And you need to find leaders that can be able to build bridges.

And that's really important leaders who understand that their role is to build bridges between very separated parts.

And you also need to understand, the incentives that those leaders could have.

[music] After visiting with ten mayors of the world, we explore the future of representative democracy not with a mayor, but with a human rights champion I've long admired for her personal resilience.

Imagine becoming your country's president after your father was beaten and killed by the government of that same country.

That's the story of Michelle Bachelet, the two time president of Chile and candidate for UN secretary general.

Despite her family's ordeal during the Pinochet dictatorship.

Bachelet became a successful pediatrician and twice the leader of a country that had once betrayed her family.

Together, we toured the extraordinary museum dedicated to the memory of her father and the other victims of the decades long political violence against innocent Chileans.

A cautionary tale of autocratic takeover and reversal of authoritarianism.

Madam President, it's an honor to meet you.

Happy to be with you, Alexander.

What does it mean to you to be in this museum today?

Well, first of all, we had that year the bicentennial commemoration, as a country.

So we decided to do lots of different things in different areas of the country.

But in terms of human rights, we thought that it was needed a place where people could come, look at all the exhibition of all the information and that, it could understand our history, because part of that history was not taught at schools.

Chile has to have the memory of what has happened, because that was the only way to protect democracy and human rights.

And it has some permanent exhibition and some exhibition like this one, there is a new one it's about children, because this year, the theme of the museum is children, that relate to the 180 something children who are disappeared, never were found, or others who had to go into exile, etc., or children who go to school and have their own experiences.

For me, it's really important because of course, part of my history is also here.

My father was, arrested and tortured, and he died after the torture.

So he also has a place here.

We have to learn the lessons that we had and we should not repeat what happened in our country.

So the best possible way to do it is to let people know what happened.

Doesn't have interpretations, doesn't have political interpretation.

It just shows facts.

And people can have their own ideas afterwards.

And afterwards, when you go out, there is a wording that I put is that, "We cannot change the past, but the future depends on all of us."

So it's a call for people that democracy will depend on us to be able to protect it and preserve it.

And the future is our collective responsibility.

On one hand, tries to make a commemoration of people who were victims with their stories.

But, also in other part of the same museum, it shows why this happened because I think that's important to prevent it.

And also to, I would say, to inspire people on human rights importance because we know that all these people weren't crazy guys making a war.

The majority of them was just people who supported President Allende.

Some of them may have been part of a political party, some are not.

So when you see all these faces here, Yes.

these men, women, young people, some children as well.

These people were not criminals.

Not terrorists.

I mean, even though I don't think you need to kill terrorists, but, I mean, they're not people, really, who could threaten really, the country.

They were just people who were President Allende's supporters.

Some of them belong to political party, some of them not.

Many of them were parents, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, grandparents, and a lot of young people.

Because those photographs are the ones that the family gave to the museum.

So when, shortly before they were killed or made disappear.

And also, you know, enforced disappearance, is something terrible because families for so long, every time they saw somebody like, you know, homeless people, very poor dressed, they thought he might be his father or husband.

They follow them for, you know, long time until they realized that he was not.

Because people had the hope at the beginning, they could never imagine that so many people would be executed or made disappeared.

And some of them appeared many, many, years later.

You know, they from helicopters, they put chains on them and they threw it in the sea.

So they will never happen.

I mean, they will never appear.

I remember reading that when I came here the first time about... So, for families has been a terrible tragedy.

Because when you know that your family's dead, it's painful, but you can do the mourning.

You can mourn and you can, your pain will continue.

But this idea, is he there or not?

Where is he?

But afterwards of course everybody understood that probably they're dead.

But where are they?

Because we like to mourn people.

We like to, our family, we like to visit them once a year or for their birthday in the cemeteries and so on.

So it's like the minimum dignity that a family needs.

Yes.

To have their pain be, well my father is, we have it in the cemetery.

