Original subtitles

MORGAN: Growing up, I never dreamed of going to college here,

at the University of Mississippi.

But James Meredith did dream and decided to make that dream a reality,

at a school that had never admitted a black man.

In Mississippi, in 1962, that was an act of rebellion.

When he showed up for class, there were riots, two people were killed,

but James Meredith insisted on his right to change the way society worked.

No matter what tumult it might cause.

He was a rebel, like Spartacus, or Susan B. Anthony,

or Nelson Mandela.

These rebels changed the world.

But countless others failed, what makes a rebellion succeed?

(crowd shouts).

Why do rebellions start?

-President Bush said, "We do not torture." I knew that that was a lie.

I was going to tell the truth.

MORGAN: How do rebel movements spread?

HECTOR: I was breaking into every government imaginable.

-Black lives matter!

-How many more black people have to die?

We wont allow you to kill us and us to be silent.

MORGAN: And what makes the rebel spirit ignite a revolution.

-We want the power to the people.

MARBROUKA: When they want to touch our freedom, we go on the street and we fight.

(shouting).

MORGAN: This is my journey.

To discover the ties that bind us.

And the common humanity inside us.

This is The Story Of Us.

Every society runs by a set of rules, be they cultural,

religious, or economic.

These rules are never perfect.

They can favor one group or for another.

They can be exploited by people in power.

Rebellions often begin with shocking revelations that the rules are being broken.

In the wake of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, President George W Bush signed

a secret directive, to allow the CIA to imprison suspects in the war on terror.

The loosening of the laws quickly led to rampant abuse and torture of prisoners.

The administration denied any official torture policy, but then,

a whistle blower came forward, CIA officer, John Kiriakou.

John.

-Very nice to meet you.

-We agreed to met on a Hollywood set that recreates the type of facility,

typically used for covert interrogations.

This is the interrogation room; this is what it looks like?

-It's pretty accurate.

I mean, the paint job is nicer.

-Uh, huh. -But it's pretty accurate. -Alright.

So, you were in the CIA. What did you do?

-After the September 11th attacks, the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center made

me the Chief of Counter-Terrorism Operations in Pakistan.

And so my job was to hunt for the Al-Qaeda leadership and to try to capture as many

Al-Qaeda fighters as I could get my hands on.

And then we got word one night that Abu Zubaydah, who we believed at the time,

was the number three in Al-Qaeda, was somewhere in Pakistan.

-Alright, coming up. Coming up!

-We broke down 14 doors simultaneously and grabbed everybody and we got him.

MORGAN: After his capture, Abu Zubaydah was handed over to the FBI for interrogation.

-The FBI agents were actually collecting actionable intelligence that was being

used to save American lives and to disrupt future attacks, but the pace was very slow.

-Uh, huh. -That's the process.

The process is, you sit across the table from the prisoner and this could take

weeks or months, you establish a rapport, you establish a relationship,

maybe you offer 'em a cigarette, you offer 'em a piece of fruit and eventually...

-Cup of coffee. -Exactly, he's going to open up to you.

But the CIA said this was taking too long and so the CIA took over the interrogation of

Abu Zubaydah and they began to torture him.

-What method were they using? -The most famous one is waterboarding.

Waterboarding is where a prisoner is strapped to a board,

but with his feet elevated to his head and material of some sort, cloth,

burlap is put across the mouth and then water's poured on his face.

-It gives you the feeling of drowning, which is a terrible, terrible thing.

In the case of Abu Zubaydah, water actually did get into his mouth and into his lungs.

He had convulsions, he was crying and begging for them to stop.

This cuts to the heart of the problem of torture and that is that the prisoner will

literally tell you anything that he thinks you wanna hear,

just to get you to stop torturing him.

-I was just as upset about September 11th as everybody else was,

I had lost friends at the Pentagon on September 11th, but this just crossed a line.

I saw people at the CIA losing their minds in the name of counter-terrorism.

-What do you mean by losing their minds?

-Doing things that were unthinkable on September 10th.

We're supposed to be a shining beacon to the rest of the world on human rights and

we're supposed to be a nation of laws.

I'm actually ashamed to say, though, that I kept my mouth shut for five and a half years.

There was nowhere to go but the media and I was afraid to go to the media.

