughes, thank you both so much for talking
with us.

Ms. LEMMONS: Thank you for having us.

GROSS: Kasi Lemmons directed the new film "Talk to Me." Dewey Hughes is
played in the film by Chuwetek Ehuifir,

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.