So we make every year one visit to that to the cemetery.

So that's the picture of his over there.

And this says, you know, when it was detained and killed.

Which age, he was 50 years old.

What was his occupation, where was it, which region.

And then it says his story, that he died in March 1974, but he was detained the same 11th September 1973, in his office.

And he was detained again the 14th.

And then explain where the places they were, he was and so on.

For example, he was in a place where, in a room alone, and he went to the bathroom.

He comes back and he finds that they put him in the wardrobe, a gun so he could suicide himself, killed himself.

Of course, he didn't do it, but, so there was lots of, objects of torture, mental torturers or physical torture, -and so on.

Yeah.

-Mm.

So this is "Absence of Memory," it says, "No person who were detained, disappeared, politically executed, during the dictatorship."

And that's what it says.

What it means in Spanish, recordad, is to remember, and in Spanish it means to maybe, I don't know if it works for English.

Because it says to pass again through the heart.

Recordad, because corrido is heart in Latin and [inaudible], to put everything through the heart again.

That means recordad.

Well, let me say to you I'm sorry for what happened to your father and, for the pain that it caused you and your family.

When I think of the lost souls, I think of what ultimately emerged, what was ultimately possible, which was saying no to the dictatorship.

"Vamos a decir que no", and you told me, and I know the jingles.

There were some amazing musical jingles.

["Vamos a decir que no" plays] When you hear those words, "Vamos a decir que no", -it must still make you smile -Yeah.

and, feel like you're honoring the memory of these people.

On one hand, yes.

And the other, this kind of songs appear.

-We have a plebiscite, -Yes.

-a referendum, to decide -Right.

because they wanted Pinochet to continue for so many years.

Eight more years.

And then we said, no, we're not going to.

And then there was a campaign in television, but also was beautiful, lovely, the song.

And you know what?

It gave us all hope.

Yes.

I mean, 17 years and there's just too long, but it gave us the hope that this can change.

You said something interesting before that you never expected.

And I think you were implying that the citizens of your country never expected the political violence that occurred in 1973.

Why is that?

You didn't expect it, but it happened.

When you look at democratic backsliding around the world and events like 1973, or attempted events like insurrections and coup d'états, in multiple continents, you know, it seems to bring back the memory of what transpired here.

Well, I think there was some foresight.

But we always felt that we were so democratic country that we were a little bit immune from it.

Probably certain arrogance from our side.

But I think the main reason of the coup d'état, of course, the coup was military, but it was the failure of politics.

Because, if political parties could have understood that the worst thing that could happen to a country is political violence, I think they would have made a bigger effort to try to get into an agreement.

But the society was very polarized.

Yes.

And, some foreign forces also pushed for the coup d'état, they pay for groups.

Because we had sort of almost terrorist group as well from the extreme right.

But I think, I mean, if I want to think on how to prevent -these things from happening.

-Yes.

I think the possibility is to ensure that there is dialog, that there is capacity of understanding what is the priority to be able to understand that we might not think the same with other person.

But we can prioritize, this is essential, we agree on this, and then we can find a way to deal with the things we disagree.

Or decide, look, let's work together for this.

And then let's put aside the other things that differentiate us and let's work it afterwards.

Well, there was not that kind of, if I would say, generosity because I think to do something like that, you have to have generosity.

But sometimes in politics, generosity is not the most common value.

And dialog is also not the most common behavior.

I do believe in dialog.

I do believe, I think it's needed.

But the thing is, I think also being in exile, knowing other cultures, other points of view helped me as well to understand and understand the complexity of things.

And also being a medical doctor, I also because I tend to look at things at the technical part.

Okay, is this feasible?

Is this really going to work and solve the problems I want to solve?

If not, I won't do it.

Policy helps to say when I send the law, how do I speak with people to support this?

But I have because I'm a medical doctor, I am really a lot of, if I will say, science and evidence based decision maker.