So I left the CIA in 2004 and still kept my mouth shut.

And then finally, in December of 2007, President Bush gave a press conference and he looked

directly into the camera and he said, "We do not torture."

Well, I knew that that was a lie.

And so I decided I was going to tell the truth and so that's what I did.

MORGAN: On December 10th, 2007, John confirmed the CIA's routine use

of waterboarding on the news program, Nightline.

-Waterboarding's probably something that we shouldn't be in the business of doing.

We're Americans and we're better than this.

MORGAN: John's words helped human rights activists raise public awareness of prisoner

abuse in the war on terror.

What happened after you gave the interview?

-Well, the CIA filed what's called a crimes report against me with the

Justice Department, saying that I had revealed classified information.

And then, finally, in January of 2012, I was arrested by the FBI and I was charged with

five felonies, including three counts of espionage.

Now, espionage is one of the gravest crimes with which an American can be charged.

So I was facing 45 years in prison.

MORGAN: In return for a reduced sentence, John pleaded guilty to confirming the

identity of a covert officer to a reporter.

Since very few people are charged for that type of leak, John believes his prosecution

was retaliation for blowing the whistle on the CIA.

-My wife and I, the night before, sat at the dining room table with a calculator,

to figure out how long we could make it as a family with me in prison.

And we figured, we could make it for two years.

And I got 23 months in the end.

MORGAN: John and his family paid a heavy price.

But, by speaking out, he helped inspire the McCain-Feinstein Amendment in 2015,

which bans the US government from using torture.

If you had to do it all over again, would you?

-100% I would do it again.

The American people have the right to know what their government is doing in their

name, that's what democracy is, that's what transparency is,

somebody had to say something.

I called my wife one night from prison and she said, "Today was a really great day.

Because the Senate torture report was released today and everything you said was true."

And you know, that just made it all worthwhile.

-Whistleblowers start out as part of the establishment.

When a rebellion comes from the inside, it's always a very,

very strong institutional backlash.

John paid a heavy price for what he did, but his actions eventually led to citizens and

the lawmakers to change the law.

Whistleblowers with inside access aren't the only rebels who can

expose government secrets.

The information age may herald a new way to fight the system.

A global network of hackers is emerging, whose goal is to break into state run file

servers from the comfort of their own bedrooms.

Are they future of rebellion?

To find out, I've come to New York to meet a former rebel hacker,

Hector Monsegur.

How did you become a hacker?

-I was 13.

13 years old and I lost my father, even my grandmother was arrested,

my aunt was arrested and it was a tough time.

My family members were drug dealers.

They were Latino, Puerto Rican, from the Projects.

I need some time away from reality.

That was the whole point of me getting on the Internet,

it was just kind of escaping a little bit.

And I started reading about the different hacker cultures and I was like,

"Wow, okay, this is interesting, can I do it."

-Okay. And eventually, you were involved in, what would we call it, hacktivism?

-Hacktivism, yes, sir.

My grandmother would tell me about Puerto Rico.

Because a lot of us in New York City,

we don't know nothing about where we come from.

-And that means you don't know really who you are. -Exactly.

I would talk to her, my grandmother, lovely lady.

And she would tell me, "Well, it just so happens that you come from a town called Lares,

where we had our revolution.

And although it failed, at least we tried."

And that was a little bit of inspiration for me.

-In 2000, is when I did my first hacktivist operation.

There was a situation where the Puerto Rican government allowed the US Navy to bomb

the island of Vieques.

The problem is the shells they were using were depleted uranium shells.

Cancer causing shells.

The island is full of people.

I thought that was wrong and I'm like, "What can I do to help?"

What I ended up doing was just breaking into the US Navy servers

and defacing the website.

I replaced the front page with my own message.

-Ah, ha, okay.

-It was kind of like, well, you know, you gotta show respect to the island,

there's people living there, you can't use depleted uranium shells,

you're actually killing people.

MORGAN: The Navy ended operations on Vieques in 2003.

Protesters created pressure with tactics including occupying the range.

But, Hector believes his hack helped the cause and it gave his life newfound purpose.

When the hacktivist collective Anonymous formed a few years later,

Hector was quickly drawn in.

-I became involved with Anonymous.

It's a decentralized movement.

It's a concept of people working together as a crowd.