When you think of the human rights landscape right now, you have to attend to the matters of Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Palestine and you know that it's almost impossible to ignore that, right?

When it comes to human rights.

And those conflicts have been raging now for months and years without dialog.

How do we resolve those conflicts?

Those conflicts, need generosity, needs to look at what's more important.

And I think the most important thing is the life of the people.

That if we continue this way because it's not only Gaza or Ukraine, it's also Sudan and beyond, we have a lot -Yes.

-I mean, a smaller conflict maybe they don't appear on the television so commonly.

Because they're smaller countries or far away countries from where the news are.

Even though there's not much dialog, I insist that you need to dialog, and you need to find leaders that can be able to build bridges.

And that's really important leaders who understand that their role is to build bridges between very separated parts.

And you also need to understand, the incentives that those leaders could have to really be able to say, okay, I stop the war, I ceasefire, or I liberate the hostages, or I mean, you have to understand, why.

What is behind, what is really moving those leaders to do what they're doing?

And you need to find something that will give them each something.

When you saw gridlock, and the Congress opposed you or other members of political parties opposed you.

What do you think was your most effective bridge building, where you were able to overcome a difference?

Well it depends.

For example, I wanted to send a law for gender parity and the elections of Parliament.

My coalition did not accept 50%.

So I have to send at least 40% in every list, had to be women.

Or one gender or the other, but of course, what we wanted is more women in Parliament.

And they didn't want it.

They didn't want it.

They didn't want it.

So at the end I sat down with a senator.

I said, okay, me and you, why do you not want this?

Tell me, me, I want to understand.

And he said to me, because if one of you come, one of us have to leave.

And exactly happened, a woman won his place and he had to leave.

So what I mean, you know, the way is to understand exactly what the problem is.

But of course, with Parliament, you don't just send the law that you know it's going to be rejected.

I mean, you try to work it before you send the bill to Parliament, to work with the parliamentarians to explain, to try to hear is also what do they want.

So maybe you can make small changes.

That doesn't change the real substance, what you want to do with that law.

But you can, you are able to have more people supporting it.

Also, because I always feel that sometimes when you are in government, everything is so urgent that you might not see some things and to listen from other people, look this could have this and this problem.

Have you thought about that?

So actually, that's why I think dialog is important because it helps you also make the right decisions.

How acutely are you concerned about the democratic backsliding in the United States?

Well, I'm acutely concerned about the democratic backsliding in many countries of the world.

Because we have seen it in Europe.

We have seen it in this region in other regions like Africa, it's a little bit different because in Latin America we used to lose democracy with coup d'état.

But now we have been seeing, in leaders who are elected, and they start eroding democracy.

But I'm really concern and we had a very big meeting on democracy in the UN.

And a lot of people is really concerned about the backsliding.

Because democracy is not perfect, but is the best possible regime, because it has its own ways and its own methods to correct what is wrong.

And I think the only way that you ensure human rights is in the democracy and democracy with human rights.

If you have people's rights respected, people will feel comfortable, will feel safe, will feel that they want to protect democracy because that's the way everybody is having improvement of their lives.

So I believe that, it's a real concerning moment in the history, some people says I'm not sure I wouldn't go that far, it looks like in the 30s in Europe, before Hitler came.

Some people say, I hope it's not like that.

It's just.

But on the other hand, I have asked myself, what have we done wrong as Democrats in the world?

Because why is people going into this?

And I have some certain answers, because in certain places it's because democracy does not deliver.

Leaders make promises, they are elected and then they don't deliver the promises they decide.

Well, sometimes you cannot, because, for example, the economic situation doesn't permit.

But, then you have to speak to the people the truth.

But I think one thing the leaders, the democratic leaders should always understand that they should never promise something they know they're not going to do.

Never.

You have to promise what you really believe in, and you do your best to be able to fulfill it and to achieve what you want.

Thank you for having tea with me.