MORGAN: The group first made headlines in 2008, when it shut down the website for the

Church of Scientology.

-It's kind of like modern rebellion.

Instead of you running into the streets,

it's your computer connecting to another computer.

MORGAN: One of the driving ideals behind Anonymous is that information should be

open and free.

Anyone who stands in the way of this is a target.

Wherever they are.

-When the government of Tunisia started blocking Internet service for normal

Tunisian citizens, it's a form of censorship and what we ended up doing was,

shut down their access, government access, disrupting their cellphone systems,

disrupting their email servers.

MORGAN: Hector's success fueled his rebel spirit and led him to take part in

ever more daring cyber attacks.

-So, now, we reach a point where we're hacking into things

that are way too sensitive.

We started attacking federal contractors, which you know are very close to government,

that's when things changed.

And that's when we became wanted criminals.

MORGAN: Hackers are a new form of rebel.

They can assault governments and corporations from halfway around the globe.

Hector Monsegur felt unstoppable.

Until he hacked an affiliate of the FBI.

-And that's where the FBI is kind of interested.

And that's when they knock on my door.

MORGAN: Hector made a plea deal.

In exchange for helping the FBI thwart future cyber attacks,

he ended up serving only seven months in prison.

Today, Hector has mixed feelings about his time as a hacktivist.

-Look, it's a good thing to be an activist, I appreciate activists in the street,

but I think that Hacktivism gets a little complicated.

The deeper you go into something like that, the more radical you become and the

more toxic the environment.

There's no structure, there's no hierarchy, so it's all chaos.

You're breaking into something and destroying it for the purpose of causing chaos.

-What are you doing now? -Well, I'm hackin, legally.

I'm helping customers with their security and helping them fix these problems.

So I took a really bad thing and was able to convert it into something really good.

-Hackers are a different kind of rebel.

With just a few strokes on the computer keyboard, they can create chaos,

but is the power to disrupt just a new digital form of mischief?

Hector thinks that on the whole, online rebellion doesn't lead to lasting change.

It's disruptive, without being constructive.

Perhaps the only way to accomplish lasting change is to do what rebels have always done.

Take to the streets.

The Internet may not be an effective way to create rebellions,

but it can add fuel to them.

In 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunisia, set himself on fire,

to protest police corruption.

(speaking in native language).

His desperate act inspired people in his town, Sidi Bouzid,

to take to the streets.

And, thanks to social media, their protests went viral.

They demanded regime change and a democratic future.

-We want all the power to the people.

MORGAN: The movement quickly spread to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain.

It became known as the Arab Spring.

I'm in London, to meet with Mabrouka Khedir, a Tunisian journalist,

who risked her life, to show the rest of the world what was happening in her country.

(bells)

Well, hello, Mabrouka.

-Hello. Lovely to meet you, yeah.

-Now, tell me this, why did you want to meet me here?

-This is where journalists, when they want to do their stand up,

they come here to do it, near to the parliament,

which is a little bit different in Tunisia.

Especially before the revolution, we cannot go to the parliament to do anything,

-During his 23-year reign, Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,

claimed down on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

All journalists needed permission to film news stories,

making it impossible to criticize the government.

Mabrouka was working for a German news outlet at the time

and was subject to the media censure as well.

So, how did you get involved in the revolution in Tunisia in the first place?

-I suffer a lot, because I was not allowed to speak about human rights,

to speak about civil society.

But on 17th December, 2010, Bouazizi take fire in himself.

So it was like, Bouazizi give us the courage to fight against the regime of Ben Ali.

We had a lot of protests in street.

The Ben Ali regime in the beginning, tried to hide.

-What was going on.

-Yeah, because they are afraid to show other people what's happening.

-What's really happening. -Exactly.

The national TV channel, they tried to give us a bad picture about these people,

saying that they were criminals and they want to make fire in the country,

but it was not the case.

I had to go there, to show the world what's happening.

MORGAN: Mabrouka felt that the rest of the world needed to know about the rebellion,

for it to have any chance of success.

So without government permission to film, she went to the epicenter of the

protest, in Sidi Bouzid, to cover the violent clashes.

(shouts).

What did your family think?

-They asked me to stay at home, because they were afraid that maybe I can be killed.

And I write them a letter and then I record that letter, in front of the camera.

Saying that I am on the way and it's my duty to show the real picture of

people who protest there.

(speaking in native language).

-And you're out there with your camera, wasn't that dangerous?

-It was very dangerous.

People were in the street to protest and when we approached them,

they thought that we are from the Ministry of Interior.

-Spies or something. -Yeah, and they started to throw rocks.

-You don't drive away, you don't run?

-I am a journalist, so my duty is to be in the street.

MORGAN: In 2011, journalist, Mabrouka Khedir decided she would risk her life,

to show the world the rebellion that was unfolding in Tunisia.

But two decades of the oppressive regime of President Ben Ali made the protesters

suspicious of onlookers with cameras.

-You were out there with your camera and people didn't trust you.

MARBROUKA: Yeah, they didn't trust us in the beginning, because they thought that we

are a policeman who want to shoot them, to show pictures to the government.

But then I show them my press card and I told them that

I am from foreign TV channel, so they started to...

-To believe you. -To believe me.

I convinced them to tell us about their situations.

The poverty, they don't have any development, they suffer.

Before the revolution, they cannot speak about these problems.

It was like an opportunity to them, to speak about their reality.

They were happy to feel the freedom.

-Freedom of speech. -Yeah, exactly, freedom of speech.

MORGAN: The protests left 300 dead.

But after 28 days, President Ben Ali stepped down.

A new constitutional democracy took his place.

One that guaranteed freedom of speech.

But Tunisia is the only success story of all the Arab Spring uprisings.

Libya, Yemen and Syria are embroiled in civil wars.

Egypt has slid back towards authoritarianism.

Why do you think the revolution in Tunisia is doing better than the revolution in

any of the other Arab states?

Why Tunisia?

-We have cultivated people, they are educated and we have

a strong civil society,

so I think all that things make the revolution in Tunisia better than others.

-You have a budding democracy going on there, right?

Sort of?

-We are on the way to the democracy.

We don't have the real democracy until now,

because we still fighting against corruption.

I think the constitution is something we'll have to make real.

We have to work together.

All people together, civil society, journalists, citizens.

We are obliged to fight.

When they want to touch our freedom, we go on the street and we fight against.

-Of course. -Yeah. -Well, listen.

Fingers are crossed.

-Thank you.

(laughs).

(speaking in native language).

-The results of the uprisings of the Arab Spring are mixed.

Revolutions don't always succeed.

And even when they do, the fight for lasting change is not over.

Replacing the old with something better takes time and the efforts of brave

people like Mabrouka.

Real rebellion isn't a sprint. Real rebellion is a marathon.

100 years after Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, African Americans took the streets

to fight for the rights that were still being denied them.

Another half century later, that same fight continues.

-Black lives matter! Black lives matter!

MORGAN: But the struggle has found new energy.

Both on the streets and online.

Black Lives Matter went from a hashtag, to a global movement in just a few short years.

I'm going to Los Angeles, to meet Patrisse Cullors.

-How many more black people have to die?

MORGAN: She formed Black Lives Matter.

Along with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in 2013.

-Hands up. Don't shoot!

Don't spend a dollar on Black Friday!

-So, Patrisse, how did you get starting in fighting social injustice?

-I grew up here in Los Angeles and it was heavily policed.

Every boy by the time he was 13 in my neighborhood had been arrested.

My brother, who was 19 at the time, was brutally beaten by the sheriffs.

He says, when he woke up, he was in a pool of blood.

They disappeared him inside the county jail and my mother couldn't find him.

When she finally did find him, it was about two months later and, you know,

this is supposed to be one of the government agencies that are protecting us and it was

quite the opposite, in fact, they were perpetuating violence.

And so I wanted to know, how do I advocate for someone like my brother?

I knew he wasn't the only one going through that.

MORGAN: Patrisse spent the next few years volunteering for social justice

organizations, fighting for the rights of people of color.

And then, in 2012, came the death of Trayvon Martin.

-And I watched the trial.

Every generation, there's a racially charged trial

and the George Zimmerman trial was that.

I said, "Okay, maybe he's not gonna get murder.

But of course, he's gonna get manslaughter, because he killed him."

The jurors said he was not guilty and it took my breath away, literally,

and I was searching, you know, within the first 30 seconds, what are we gonna do?