Oh, yes.

Happy to.

I feel grateful for the opportunity that you immersed me in the history, that you are personally connected to, but not just you.

Because we were just walking out here and a gentleman, who works here, his father also perished in, the coup.

I mean, of course, there's many people who were not direct victims who work here as well, but there are many.

It's people that this commitment with human rights is long time.

They're part of the history.

They are in pictures in the museum.

Well, he is a producer, in terms of what he does, his work.

-It's not just because he's a -Of course.

son or grandson, because his grandfather, as well, he was enforced disappeared.

And there are other people as well, here, many.

But, and I think that makes people be very committed, committed to human rights here and all over the world.

One of the things that I found remarkable when I was first here in 2018 was, how relatively quickly you were able to recover and build this memorial.

And you don't really see that kind of commemorative memorialization as much.

Are there examples of it elsewhere in the world?

There are.

For for example, you go to South Africa, you will go to the Apartheid Museum.

In other places you have museums, more local museums in South Africa.

-There are many places.

-They exist.

Yeah, of course there is this from the Red Cross, that is linked more to wars.

In Geneva there's a big beautiful museum.

In Germany, too, even though I think in some places it took them longer because in some places it took them longer as a society to recognize what happened.

At least I'm talking about leaders.

But I have to tell you recover, well, I remember a woman, she was the widow.

And she told me, how could you forgive?

I cannot, I have so much anger in myself, I just cannot.

And I said, I cannot give you, the solution.

Probably because my mom was very resilient, and me as well.

Because in my family we tried to look things in a different way because we tried to learn the lessons that the history has told us.

Is that I could, I don't really forgive because of course not forget, because one friend of mine told me I will never go to a party again until Pinochet's dead.

And I said to him, look, if you are not able to be happy, it's his victory.

Our victory is that even though all these things happened to us, we're still able to look at life, at the future and try to build the best future for everyone.

That will be our victory.

I mean, some people are really so, affected mentally health that they cannot, I understand that.

But it was like this feeling that if we're happy, we're sort of, we are traitors, you know, that was the feeling.

-Mm.

-And I said, no, no, it will be his victory that he destroy your life.

You're alive, but you destroy your life.

But, you know, it's very difficult.

I read interesting, very interesting book some years ago.

I don't remember the name, but it was written by a Spanish guy, and he was in the concentration camps in Germany.

And afterwards the Americans liberated that camp and he got free, he survived.

And he had the following philosophical question, should I forget and then leave and be able to re-incorporate to a life?

Or should I never forget, and I know that will not permit me to have a partner etc., etc.. Well, his decision at that moment was not to forget.

And of course his life was terrible, miserable.

I found it really interesting.

And when I went to, Srebrenica, the place where there was a huge massacre.

And the guy who was in charge of all the museum, he was one of the translators of the Dutch army there.

Mm.

So he lived this thing when the Dutch left the Serbians.

Took all the women's to the place and told the men to go walking, they killed all of them.

And I asked him this, and he said, it's really difficult.

It's a really difficult situation, what do I do?

Of course he did not forget that he was working that, in that place where so much horror happened.

So it can be a tendency of some victims to get, stuck, maybe it's too hard, that cannot, just cannot live the future.

They get involved in this dramatic situation.

Mm.

They cannot marry.

They cannot have kids or even they have.

But they really, with so much suffering for years and years.

You are very concerned about the impact of AI on human rights around the world.

Is that true?

AI can be a fantastic opportunity for our economies and our societies.

But it also has a lot of risks, bias, surveillance, exclusion.

Because not if you think in the world how many people are going to have access to AI.

So my concern is that we have seen that many of these, for example, face recognition device, [inaudible] used to try to identify the human rights defenders.

And when they identify in autocratic regimes, they are taken into prison.

So that's one or the thing.

The other thing is that I'm concerned because AI, there's no clear regulations.

I mean, even though the Council of Europe just defined certain standards.