I was feeling helpless, enraged, I remember crying.

And so, I went on social media and I started to look,

to see what other people were talking about.

Alicia Garaz wrote a note to black people and she finished it off with Black Lives Matter

and that was the part that stood out for me the most.

And I put a hashtag in front of Black Lives Matter.

-Uh, huh. -Black Lives Matter...

(shouts)

-So, we have Black Lives Matter, its inception point is around Trayvon Martin.

-Yes. -But then, that was quite a few others behind that.

The young man who was killed in Ferguson, Missouri.

-Yes.

After Mike Brown is killed, we were like, "It happened again."

And the people of Ferguson rise up.

And instead of getting the support of the city, they are met with tanks,

rubber bullets and tear gas and the whole world is watching on social media.

(shouts).

A bunch of us are like, "We gotta go to Ferguson."

And we literally got a crew of 600 people,

from around North America, medics, therapists, lawyers, black journalists,

youth organizers, and we drove into Ferguson for three days during Labor Day weekend.

-No justice! -No peace!

-No justice! -No peace!

MORGAN: After Ferguson, Black Lives Matter made it its mission to ensure there was an

investigation, every time an African American was killed by law enforcement under

questionable circumstances.

-There was 18 chapters that blossomed after that and we would literally double and

triple in the next couple of years, that would make us have

over 40 chapters across the globe.

-Hands up. -Don't shoot!

-In four years, that movement that Patrisse founded has sparked a national debate

on police use of force.

Problems persist, but many police departments have introduced body cameras.

Others are training officers in de-escalation tactics, hoping they will reduce

unnecessary deaths.

How do you respond to the push back from people who say, "All lives matter"?

-I remember when I first heard the phrase, All Lives Matter, I was pretty alarmed when we

came out with Black Lives Matter and people didn't respond well.

I was like, this is a very simple statement

and we're saying black lives matter too, right.

All lives will matter, when black lives actually matter.

-I was around at the beginning of the latest chapters in the civil rights movement.

So, how does Black Lives Matter compare, I mean is this like civil rights movement,

or is it movement in different directions than that?

-We see ourselves as a part of a long legacy.

What is different is the character of our movement, we're not living in a time

where we have a young black man in a button up suit, you know,

speaking on behalf of black people and often times,

we reject the idea of a single leader.

No one individual can give the movement light, the movement itself is the light,

the people are the light.

-Do you think rebels are made or born?

-I think it's both, I really do feel like I was born a rebel.

But then I think there's some of us who are born into a lot of privilege and I think those

folks are made, I think those folks are some of the people who

are now just joining our movement.

-Patrisse says she was born to rebel and sadly,

she grew up with no shortage of causes.

Thanks to Patrisse, Alicia Garza, Opal Tremeti, the Black Lives Matter movement had

grown into a global decentralized network of passionate organizers.

With no single leader, it can't be stopped by silencing just one person.

It is not only a growing rebellion, it's changing the way we rebel.

Successful rebels must e prepared for the long fight.

Change doesn't often come quickly.

But some rebels have the foresight to fight the change they know won't come,

until long after they are dead.

MORGAN: When Afghanistan came under Taliban control in the early 1990s,

millions of women faced a radical change in their rights.

They were forced to wear burkas in public, they weren't allowed to work,

or go to school.

They no longer had legal recourse against domestic abuse.

Most chose to go along and live by these rules, even if they disagreed with them.

I've come to Berlin, a city with its own history of rebellion,

to meet someone who's fighting for the rights of Afghan women.

(singing in native language).

MORGAN: Paradise Sorouri is the first female Afghan rapper.

Along with her band mate and fiancé, Diverse, she's using music to try to change

attitudes towards women in her homeland.

(applause).

I'm really fascinated by the music you make.

What made you get into music and performing?

PARADISE: When I was a child, my father used to play keyboard and for fun,

and I used to sing and my parents always told me that you will be a superstar and

right now, it's my dream.

DIVERSE: It was 2008 that I met Paradise and we realized that we have a common interest

for music and we said, "Let's make it happen, let's make music in Afghanistan."

-It was so hard that you have to hide from the neighbors all the time.

-For women, making music is extremely forbidden, so you will be caught,

you will be jailed, you will be stoned and whatever could happen to you,

to make you stop.

-Were you ever attacked? -Yes, several times.

-Several times? -Yes.

And one day I came back with my little brother and suddenly,

we were surrounded by motorcycles.

MORGAN: Ten men confronted Paradise and her little brother.

They tore off her hijab and screamed at her, saying she was a terrible person,

because she was a singer.

Paradise was scared for her life and called out for help, but people just turned their

heads and walked away.

-I was at home, waiting for Paradise to come home.

I was shocked, because I saw her hijab was thrown away and he had some...

-Bruises.

-Blood here and bruises and for me, it was very shocking and I ask her what happened

and they realized that we are making music.

And I said, like, "Okay then, let's go to the police and

let's just tell them what happened"

And we went there, we told the story and they were like,

"Okay, so don't make music anymore.

Why do you want to make headache for yourself?

We are not here to support you or to protect you.

If you want to live, just don't make any music anymore."

-The police just condoning the guys who beat you up,

they're pretty much like, saying, yeah, it's cool.

Did you consider quitting?

-No, of course not, give me more power to take it more serious and make more music.

MORGAN: Paradise and Diverse continued making music and performing.

They moved from their home city of Herat, to the more cosmopolitan capital, Kabul.

They started to become very popular, but life for women in Afghanistan was becoming

increasingly difficult.

-Unfortunately, I faced with a very bad news,

my aunt told me that something happened to my cousins.

MORGAN: Paradise's oldest cousin, who was 11,

was set to be married off to a 60-year-old man.

Rather than face this fate, she set herself on fire.

Paradise's nine-year-old cousin did the same.

-The oldest one said, "Let's do it together, because after me,

father will do it for you too."

So she burned herself and unfortunately, she died,

but her youngest sister, she is alive, but half of her body's burnt.

I didn't believe it, because it was my relatives and I decided after that,

to make and write a song about my relatives and the people and women

in Afghanistan that's suffering.

(singing in native language).

DIVERSE: Paradise decided to raise a voice, her voice for the voiceless Afghan women

suffering from such a thing and it becomes attention for national

and international media.

So suddenly, it became, boom, everywhere.

-People were paying attention to your push for women's rights,

was that dangerous still?

-Still it was dangerous, because it was taboo and breaking taboo in Afghanistan,

as a woman, it was really, really hard, you are in pressure all the time and

thinking, "What is happening for me today or tomorrow?"

-It's really easy to be killed and no one really cares.

-You're no longer in Afghanistan.

How did you end up here in Berlin?

-2015, we invited for a gig and we just realized it's a good option

to decide to stay here.

Right now, we are free to make music about women's problem in Afghanistan.

-We inspire them still through our Facebook or from our social medias that we have.

This is what we have to do, we have to be rebel, we have to stay positive,

we have to make music.

-Yeah, and we are going to make a bright future.

-You've got a really important thing going on here.

-Thank you very much. -Thank you very much.

-And I just wish you both the absolute best.

-Thank you so much, sir. -Music is a powerful force for social change.

Think of the gospel hymns like, "We Shall Overcome",

that fueled the civil rights movement.

Paradise and Diverse's music won't change life for women in Afghanistan any time soon.

But they are planting a seed in the minds of the next generation.

Like Martin Luther King said, "The arc of the moral universe is long,

but it bends towards justice."

Rebels thrive on opposition.

(speaking in native language).

MORGAN: But what becomes of the rebel who suddenly finds himself president?

(speaking in native language).

MORGAN: Bolivia.

This mineral rich South American nation spent much of the 20th century,

under the control of military leaders.

Many of them seemed eager to get rich, while ignoring Bolivia's dirt-poor

indigenous population.

But has this cycle finally ended?

I've come to Santa Cruz, the country's biggest city, to meet Evo Morales.

He's the first indigenous president of Bolivia.

But before he ran his country, he was just a farmer.

-How do you want me to refer to you?

(speaking in native language).

EVO MORALES: Evo.

-Evo, Morgan.

I want to know how this man from humble origins succeeded in toppling what he saw as an

entrenched political class.

So, Evo, tell me about you.

(speaking in native language).

TRANSLATOR: My father, Dionisio, and his wife, they had seven children.

Of those seven children, only three survived, and of which, I'm the youngest.

(speaking in native language).