So what the companies have done because as high commissioner, we work a lot with the Silicon Valley companies and so on, is that they do their thing through the ethics office.

But it's the ethics office of the company, whose role is not exactly the same as an ethic, independent commission.

And the other problem that I have with AI, even though I insist I know you can have fantastic opportunities, in health and others.

Is that what we see is that developers develop a platform or a new idea, and afterwards they realize that it violates human rights or it can be used to violate human rights.

Well, we work with the Silicon Valley, is look, before you develop this, ask yourself which way this could impact human rights?

Positively or negatively?

The other thing with AI is that in the Inter-American development Bank, they made a study, who will be in Mexico and the US.

And of course, then they made us like a stipulation for the rest of the Latin America.

Who will be more affected by AI in terms of jobs, because that's my other concern.

Are you particularly sensitive to that because of any feeling that some of the precipitating factors of the violence here were at least the pretext was an economic discontent?

-It was the pretext, yes.

-Yeah.

But I'm more concerned because what I see in the world is that when people have terrible situation, economic, personal situations and they have no hope.

-They tend to be recruited -Right.

by these terrorist groups.

Or populist exploitation.

Or populist, of course, but the worst is that -they go into terrorist groups, -Right.

Al-Queda or Al-Shabaab or others.

So I think that we will provide education, if we provide jobs, people know they have opportunities.

So they're not going to go into violent activities.

They're going to be, you know, citizens who will be able to contribute peacefully to their society.

When I'm talking peaceful, I'm not talking demonstration.

I don't think they're violent.

Demonstration can be really specific, people can be there protesting, but peacefully.

And I think that's a right.

That's a right.

May I offer you anything?

Oh, well, I'm going to have a little bit of watermelon.

-Okay.

Excellent.

-Thank you.

And I'll have a little bit of cookie.

Mm!

-Good?

-Mm!

That's great.

I hear you're an excellent chef.

Oh no, excellent would be an exaggeration.

You told me you like seafood and pasta.

One of these days, I hope to try your seafood pasta.

But in the tactics that you deployed in your two presidencies, did you ever find that food activated compromise?

Consensus bridge building?

I did every Sunday at the beginning, every Sunday a dinner at home with the political committee, with the ministers to prepare the week.

And of course, we went home, we had food, some drinks.

And we talk about the issues and we organize ourselves.

So yes, it works, it works.

And also sometimes.

But when you are president, you don't go much to other to many dinners because otherwise every day you have to go to an embassy and something like that.

So but you organize, we organize certain moments to talk to, you know, to opposition, or others, or yeah.

That happens in Chile with food, with drinks, depending on what, can be soft drinks or alcoholic drinks.

But it also happens with sports.

Mm-hmm.

For example, you see these parliamentarians, they are almost killing themselves in Parliament.

And then when the national selection football plays, team plays, they're all like embracing themselves in every goal and so on.

So, there are areas where you can see humanity with other lenses and you can help understand or be friends with people, who might sometimes you might need to discuss.

And you must also believe in kind of a more imaginative [dog barking] politics because you've realized change, you know, in the structure of governance.

So, that must be my dog.

Is that?

No.

Yeah, I think so.

Because she's here.

Oh yeah?

Oh okay.

Well that means it's time to go.

But, what would be your advice to people despondent about the condition of democracy around the world?

The most important thing is to stand up, mobilize, organize, and not stay silent or not do anything about it.

Because then if things happen, if there are violation of human rights, or constraints to your freedoms and liberties, it will be also your fault because you have not done what you should done.

Madam President, an honor to meet you today.

Thank you very much, Alexander.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you.

["Vamos a decir que no" plays] Continuing production of The Open Mind has been made possible by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Angelson Family Foundation, Robert and Kate Niehaus, Robert S. Kaplan Foundation, Grateful American Foundation, Draper Foundation, and Lawrence B. Benenson.