TRANSLATOR: That's basically the standard of living that we had in the

rural areas of Bolivia.

MORGAN: Evo grew up to become a cocalero, growing the plant, which has been central to

Bolivian culture for centuries, coca.

(speaking in native language).

-This is coca flower.

TRANSLATOR: It's very good.

-What is the significance of the coca leaf to the indigenous Bolivian peoples?

(speaking in native language).

TRANSLATOR: In its natural state, it's food and it's the source of wellness and it's

part of our identity.

MORGAN: But when treated chemically, coca transforms into cocaine.

In the 1980s and 90s, under pressure from the US and its war on drugs.

REAGAN: We will defeat that scourge.

Let's go to work and get this done together.

MORGAN: The Bolivian government began cracking down on coca production.

Evo, like all coca farmers, was angry at losing his livelihood.

But he was also incensed that Bolivian culture was taking second place to the needs of

foreign powers.

I remember when the government came up with this edict that there would be

zero tolerance for the drug trafficking part of it.

(speaking in native language).

TRANSLATOR: The person who consumes the coca leaf, whether tea or whatever,

is considered a consumer of drugs and/or narco dependent.

But that's basically a North American projection, in order to penalize something that is

part of our culture.

-You butted heads with the government over the growth of coca.

(speaking in native language).

TRANSLATOR: So in the 1980s, I become a part of the coca growers syndicate.

-Uh, huh.

TRANSLATOR: There was a special police unit that was designated to fight

the coca growers.

A fellow coca grower, a member of the syndicate, was burned alive by the forces

of the dictatorship.

(speaking in native language).

I was a young man, 18, 19 years old and I couldn't understand what

was happening in Bolivia.

That's how I began, basically creating an awareness and a consciousness of human rights.

MORGAN: Evo rose through the ranks of the coca growers syndicate

and by the early 1990s, he was one of its leaders.

In 1994, the government arrested him.

In protest, over 3,000 peasant farmers set out to march 360 miles from their fields in

Cochabamba to the capital, La Paz.

TRANSLATOR: When the march was in Ayo Payo, which is a midpoint between Cochabamba

and La Paz, then they set him free.

And then he incorporated himself with the movement, with the march.

-Just joined and kept going.

When the march had reached La Paz, Evo saw that it wasn't only the cocaleros

who were angry at the ruling regime.

TRANSLATOR: The march was not only about the coca movement, it also involved human rights

and it also involved having our own national dignity.

(speaking in native language).

When we arrived at La Paz, it became a massive movement.

MORGAN: Evo embraced this new coalition and helped transform it into a political party,

the Movement toward Socialism, or MAS.

In 2005, Evo Morales was elected President.

TRANSLATOR: It's the first time that a union leader is duly elected by

the popular vote and is the president of the country.

MORGAN: As president, Morales has taken his socialist rebellion to the world stage.

He sees neoliberal governments as his new enemies.

In his eyes, they see Bolivia as nothing more than a source of natural resources

and offer little, or nothing, to Bolivian people.

Which is harder, fighting the government, or being the government?

(speaking in native language).

TRANSLATOR: I have more fun fighting against neoliberal governments.

(laughs).

MORGAN: Some critics think President Morales is heading in a dangerous direction,

towards economic ruin and outright dictatorship,

a parallel to what happened in Venezuela.

But Evo argues, he's just fighting for the basic needs that so many Bolivians rallied

around him for, more than two decades ago.

What do you want for Bolivia?

TRANSLATOR: Basic services, electricity and water should be fundamental rights.

And we would like a Bolivia that is totally free.

-Evo Morales went from resistance leader to president of his country,

because he worked hard forming a broad coalition of Bolivians.

The most effective rebels know, they can't go it alone.

Evo needs to continue to make his case to the widest possible audience,

if his vision of change is to carry on into the future.

As long as there are rules, be they from governments or society at large,

there will be rebels to break them.

I learned a lot from the rebels I met on this journey.

How to achieve lasting change.

It takes courage to stand up for what is right.

Perseverance to form coalitions to keep up the fight.

Hope that change will come, even if it's not in your lifetime.

But most of all, successful rebels have a vision of what the

world could and should be

and share that vision with people around them.

Rebellion is the way society sheds its skin and transforms into something

new and better.

Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.